The FBI spied extensively on a Roman Catholic priest who declined to disclose private conversations he had with a parishioner, according to a report released earlier this week from the House Judiciary Committee that has raised religious liberty concerns.
“This new information demonstrates that the FBI not only used its federal law enforcement resources to surveil certain Catholic Americans, but it also used these resources to investigate a clergy member,” the committee said, according to the July 22 report that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, shared with the Catholic News Agency.
After he expressed reluctance to comply with a January 2023 inquiry regarding a parishioner who had been arrested, the FBI’s Richmond office probed the unnamed priest’s ordination history, examined his finances and coordinated with the FBI’s London office to track his international travel.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
The priest, who serves a Catholic church in the Richmond area affiliated with the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), became a target for a “formal investigative assessment” when he cited a need to consult church leadership and legal counsel before disclosing private spiritual discussions, according to the report.
According to an internal email cited in the congressional report, the FBI agent claimed the priest “became very uncomfortable and started incoherently stuttering” about the parishioner’s alleged “desires and plans to commit violence.”
The agent also determined the individual under investigation was not subject to priest-penitent privilege because he had not “been baptized” or “completed his catechism,” though such is not consistent with a Virginia state law protecting such confidential communications regardless of baptism or catechism.
“The priest-penitent privilege rightly protects communications between a clergy member and an individual seeking spiritual guidance,” the committee report said. “It is not dependent on the individual achieving certain milestones in his or her spiritual life.”
The report went on to reveal that the FBI investigated SSPX’s broader operations, including its recruitment practices. The SSPX is a traditionalist Catholic group not in full communion with the Catholic Church.
The report also cited and provided photos from an official Richmond FBI presentation that laid out the supposed beliefs of “radical-traditionalist Catholicism,” a term used in a leaked, since-retracted 2023 Richmond FBI memo that linked certain Catholic groups to far-right ideology.
The presentation, titled “Traditionalist Catholicism Overview,” accused such Catholics of believing “mainline Catholicism is illegitimate” while holding “hardline positions on abortion, LGBTQ matters, and interreligious dialogue.”
The presentation also suggested such Catholic beliefs exhibit “apocalyptic overtones,” “rigid fundamentalism [and] integralism,” and an “undertone of antisemitism.”
The report criticized the FBI for basing its assessment on sources such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, The Atlantic and Sojourners Magazine, which the committee claimed are biased and exhibit prejudice against religious individuals with pro-life and other traditional moral views.
The committee, whose findings challenge earlier FBI statements under the Biden administration that downplayed the 2023 Richmond memo as an isolated incident from a single field office, accused the FBI under Biden of potentially violating the U.S. Constitution.
“Under the Biden-Harris administration, the FBI disrespected and potentially violated the constitutionally protected religious liberties of faithful Americans,” it said. “Throughout the committee’s oversight in the 118th Congress, the Biden-Harris administration refused to provide relevant information to the committee.”
In a statement to the Catholic News Agency, Jordan suggested lawmakers “knew the Biden-Wray FBI was targeting Catholics, but new documents obtained by the committee — thanks to the leadership of FBI Director Patel — shows that it was worse than anyone thought.”
“Contrary to [former FBI Director Christopher] Wray’s statements, the targeting of Catholics went beyond the Richmond Field Office and extended not to just offices across the country but around the world.”
