Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is filing articles of impeachment against the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, for targeting conservative American Catholics. She wrote: “Under Wray’s watch, the FBI has intimidated, harassed, and entrapped American citizens that have been deemed enemies of the Biden regime. As such, Director Wray has turned the FBI into Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s personal police force.” This follows Republican House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio calling to withhold funds from the FBI on grounds of political corruption and weaponization. In light of these clarion calls to accountability, it seems worthwhile to review the covert war the FBI has been waging against American Catholics.
Perhaps the most notable instance of this anti-Catholic bias is the FBI’s targeting of Mark Houck, Catholic father of seven and founder of the Catholic organization the King’s Men. Houck wasn’t just arrested; his Pennsylvania home was raided by about two dozen armed FBI agents, who cuffed him in front of his wife and children. What charge was leveled against this quiet, Mass-going Catholic dad to warrant such extreme tactics? Houck was accused of assaulting a Planned Parenthood escort some two years before the arrest.
Four months later, Houck was acquitted of the charges after a jury learned that the Planned Parenthood escort, Bruce Love, violated Planned Parenthood protocol to follow Houck and his then-12-year-old son across the street, where they were praying a Rosary, and begin spouting profanities at the child. Houck did shove the Planned Parenthood employee, in defense of his son. The Department of Justice knew this and proceeded with the case anyway.
Tom Stevens, president of the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia, called Houck’s prosecution “a horrendous stunt to intimidate pro-lifers.” Houck himself concurred, saying that the FBI’s use of extreme tactics over such a weak case was intended to “instill fear in pro-life America.” Thomas More Society attorney Peter Breen, who defended Houck in court, said of the acquittal, “The Biden Department of Justice’s intimidation against pro-life people and people of faith has been put in its place.” Has it, though?
Just days after Houck’s acquittal, FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin released leaked memos from the FBI’s Richmond field office detailing plans to infiltrate and spy on American Catholics who attend the Tridentine or Traditional Latin Mass, the form of the Mass used prior to the Second Vatican Council and approved for broad use by the late Pope Benedict XVI. According to the documents, the FBI equated “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” with “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists.”
One of the sources the FBI relied on in crafting its mandate was the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left partisan think tank purportedly dedicated to exposing and preventing “hate” in the U.S. The SPLC’s website lists several different ideologies it labels “hateful.” That list places “Christian Identity” and “Radical Traditional Catholicism” right next to the “Ku Klux Klan,” “Neo-Nazis,” and “Racist Skinheads.” The SPLC also routinely labels Catholic organizations as “hate groups” for simply adhering to Roman Catholic teaching on homosexuality.
As if the FBI’s plans (and the ideologues behind it) weren’t terrifying enough, Catholics reported FBI vehicles monitoring their Latin Mass parishes. Rep. Jim Jordan, in his capacity as chair of the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, revealed that at least one undercover FBI agent had actually infiltrated and spied on a Latin Mass parish.
Additionally, 322 Catholic churches in the U.S. have been defaced, vandalized, damaged, burned, or otherwise attacked since May of 2020, including 158 since the leak of the Supreme Court opinion that eventually overturned Roe v. Wade. A number of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers have also been targeted since the leak. The FBI has prosecuted precious few of those attacks, and it certainly hasn’t sent two dozen agents armed with automatic weapons and riot shields knocking on vandals’ doors.
Once upon a time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was just that: An organization responsible for investigating crimes, serving the American people, and keeping them safe from real-life threats. Its recent history in particular demonstrates that, under the thumb of Christopher Wray, the FBI has become the Federal Bureau of Intimidation, surveilling, threatening, arresting, and abusing Americans who don’t accept the Biden administration’s extremist ideology.
Catholics are singled out to be targeted because, in short, those Catholics who actually practice their faith are automatically in opposition to the pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-trans agenda the sitting regime seeks to advance.
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