Catholic News Agency reports on an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on November 13, 2025, ostensibly prioritizing “faith-based participation” in foster care systems. The order claims to address systemic failures by modernizing child welfare infrastructure and prohibiting discrimination against those with “sincerely-held religious beliefs or adherence to basic biological truths.” Specific reference is made to lawsuits involving Christian families barred from fostering in Vermont due to their beliefs about marriage and biological sex. While framed as protecting religious liberty, the measure operates within the same naturalistic paradigm that has destroyed Christendom.
Naturalistic Framework Incompatible With Catholic Social Order
The executive order’s emphasis on “modernizing child welfare systems” and “partnerships with private sector organizations” reveals its foundation in post-Enlightenment statism rather than Catholic subsidiarity. Quas primas (Pius XI, 1925) unequivocally declares: “Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ” (n. 31). By reducing religious expression to a mere “partnership” category within state-controlled systems, the order implicitly accepts the heretical premise condemned in the Syllabus of Errors: “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Pius IX, Proposition 39).
Alliance Defending Freedom’s litigation strategy – while commendable in resisting particular anti-Christian policies – fatally accepts the state’s illegitimate authority to license families for child-rearing. This contradicts Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae‘s teaching that “the parental authority is as sacred as religion itself, and is an element both of the order of the family and of human society” (Leo XIII, 1880). The very notion that civil governments may “revoke foster care licenses” based on ideological compliance constitutes usurpation of the Church’s exclusive jurisdiction over marriage and family life – a right affirmed by the Syllabus (Proposition 53) and dismantled through the conciliar revolution’s Dignitatis Humanae.
Ecumenical “Faith-Based” Language Masks Doctrinal Indifferentism
The executive order’s reference to “sincerely-held religious beliefs” employs the poisonous ecumenical language condemned in Mortalium Animos: “This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises” (Pius XI, 1928). Nowhere does the measure acknowledge the societas perfecta of the Catholic Church or Her exclusive right to govern all matters pertaining to faith and morals.
This omission constitutes tacit acceptance of the condemned proposition that “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion” (Syllabus, Proposition 18). The article’s celebration of “faith-based organizations” as undifferentiated participants in child welfare constitutes the very communicatio in sacris prohibited by Canon 1258 of the 1917 Code. Authentic Catholic charity – as demonstrated by centuries of religious orders dedicated to orphan care – cannot be reduced to state-supervised “foster care programs” administered alongside heretical sects.
Structural Apostasy of Post-Conciliar “Catholic” Institutions
The article’s uncritical citation of “Catholic News Agency” – an entity operating in communion with the conciliar sect – exemplifies the broader crisis. Quas primas warns: “If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King” (n. 18), yet CNA’s coverage never identifies the root cause of foster system failures: society’s rejection of Christ the King.
Nowhere does the article reference the doctrinal necessity for foster children to receive Catholic formation, access valid sacraments, or be placed exclusively with families professing integral Catholic faith. This silence reflects the conciliar sect’s abandonment of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus – a dogma defined at the Council of Florence (1442) and maintained inviolate until the Vatican II apostasy. The executive order’s focus on protecting “adherence to basic biological truths” reduces Catholic morality to mere natural law arguments, neglecting the supernatural destiny of every soul entrusted to foster care.
“The executive order issued Nov. 13 states that the Trump administration is ‘dedicated to empowering mothers and fathers to raise their children in safe and loving homes.'”
This bureaucratic language masks the ontological destruction of parenthood wrought by no-fault divorce, contraception, and gender ideology – all enabled by the conciliar sect’s failure to condemn modern errors unequivocally. Contrast this with Pius XI’s condemnation in Casti Connubii: “Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves” (n. 66).
Conclusion: Radical Return to Catholic Order Required
While resisting particular anti-Christian policies remains a temporal necessity, no executive order within the modern secular state can remedy the foster care crisis. As Quas primas teaches: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony” (n. 19). Authentic reform requires:
1. Rejection of the state’s usurped authority over family life
2. Restoration of Catholic civil law recognizing marriage as a sacrament
3. Reestablishment of religious orders dedicated to orphan care under ecclesial authority
4. Public consecration of nations to Christ the King as commanded in Quas primas
Until these conditions are met through divine intervention and societal conversion, all “faith-based” initiatives within secular frameworks remain but temporary palliatives on a mortally wounded civilization. As Pope Pius XI warned: “Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ” (Quas primas, n. 17).
Source:
Trump signs executive order prioritizing faith-based participation in foster care (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 15.11.2025