Biden’s FBI targeted ‘radical traditionalist’ Catholics

Most Catholics were well aware of Joe Biden’s, at best, tepid observation of Catholic teachings as president.

But even they will be aghast after a new report from the Senate Judiciary Committee uncovered the true breadth of a crackdown by the FBI – during the Biden administration – on “radical traditionalist” Catholics.

In 2023, an FBI memo called for sources to be developed within parishes that offer the Latin Mass and online Catholic communities for the purpose of “threat mitigation.” At the time, the FBI retracted the memo after an outcry and said it was an isolated incident out of one field office.

Now Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has discovered new evidence that casts serious doubt on that narrative. He has even gone so far as to accuse former FBI Director Christopher Wray of lying to the Committee.

Grassley has found that the 2023 memo was not isolated to the Richmond, VA, field office: it was disseminated across at least 13 FBI documents and sent to over 1,000 employees nationwide. It is thought that the Richmond office coordinated with other field offices, including those in Louisville, Portland, and Milwaukee.

In fact, their collaboration extended to analysts linking Catholic beliefs with “Islamist theology.” Such inane comparisons were apparently enough to spark a nationwide intervention into these menacing church-goers.

A second memo, still under wraps, was drafted by the Richmond FBI but was never published after the outcry from the first. This draft echoed the same concerns about “radical traditionalist” Catholics but – unlike the first memo – it omitted any reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), likely to avoid further controversy.

The initial memo – specifically targeting Traditional Latin Mass parishes and online Catholic communities – was based largely on designations from the SPLC.

The SPLC, a far-left organization, asserts that “anti-semitism is an inextricable part” of traditional Catholic theology. In its own examples of problematic statements from “radical traditionalists,” nowhere do any of them call for violence. The cited passages bellyaching about “the Jew” are edgy, sure. But to believe these fringe writings (some of which date back 20 years) are worthy of FBI scrutiny is laughable.

FBI officials from several field offices raised concerns about the memo, questioning why the agency was relying on spurious SPLC designations. Despite this, the FBI continued to pursue this line of inquiry.

Grassley is now demanding that the FBI produce all documents related to the use of SPLC and other partisan sources in linking Catholics to extremism. If Republicans follow through with this, Director Wray may just get his due.

This targeting of Catholics by the FBI all happened under supposedly Catholic president Joe Biden, who at every turn sought to undermine the faith he claimed adherence to. The pro-abortion, pro-gender ideology, pro-same sex marriage Catholic president not only presided over an FBI baselessly targeting the faithful, but also sought no punishment for agency leadership once the initial scandal came to light.

Careful observers may have noticed a glaring lack of “radical traditionalist” Catholic violence in the United States, yet the FBI under President Biden involved over 1,000 employees to tackle this non-issue.

More pressing items for the Bureau to tackle, for example, would be anti-Jewish terrorism committed at the hands of “radical traditionalist” Muslims. Mohamed Soliman, who just scorched one dozen Jewish demonstrators with a homemade flamethrower in Boulder, CO, had Facebook posts dating back to 2013 supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Soliman’s nation of origin.

Soliman entered the US in 2022, overstayed his visa, and was rewarded by the Biden administration with a work permit in 2023. Not only did the previous administration open the US southern border to hundreds of individuals on the terror watchlist, but they also somehow approved a work authorization for an Islamist terrorist despite clear red flags. Where was the FBI?

Before the Boulder attack, a radical Palestine supporter murdered a young couple in cold blood just for associating with Israel. The killer, Elias Rodriguez, was involved with several far-left organizations, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Perhaps the FBI should infiltrate radical Marxist groups to prevent anti-Jewish terrorism.

And just in the past year, Donald Trump faced two assassination attempts. While the first shooter was supposedly not on the FBI’s radar, the second suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, certainly was. In 2019, Routh was the subject of an FBI investigation after a tip claimed he was in possession of a firearm as a felon. In total, the man had over 100 police complaints against him. In case that’s not enough for the FBI to flag him, Routh was radicalized to the point of traveling to Ukraine to play soldier, before returning to the US, determined to kill Trump. Routh was even interviewed by major news outlets, including The New York Times and Newsweek – he was not some unknown entity hiding in the shadows. Still, no FBI involvement.

This is not to portray the FBI as feckless or ineffective; in the past year, they have thwarted a number of planned terror attacks. The agency’s leadership, however, lost the plot under the Biden administration. If anybody in the top ranks of the Bureau knew the first thing about Latin Mass-going Catholics, they would realize how absurd it is to spend even a penny of taxpayer funds cracking down on them.