Christopher Wray, FBI director, appeared in front of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning. He addressed allegations made by House Republicans that federal agencies have been politicized.

In his opening remarks, Representative Jim Jordan, R., Ohio, chairman of the Committee, interrogated Wray, focusing in particular on a leaked FBI memorandum drafted by an unknown agent, targeting “radical traditionalist Catholic ideologies” as a hotbed for potentially violent extremism.

CatholicVote (an organization that advocates for religious freedoms) revealed that hours before Wray appeared, a Freedom of Information request made to the FBI had led it to claim that the public “is not entitled” to records relating to the anti Catholic memo.

The group then demanded that Republican members of the committee “press @FBI director Wray today about the targeting Catholics.”

Jordan took Wray to task when he refused to reveal the identity both of the agent that drafted the memo as well as the identity the supervisor who revealed it.

Jordan said that “Americans saw the FBI Richmond Field Office create a memo saying pro-life Catholics were extremists” during Wray’s first public appearance since Republicans took control of the House.

Jordan spoke later in his opening remarks about Mark Houck, an abortion-advocate arrested in Philadelphia, Pa. in 2021, on charges of assaulting a Planned Parenthood employee.

Americans “saw 20 FBI agents and SWAT team members show up at Mark Houck’s home and arrest him before his wife and 7 children, even though he had indicated that he would be happy to surrender himself.”

“And for what was he detained?” His son, 12, and him were praying outside of an abortion facility. “Some guy started screaming at his son in the face. He did what any father would do, defended his child.”

“The FBI did retract – thank God – the Richmond Catholic memo, but they refused to tell Congress who drafted it and who authorized it. When Mr. Houck finally got his day in the courtroom, he had been acquitted.

“American speech has been censored.” Parents are referred to as terrorists. Jordan continued, “Catholics are called extremists.”

A former FBI agent released a memo in January entitled, “Interest by Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremists on Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Presents New Mitigation Options.”

“In making this assessment, FBI Richmond relied on the key assumption that [racially or ethnically motivated extremists] will continue to find [radical-traditionalist Catholic or RTC] ideology attractive and will continue to attempt to connect with RTC adherents, both virtually via social media and in-person at places of worship,” the document read.

RTCs tend to reject the Second Vatican Council as a valid church body, disdain most popes who have been elected since Vatican II (especially Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II), and adhere to antisemitic and anti-immigrant ideologies, including anti-LGBTQ and anti-white supremacist ones. Radical-traditionalist Catholics compose a small minority of overall Roman Catholic adherents and are separate and distinct from ‘traditionalist Catholics’ who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings and traditions, without the more extremist ideological beliefs and violent rhetoric.”

In their assessment, the document used Southern Poverty Law Center as a primary resource. The document stated that nine “RTC Hate Groups” were operating in America by 2021, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The pressure group was criticized earlier for listing conservative non-profits such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American College of Pediatricians and other groups like the KKK or the Nation of Islam on its “hate group” list.

During his first statement, Director Wray emphasized the bipartisan goal that the agency has to keep the United States safe.

The FBI director spoke of the impact and breadth of the daily work that the F.B.I.’s 38,000 staff members are doing. He referred to ongoing missions against drug trafficking and Chinese intelligence espionage. Because the work that the F.B.I.’s men and women do to protect the American people goes way beyond the one or two investigations that seem to grab all the headlines. The work that the men and women of the F.B.I.