The field office that depicted SSPX and some traditional Catholics as domestic extremists defended its handiwork.
By Catholics for Catholics
Even after getting caught probing traditionalist Catholics, the FBI under former President Joe Biden did not cease to investigate them and others who attended the Latin Mass, wore veils or said the rosary, according to a new report.
The Biden FBI aimed at believers whom it dubbed “traditionalist Catholicism” and suggested in a widely distributed internal assessment that certain Catholic beliefs were connected to violent extremism and criminal activity, according to a story by Blaze Media.
This continued to happen in the FBI under Biden, even after a whistleblower uncovered the bureau’s exploitation of counterterrorism tools to slander Catholics and members of the Society of St. Pius X in 2023. Some continued on with the project, according to a new report from the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group.
“The Richmond Memo was a clear abuse of power, targeting conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government who lacked necessary oversight,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. in a statement released Thursday. “No more.”
According to the documents, the FBI’s evaluation smeared members of the “Catholic sect” and certain Catholics with socially conservative views as potential extremists. This came from the Richmond field office into an individual identified as “Target 1” in the new report but revealed to be Xavier Louis Lopez through the footnotes.
However, the DOJ did not mince words in the conclusion to its report: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is entrusted with the solemn responsibility of protecting the First Amendment rights of all Americans. History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office to uphold that responsibility.”
The FBI under Biden was circulating anti-Catholic information targeting traditionalist Catholics for opposition to Democrat politics, treating them as political extremists.
— AF Post (@AFpost) August 29, 2026
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The Trump Justice Department has made crystal clear that those responsible for this weaponization of law enforcement against Catholic Americans have met some consequence.
“This Department of Justice will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. “The individuals who developed the Richmond Domain Perspective are no longer with the Department, and our working group’s efforts to investigate weaponization under the previous administration will continue.”
After firing multiple employees tied to the memo in June, FBI Director Kash Patel underscored that “this FBI will never infringe on religious freedom.”
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