On August 28, the U.S. Justice Department released a 231-page report on
the FBI’s 2023 Richmond Catholic memo, including evidence of
surveillance of traditionalist Catholic clergy.
The FBI
investigated two priests and conducted surveillance connected to them.
One belonged to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (FSSPX); the
other, his uncle, was associated with SSPX Resistance and had been
ordained by Bishop Richard Williamson.
Agents researched travel
and credit-card records. FBI personnel in Boston surveilled the second
priest at the airport, while Customs and Border Protection questioned
him and searched his phone.
Both investigations were subsequently
closed after the FBI found no identified national-security threat and
no alleged violation of federal law.
Among the exhibits in the
DOJ report is an FBI PowerPoint titled “Traditionalist Catholicism
Overview” - essentially a rudimentary guide to the various
traditionalist Catholic groups and sects.
Remarkably, the
presentation included a category called “Canonically Regular,” defined
as groups formally approved by the Vatican and in full communion with
the Church. It named the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) and the
Institute of the Good Shepherd (IBP) as examples.
The
presentation's five-part taxonomy ranged from these canonically regular
institutes to the FSSPX and Priestly Society of St. Josaphat as
canonically irregular, then to sedeprivationists, sedevacantist groups
such as the Society of St. Pius V and Congregation of Mary Immaculate
Queen, and finally conclavists who elect their own claimants to the
papacy. It even included the Palmarian Catholic Church, the bizarre
Spanish sect originating at Palmar de Troya, which established its own
line of purported popes.
One slide presented Catholic integralism as "comparable to Islamist ideology".
In
other words, alongside the very real investigation and surveillance of
two priests, the FBI produced a bloated, Wikipedia-level map of
traditionalist “Catholicism,” stretching from Vatican-approved
communities to breakaway sects with their own popes.
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