The FBI’s Richmond office did not just write a memo tying “radical-traditionalist Catholics” to violent extremism. Agents also built a presentation that put the Traditional Latin Mass, “conservative family values/roles,” and a “rejection of modernity” on a slide describing the “Core Ideology and Beliefs” of traditionalist Catholics, treating ordinary religious practice as a marker of potential radicalization.
Another slide went further, listing “hardline positions on abortion, LGBT matters, interreligious dialogue” among the characteristics of what the FBI called “Radical-Traditionalist Catholicism.” The presentation was included in a massive Justice Department report released by the Trump administration on the FBI’s now-infamous 2023 Richmond Catholic memo. The report was produced by a Trump administration working group reviewing Biden-era conduct, a fact critics will note, but the underlying documents, including the FBI’s own slides and internal emails, speak for themselves.
Eric Schmitz, Director of Coalitions for Speaker Johnson, who said he attends the Traditional Latin Mass himself, posted several of the slides and called them “UNREAL.”
It’s UNREAL that these slides are from an actual FBI report.
Traditional Latin Mass. Conservative family values. Opposition to abortion. “Rejection of modernity.”
As a Catholic who attends the TLM, it’s disturbing to see ordinary Catholic beliefs and practices presented in this… https://t.co/TBqVF4bzrU pic.twitter.com/NxKrcbxNuw
— Eric Schmitz (@EricSchmitz1) August 29, 2026
The 210-page report from DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group found the Richmond Field Office began with one legitimate criminal investigation: a man who had moved from New York to Virginia, posted violent and racially motivated content online, and eventually began attending a chapel run by the Society of St. Pius X. He was ultimately imprisoned on vandalism and weapons charges. From there, agents expanded their investigation to an SSPX-affiliated priest and then to a second priest connected to the SSPX Resistance, a breakaway group the FBI alleged had neo-Nazi sympathies.
That predicate became the basis for a much broader theory connecting traditionalist Catholicism with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists. The problem was finding evidence for it. Investigators eventually found only two additional cases, one involving a dead person, and nothing establishing a broader link between Catholics or non-mainstream Catholic groups and domestic extremism.
The January 2023 memo suggested the FBI develop “tripwires” and sources around traditionalist Catholic churches. It listed churches and a seminary near Richmond and proposed outreach to church leaders, including the Diocese of Richmond, to help identify signs of radicalization.
Agents also investigated two priests. According to DOJ, the FBI examined their travel and communications, pulled flight and credit card information on one priest, watched him at Boston Logan International Airport and followed him from the airport. Neither priest was ultimately linked to criminal activity or violent extremism.
Internal FBI officials were raising serious objections almost immediately after the memo leaked in February 2023. The bureau’s Counterterrorism Division said it did not find a “significant linkage” between violent extremists and the Catholic ideology described in the Richmond memo.
“Another internal review concluded the memo “almost explicitly states that RTC ideology is violent and extremist without offering any evidence” to support that claim.”
Yet the Richmond office kept working on the project even after FBI leadership ordered the memo removed.
“More than a month later, one analyst wrote that he had spent the day “tinkering with the DP,” referring to the Domain Perspective.”
And the consequences inside the Biden-era FBI were minimal. An internal review found employees lacked “professional judgment” and failed to follow FBI standards, but the personnel involved were largely admonished and ordered to undergo additional training. Several later received positive performance reviews ranging from “Consistent” to “Exemplary,” while Richmond leadership defended them.
The Trump administration says that has now changed. DOJ said the FBI personnel responsible for creating the memo have been terminated.
“The DOJ Weaponization Working Group’s report concluded bluntly: “History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office to uphold” its responsibility to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights.”
The slides make it difficult to argue DOJ is exaggerating the problem. The FBI was looking at the Latin Mass, conservative family roles, abortion, and other religious and political beliefs while trying to build an extremism theory it ultimately could not substantiate.
That wasn’t an outside group’s characterization of what the FBI was doing. It was right there in the FBI’s own PowerPoint.
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