Updated 17:30 EST

The FBI “abused its counterterrorism tools to target traditional Catholic Americans as potential domestic terrorists,” and the agency had “no legitimate basis” to insert itself into Catholic churches, a new House committee report shows.

As part of its investigation into Catholics, the FBI interviewed a priest and choir director, according to detailed findings released Monday by the House Judiciary Committee and its select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. 

The report is the latest in a nearly year-long investigation into the “weaponization” of the FBI against certain Catholics, which was exposed in February with a leaked memo from the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, field office. The FBI’s memo is “a startling reminder that Americans’ civil liberties and core Constitutional rights must be vigorously guarded against government overreach,” the subcommittee said, including this case of “an overzealous law enforcement agency,” the report notes.

“While the FBI claims it ‘does not categorize investigations as domestic terrorism based on the religious beliefs—to include Catholicism—of the subject involved,’ an FBI-wide memorandum originating from the FBI’s Richmond Field Office did just that,” the report said. 

“Under the guise of tackling the threat of domestic terrorism, the memorandum painted so-called certain ‘radical-traditionalist Catholics’ (RTCs) as violent extremists and proposed opportunities for the FBI to infiltrate Catholic churches as a form of ‘threat mitigation,’” the report states.

Senate Republicans grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray about the memo during a Senate Judiciary Heating on Tuesday, asking whether there is “systemic bigotry against Catholics in the FBI?” Mr. Wray maintained that the FBI does not conduct investigations based on religion, which the agency echoed in statements to the Sun.

The memo began, as the Sun reported at the time, with a redacted January FBI memo that was leaked in February, linking “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” to individuals who hold “radical-traditionalist Catholic” beliefs. The memo defines “radical-traditionalist Catholics” as those who reject the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, including its allowance of holding Mass in languages beside Latin. 

The traditional Latin Mass is thriving, a 2022 New York Times report found, and is offered in at least 600 venues in America — more than any other country. The FBI, according to the House report, noted the increase and “underscored the political nature of its actions” by writing in the memo that interest in “radical-traditional Catholicism” is likely to “increase over the next 12 or 24 months in the run-up to the next general election cycle.”

Following the leak and national outrage over the memo, as the Sun reported, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, testified that the memo was a “single product by a single field office” before evidence emerged this summer that several field offices were involved. 

“Well, first they told us it was just one field office, the Richmond field office, then we learned that, oh no, no, it was bigger than that, it was multiple field offices involved in this attack on pro-life Catholics,” the committee’s chairman, Representative Jim Jordan, said on Fox News Monday night, adding the committee’s new findings include that the FBI was talking to a priest and choir director as part of the agency’s investigation.

“Now, remember the larger context,” Mr. Jordan said. “This is the same FBI that spied on President Trump’s campaign, this is the same FBI that censored Americans, this is the same FBI on this particular issue that went to Mark Houck’s home — a pro-life Catholic — arrested him in his home in front of his wife and seven children,” he noted, adding that the report spells out how “the FBI wasn’t being square with us.” 

“It’s this whole mindset, if you’re pro-life, if you’re a traditional Catholic, somehow you’re radical, somehow you’re an extremist,” Mr. Jordan said. “Remember, this is part of the justice department that said if you’re a mom or dad going to a school board meeting, you’re an extremist as well.” 

The report details how the FBI memo “cited biased and partisan sources,” including the Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies the term “Christian identity” as a hate group.

“The SPLC routinely maligns several mainstream conservative and religious organizations as ‘hate’ groups, simply because the SPLC disagrees with their views,” the report reads. “The fact that the FBI would accept and circulate the SPLC’s partisan spin is highly concerning and undercuts the FBI’s assertion that it is unbiased and politically neutral.”

The FBI tells the Sun that the agency is “committed to upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans, and we do not conduct investigations based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including religious practices.”

“Any characterization that the FBI is targeting Catholics is false,” the agency says, noting that the topic also came up in Mr. Wray’s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony on Tuesday.

“The interviews of the priest and choir director highlighted by the committee’s report were conducted by FBI Richmond during an investigation of an individual threatening violence who has since been arrested,” the FBI tells the Sun. The interviews were not conducted for the domain perspective as characterized by the report.”

The FBI also notes that the memo was “quickly removed” and that “an internal review conducted by the FBI found no malicious intent to target Catholics or members of any other religious faith and did not identify any investigative steps taken as a result of the product.”

The FBI’s investigations center around “violence, threats of violence, and violations of federal law,” the agency adds. 

“We have provided hundreds of pages of documents and briefings to the Committee to address our findings and the numerous actions we are taking to address identified shortcomings,” the FBI tells the Sun.