(LifeSiteNews) — The FBI whistleblower who leaked the intelligence memo singling out traditionalist Catholics for greater “assessment” and “mitigation” has said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) response to the memo served as just another example of episcopal “cowardice.”
Kyle Seraphin joined me on today’s episode of The John-Henry Westen Show to react to the fallout of the leak, explain how he discovered the memo, and share advice on how traditional Catholics can protect themselves from being targeted by the government.
More than one week after Seraphin blew the whistle on the memo targeting traditional Catholics, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York released a statement for the USCCB that, in a stunning display of political correctness, condemned “racism” and the promotion of “violence” before condemning the “troubling and offensive” memo itself.
“It’s cowardice,” Seraphin said. “But it’s a pattern of cowardice that we’ve seen, I think, from the bishops, particularly in America … For me, you can’t have a religion that produces, or is attempting to produce, courage in the face of evil, and not show moral courage yourself.”
Although the FBI has publicly retracted the contents of the memo, Seraphin previously noted that it is still circulating on their servers. More specifically, he told me on today’s show that the memo, in fact, remains “one of the top three intel products that are being looked at.”
The FBI is planning to intensify its “assessment” and “mitigation” of “Radical Traditionalist Catholics” over the next 12 to 24 months according to an explosive document from a former agent turned whistleblower.
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The bombshell 8-page memo was released by former FBI agent Kyle Serpahin on his website UncoveredDC Wednesday. The report, written by an FBI analyst in Richmond, Virginia, was published for internal agency use only on January 23, is titled, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”
Seraphin describes the briefing as an “intelligence product” that, though not being exhaustive, can be used as an initial reference point for the agency to “prop up” future investigations on the subject. He says he obtained the document from an anonymous Baptist employee for the agency.
“This is the first FBI Richmond domain product to focus on the interest of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists in the Radical Traditional Catholic movement,” the document states. “A search of FBI databases indicates this is also the first FBI finished intelligence product to specifically address this environmental variable.”
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Among the most controversial aspects of the memo is that it directly cites a defamatory study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on the subject “Radical Traditional Catholicism.” The SPLC has long been rejected as a legitimate resource for the FBI, Seraphin says, but in this instance, it is being relied on as a primary source to justify its efforts. The memo also references three anti-Catholic smear articles (here, here, and here) published by leftwing websites Salon and The Atlantic to defend its monitoring.
The report alleges that its real motivation is a concern that “Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology” possesses an “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT, and white supremacy” outlook, and that this presents a threat to the US’s domestic well-being. The report further claims that adherents to RTC ideology “frequently share language and symbolism, such as crusader references or anti-Semitic discourses” online that pro-life white nationalists also support.
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MORE INFORMATION:
READ: The real reason why traditional Catholics have drawn the interest of the FBI
Seraphin explained that this is just how the FBI operates: “What they’ll do is they’ll go, ‘What you’ve said is categorically false.’ And then we’ll produce the receipts, like the documents that you saw, and then they’ll go, ‘We take this very seriously.’ And that’s sort of the move that happens. It’s just … silliness that happens when you’re inside of an intelligence agency, that they think that they’re unaccountable, and they don’t think that we have eyes. What they don’t realize is that I have people looking at everything, and they’re equally appalled. That’s why they came to me with it.”
“It’s like a term paper, but it does help guide intelligence investigations,” he added.
Seraphin himself has been suspended from the FBI, but not because he leaked the memo. In a video he released last October, he said the bureau suspended him after he refused to comply with COVID jab and testing mandates and leaked information about FBI targeting of pro-life activists.
Echoing previous comments covered by LifeSiteNews, Seraphin said he believes the “danger” of the memo targeting traditional Catholics is that it opens “a door, not just to Catholics in general … but to Christians as a whole.”
“Because the statement that the writer makes is that there is ‘common cause’ between what they call ‘racially-motivated violent extremists,’ which we’ll know as white supremacists, and radical traditional Catholics, because of their stances on — get ready for it — abortion, LGBTQ issues, legal immigration, and then, randomly thrown in there, anti-Semitism,” he said.
READ: Rep. Jim Jordan demands FBI reveal details regarding since-retracted ‘anti-Catholic memo’
As for how we traditional Catholics can protect ourselves from government surveillance and infiltration, Seraphin said we must continue to focus on living the faith and “being a good Catholic.”
“There’s one of two possible outcomes. Outcome one is if somebody were to infiltrate … the answer is that they are going to find nothing, because your church is a place that practices Catholicism, and that is antithetical to any of the things that they were looking for,” Seraphin said. “And part two is potentially the example of your faith turns their heart, too, and they become a convert, or they realize the error in what their ways is, and then they bring the next piece of information to me. So that’s the way. You just live your faith. And it’s the same thing that has always happened under persecution.”
“You know that it exists. You know that there are things that represent injustice in the world. And then you don’t be preoccupied about them. You just work to be a source through your own example of courageously living the way that you’re called to,” he added.
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