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Catholics in the United States are being maligned by the federal government, and it's time to address what is becoming a serious challenge to religious freedom.
Recently, members of the House Judiciary Committee questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray about an FBI memo from the Richmond, Va., field office targeting U.S. Catholics who are drawn to the traditional Latin Mass.
The memo claimed violent extremists have "sought out and attended traditional Catholic houses of worship" and suggested "trip wire or source development" within churches that offer the Latin Mass and "radical-traditionalist" Catholic online communities.
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The source for this memo? The Southern Poverty Law Center, a hyper-partisan and discredited progressive advocacy group.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has been criticized for the Bureau's anti-Catholic memo, which the FBI also refuses to release. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
That even a field office of the FBI entertained religious profiling should shock the conscience. After all, racial and religious profiling has been shown not just to be ineffective but also erodes trust both in the police and governmental authorities.
During the hearing, Wray said he was "aghast" when the memo came to his attention and immediately "ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems." He also told the committee that the FBI is conducting an internal review of the memo, which will likely be complete later this summer.
Committee members weren’t impressed, and Wray gives them no reason to be as the FBI refuses to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests for records related to the memo.
"As a Roman Catholic myself … I was deeply, deeply disturbed by this memo, and it's shameful it was only rescinded basically after it got leaked to the public," remarked New Jersey Republican Rep. Jefferson Van Drew. He added: "That should scare each and every American."
It's scary indeed, because for all of Wray’s attempts to distance himself from the Richmond memo, the official position of the Biden administration’s FBI is to protect itself.
In response to a FOIA request submitted by the advocacy group CatholicVote, the Bureau insists that "the public is ‘not entitled’ to the records" pertaining to the Richmond field office memo. Maybe Catholic Vote’s FOIA request didn’t satisfy the requirements for releasing information – a pretty tricky matter when dealing with law enforcement agencies.
Regardless of this, however, Americans of all faith traditions or none are entitled to a complete and unequivocal rejection of this blatant religious profiling from President Joe Biden, our nation’s second Catholic president, and his administration. Typically, Biden has said nothing in defense of his co-religionists, while constantly reminding the American people of the important role of religion in his life.
Predictably, the political debates coming out of the hearing have broken into traditional left versus right arguments pitting the administration against House leadership. Lost in most of the conversation are the Latin Mass-going Catholics in the U.S. attracting FBI suspicions.
Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, arrives during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
These faithful Church attendees were mostly under the radar prior to July 2021, when Pope Francis instituted sweeping restrictions on the celebration of Mass using the 1962 Roman missal, known variously as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite, the Tridentine Mass, and the traditional Latin Mass.
The pope said at the time that he was acting to preserve church unity, asserting that the spread of the ancient liturgy had become a source of division and was being exploited by Catholics opposed to the Second Vatican Council.
The pope’s crackdown caused huge distress to the traditional Latin Mass community, particularly in light of the way his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, had reached out to them. Back in 2007, Benedict issued an apostolic letter called Summorum Pontificum, which acknowledged the right of all priests to say Mass using the Roman missal of 1962.
"What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful," he wrote.
In response to a FOIA request submitted by the advocacy group CatholicVote, the Bureau insists that "the public is ‘not entitled’ to the records" pertaining to the Richmond field office memo.
One unexpected consequence of the liberation of the old Mass was an upsurge in enthusiasm for it among the young. "Priests and faithful have been able to benefit from the spiritual and doctrinal treasures contained in the traditional liturgy. Its celebration has provoked conversions, especially among the young," observed Father Claude Barthe, an expert on the traditional liturgy and priest of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in France.
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This isn't to deny that some traditionalists embrace nutty ideas. There are traditional Latin Mass communities with bizarre ultra-conservative views about the wickedness of modernity and, especially, the need to keep women in their place. They make the Amish look progressive, and they never met a conspiracy theory they didn't like.
But, crucially, most of these traditionalists have separated themselves from the Catholic Church; they are "sedevacantists" who, unlike the very conservative Society of St Pius X, think the See of Peter has been vacant since the Second Vatican Council. Most Catholics are unaware of their existence; they pose no real threat to the fabric of society and none to the Church.
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As for the majority of those who faithfully attend the Latin Mass, they simply delight in the richness and beauty found in tradition.
American Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass deserve more than government rebukes and should enjoy the religious freedom guaranteed by our constitutional order. It's time for the president to show them – and our Constitution – some respect.
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