The unelected bureaucrats who have been weaponizing your tax dollars against faith, family, and freedom just suffered a devastating blow. President Trump’s new executive order “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking” represents nothing less than a restoration of constitutional governance and moral sanity to federal spending.
For decades, the so-called “expert class” has operated as an unaccountable shadow government, funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into projects that actively undermine the very foundations of our Western civilization.
While faithful Catholics struggled to make ends meet, their hard-earned tax money funded drag shows in Ecuador, promoted Marxist indoctrination in our schools, and developed transgender sexual education programs targeting our children.
This is not just bad policy. It is a direct assault on the natural moral order that Catholic teaching recognizes as essential to just governance.
The Deep State’s War on Christian Values
The litany of abuses documented in Trump’s executive order reads like a catalog of everything faithful Catholics have been fighting against. The National Science Foundation alone allocated over one-quarter of its 2024 grants to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that Pope St. Pius X would have recognized as the “absolutely false” separation of moral law from civil authority.
Consider the scope of this ideological warfare: Federal grants promoted critical race theory that divides Americans by skin color rather than uniting them under God’s universal love. They funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan that likely unleashed COVID-19 upon the world. They developed AI-powered censorship tools to silence conservative and Christian voices on social media platforms.
Perhaps most egregiously, they provided resources to organizations facilitating illegal immigration, directly contradicting the Church’s teaching that nations have both the right and duty to secure their borders for the common good of their citizens.
Constitutional Authority Meets Catholic Wisdom
The president’s solution is both constitutionally sound and consistent with authentic Catholic teaching on the relationship between temporal authority and moral order. By placing political appointees accountable to the American people in charge of grant oversight, Trump is exercising the executive authority granted by Article II of the Constitution.
More importantly, he is implementing what the Church has long recognized as the proper relationship between civil authority and moral law. As Pope St. Pius X taught in the oft-quoted Vehementer Nos, the state must not obstruct but rather aid the promotion of man’s “supreme and absolute welfare,” which includes respecting the natural moral order.
The executive order explicitly prohibits funding for projects that deny “the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic.”
This is not political preference but recognition of biological reality rooted in God’s creative design. When government agencies fund ideology that contradicts the fundamental truth that “God created them male and female” (Genesis 1:27), they exceed their legitimate authority.
Ending the Tyranny of False Expertise
The order strikes at the heart of technocratic tyranny by requiring that grants “demonstrate that [they advance] the president’s agenda.” Critics will shriek about politicization, but this misses the fundamental point: the bureaucrats were already advancing a political agenda, just one that the American people never voted for.
The so-called experts have created a system designed to exclude ordinary Americans from accessing federal resources. As the order notes, “Writing effective grant applications is notoriously complex, and grant applicants that can afford legal and technical experts are more likely to receive funds.” This is not expertise but gatekeeping designed to maintain ideological control.
By streamlining the application process and ensuring “grants should be given to a broad range of recipients rather than to a select group of repeat players,” Trump is democratizing access while ensuring accountability to elected leadership.
Protecting the Common Good
Catholic social teaching emphasizes that government exists to serve the common good, not to advance ideological experiments that harm families and communities. When federal agencies fund organizations promoting racial division, gender confusion among children, or illegal immigration that threatens American workers and communities, they betray this fundamental purpose.
The order’s requirement for termination clauses in federal grants provides essential accountability. If a project “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities,” funding can be stopped. This is basic stewardship of public resources that any faithful Catholic should support.
The 30-day timeline for agencies to review their procedures and report to the Office of Management and Budget signals that this administration is serious about rapid implementation. The deep state will not be allowed to slow-walk these reforms.
A Call to Vigilant Support
This executive order represents a crucial victory, but it is only the beginning of the work needed to restore moral sanity to federal spending. Faithful Catholics must remain vigilant and engaged to ensure these reforms are implemented fully and maintained against inevitable opposition.
Contact your representatives to express support for this crucial reform. Pray for President Trump and his appointees as they work to dismantle decades of bureaucratic overreach. Stay informed about which organizations and institutions receive federal funding and whether they align with or oppose Christian values.
Most importantly, recognize this moment as an opportunity to advance the Kingdom of God through faithful citizenship. When civil authority aligns with natural moral law, it creates space for human flourishing according to God’s design. That is exactly what this executive order accomplishes.
