Remember this from early 2023? 👇
What characterizes a "radicalized" Catholic, according the FBI?
Some traits include preferring listening to the Mass in Latin, the view that there's only one road to heaven, abortion is sinful, and LGBTQ lifestyles are sinful.
Extreme stuff right there!
FBI Director Chris Wray said the investigation into Catholics was merely a trivial issue from one office of the FBI, a lie that was swiftly shot down:
Well, the helpful New York Times is here today to let us know that the FBI did a thorough investigation of the FBI and found that the FBI did nothing wrong!
A memo by the F.B.I. warning of possible threats posed by "radical-traditionalist" Catholics violated professional standards but showed "no evidence of malicious intent," according to an internal Justice Department inquiry made public on Thursday.
Oh, so it appeared bad but actually wasn't. Funny how that's always the case these days.
The assessment by the Justice Department's watchdog found that agents in the F.B.I.'s office in Richmond, Va., improperly conflated the religious beliefs of activists with the likelihood they would engage in domestic terrorism, making it appear as if they were being targeted for the faith.
But after a 120-day review of the incident ordered by Congress, Michael E. Horowitz, the department's inspector general — drawing from the F.B.I. report and interviews conducted by his own investigators — found no evidence that "anyone ordered or directed" anyone to investigate Catholics because of their religion.
See, they weren't targeted because they are Catholic. They were targeted because they believe things that Catholics have always believed and that put them on the radar for "extremism."
Totally different!
A statement from the F.B.I. on Thursday said the inspector general's review aligned with the bureau's own accounting.
At this point, some people want to argue with me.
"AKSHUALLY, the FBI didn't investigate itself. It was the Department of Justice, which the FBI is only a part of. There's a difference!"
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, pal. You don't know a dang thing about how bureaucracy, hierarchy, and the weaponization of political power works. If the meme fits, the meme fits.
The F.B.I. memo, drafted by an analyst in the Richmond office in late 2022 and completed with other authors in January 2023, cited potential threats from self-identified Catholic extremists and "far-right white nationalists" in the run-up to the 2024 election.
The authors wrote that the overlap of these groups presented new opportunities for "threat mitigation," development of confidential sources and "exploration of new avenues for tripwire" — a reference to an early warning system for domestic terrorism.
The NYT is actively trying to downplay this whole thing, but former FBI Agent Kyle Seraphin wrote this week at The Federalist about how the memo made him feel betrayed. It's a stark contrast to the sanitizing Ministry of Truth campaign the NYT is a part of:
Of all the groups our top federal law enforcement agency would write an 11-page document targeting, they picked us. With all of the crime going on in the country, especially in the last few years, the FBI decided we Catholics were the problem.
"Radical-traditionalist," I thought, trying to make sense of the term the FBI used more than 40 times throughout the memo. It was certainly not a term I had ever heard before in the counterterrorism space.
Who is a "radical-traditionalist Catholic?" (Let's call them "RTC" for short.)
I'm friends with people who love the Latin Mass. I attended a traditional school where I learned Latin from fifth grade through high school.
Are they RTCs? Am I?
That's how most Americans feel, regardless of whatever "internal investigation" found.
But let's give the FBI the benefit of the doubt and say they really had no bias at all, in any way, toward Catholics.
Even if that is the case, the alarm systems they have designed to find "extremists" now go off whenever someone says "Christ is King" on the internet. If you believe basic Christian things about human nature, sin, family, sexuality, the sanctity of life, inherent rights from God, just war, or the lordship of Jesus Christ, those systems now identify you as a radical.
And from the government's perspective, you are a radical. You're a threat to the secular Global American Empire. You have a moral worldview with wildly incompatible values.
Not only does your government not understand the Christian faith anymore - it is actively hostile to it.
We're all on a government list somewhere, my friends!
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