I am not a Catholic, but I do follow what happens in the Roman Catholic Church, if for no other reason than the fact that it is the largest Christian church in the world. Thus, it was disturbing to learn that the FBI is going after 'radical traditionalist catholics', according to Monica Showalter at the American Thinker.
An FBI whistleblower has released an internal FBI document from the agency's Richmond office, showing that the FBI is out to gather intelligence on a subset of Catholic Latin Mass lovers that they call "radical Catholic traditionalists," based on claims, possibly scurrilous, that they are nests of anti-semitism and "white supremacy" in need of government surveillance.
According to Kyle Seraphin, the former FBI agent-turned-whistleblower:
The FBI’s Richmond Division would like to protect Virginians from the threat of “white supremacy,” which it believes has found a home within Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass. An intelligence analyst within the Richmond Field Office of the FBI released in a new finished intelligence product dated January 23, 2023, on Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE) and their interests in “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” or RTCs. The document assesses with “high confidence” the FBI can mitigate the threat of Radical-Traditionalist Catholics by recruiting sources within the Catholic Church.
The acronym, new to many in the Domestic Counterterrorism field, comes with a footnote by the writer explaining RTCs are “typically characterized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council.” The writer makes an unsubstantiated leap that a preference for the Catholic Mass in Latin instead of the vernacular and a number of more traditional views on other world religions can amount to an “adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology.”
Mitigate the threat? What threat? There was no proof of anti-semitism cited. It's about people who like to go to Latin Mass. Don't like it, don't go to one.
Showalter goes on to discuss that notion that there are not enough tradionalists who oppose Vatican II to matter. I personally suspect there are more tradtionalist catholics thatnShowalter lets on. But this is all inside baseball and is beside the point. It is not the business of the government to interfere in the internal business of any church. After all, wasn't there this statement in the Constitution that " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." And since the FBI was created by Congress, it is under the same prohibition. For crying out loud, the FBI doesn't have any problem with the Church of Satan. But maybe that is the point.
What this is really about, I think is the fact that the Catholic Church, and especially traditionalist catholics are anti-abortion. The Democrats are pro-abortion. 'Nough said.
Update: At The Federalist FBI Retracts Memo Labeling Traditional Catholics ‘Violent White Supremacists,’ Pushing Infiltration Of Christian Communities by Evita Duffy-Alfonso. Here's the money quote:
“The government right now is the one that our founders feared,” said Voris. Indeed, the FBI report justifies surveilling private citizens’ social media and infiltrating their religious communities without providing any legitimate or serious evidence for how they pose a “violent” threat. The only crimes the FBI field office could identify were thought crimes.
The Richmond bureau mentions surveilling Catholics’ response to “immigration, affirmative action, and LGBTQ protections,” things that under the First Amendment, Catholics are allowed to protest and reject.
Traditional Catholics are not white supremacists. Even if they were, racist viewpoints are protected under the First Amendment. The “groypers,” or the “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist” group that the FBI is so focused on, also have a right under the Constitution to think and say whatever they want—so long as they aren’t violent. The entire report is an affront to constitutional rights and yet another reminder that the FBI is becoming nothing more than the intimidation and enforcement arm of the extremist Democratic Party.
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