FBI surveilled SSPX priest amid probe of suspected neo-Nazi's plans for violence

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee July 22 released an interim staff report alleging the FBI surveilled a Catholic priest after he declined to speak about conversations he had with a suspected neo-Nazi defendant, a self-described “radical traditional Catholic clerical fascist” the FBI was investigating for making violent threats online.

In a press release, the committee said, “The FBI’s Richmond Field Office interviewed a priest affiliated with a local Catholic church to discuss a subject under investigation whose case served as the basis for the Richmond memorandum,” a controversial leaked and retracted FBI memo dated Jan. 23, 2023, that discussed “radical traditionalist” Catholics.

The House Judiciary Committee interim report said the priest subjected to FBI surveillance is a member of the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX, a religious order the Vatican has described as having an irregular communion with the rest of the Catholic Church. The religious order maintains a chapel in Richmond, Virginia, where the priest was serving at the time. The SSPX is characterized by its adherence to liturgical forms in use prior to the Second Vatican Council, but rejects much of the council’s teachings and has its own bishops, unlike similar traditionalist groups that are in full communion with the pope and fully accept the council.

The report said that after the priest in 2022 “declined to share information about the subject, the FBI surveilled the priest and opened an investigative assessment into him.”

House Republicans have claimed the Richmond memo is evidence that the Biden administration targeted Catholic Americans. But documents included in the House’s interim report suggest the Richmond memo was created while the bureau was investigating a particular suspect, and after agents described the SSPX priest as “not cooperative.”

Documents suggest agents were seeking to understand the SSPX and its relationship to the Catholic Church, not that the order itself was under investigation.

— SSPX priest asked whether violence came up in conversations —

The documents cited in the House interim report show the FBI agents did not consider the suspect’s communications with his priest to be privileged as the suspect had neither “been baptized” nor had he “completed his catechism.” By implication, these conversations would not have involved the sacrament of penance, and the absolute seal of confidentiality that covers sacramental confession.

The House interim report, however, criticized the FBI’s reasoning: “The priest-penitent privilege rightly protects communications between a clergy member and an individual seeking spiritual guidance — it is not dependent on the individual achieving certain milestones in his or her spiritual life.”

The priest, according to documents, declined to speak to the FBI after being asked whether the suspect expressed any plans or desires to commit acts of violence. The documents show the FBI noted the priest continued to speak with the suspect, who was in prison, and attempted to visit him.

“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the FBI disrespected and potentially violated the Constitutionally protected religious liberties of faithful Americans,” the report alleged.

— FBI criticized for memo progressing with unclear definitions —

The House interim report noted the unbaptized suspect described himself as a “radical-traditionalist Catholic.” But it also noted the FBI’s own internal review showed supervisors approved the Richmond memo even though “many FBI employees could not even define the meaning of ‘radical-traditionalist Catholic’ when preparing, editing, or reviewing the memorandum.”

Agents suggested in writing that their experiences could have a national application almost a month after they began drafting the Richmond memo in November 2022. The House interim report noted that agents speculated that “radical traditionalist Catholic” actors “begin in regular parishes before branching into traditionalist communities, and there is a chance someone will notice mobilization actors.”

“FBI employees believed without evidence that mainstream Catholic churches could serve as a pipeline to violent extremist behavior,” the House interim report stated.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the committee’s chair, wrote on X, “Thanks to our oversight and FBI Director Patel’s transparency, we now know that the Biden Admin’s targeting of Catholics was worse than we thought.”

A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.

— Neo-Nazi suspect’s plans for mass violence —

OSV News previously reported that the 2024 report by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General said the FBI opened an assessment of an individual identified as “Defendant A” in 2019, “after he made online statements advocating civil war and the murder of politicians.”

Defendant A later was overheard “making comments about political violence while purchasing several AR-type rifles, multiple high-capacity magazines, and large quantities of .223 ammunition,” and was later arrested by local police “after he vandalized and slashed the tires of a parked car.”

Defendant A later pleaded guilty to felony vandalism charges and as a part of his guilty plea agreed to avoid contact with firearms and related materials. Within a week of his release, he violated the conditions of his guilty plea and sentence by visiting the firearms sections of various sporting goods stores.

“Based on Defendant A’s online rhetoric, threats, and other activity, an FBI Richmond task force had been aware of Defendant A since 2019 and continued to monitor him,” the 2024 Office of Inspector General report said. “They identified a social media profile associated with Defendant A that included Nazi symbols and rhetoric, as well as posts advocating killing police officers, ‘ganging up on and beating’ racial and religious minorities, conducting a mass shooting at a school for special needs children, taking up armed resistance against the government, learning how to manufacture pipe bombs, and using untraceable means to purchase supplies to manufacture 3D-printed weapons.”

In early 2022, Defendant A began to attend a church “associated with an international religious society that advocates traditional Catholic theology and liturgy but is not considered by the Vatican to be in full communion with the Catholic Church,” the report continued, indicating the Richmond chapel run by the SSPX. The report noted he was “discussing plans to carry out attacks, including making comments to others (the church) about his intent to commit violence.”

Investigators expressed concern about the safety of the church and those who attend it, and an investigator who identified himself as an FBI agent questioned some members of that community, including its priest, specifically about Defendant A, not their religious practices, the report said.

— FBI attempts to distinguish ‘radical traditionalist’ from ‘traditionalist’ Catholic after events —

A 2024 review by the Department of Justice’s watchdog found “no evidence” of religious bias in the creation of the “Richmond Memo” that followed these events. The House Judiciary Committee report disputed that finding.

In developing its memo, an analyst at the FBI’s Richmond division said that “Radical Traditionalist Catholics” are “typically characterized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council,” adding the ideology can include an “adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology.”

The memo differentiated between “radical traditionalist” Catholics as “separate and distinct” from “traditionalist Catholics” — or Catholics who “simply prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings.”

However, the memo was retracted and condemned by both then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, amid accusations the Biden administration was carrying out improper religious surveillance.

The House Judiciary Committee report argued the former officials were not as forthcoming as they should have been about the extent of the memo’s reach through the FBI before it became public.

While some of the groups named in the withdrawn FBI memo identify as Catholic, some have taken positions flouting either the Catholic Church’s leadership or its official teachings — including one group denounced by its local bishop as “blatantly antisemitic” and forbidden by the Vatican from calling itself Catholic.

The original memo cited the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors “hate groups” but has faced criticism from some who say the group applies that label too widely. A spokesperson for that group previously told OSV News there is “a stark difference between traditionalist Catholics — who celebrate the Latin Mass and rebuff many of the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council — and the radical traditionalist Catholics tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The FBI has previously faced accusations of targeting certain religious groups. Three Muslim Americans filed a lawsuit against the FBI in 2011, claiming the bureau unconstitutionally and illegally spied on their communities based on their religion in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The Supreme Court later ruled in favor of the FBI in a ruling The New York Times called “modest and technical.”