Boston, Mass., Feb 17, 2023 / 15:15 pm (CNA).
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) responded Thursday to a leaked document from the FBI that appears to reveal that the bureau’s Richmond division launched an investigation into “radical traditionalist” Catholics and their possible ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement.”
“Let me first be clear: Anyone who espouses racism or promotes violence is rejecting Catholic teaching on the inherent dignity of each and every person,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee for Religious Liberty, said in a Feb. 16 statement. “The USCCB roundly condemns such extremism and fully supports the work of law enforcement officials to keep our communities safe.”
The leaked document has been condemned by several federal and state officials, as well as clergy, including Bishop Barry Knestout of the Diocese of Richmond, who recently called the memo a “threat to religious liberty.”
“I agree with my brother Bishop Barry Knestout that the leaked memorandum was nonetheless ‘troubling and offensive’ in several respects — such as in its religious profiling and reliance on dubious sourcing — and am glad it has been rescinded,” Dolan said. “We encourage federal law enforcement authorities to take appropriate measures to ensure the problematic aspects of the memo do not recur in any of their agencies’ work going forward.”
Since the document was leaked, many Catholics have criticized the FBI, but in a statement to CNA Feb. 9, the bureau said it would remove the document because “it does not meet our exacting standards.”
The FBI’s national press office confirmed to CNA that the document came from the Richmond office but stated that it would “remove the document from FBI systems” because it “does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI.”
“While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, this particular field office product — disseminated only within the FBI — regarding racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI,” the statement read.
“Upon learning of the document, FBI Headquarters quickly began taking action to remove the document from FBI systems and conduct a review of the basis for the document. The FBI is committed to sound analytic tradecraft and to investigating and preventing acts of violence and other crimes while upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never conduct investigative activities or open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity,” the statement from the FBI National Press Office concluded.
The document, dated Jan. 23, claims that racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists will likely become more interested in “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” within the next 12 to 24 months “in the run-up to the next general election cycle.”
It points to potential “policy issues of mutual interest” between “radical-traditional” Catholics and violent extremists such as “abortion rights, immigration, affirmative action, and LGBTQ protections.”
Marked “unclassified/for official use only,” the document includes a list of organizations with Catholic ties that are listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) list of hate groups.
Some of the organizations identified in the document as adhering to “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” include Tradition in Action, The Remnant, Culture Wars Magazine, and the Fatima Crusader.
The SPLC has faced questions about its credibility from conservative and Christian organizations that have accused the group of a left-wing bias. Among the groups that made the SPLC’s 2021 list of supposed “hate groups” are the conservative and pro-family groups Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, ACT for America, the Center for Security Policy, and the American Freedom Law Center.
The internal memorandum, titled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities,” was first published Feb. 8 by the website UncoverDC and can be read here.
You can read CNA’s report on the memo here.
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As so often happens, Cardinal Dolan completely misses the point of the FBI alert.
This isn’t about shooting guns or throwing bombs.
Anyone merely espousing Catholic teachings *is* by definition a terrorist simply because he’s dissenting from the mandatory leftist governmental position.
The mere enunciation of Catholic doctrine is hate speech — i.e., violence — and is a real threat to the public welfare.
Now, our FBI guardians are not saying that all Catholics are enemies of the state. Remember Nancy Pelosi, Teddy Kennedy, Joe Biden and the rest of the Catholics who are responsible for the murders of more than a billion children worldwide over the past half century in the name of women’s health care.
Those Catholics don’t really actually *believe* all of that medieval Catholic stuff.
The small percentage who do actually *do* believe it? They’re the crazy ones, the ones whom the FBI is warning us to watch out for.
And I’m pretty sure Cardinal Dolan and most of the rest of our Church leaders have nothing to worry about.
(Sigh.)
“does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI” should have been “is fundamentally at odds with the mission of the FBI”.
Except that it isn’t.
The FBI is now the enforcement arm of the ruling Democratic Party.
The “law” that the agency is enforcing is conformity to the dictates of our nation’s newly engineered reality.
The “rights” the agency protects are the rights of the Democratic majority to be undisturbed by unacceptable thoughts and forbidden utterances.
Don’t pray near, or defend yourself or your family near, an abortion facility or they may come with weapons in hand and knock you away from your oatmeal the next morning.
I guess they don’t believe in gun control…..
Far too many of our bishops are ‘a day late and a dollar short.’
Far too many bishops play the consummate politician: They know who wields the power, how to get funding and what brings prestige. Too bad far too many of them don’t embrace the Cross.
It’s obvious that issuing, then rescinding, this document was intentionally orchestrated in order to send a message. The USCCB should be vehemently protesting from the rooftops. Unfortunately, too many bishops are pleased with the effect of this particular action.
And no one wonders how it is that the FBI brass is shocked to learn of an FBI directive. This isn’t the first time. They were shocked to learn that an FBI directive (issued in collusion with the association of school boards) seemed to target parents who expressed concern about their school’s curriculum at school board meetings. Just because you rescind the directive, you don’t necessarily end the policy. Watch what they do, not what they say. The FBI wants to thin the Catholic herd, and the targets may well not particularly dismay the bishops. Yet…
Herein my submisssion for the ‘Captain Obvious’ award for the month of February 2023 – In branding TLM adherents like myself as ‘violent extremists’ the FBI revealed their true colors and GOT CAUGHT. They are, predictably, trying to lie their way out of it. (Personally I would love to know the identity of the person who came up with that phrase, but I’m not going to hold my breath.)
I repeat – they revealed their true colors and GOT CAUGHT – We must NEVER forget that simple fact.
Cardinal Dolan first needs to assure us that he is against racism and violence, even though the groups that the FBI were addressing were not for racism and violence.
He then states that he finds the FBI memo “troubling and offensive.” I suppose that is the strongest language that we could expect from Cardinal Dolan or the USCCB.
The current Federal government is the enemy of our faith. It is ridiculous to keep addressing these issues as though they were occasional aberrations.
The Bishop of Rome gives two thumbs up to the actions of Christopher Wray and all of his comrades in the Fools Buffoons and Incompetents.
Oh, hey, it’s just an editing oversight! In these scrabbled times, the bureaucracy’s random word generator simply had a hiccup…then a later mistake in the boardroom with the routinized consent agenda! The politicized FBI, or maybe just a somnambulist FIB, or whatever…
But, it’s more than a spelling error–the difference between “profiling” and prolifing.
McCarthyism has made an unfortunate come back during these two years of democrat rule in particular. It would appear that ANYONE who holds an opinion about ANYTHING which is opposite that of the government is now suspect as a traitor, terrorist, racist, or some other danger to society. Disagree about the election, covid, immigration or even comedy jokes, and the situation is the same. That this has happened in a nation which has historically valued free speech above all is especially disturbing.That it is being linked to religion and endangers THAT long held freedom too, is even more dangerous. The govt already inserted itself in an area of religion in which it had no business by forcing the closure of churches in 2020, with covid as the alleged reason. This process became overtly suspect because the closures extended far beyond any reasonable danger and restricted churches with a capacity of 700 to 1000 people to allowing only 10 people at a time inside. Then it prohibited singing . And some places wanted the churches to actually TAKE THE NAMES of those allowed to enter!!!! As weeks dragged into months, Churches had to go to COURT to force the govt to remove its iron grasp on worship in the US. Sad to say, Josef Stalin would find himself quite at home with such govt agents. I wish I could say I was shocked to find that traditional catholics are now treason/ terrorist suspects. Unfortunately, the govt, our law agencies and the spineless pro-democrat press have laid so much groundwork to attack religious freedoms that this is little more than a continuation of oppression. My only question is, as the Germans forced the Jews to wear a yellow star when out in public, do they plan to do something similar to Catholics? A yellow crucifix maybe??
In Canada, that one pastor who came from the Communist Bloch? got arrested right on the highway for holding services.
I m from the government and I’m here to help
“U.S. Bishops: FBI document targeting Catholics is ‘religious profiling’.”
Agreed
It’s also downright stupid, and you know what they say about stupid, especially since these clowns got CAUGHT.
And it happened on Joe’s watch – let’s not forget that one either, which in turn begs the question – is anyone surprised?
I wouldn’t be surprised to know that there is an ‘Imprimatur’ on it.
SPLC has been a Communist Front since it’s beginnings.No suprise there.Except for the democrat lemmings who pull or mark the box {D} on their various ballots.And there are many.
According to the FBI – I am a ‘radical traditionalist’.
According to Hillary Clinton and her minions – I am a ‘deplorable’.
According to MSNBC and their ilk I am a ‘far right extremist’.
There are, I am sure, even more accolades coming.
I am SO unworthy of them – but I’ll take ’em.