Senate Judiciary Committee: Anti-Catholic texts found in 13 more Biden-era FBI documents
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by
Caroline Molloy
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A report from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that the 2023 anti-Catholic Richmond FBI memo involved coordination with field offices around the country and that similar disparaging language about certain Catholics was found in at least 13 separate documents.
In February 2023, the FBI retracted a memo from the Richmond, Virginia, field office that detailed an investigation into so-called “radical traditionalist” Catholics after the internal document was leaked to the public and prompted heavy pushback.
The memo called for the FBI to develop sources within parishes that offer the Latin Mass and online Catholic communities for the purpose of “threat mitigation.” Relying almost entirely on designations from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the memo expressed concerns about a potential link between “radical-traditionalist” Catholics and racially motivated violent extremism.
Although the FBI removed the document from its systems and asserted the issue was isolated to one product from one field office, the new report found that multiple field offices were involved in producing the memo and that it was distributed to more than 1,000 FBI employees throughout the country.
The report reveals that analysts at the Richmond field office had consulted with the offices in Louisville, Kentucky; Portland, Oregon; and Milwaukee to gather information about “radical traditionalist” Catholics in preparation for the Richmond office’s report.
Conversations with the Louisville office reportedly helped Richmond analysts conclude that the beliefs of “radical-traditional Catholicism” are “comparable to Islamist theology.” Less is known about what was discussed with the Portland and Milwaukee field offices, but the report found that Richmond’s analysts had phone conversations with them about the subject.
After the Richmond field office produced the memo, the report found that it was sent to other field offices throughout the country.
The report cites an email exchange from the Richmond office to the office in Buffalo, New York, which notes that two “radical traditionalist” Catholic groups are in Buffalo’s area of responsibility.
