The controversial reorganization and gutting of the historically sizable U.S. foreign assistance apparatus by President Donald Trump’s administration, Utah Sen. John Curtis told Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week, presents an opportunity for the world to lean on the help of faith-based entities — specifically, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I’d like to just point out that there are a number of philanthropic entities, and, in Utah, we have The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are really ready to stand up and go to work,” Curtis said Tuesday during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the State Department’s proposed budget.
“I know Catholic Charities, there’s many like that, and just want to make sure you’re factoring those into kind of your rebuild and restructure,” Utah’s junior Republican senator, a lifelong Latter-day Saint, added. “I know there are a lot of people like that ready to jump in and be part of this.”
Rubio, himself a former Latter-day Saint, responded “absolutely” and then explained how he sees future foreign aid being driven by embassies and regional bureaus rather than Washington.
(Eric Lee | The New York Times) Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded positively to Sen. John Curtis’ remarks, adding that he sees future foreign aid being driven by embassies and regional bureaus rather than Washington.
The exchange came as numerous Democrats on the committee tore into Rubio for, as ranking member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire put it, having “eviscerated six decades of American foreign policy investment.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah and a Latter-day Saint who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focused his questions on the future of funding for international organizations.
LDS wealth and humanitarian aid
Independent analyses of the church’s financial holdings peg the church’s overall net worth just shy of $300 billion, including a publicly reported investment portfolio valued at $52 billion, according to the latest filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The faith’s increased wealth has generated increased scrutiny, with many — including the faithful — urging the church to supercharge its worldwide giving.
Faith leaders appear to be sensitive to these calls to action. For the third year in a row, the church reported donating more than a billion dollars in aid in 2024, funding global initiatives focused on food security, emergency relief, clean water, environmental sustainability, maternal and newborn care, and more.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Newborn and maternal care are among the areas the church has invested in, often through donations to other organizations, including the United Nations.
Nonetheless, the church has yet to realize its stated goal, spelled out by a top moneyman during a 2023 “60 Minutes” interview, to “double the humanitarian work again and then again.”
Furthermore, not all of the $1.45 billion the faith said it doled out last year came from its own pockets. According to an accompanying report, donations made by individual members in the form of fast offerings and volunteer labor on church-sponsored projects count toward its final estimate.
Funding vs. providing aid — where the LDS Church fits in
Neither Curtis’ office nor the church responded to questions about the senator’s comments, including whether the two were engaged in any kind of conversation regarding foreign assistance.
However, Latter-day Saint Brad Walker, a physician with extensive hands-on experience in funding and administering aid abroad, expressed doubts about the efficacy of a humanitarian aid-based partnership between the two.
(Bountiful Children’s Foundation)
Natividad Samochuallpa, regional coordinator for South America for the Bountiful Children’s Foundation, helps to weigh and measure children to check for malnourishment while in Peru, her home country.
The founder of the Bountiful Children’s Foundation, aimed at reducing malnutrition in more than a dozen countries, said that, in his experience, the church lacks much of the infrastructure needed to translate hard cash into food, clean water and other lifesaving services.
“Attempts by area offices,” or regional outposts, “to create expertise haven’t had success so far,” Walker said. “The employees and supervisors and general authorities change over so fast that nothing permanent is created.”
That is why, when it comes to its giving, the church relies heavily on long-established organizations with deep expertise like UNICEF and the World Food Program — some of the same entities in which the Trump administration has been pulling back federal funding.
(UNICEF and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) A health worker vaccinates a baby as his mother holds him at the Centre de Sante le Rocher Maternity Hospital in Lubumbashi, Congo, in 2019. The church often partners with U.N. relief agencies.
For the church to go from primarily a funder to a provider would take time, Walker said, not to mention a massive investment. Until then, it would be “hard” for the Utah-based faith to compete for government contracts.
If, however, Curtis is simply alluding to the church’s ability to give more — well, in that case, the two men are on the same page.
“My feeling,” Walker said, “is it should be doing quite a bit more humanitarian work than it is doing.”
Curtis told Rubio on Tuesday, “Let’s keep in mind that many people are willing to participate and be part of this, without a drag on the U.S. tax dollar, that I think can complement the vision that you just laid [out].”
What happened in Utah
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Then-Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Bishop W. Christopher Waddell on a tour of Welfare Square in Salt Lake City in 2019. In 2021, a ProPublica investigation found that welfare in Utah “has become so entangled with the state’s dominant religion that the agency in charge of public assistance here counts a percentage of the welfare provided by the LDS Church toward the state’s own welfare spending.”
This concept of shifting the financial burden of welfare from the taxpayer to the tithe payer has a precedent — right here in the Beehive State.
In 2021, a ProPublica investigation found that welfare in Utah “has become so entangled with the state’s dominant religion that the agency in charge of public assistance here counts a percentage of the welfare provided by the LDS Church toward the state’s own welfare spending.”
In all, the Utah Legislature had saved $75 million over the previous decade that it otherwise would have been federally mandated to spend on eradicating poverty.
In this case, the church was both funder and provider, distributing funds primarily through bishops, or lay leaders of congregations, who were the final decision-makers regarding who received what.
Notably, churches, unlike governments, are allowed to discriminate. Sure enough, the investigation turned up multiple examples of former members and non-Latter-day Saints who said church leaders denied them help because of their sexual orientation, church status or having children out of wedlock.
Faith and foreign relations
In the months since he moved from the House to the Senate, Curtis has, on multiple occasions, used foreign relations conversations to raise matters of concern to his faith.
Ahead of the Senate’s confirmation of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel, Curtis reflected on his time living on an Israeli settlement, called a kibbutz, as part of a program through Brigham Young University.
“This might be a good opportunity to send a message to Utah about how you feel about our dominant faith,” Curtis asked the former GOP presidential candidate, “and I just didn’t know if you would have me carry anything back to Utahns.”
The senator then invited Huckabee to visit BYU’s Jerusalem Center.
In 2017, during Trump’s first term, the church welcomed the president to its Welfare Square in Salt Lake City, from which a significant volume of its humanitarian supplies are sourced.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) President Donald Trump visits Welfare Square with to church leaders in 2017.