Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on UnsplashCatholics are responding with outrage to the recent discovery of a leaked FBI document which calls for the surveillance of people who attend Latin Masses in the U.S., claiming these “Radical Traditionalist Catholics” or RTCs, are racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists. Here's how you can help!
According to Brian Burch of Catholic Vote, the leaked FBI document uses memos and articles from far left groups such as the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as their source for considering attendees at Latin Masses to be a fringe group of violent extremists.
Specifically, they are targeting those Catholics who attend Latin Masses, who want to return to traditions from before the Second Vatican Council, who are critical of Pope Francis, and who and “anti-LGBTQ” ideology.
The FBI quickly retracted the memo, which was leaked by a whistleblower, and issued a statement saying, “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.”
However, it does reveal much about the culture inside the FBI and how the Department of Justice under the Biden Administration is using the Bureau to justify spying on Catholic groups.
Even more disturbing is the shoddy analysis and sourcing the FBI relied upon for the memo, namely an old report issued by the far-left SPLC claiming that RTCs routinely pillory Jews as ‘the perpetual enemy of Christ,’ reject ecumenical efforts of the Vatican, the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and sometimes even assert that recent popes have been illegitimate."
The report states: “Radical traditionalists are not the same as Catholics who call themselves ‘traditionalists’ — people who prefer the old Latin Mass to the mass now typically said in vernacular languages — although the radicals, as well, like their liturgy in Latin. They also embrace extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women.”
They go on to list groups such as Catholic Family News, Christ or Chaos, Tradition in Action, The Remnant/Remnant Press, Fatima Crusader, and Catholic Apologetics International as hate groups that fall under the category of RCT.
Michael Brendan Dougherty, writing for National Review, believes that the report highlights a persistent problem in analysis, “which is the conflation of passionate or populist political rhetoric with dangerous extremism and active conspiracies. The former is and has always been plentiful in functioning democracies, and it is a sign of their health. The latter is rare.”
He also finds the memo’s sourcing to be astonishingly shoddy because it relies on a group well-known for classifying any organization it disagrees with as being a hate group. This blatant bias cost the SPLC $3.4 million in a 2018 settlement after falsely labeling Maajid Nawaz, a British political activist, as an anti-Muslim extremist. The group was also connected in federal court to domestic terrorism after their “hate group” designation inspired a troubled young man to attempt to mass-murder the employees of the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group, in 2012.
Other poor sources cited by the FBI memo was a widely discredited article appearing in the Atlantic about how the extremist gun culture is allegedly co-opting the Rosary.
“This isn’t even a slippery slope,” Burch writes. “This is opening the door to a coordinated government-sponsored war on Catholics – and anyone who continues to speak out against the new progressive religion…This isn’t about “rad trads.” It’s not just about traditional Catholics who love ancient liturgy. And it’s certainly not about violence… or anything else the FBI should be working on.
“This memo is about silencing Catholics like you and me because we are part of the peaceful resistance pushing back against Joe Biden’s abortion extremism, attacks on parents, and radical trans and LGBT agenda.”
CatholicVote has sent a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary expressing concern and outrage over the “worrisome escalation of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation against people who hold certain principles, especially the beliefs of the Catholic Church” who the FBI may already be surveilling under the pretext of combating domestic extremism.
Burch is calling upon the faithful to add their signatures to this letter and to be careful not to fall for the “duck-and-hide games” now underway as the Biden Administration attempts to deflect blame for this outrageous violation of the First Amendment Rights of Catholics in the U.S.
Click here to sign the letter today!
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