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| Source: legacyicons.com |
This reflection is not presented as a political statement, though there is an unavoidable political dimension to it, in that it does deal with policies of our current administration in a challenging manner. My perspective is of the Gospel, which raises the following issues well above the “merely” political level. Personally, I have no party affiliation. And the rubric of “conservative” or “liberal” does not rest very easily on me. Rather, this is reflection from an Orthodox priest that raises an issue of moral and ethical significance that should not be ignored.
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“See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 18:10)
“Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” (Mk. 10:14)
“Dear Child of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional.” (Desmond Tutu)
Children around the world are suffering in these troubled times. There are wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and a civil war in Sudan. The violence around the world in those afflicted areas translates into a death sentence for children, together with displacement, starvation and being lost to their respective families (the Russian army has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children to date). As I write, many Palestinian children of Gaza are either starving or dying. Morally speaking, this is an intolerable reality. Ukrainian children need to be returned to their homes, and Palestinian children need full access to food. Neither should be subjected to relentless bombing. And around the world other children are experiencing some form of distress.
Yet, I am concerned here primarily with those administrative decisions and policies within our own country that are tragically leading to avoidable deaths among many of these children. Multiple sources have attested that thousands of children have died since U.S.A.I.D. has been severely defunded (the administration claims by up to 80%). I read the following from a recent Op-Ed article (May 30, 2025) from Michelle Goldberg: “Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year.” Tragic hardly describes this misery.
On February 3 of this year, we heard from the appointed billionaire leader of DOGE: “We spent the weekend feeding U.S.A.I.D. to the wood chipper.” With this comment, we found ourselves as Americans navigating uncharted terrain: A billionaire gleefully wielding a chain saw before an admiring audience, eliminating life-saving funds that have been keeping children alive for decades, with a callousness that leaves one breathless for its utter lack of humaneness.
Or, as fellow billionaire Bill Gates said: “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.”
For besides defunding U.S.A.I.D., the administration has also defunded the Bush-era HIV/AIDS initiative that has saved countless lives through the years. This program is known as PEPFAR, primarily effective in Africa.
To add a bit more to this litany of suffering, I turn to James North, a respected journalist who has reported from Africa for over 47 years. He writes the following grim assessment about the severe defunding of PEPFAR which “ … has already sentenced tens of thousands of people in Africa to death, and with each week that passes with the program stuck in limbo, many thousands of needless deaths will follow.” To this day, food and medicine are either rotting away or nearing expiration dates in warehouses because of distribution breakdowns following widespread defunding of these formally very successful humanitarian programs. Without immediate action, these valuable supplies could go to waste.
Back in March, the journalist Nicholas Kristof – on the ground in Africa - attempted to quantify the harms done by the present administration’s decimation of foreign aid agencies in terms of lives lost. Deaths are being caused by AIDS, from lack of vaccines, from lack of food aid, and from lack of malaria and tuberculosis prevention, respectively.
It is an indisputable fact of human existence that people do die. But policy choices should never be the cause of the death of others – especially children. Yet, we can distinguish between a “natural mortality,” and a mortality rate that is the result of a lack of empathy (the same billionaire has told us that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy”) that leads to avoidable deaths in the present moment. And the avoidable deaths of so many thousands of children are both criminal and sinful.
When people – and countries – of good will act with both conviction and compassion to support life-saving endeavors, we immediately sense the moral and ethical strength of those decisions. These life-saving programs reveal our better side as Americans. As someone recently wrote to me: "The sharing of our country's resources and wealth with those who are in need has always been part of who we are." With this commitment to the relief of others, even the scriptural expression of “a city set on a hill” is not mere rhetoric. It is one thing to cut “waste and woke;” it is another thing to deprive children of needed food and medicine.
The Orthodox Church has consistently maintained a strong voice in defense of the unborn. This principled position was not about making a political statement, but about protecting the “sacred gift of life” as a moral choice that manifests the love of God for all human beings and the Gospel proclamation of reconciliation with and for all. The same life-affirming morality means that once a given child is born, we still need to help and protect that very child so that he/she at least has the chance to grow into an adult and lead a good and productive life. We were committed to that as a nation. Have we stopped for a good reason?
