MAGA Catholics Cheer Food Stamp Cuts — Pope Leo’s Church Rallies for the Hungry

MAGA Catholic influencers are cheering the cutoff of food stamps — even as Catholic bishops, backed by Pope Leo XIV, plead for a restoration of benefits and mobilize the Church to feed those in need.

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The federal shutdown that began this month has put 42 million Americans at risk of losing nutrition assistance.

Come Nov. 1, no SNAP benefits (food stamps) will go out if Congress doesn’t act. Who are these 42 million? Children, mothers, grandparents — 79% of SNAP households include a child, senior, or disabled member.

In short, the very “least of these” whom Christ commands us to care for.

Yet in a corner of the Catholic world aligned with MAGA politics, the response has been a macabre celebration.

Take Matt Walsh, a popular right-wing Catholic podcaster.

Rather than showing concern for families who are missing meals, Walsh is mocking them.

He declared on X (Twitter) that “EBT should just be abolished outright,” sneering that “95 percent of the people on the program could easily feed themselves”.

On his show, Walsh went further — claiming virtually no one truly needs food stamps and smearing recipients as “entitled, lazy, barely literate … frankly bad people.”

According to Walsh, it’s “a moral outrage” that taxpayers help feed these Americans at all.

In his warped view, if 40 million lose food assistance overnight, they’ll “figure something out” (or else “rob grocery stores,” he quips.

This is the “pro-life” Catholic right in 2025: literally applauding policies that make poor families suffer.

He’s not alone. JD Vance, the MAGA convert-turned-politician and now the Vice President, has been peddling a shameless lie to deflect blame for the shutdown.

Vance insisted that “the Democrats shut down the government to get food stamps for illegal immigrants.”

It’s a ridiculous falsehood — undocumented immigrants are barred by law from SNAP benefits.

But the point of Vance’s claim wasn’t truth; it was to demonize the vulnerable. In the same breath that the White House refused to tap emergency funds for SNAP, its spokespeople blasted out talking points about “free handouts for illegal aliens.”

It’s a cynical blame-game: paint hungry families and refugees as undeserving, so that ending their food aid sounds like “fiscal responsibility.” Few tactics could be less Christian, or more contrary to Catholic social teaching, which holds that feeding the hungry is a basic requirement of justice, not a bargaining chip.

While some MAGA Catholics rage-tweet about “moochers,” the Catholic Church is busy doing what it has always done in times of crisis: feeding the hungry, sheltering the vulnerable, and speaking truth to power.

Late last week, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a rare public plea about the SNAP shutdown.

He warned that cutting off food assistance would be “catastrophic for families … and places the burden most heavily on the poor and vulnerable”, calling such a consequence “unjust and unacceptable.”

The U.S. bishops are “deeply alarmed” and are urging lawmakers to end the shutdown at once and restore these “lifesaving programs.”

In case politicians missed the moral stakes, Church leaders are explicitly naming this for what it is: a failure of our duty to the common good.

At the same time, Catholic ministries nationwide are stepping up to fill the void.

In Baltimore, for example, Archbishop William Lori has rallied his flock to assist furloughed workers and struggling families.

“When vital government services are interrupted,” Lori wrote this week, “the result is more than an inconvenience – it can mean hunger, anxiety, and hardship for our brothers and sisters in need.”

He assured those affected that “the Church stands ready to help.” Parishes have opened their food pantries to all comers, St. Vincent de Paul societies are serving hot meals daily, and Catholic Charities continues to serve thousands with food, housing, and counseling across Maryland.

Nationwide, Catholic Charities agencies are bracing to ‘fill in the gaps’ left by the government.

As Catholic Charities USA’s president, Kerry Alys Robinson put it, “Shutdowns take a heavy toll on hungry children and parents… If leaders don’t end this unnecessary shutdown, even more Americans will fall into poverty. In the meantime, our ministries, inspired by the Gospel, will do their best to provide life-giving, compassionate aid to those suffering most.”

This contrast could not be more stark.

On one side, performative cruelty; on the other, the Gospel in action.

The same MAGA Catholics crowing about “no more food stamps” already got their wish once this year, when their patron in the White House signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a law that slashed $186 billion from SNAP funding and threw nearly 3 million low-income young adults off food assistance.

That law, sold as “personal responsibility,” was essentially a banquet for the rich and scraps for the poor. And now these influencers have the gall to cheer as an even broader swath of Americans go hungry.

It’s beyond hypocrisy — it’s a direct offense against the Catholic ethos they claim to uphold.

Remember, Jesus doesn’t mince words in Matthew 25: “I was hungry and you gave me food… Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”

To mock the hungry or to shrug at children missing meals is to mock Almighty God.

Pope Leo XIV has been nothing if not clear on this point.

From day one, he has preached that the Church must be a Church of the Beatitudes, on the side of the poor and the little ones.

In Leo’s eyes, defending programs like SNAP isn’t partisan politics — it’s pure Christianity.

The Catholic faith calls hunger and poverty enemies to be fought, not people who are poor.

While some Catholics weaponize the Gospel to punch down, Pope Leo is living it by lifting up.

Under his leadership, we see bishops and laypeople rolling up their sleeves to make sure no neighbor is left without bread.

This is what authentic “pro-life” witness looks like in practice — not just protecting life in the womb, but protecting the dignity of every life, at every stage, especially the lives of those who can’t pay you back.

In the coming days, Congress will either resolve the funding standoff or allow an unprecedented halt to our nation’s biggest anti-hunger program. But whatever happens in Washington, the Church’s mission remains the same.

If the Beatitudes say “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied,” then it falls to the followers of Christ to make it so.

As bitter voices spew contempt for the poor, Catholics true to the faith — from our bishops to everyday saints in the parish hall — are answering with compassion.

They’re echoing Pope Leo XIV’s conviction that the measure of a society (and indeed, of our souls) is how we treat the least among us.

And they’re reminding all of us that no political ideology, however loud, can cancel the Gospel command to feed the hungry.

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