The FBI's Catholicism Memo Is No Laughing Matter | Opinion

"It's okay to be Roman Catholic, right?"

That was the question Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) posed to an FBI official in recent investigative hearings run by Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

"Somebody answer me please," Van Drew followed up, after an awkward silence.

You'll forgive him for asking. The hearings, ignored almost entirely save for a handful of conservative news outlets, were looking into the leaked FBI memo alleging some kind of tie between what it called "radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology" and "violent extremism." The FBI is now being sued over its failure to comply with a standard FOIA request to release emails discussing its contents. The agency's recalcitrance is unsurprising, given the memo's appalling contents.

In its title, the memo states that "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists in radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology almost certainly presents new mitigation opportunities." It discusses "new avenues for tripwire and source development," including "through outreach to traditionalist Catholic parishes and the development of sources with the placement and access to report on" these supposed extremists, among others. That's jargon for "get local priests and parishioners to spy on fellow massgoers."

The memo is almost laughable. Some FBI rookie clearly read too many spy novels and got out over his or her skis writing it.

But this was no novel. It was a very real memo proposing an FBI operation of spying on people of certain religious beliefs in their houses of worship and it appears to have been initially approved—though later disavowed—by people way higher up than the memo's author. Rep. Jordan's subpoena states that whistleblowers have told his committee that "the FBI distributed [the memo] to field offices across the country" and considered expanding its operation to include "mainline Catholic churches" and "local 'diocesan leadership.'"

It's all the more deranged when you consider that Roman Catholics are currently the targets of an alarming pattern of attacks, many of them by actual violent extremists who don't like the Church's position on issues like abortion. According to a tracker maintained by CatholicVote, since the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, there have been nearly 150 attacks on Catholic Churches. Since CatholicVote began tracking in May 2020, the number is over 300.

One of these attacks was perpetrated against a church two miles from my home, where I personally have worshipped and where some of my daughter's friends go to school. Arsonists knocked over statues, desecrated the tabernacle, and tore down the stations of the cross.

The priest didn't mince words in his response. "I believe that this is because of the Church's stand on the issue of life," he told the press, "when it begins and that it should be protected—and that this is one of the manifestations of the deep divisions right now within our country, that there are those who believe that we do not have even the right to practice our faith."

The response from the Justice Department, the FBI, and a president who likes to tout his Catholic bona fides has been another long, awkward silence.

And if one had any doubt as to whether abortion was an underlying issue motivating the FBI's "investigation," the memo explicitly cites anti-abortion activism as a hallmark of what defines a radical-traditionalist Catholic.

And then there is the fundamental question of who, in the eyes of the FBI, counts as a radical-traditionalist Catholic. Who makes that call? In the case of the memo, it was the Southern Poverty Law Center, which the agency explicitly credited with the definition.

And what gives the government the right to decide which forms of Christianity are acceptable and which are not? Is it when a group's beliefs don't align with those of the current presidential administration? And where does that end? Not with Catholics, be assured. Let's not forget this was the same FBI that was caught "investigating" parents labeled "domestic terrorists" because they were upset their kids were locked out of public schools for 18 months during the coronavirus pandemic.

The FBI isn't entirely off, however, in its idea that the federal government could learn a lot by sending agents to mass. The other day at Sunday mass it occurred to me that that hour is the only time all week that I spend under the same roof with the elderly, the disabled, children of all ages, people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and races, and people of varying political beliefs. Catholic churches, like so many other houses of worship, are among just a handful of remaining threads holding a disintegrating society together.

A government looking to quell violent extremism should be studying the few remaining ties that bind us—instead of trying to sever them.

Ashley McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.