Bread for the World

Founded in 1974, Bread for the World describes itself as “a Christian advocacy organization urging U.S. decision makers to do all they can to pursue a world without hunger.”  Its stated mission is “to educate and equip people to advocate for policies and programs that can help end hunger in the U.S. and around the world.”   Effectively, Bread is an activist and lobbying organization that coordinates efforts to influence political policy.

Unfortunately, our investigation of Bread for the World leadership and activities uncovered organizational support and promotion of homosexualism, promotion of the UN’s Marxist agenda in the Sustainable Development Goals, and support of organizations pushing anti-life ideologies.

Leadership

The managing editor at Bread for the World Institute is Michele Learner.  She describes herself as a “Social justice advocate and policy aficionado, editor, writer.”  She is also a member of Bread’s Coordinating Committee.

Bread’s promotion of LGBT activism and ideologies goes back as far as 2014.  In its Hunger Report from that year, Learner published an article titled “Neither Seen nor Heard: LGBT Youth and Hunger.”  Learner opens with the argument that stigma related to sexual perversion among teens is a major source of “hunger” as teens are rejected by their families and ostracized for their professed sexual orientations.  She argues a greater openness of teens regarding their sexual identities, while “welcome and overdue” has become the source of additional problems:

“In the past, few adolescents came out publicly as LGBT. Today’s growing legal and social acceptance of the LGBT community, while welcome and overdue, carries an “unintended consequence”—young people are coming out earlier, and many families, schools and communities are not as accepting as media coverage suggests.” [emphasis added]

Citing a San Francisco-based program called the “Family Acceptance Project,” Learner suggests that “Solutions—meaning social change—must come from greater awareness, government protection and services, and family support” that can lead to “promoting the wellbeing of LGBT youth in the context of the family.”

In Bread’s 2015 Hunger Report, Learner published an article titled: “Women are Supposed to Need Men: Gender Nonconforming Women“. In the article, Learner expresses her hope that then-President Obama would appoint an “Envoy for Global LGBT Rights” to “champion LGBT rights at the international level”:

“At this writing, there are several proposals, including one introduced in the Senate, that the Obama administration appoint a first-ever Envoy for Global Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights. Such an envoy can not only champion lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights at the international level, but also throw our country’s support behind education efforts and other measures that will make it safer for gender nonconforming women to be who they are.”

Remembering that Bread is a lobbying and educational organization, this open promotion of “LGBT Rights” strongly suggests that Bread is directly involved in congressional lobbying efforts to promote sexual deviancy on an international level.

Michele Learner is still the Managing Editor as of the time of publication.

Rev. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith is a strategist for Bread for the World and is also a member of Bread’s Coordinating Committee. According to Bread’s website, Walker-Smith “brings extensive global, national, and local experience as a faith and public engagement thought leader, journalist, speaker, broadcaster, scholar, preacher, and author. ”

Walker-Smith spoke as a representative of Bread for the World at the 60th Anniversary March on Washington (MOW) in August of 2023. The March on Washington heavily promoted abortion and LGBT “rights.”

Walker-Smith’s talk was primarily focused on such things as indigenous rights and climate change but given the fact that women’s reproductive “rights” – including abortion – was a major part of the March’s goals, Bread for the World should have had nothing to do with the event to begin with.  By participating in the March, Walker-Smith lent the March the name and support of Bread for the World, even if she didn’t explicitly endorse abortion and reproductive rights.

The radically pro-abortion and homosexualist nature of the March on Washington is made abundantly clear in this Associated Press article about the March.  The article’s author, Aaron Morrison points out:

“organizers of this year’s commemoration don’t see this as an occasion for kumbaya — not in the face of eroded voting rights nationwide, after the recent striking down of affirmative action in college admissions and abortion rights by the Supreme Court, and amid growing threats of political violence and hatred against people of color, Jews and the LGBTQ community.” (emphasis added)

In 2018, Walker-Smith wrote an article on behalf of Bread for the World to promote “Black Maternal Health Week,” led by a radical pro-abortion organization called the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA). Walker-Smith specifically mentions BMMA’s call for “reproductive justice” in the article, showing that she was fully aware of what the organization stood for when she endorsed them and their activities.  She wrote:

BMMA’s policy agenda makes its stance regarding abortion perfectly clear as it even includes a call for the permanent repeal of the Hyde Amendment and the prohibition of religious exemptions regarding the practice of abortion while fully funding international population control advocates such as the UNFPA.   By acknowledging in her article that BMMA is involved in “reproductive justice,” Walker-Smith is telegraphing her knowledge of the following policy agendas proffered by the organization.  In short – she (and by extension, Bread for the World) are directly promoting and supporting what BMMA is calling for.  Beginning on page 23 of BMMA’s policy agenda, it makes the following case regarding abortion and Black Maternal Health:

Following this statement, BMMA provides dozens of policy statements regarding abortion and contraception, such as:

• Requiring coverage for all “reproductive care” including abortion – p. 23
• Removing barriers for “gender-affirming” care, including to minors – p.24
• Permanently abolishing the Hyde Amendment – p. 24
• Ending all religious exemptions and eliminating Parental notification – p. 26

In 2022, both Rev. Dr. Walker-Smith and Ms. Michele Learner coordinated the development of a report as members of Bread for the World’s “Coordinating Committee.” This report called for “resistance movements”  (pressure campaigns and organizations) around LGBTQ issues and the “sexual and reproductive rights” of women as a way to help with food insecurity.  Discussing matters in the country of Brazil, page seven of the report says:

“With over 276 million people faced with acute food insecurity, deepening inequality and poverty highlights the importance of resistance movements that address housing, women’s rights, the LGBTQI+ population, climate issues, and sexual and reproductive rights of women.”

In this same section, the report complains about “political and ideological polarization” that is oppressive to pagan religions while disseminating “false information against the progressive agendas.”  Considering the aforementioned LGBTQI “rights” and “reproductive rights,” it’s pretty clear what these “progressive agendas” are.  But this section also lauds the “blossoming” of “social movements and resistance movements,” such as the pro-abortion “Network of Black Evangelical Women” and “Movement of Evangelical Women in Brazil.”

Sustainable Development Goals

The Lepanto Institute has written extensively on the Marxist and pro-abortion, pro-contraception elements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).  Our most comprehensive report titled, “Pope Francis Promotes Goals Created by Communists” explores the relationship between the SDGs and the planks of the Communist Manifesto and the agenda of International Marxism.  SDG goals 3 and 5 very specifically and directly promote abortion and birth control as “rights.”  The most troubling aspects of the SDGs are as follows:

• SDG 3.7 calls for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.”
• SDG 5.6 calls for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.” Specific indicators in this goal include, “Proportion of women aged 15-49 years who make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care,” and “Number of countries with laws and regulations that guarantee full and equal access to women and men aged 15 years and older to sexual and reproductive health care, information and education.”

Based upon these two goals alone, there is no way any Christian could, in good conscience, support, endorse, or work toward the SDGs.  However, in February of 2016, Bread for the World hosted an event “to discuss how to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the United States.”  The event emphasized the SDGs are “interconnected and universal”, and that “countries are not free to pick and choose among the goals.”  In other words, Bread for the World not only endorsed the need to support the SGD agenda, but fully recognized that all of the goals would have to be fully implemented, including goals 3 and 5.

The article states:

“On February 4, more than 50 representatives from the anti-hunger, anti-poverty, faith-based, think tank, philanthropic, and federal governmental communities joined together at Bread for the World to discuss how to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the United States. The 17 SDGs include, for example, targets to end hunger and extreme poverty, achieve gender equality, and ensure clean water and sanitation, all by 2030.”

“Bread President David Beckmann shared the news that in early February, the President’s Advisory Council on Poverty, Inequality, and Opportunity, on which he sits, approved a recommendation calling on President Obama to continue his administration’s efforts to implement the SDGs in the United States. The council also pledged its assistance in engaging nongovernmental groups to help meet the goals.”

“The speakers also emphasized that the SDGs are interconnected and universal. Every country that endorsed the SDGs in September 2015 – all 193 nations – committed to all the goals. Countries are not free to pick and choose among the goals.” [emphasis added]

Bread for the World cannot claim ignorance of the pro-abortion and pro-contraception elements of the SDGs, which means that its effort to fully support and work toward the implementation of the SDGs is done with full knowledge.

In August of 2016, Bread for the World issued a report outlining its role in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, and while it states that its main focus is on the first two goals (No Poverty and and Zero Hunger), it once again emphasizes that the goals cannot be implemented in isolation or separate from each other:

“It is important to note that the SDGs are not meant to be individual, isolated goals. They are interconnected. Progress on one often requires progress on others. Targets, which are more specific components of goals, are closely linked with targets under other goals.”

“This interdependence means that collaboration and collective action are critical—and that is precisely where the 2030 Agenda presents a new opportunity. We need to ensure that U.S. policies are as effective as possible by addressing issues in a more comprehensive manner and by making improvements in how the United States sets and evaluates goals, including the SDGs.”

Membership in Interaction

Bread for the World is a dues-paying member of InterAction. Bread also lists InterAction as an “organization that shares our core concerns” on its website.  Additionally, Bread for the World CEO, Eugene Cho is a member of InterAction’s Board of Directors.

As reported in previous Lepanto Institute reports, InterAction is a strong proponent of contraception, and membership dues represent approximately 25% of InterAction’s total operating budget. According to Bread’s most recent financial information, it is a $5.5 million organization, which means – according to InterAction’s dues policy – Bread pays $7,500 to InterAction every year.

Furthermore, Bread for the World co-signed an InterAction document titled “Choose to Invest in Development & Humanitarian Relief: FY2019.” Page 29 of this document is titled “Family Planning in all accounts”, and states:

“Despite global investments, an estimated 214 million women in developing countries want to delay or avoid pregnancy but face significant barriers to using modern contraceptive methods.”

and: “Conversely, every additional dollar spent on contraceptive services will save $2.22 in pregnancy-related care.”

Conclusion

Due to Bread for the World’s promotion of homosexualism and involvement with evil agendas and organizations, we are forced to mark it as not safe for Catholic donations. It should also be noted that the USCCB maintains a board membership with Bread for the World., Most recently, the USCCB’s interim director of Justice, Peace and Human development, Richard Coll, is currently on the board of Bread for the World. This partnership must be re-examined considering the evidence we have provided here.