The House Judiciary Committee released a report July 22 revealing that the Biden-era FBI devoted far more federal law enforcement resources to surveilling Catholics than previously known, while failing to disclose the full extent of its operations to Congress.
Titled "Report: How the Biden-Wray FBI Manufactured a False Narrative of Catholic Americans as Violent Extremists,” the report centers on newly released documents that contradict former FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony claiming the anti-Catholic 2023 Richard memo was an isolated incident. That memo, circulated by the FBI’s Richmond Field Office, labeled “radical traditionalist Catholics” as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.”
According to a July 22 press release from the committee, under the leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel, the FBI has turned over more than 1,300 pages of internal documents detailing the agency’s wide-ranging surveillance of Catholics under the Biden administration.
Among the report’s most troubling findings: the Richmond office in 2023 targeted a Catholic priest of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) — a group considered in “irregular canonical” status with Rome — after he refused to share information about a parishioner under federal investigation.
In response, the FBI opened an investigative assessment into the priest, coordinating with both the Louisville Field Office and the London Office to gather intelligence on him. Agents tracked his location, travel plans, and credit card information.
They even attempted to bypass priest-penitent privilege, arguing it didn’t apply because the parishioner under investigation had not been baptized or completed catechism, according to the report. In the release, the committee dismissed that rationale as “faulty.”
The report also revealed that FBI analysts who prepared the memo relied on biased, openly anti-Catholic sources, including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The FBI disclosed eight open-source articles cited during the memo’s development, including titles such as: “Catholics are leaders and even founders of the most dangerous neo-Nazi groups in existence,” “White Nationalists Get Religion: On the Far-Right Fringe, Catholics and Racists Forge a Movement,” and “Traditional Catholics and White Nationalist ‘Gropers’ Forge a New Far-Right Youth Movement.”
Committee investigators argued these sources reflected an inherent prejudice against Catholics with deeply held religious convictions.
A separate, preexisting FBI memo further contributed to the Richmond Field Office’s targeting, warning that the SSPX was attempting to “recruit and radicalize white supremacists,” the report stated.
The documents also show FBI personnel used the label “radical traditionalist Catholic” in multiple internal documents between 2009 and 2023.
These findings build on June revelations from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who said the Richard memo had circulated across at least four field offices and reached more than 1,000 FBI personnel. He also reported that the FBI produced at least 13 additional documents and five attachments using anti-Catholic rhetoric.
The committee emphasized that its investigation into the Biden administration’s abuse of federal law enforcement against Catholic Americans remains ongoing.
“With Director Patel’s commitment to transparency,” the committee stated, “the Committee will continue its oversight to inform legislative reforms to protect American's religious liberties from government overreach.”