As House Republicans probe the “weaponization” of the federal government against the citizens it serves, the FBI recently showed why such an investigation is necessary.
In Richmond last month, the FBI, which works for a Catholic president, circulated an internal memo that ripped traditional Catholics as potential terrorists.
According to the website UncoverDC.com, the agency warned of “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” or RTCs, who are known primarily by a fondness for the Latin mass and criticism of the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
Such beliefs can extend to “adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology,” FBI analysts wrote.
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The memo suggested the FBI could use spies inside Catholic parishes to monitor any rhetoric or actions by the RTCs.
Yet the FBI’s source for this claim, since it seemed unable to produce any evidence on its own, is the discredited Southern Policy Law Center, a left-wing anti-Republican group.
UncoverDC noted that not only did the report contain inflammatory language about the alleged RTCs, the analyst who crafted the report gave the game away with repeated references to the RTCs attack on “abortion rights” — while also practically ignoring the more than 100 leftist assaults on churches, crisis pregnancy centers, and pro-life nonprofit groups after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“Opening the door to associating white supremacists with traditional religious practices based on common Christian positions on abortion and the LGBTQ political agendas is a dangerous step,” UncoverDC noted. “Such investigations can easily lead to the same analysis of Radical Traditional Baptists, Radical Traditional Lutherans, and Radical Traditional Evangelicals.”
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“By tolerating the publishing of intelligence products as shoddy as this, they [the FBI] are crossing a line many Americans will find themselves on the wrong side of for the first time in history.”
CNSNews.com this week has documented some of the responses to the leaked memo.
One of the responses cataloged by CNSNews came from Virginia Attorney General Jason Mitares, a Republican, and 19 other GOP state attorneys general, who issued a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In their letter, the AGs noted FBI Headquarters quickly worked to scrub the document from FBI systems after news of its existence became public.
“Had the memorandum not been revealed to the public, it might well still be an intelligence product available to the Bureau,” the letter stated.
“Suffice to say we are not persuaded by the FBI’s damage-control efforts,” they added. “The purported ‘review’ of the process that created it in no way reassures us that this memorandum does not reflect a broader program of secretive surveillance of American Catholics or other religious adherents, and infiltration of their houses of worship. It assures us only that the FBI is embarrassed at the public revelation of the memorandum’s contents.”
Catholic Bishop Barry Knestout, who oversees Richmond, said he was “alarmed” by the FBI report, which he called “troubling and offensive to all communities of faith, as well as all Americans.”
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Others who weighed in, according to CNSNews, included:
GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who tweeted, “The FBI arrested and RAIDED Christian pro-life activists. They did NOTHING when pro-life pregnancy centers were BOMBED. Now they’re labeling practicing Catholics as extremists. This White House has gone to WAR with Christianity!!”
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee tweeted, “The FBI wrote a memo on ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology.’ The FBI would rather go after Christians than investigate Antifa.”
House GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York said on Twitter, “The targeting of practicing Catholics is another way the federal government has been illegally weaponized against the American people. The House Select Subcommittee on @Weaponization will stand up for accountability. Accountability is coming.”
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Fox News host Tucker Carlson said, “The FBI, as an organization, has joined in the hunt for Christians.”
Conservative journalist Emerald Robinson tweeted, “Good morning to everyone except the FBI’s Richmond field office — which just warned its agents about ‘radical traditionalist Catholic ideology.’ In other words, they want to persecute Christians.”
Mike Howell, director of the Oversight Project at the conservative Heritage Foundation, tweeted, “Woke FBI = Anti-Catholic FBI.”
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