FBI Targets Rad Trads

In Catholic circles, the people described in a recent FBI bulletin are known as Rad-Trads; the FBI doc calls them RTC for Radical-Traditionalist Catholic. I find it more than a little disturbing that the FBI has smeared the whole lot of them as white supremacist, LGBTQ-phobic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, anti-abortion, violent extremists. I also find it disturbing that the FBI would actually use the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a source for this conclusion. N.b., the FBI’s other two sources – Salon and The Atlantic – are also aligned with the Progressive-Democrat team.

I googled the groups on the list and took screenshots at their websites to give you a peak into the shady world of Catholic Hate. /sarc

Catholic Apologetics International: This group has one employee, the founder Robert Sungenis, and annual revenue of $92,728.00. Its website @ https://www.catholicintl.com/ covers issues like Catholic Feast Days, Catholic Cuisine, and Popular myths about guardian angels.

Catholic Family News/Catholic Family Ministries: CFN is a Traditionalist monthly publication of Catholic Family Ministries. It’s Editor-in-Chief, Brian McCall, says, “The newspaper will follow the direction (founder John Vennari) set for decades and that direction does not and will not involve bigotry or injustice against any people on the grounds of race or ethnicity.” Its website @ https://catholicfamilynews.com/ says, “Catholic Family News is dedicated to upholding the Traditional Latin Mass, the Anti-Modernist measures of Pope St. Pius X, the Message of Our Lady of Fatima, the Social Kingship of Christ, and the richness, beauty, and holiness of ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3).” In 2019, the group held a conference called, “Fifty Years of Problems with the New Mass.”

Christ Or Chaos: This publication appears to be entirely the work of Catholic writer and speaker, Dr. Thomas A. Droleskey. Formerly an adjunct professor of political science, he says he founded the printed publication in 1996, because he couldn’t get his articles published anywhere else. He switched from print to digital in 2004 @ http://www.christorchaos.com/. The site says, “Christ or Chaos has been dedicated from its outset to the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the restoration of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition as the fruit of the end of the era of apostasy and betrayal in which we find ourselves at the present time. … Christorchaos.com does not elicit and will not publish reader comments.”

Culture Wars/Fidelity Press: E. Michael Jones, Ph.D., and like-minded Catholics document “the sad story of the subversion of the Catholic faith at the hands of fellow Catholics in the years following the Second Vatican Council.” Their website @ https://www.fidelitypress.org/ offers print, audio, and electronic books by Jones and others, as well as what I believe is a print magazine. This is the only one of the SPLC-designated Catholic “hate groups” that I found even mentioned Jews. I skimmed some of the materials; it appears to me as if the Jews that Jones despises are the Anti-Zionist-Progressive-Marxist variety who promote abortion.

Fatima Crusader/International Fatima Rosary Crusade: The International Fatima Rosary Crusade (IFRC) is an association of Catholic priests and lay people dedicated to promoting the messages given by Our Lady at Fatima. Their site @ https://fatima.org/crusader-magazine/ promotes The Fatima Crusader magazine, which “is wholly dedicated to promoting devotion to and knowledge of the Message of Our Lady of Fatima.” The site also offers articles, videos, and podcasts, of which I included a representative selection in the graphic above.

In the Spirit of Chartres: This non-profit corporation exists to promote the traditional Latin Mass and to revive and restore traditional Catholicism by educating Catholics and non-Catholics alike to the centuries-old traditional Church teachings. The website @ https://isoc.ws/ offers the materials noted in the banner above.

The Remnant: Claiming to be “the oldest traditional Catholic newspaper in the world”, The Remnant was founded in 1967 by Walter Matt and is now edited by his son, Michael J. Matt. The website is available @ https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php, which also offers video, books and merch.

Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary: Founded by Leonard Feeney and Catherine Clarke in 1945, this community has a long history of disobedience to Catholic authority. In 1949, Feeney was booted out of the Jesuits, then had his priestly faculties suspended. Even worse, despite having no authorization to celebrate the Holy Sacraments, he continued to do so. In 1953, the Holy See excommunicated him for persistent disobedience to Church authority. Their website is @ https://catholicism.org/aboutushtm.

Like the other groups on this page, they say they are dedicated to combating the liberalizing of Catholic dogma, but I seriously can’t figure out what these people think they’re doing. Their founder was excommunicated by a pre-Vatican II pope, they are forbidden to call themselves “Catholic”, and real priests are forbidden to say Mass at any of their facilities!

Tradition in Action: “TIA defends the Catholic Church and fights for the restoration of a Christian Civilization.” Their website @ https://www.traditioninaction.org/. Like the rest, they offer articles, books, book and movie reviews, etc. They don’t like The Chosen, so :-P“““ from me!

SUMMARY: With the exception of SIHM who are just way off the reservation, I celebrate and share these groups’ commitment to traditional Catholicism in all its truth and beauty. However, I firmly reject the Rad-Trad position that Vatican II was an illegitimate council and that every pope since then has been illegitimate. And, while I am not a huge fan of Pope Francis, I accept that he was canonically elected and that, at least since the death of Pope Benedict XVI, he is the legitimate and only Catholic pope.

But there is just no way these are seditious hate groups. With just an hour or two of internet searching, I found out they’re not only small, fringe-y, and decidedly non-violent, but also that the ONLY axes they really have to grind are with regard to internal RCC affairs. If the “Oh Noes!” bulletin weren’t written by and for the FBI, I’d just laugh. But since it is by and for the FBI, I’m not laughing. At all.

• https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-fbi-used-discredited-splc-to-paint-catholics-as-extremists-in-internal-report
• https://adflegal.org/setting-the-record-straight
• https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/salon/
• https://www.allsides.com/news-source/atlantic
• https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/radical-traditional-catholicism
• https://www.dandb.com/businessdirectory/catholicapologeticsintl-greencastle-pa-15756415.html
• https://www.catholicintl.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Family_News
• https://www.scribd.com/document/257018638/The-International-Fatima-Rosary-Crusade#
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remnant_(newspaper)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaves_of_the_Immaculate_Heart_of_Mary
• https://www.simchafisher.com/2019/01/08/nh-schismatics-slaves-of-the-immaculate-heart-of-mary-can-no-longer-offer-sacraments/