Catholics Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

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FBI Records Show Top Officials Rushing to Craft a Response to Leaked Memo Revealing its Targeting of Catholics

November 17, 2023/in Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Judicial Watch

Washington, D.C. – Judicial Watch announced today that it, along with CatholicVote Civic Action, received 131 heavily redacted pages of records from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) showing top officials rushing to craft a public response to the leaked FBI intelligence memo that revealed its targeting of Catholics who adhere to traditional beliefs on church issues.

Judicial Watch received the records in response to an April 2023 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit it filed along with CatholicVote Civic Action against the FBI and the Department of Justice after their failure to respond to March 2023 requests for records about an FBI intelligence memo targeting “radical traditionalist” Catholics (CatholicVote Civic Action and Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Federal Bureau of Investigations and Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-01166)).

In February 2023, an FBI intelligence document was leaked that revealed FBI targeting of Catholics who adhere to traditional beliefs on abortion and other cultural issues. The Catholic News Agency reported: “The leaked document has been condemned by several federal and state officials, as well as clergy, including Bishop Barry Knestout of the Diocese of Richmond, who recently called the memo a ‘threat to religious liberty.’”

The newly obtained records include a February 8, 2023, email with the subject line “Media Request: FBI Richmond Document cites SPLC” from the FBI’s National Press Office alerting FBI officials regarding media inquiries:

We have inquiries from the Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal (Heritage Foundation) about an article written by [redacted]. It references a January intelligence product from the Richmond Field office. After speaking with SC Goodwater, I am alerting all of you so we can get a copy of the actual document and hear any recommendations on how to respond. I am attaching a cut and paste of the [redacted] article.

Miriam Coakley of the Office of General Counsel then forwards the email on to other FBI officials, noting, “Adding InTo [Insider Threat Office], SecD [Security Division] and OPR [Office of Professional Responsibility]. The date of the leaked domain perspective appears to be 23 Jan. 2023.”

Further along the chain, an official in the Office of Public Affairs forwards the chain to more people, saying, “Adding Pamela Bryon from the DI. [Deputy Asst. Director of Intelligence Pamela Byron.] Any info on how this product came about would be appreciated.”

In a heavily redacted reply, Byron responds:

As mentioned on FBINET, the type of product leaked is a Domain Perspective (DP) – the purpose of DPs is to offer information and/or highlight how a shift or new development in an AOR (domain) related to an environmental variable could impact the threat. Environmental variables include demographic shifts, technology development, economic conditions, special events, social/cultural conditions, etc. In particular the analysis in DPs (as in FBI products in general) is focused on the activity of identified or potential threat actors, not on the environmental variables themselves, and how those threat actors react to shifts in the environment, and the subsequent impact on the threat posed by those actors.

In that context, there are a couple of things to note with this situation: [redacted].

We stand by to assist on any other questions.

The records include a February 9 email with the subject line “Coordination of Draft statement regarding leaked RH intel document” from Office of Public Affairs official Douglas Goodwater to top FBI officials, including FBI Chief of Staff Johathan Lenzner, Asst. Dir. for Intelligence Tonya Ugoretz, Asst. Dir. for Counterterrorism Robert Wells and others:

Draft/pre decision, Coordination for media statement – DI/CTD/OGC [Directorate of Intelligence/Counterterrorism Division/Office of General Counsel]

Potential statement for review/edits-: [Redacted].

Asst. Director for Public Affairs Catherine Milhoan then responds:

All, we have received two new inquiries in addition to the three last night and are making the decision to respond in the next hour. We want to get our statement out before this picks up any steam.

DI/CTD/OCG,

Please review the draft and let us know if you have any edits or concerns.

Later in the email chain, Stanley Meador, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Richmond Field Office, replies, “Looks good. One small suggestion in yellow. I would send it out. It is migrating onto Fox. https://www.foxnews.com/media/purported-fbi-document-suggests-agency-targeting-catholics-attend-latin-mass.”

On February 10, 2023, FBI Chief of Staff Jonathan Lenzner emails FBI colleagues with the subject “intel piece that has been withdrawn,” saying, “I don’t know if we are there yet, [redacted].”

Lenzner then follows up on February 13, writing, “Looks like at least one religious organization is speaking out publicly: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/catholic-league-condemns-fbi-internal-memo-targeting-catholics.”

Ryan T. Young, the Executive Assistant Director of the Intelligence Branch replies to Lenzner, “Not a good look … Real frustrating when it is self-inflicted. I’ll be back in town Wednesday. We can look into next best steps.”

“After seven months of delay and more to come, Joe Biden’s FBI remains committed to one thing: covering up their un-American spying on Catholic citizens,” said former Congressman Huelskamp, Ph.D., Senior Advisor to CatholicVote. “By fully withholding more than 200 pages of public documents, the Biden administration is more interested in hiding the truth than ending this unconstitutional witch hunt of Catholics and other faithful Americans.”

“The FBI launched a vicious spy effort against Catholics and sought to spy on parishioners as they sat in church pews,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These records show top FBI officials were panicked in response about their domestic spying abuse leaking out.”

CatholicVote.org is a community of patriotic Americans who believe that the timeless truths of the Catholic faith are good for America. It makes its mission “to inspire every Catholic in America to live out the truths of our faith in public life.”

VIDEO: KAMALA TARGETING CATHOLICS — A long history of anti-Catholic bigotry

October 15, 2020/in Elections, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Church Militant

Kamala Harris: “to do the best work we can to give these victims dignity and give them a voice.”

As prosecutor in California, Kamala Harris tried to sell herself as tough on sex abuse — but victims of Catholic clergy tell a different tale.

Joey Piscitelli: “Everything just went down the tubes.”

Catholic Joey Piscitelli, a sex abuse survivor, was stonewalled at every turn when he asked Harris to release clergy sex abuse files in San Francisco. He and other victims accused her of covering up child sex abuse by pedophile priests after she received donations from high-level staff in the archdiocese of San Francisco, including lawyers involved in priest sex abuse cases who gave thousands of dollars to Kamala’s campaign.

Joey Piscitelli: “I would like her to produce one clergy abuser or one bishop that she’s even tried to prosecute.”

In fact, Harris was the only D.A. in the nation’s top 50 major cities to fail to prosecute even a single case of priest sex abuse.

While letting sexual predators slide, she’s zealous in going after Catholic pro-lifers.

David Daleiden: “Top Planned Parenthood executives met with Kamala Harris in March of 2016 specifically requesting that she use the law enforcement powers of her office to seize dozens of hours of unreleased undercover footage.”

Pro-life Catholic David Daleiden was first to expose Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in aborted babies’ body parts. While attorneys general across the country launched investigations into the abortion giant’s criminal conduct, Harris indulged Planned Parenthood — one of her wealthiest backers — by launching a political prosecution not against Planned Parenthood, but against the journalist and whistleblower.

David Daleiden: “It’s using the law enforcement powers of Kamala Harris’ office to punish dissenting thought.”

Harris has also said she wants to go after the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns who fought a successful legal battle against Obama’s contraception mandate.

While the Sisters won their case in the Supreme Court, Harris has vowed to relitigate the case if given the chance.

She also took steps in California to counteract the Sisters’ victory, sponsoring the Do No Harm Act, which would strip Catholic employers of the right to deny coverage for contraception as well as force them to hire same-sex employees.

But it was her naked religious discrimination against a judge that caused Catholic politician Newt Gingrich to say of her “[She] is the most openly anti-Catholic bigot to be on a national ticket in modern times.”

In 2018 she sent a written question to federal judicial nominee Brian Buescher asking about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, calling it an “all-male society” that rejects abortion.

Kamala Harris: “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”

The question was met with immediate backlash, exposing her bias that one can’t believe in core Catholic teaching and work for the government.

Sen. Ben Sasse: “This is the same kind of garbage that was thrown at John F. Kennedy 60 years ago when he was campaigning for the presidency.”

Fr. Gerald Murray: “It’s not fair to say if you are a member of a Catholic organization, you are an extremist, because we don’t have religious tests in the United States.”

Harris also abused her power as California A.G. by obstructing the sale of Catholic hospitals in exchange for$25 million in political contributions from a union.

Six Daughters-of-Charity-run hospitals were being sold to Prime Healthcare, but as a favor to the Service Employees International Union, she intervened, insisting that the hospitals be unionized as part of the sale.

The burdensome restrictions led to Prime backing out — and all six struggling Catholic hospitals being shut down.

Prime sued Harris in 2017, exposing Harris’ backroom deal with the union, accusing her of unconstitutional abuse of office. Harris skated, the court granting her qualified immunity as a public officer.

Kamala Harris: “We have a chance to change the course of history.”

If trends continue, Harris may soon be in the White House. With her long track record of corruption and cronyism, there’s no reason to think she won’t use her heightened powers of office to crush Catholics under her heel.

VIDEO: The Vortex — Either/Or

October 9, 2020/in Culture War, Elections, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Church Militant

We’ll know God’s will shortly.

TRANSCRIPT

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary.

What has faithful Catholics (as well as non-Catholics who are men of goodwill) so bothered in their core about this election is one simple thing: The potential conquest of evil over truth on a grand scale.

Of course, we know that at the end of the world or at each person’s death, truth is victorious. But we aren’t living at the moment of the end of the world right now. At the present moment, the forces of evil have so well organized themselves and brought their power to bear — focused on the defeat of Trump — that a temporal victory by them would be devastating.

It would (at least temporarily) crush the spirits of good people everywhere. When you stop and think about the considerable forces arrayed against Trump, it’s truly troublesome. There is not a single power that has not aligned against him. And remember, it’s not really Trump himself who is their target. It’s what he says and promotes.

Sure, they probably don’t like him personally either, but that’s not the point. What they hate about him is his frankness about their evil. So evil has collectivized and is on the road to conquering, at least that is how it appears. There is so much misinformation out there — spread by an evil media devoted to destroying truth — that you don’t really know what to think, who to listen to, what’s real, what’s not, what’s a good guess.

And when it comes to the polls, even considering that the vast majority were pretty wrong in 2016, this year is a different story. There are a few things the seasoned poll watcher looks for in assessing a poll. Here’s a sample:

What’s the margin of the lead?
Has one candidate breached the 50% mark and sustained it for a while?
What’s the sample size?
What’s the margin of error?
Were those polled likely voters or just registered voters?
What was the distribution of those polled among Republican, Democrat and Independent?

Those are all key questions. And here’s the concern as of today: Even the reliable polling agencies (like Rasmussen and IDB) are coming into line with the corrupt media polling outfits. Rasmussen and IDB were the two outfits that got it right in 2016. The other major polls were all wrong — some really wrong.

So as nearly all the polls right now are beginning to show what looks like is shaping up to be something of a Biden landslide, it would not be wise to simply say they are all wrong — nothing to see here folks, and so forth.

One small caveat before we go on to the major point: Every poll begins with an assumption about voter turnout. They build their entire projection based on a somewhat-educated guess about how many people will actually vote. Laying aside the technical aspects of how they arrive at that projection, suffice it to say that their entire prediction rises and falls on that guess.

If a larger-than-assumed number of voters turn out (a surprise turnout it’s called) for one candidate or the other, then the pre-election polls get thrown out the window. But of course, there’s no way to know that until Election Day or after.

So today, we have to go with what’s in front of us, and from a spiritual point of view, we have an either/or situation. Let’s go with the “Biden landslide” scenario. Either God is whittling down His army, ensuring that everyone understands victory would be impossible without Him (like he did with Gideon whom He sent to attack and defeat the Midianite camp).

Recall, Gideon started with an army of 32,000, and God told him to keep cutting it down — it was too big; lose more soldiers. Not enough: Lose even more. Eventually, Gideon had only 300. And, of course, it was then that God said okay, attack.

The point being — no one could look at that battle victory and ascribe it to anyone else other than God. So we might have something like that going on. Or we could have the following scenario: The Church is in desperate need of cleansing. The crooked hierarchy has to be purged.

Nothing these men, many of whom are straight-up wicked, have encountered on an earthly level has dislodged them from their evil and cowardice. The Church is being destroyed on their watch. So since nothing human seems to have any impact, God is allowing people to come to power who will launch a full-scale persecution against the Church where these men will be simply be killed or imprisoned.

All their influence and power will be taken away — not to mention their wealth — and that will be that. And no, even though they have been complicit in bringing about the fall of Western civilization, they will not be spared by their fellow Marxists. They will be executed because they will no longer be useful to the cause.

They will not die as Catholic martyrs, but Catholic traitors who fell victim to their own evil designs. Now, of course, this scenario will entail massive suffering for Catholics: Up to and including death. Death is the currency Marxists traffic in — always has been, always will be.

The world that we have grown accustomed to as Catholics will not be the same. In fact, that world is gone. A Biden victory will create a culture of hate aimed at faithful Catholics because of who their Father is. Satan hates the Church, and once he has secured power for his offspring, he will then use them to turn on the Church, and the blood will begin flowing.

As we said, however, this may be the only way left of purifying the Church of these wicked men in the hierarchy. We are not a Church unaccustomed to persecution and martyrdom. But we as contemporary people are very unaccustomed to it.

Many would apostatize in such a scenario because, in reality, they have already apostatized, thanks to a hierarchy that lost supernatural faith. So, it will be one of these scenarios — either a great shock or a necessary outcome given the circumstances.

Whichever it is — because it will be one — pray and prepare to respond accordingly.

The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America

September 20, 2015/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Dr. Rich Swier

Pope Francis is coming to America this week and will be addressing the U.S. Congress at the invitation of Speaker of the House Representative John Boehner. Pope Francis starts his visit to America on Tuesday, September 22nd and plans to stop in Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia.

Indications are that Pope Francis will be talking about several issues including climate change and the refugee crisis in the Middle East. But there is one topic Pope Francis may not be talking about – spiritual matters important to American Catholics.

Perhaps Pope Francis should be using this opportunity to address how to stop the decline and fall of the Catholic Church in America?

In his seminal five volume work History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published in 1782, Edward Gibbon, Esq. wrote:

After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.

The Roman Empire has gone with the wind. Will the Catholic Church in America suffer the same fate?

Let us look at each of these four principal causes of the ruin of Rome and compare them to the Vatican and American Catholics.

I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more permanent than the narrow span of his own existence; yet these monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time, his life and his labors must equally be measured as a fleeting moment.

The Catholic Church is witnessing a reduction of its monuments in the United States.

According to the non-profit Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, in 1990 there were 19,620 parishes in the U.S. In 2014 there were 17,483 parishes or a loss of nearly 11%. As parishes closed so did other Catholic monuments: churches, schools and hospitals. In 1965 there were 10,667 Catholic Elementary Schools, in 2014 that number was 5,368 (a 50% loss of Catholic Elementary Schools). Catholic Secondary Secondary Schools went from a high of 1,986 in 1970 to 1,200 in 2014 (a 40% loss). Even Catholic Colleges and Universities declined from 305 in 1965 to 225 in 2014 (a 26% loss).

Time and nature has taken its toll on Catholic Churches in the U.S. As the Catholic population ages, parishes close. CARA notes, “As the largest religion in the U.S., Catholicism has the largest number of former members (some later return as reverts). Catholicism has a higher retention rate than most other religions in the U.S. (including all Protestant denominations).

It is the institutions that must survive to carry on the word of the Gospel. As the institutions decline so does the Catholic Church in America.

II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians.

Today the hostile attacks are coming from the “new Barbarians”: Collectivists, Marxists, the Communist Party USA, atheists, the pro-choice movement, the feminist movement, homosexuals and government. Today it is the followers of Mohammed who are attacking the people of the Cross globally and in America.

There is a coalition within America that is anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic. Their tactics and strategy are to diminish the role of religion by removing God from the public square. As that has happened in America we now have Collectivists, atheists, abortionists, homosexuals (some of whom are practicing witchcraft) and the U.S. government taking positions and implementing policies which are anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic.

As Sandy Ikeda in his article “Progressivism Is Illiberal” writes, “Progressivism [Collectivists] today goes beyond the liberal position that, for example, same-sex marriage should have the same legal status as heterosexual marriage, to the belief that the state should threaten physical violence against anyone who refuses to associate or do business with same-sex couples.”

In the Middle East Catholic Churches are being burned to the ground, Christians slaughtered, Christian children sold into sex slavery and Christians crucified as was done in ancient Rome.

The attacks against Catholicism are real and palpable. Daily news reports tell us that a unholy war is being conducted against the Catholic church.

III. The use and abuse of the materials.

Materialism is the God of many in America. The quest for power and riches outweigh the need for God and redemption. Collectivists demand submission to the state as does Islam, which literally translated means “to submit.” Government becomes God and by doing so restricts what the individual can and cannot do.

As Ayn Rand wrote, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” In a short 19 page paper Rand wrote:

“A great many people today hold the childish notion that society can do anything it pleases; that principles are unnecessary, rights are only an illusion and expediency is the practical guide to action.

It is true that society can abandon moral principles and turn itself into a herd running amuck to destruction. Just as it is true that a man can cut his own throat any time he chooses. But a man cannot do this if he wishes to survive. And society cannot abandon moral principles if it expects to exist.”

In America corn is used to produce Ethanol, a gasoline additive. Over 50% of the corn produced in America goes toward the production of Ethanol. According to the World Food Programme, “Some 795 million people (1 in 9) in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life.”

Using food for fuel is immoral.

The use and abuse of materials and the people is the greatest threat to Catholics and the Church. For whenever the individual is diminished so to is the role of the Catholic Church. Jesus was an individualist who fought government. Many question why won’t the Catholic Church follow in Jesus’ footsteps and fight against government and defend individual rights including religious liberty.

IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.

The United States was founded on Judeo/Christian beliefs and values. Today the various Christian denominations are quarreling amongst themselves about social and political issues. This quarreling is occurring while all Christian and Jewish organizations are under attack from the new barbarians and the followers of Mohammed (see item II above).

Perhaps it is time for pastors, priests and rabbis to unite in one cause – to preserve their belief in God and the Judeo/Christian way of life.

The American way of life has led to great happiness and prosperity both in the homeland and throughout the Western world. A way of life that insures life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as guaranteed by United States Constitution. A way of life that celebrates life over death. A way of life that insures salvation and the return of the Kingdom of God to this earth.