“Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) released documents indicating the FBI’s targeting of traditionalist Catholics was much more widespread than originally thought…”
First things first – I’m a Catholic; I consider myself as a ‘traditional’ Catholic; I’ve attended Mass as celebrated by the priestly Order of the FSSPX (Fraternal Society of St. Pius X or simply, ‘The Society‘) and I will again in the future.
For those not in the know regarding ‘traditional Catholicism,’ speaking in rather broad strokes, we “Trads” stick with the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass). We also adhere to some rather old-fashioned notions, such as
- Defend human life, which begins at the moment of conception
- Active homosexuality is a grave moral disorder and inherently evil
- Weak men pretending to be women compete against real women is not only wrong, but insulting to The Almighty. Only the weak minded celebrate that.
- Legal immigration is a good thing. Illegal immigration is a bad thing.
- God is real. The Most Holy Trinity deserves to be worshipped and adored in a dignified and respectable manner, not like that of a three-ring circus or a really, really bad high school play.
So, with all that said, remember when the news broke of the FBI’s Richmond, VA, field office targeting Catholics? Then they lied to us when the same FBI stated it was a “Richmond only” investigation that has since been shut down.
As it turns out, not only did the Biden Administration’s FBI lie to us, the “Richmond only” investigation of Trads not only spread to a different state, but also went international.
By the way, it wasn’t just a parishioner or two who the FBI was spying on, but a specific Catholic priest and his entire Order.
The word is also out that the FBI has a rather curious way of deciding who’s a Christian and who isn’t.
As reported by James Lynch of the National Review (emphasis mine);
The FBI began surveilling a Catholic priest in 2023 after the clergyman refused to divulge details about a recently arrested parishioner who was converting to Catholicism and seeking spiritual guidance.
The FBI’s Richmond Field Office… tracked the priest’s movements and coordinated with several other FBI offices and a foreign law enforcement agency to gather intelligence on the clergyman and his priestly organization, according to a new House Judiciary Committee report obtained by National Review.
“From information made available to the Committee, there appeared to be no legitimate law-enforcement purpose for investigating this priest. This new information suggests that the FBI’s religious liberty abuses were more widespread than the FBI initially admitted and led the public to believe.”
On January 4, 2023, an FBI employee from the Richmond office told colleagues about how the priest “became very uncomfortable and started incoherently stuttering” when the agents began asking him specific questions about one of his parishioners, including whether the man, who had recently been arrested, had “desires and plans to commit violence.” The priest responded by insisting that he had to speak with the Church hierarchy and its attorneys before speaking further with the FBI.