More concerning news was released last week out of Washington, D.C., and Springfield, Massachusetts, that affects Catholics and their relationship with our federal and local governments.
In February it was discovered that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was accused of secretly gathering evidence that attempted to link Catholics in the Richmond, Virginia, area to “the far right nationalist movement.” According to the memo, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Vio-
lent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities,” at least one FBI agent was sent out to spy on Catholics who were worshiping at churches and chapels in the area, the House Judiciary Committee was told.
On Aug. 9, a less-redacted internal FBI document was released revealing that two other field offices — in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles — were also investigating “radical-tradition alist Catholics,” who attend the Latin Mass and who may have “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology,” the field office memo said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Judiciary Committee in July that the February report was “a single product by a single field office.”
He added that “as soon as I found out about it, I was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems,” and vowed to do an inter-
nal probe.
Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan wants more information from the FBI on how broad this investigation really was. Jordan requested that Wray amend his July testimony “to fully explain the nature and scope of the FBI’s assessment of traditional Catholics as potential domestic terrorists.”
So now we see that religious freedoms laid out in the First Amendment are now grounds for weaponization by our government.
In a second astonishing act, a Massachusetts Catholic couple has sued the state, alleging that they were blocked from adopting children through the
state’s foster care program because of their religious beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender.
The couple sued the state on Aug. 8 after what they say was an extensive application process which, over time, focused more and more on their Catholic faith, and ultimately led to a denial of their adoption request by the Department of Children and Families.
The suit alleges that state adoption officials in their interviews with the couple stressed alternative morals for modern life.
At a glance, it appears the state considers two Catholics who hold firm to their faith — where the husband is the church’s organist and his wife is the
cantor — unfit parents. It considers their faith an impediment to the welfare of a child.
And further, it is more acceptable to the government for that child to remain a ward of the state than to be placed in a stable and safe environment. The state is actually holding healthy children in hospitals because there are not enough people willing to become foster parents.
The secular world is moving not only away from moral-based religious truths, but they are attempting to discredit the values and faith that have long made this nation so great.