SPLC Hate Map Under Fire After FBI Used It: Catholic Journalist Warns of Plan 'to Silence People'

“First of all, the SPLC, you have to understand, is probably one of the most evil groups in America. They’ve become a money-making machine and they’ve become an absolute Marxist, anarchist organization.”

CBN.com

May 15, 2023

SPLC Hate Map Under Fire After FBI Used It: Catholic Journalist Warns of Plan ‘to Silence People’

A Catholic journalist is warning that the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently took a foreboding step that should alarm conservative believers. It turns out the FBI actually cited the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in a memo targeting traditionalist Catholics who follow the church’s teachings on marriage and who celebrate the Latin Mass. And critics say the SPLC’s far-left definition of hate groups is the real problem.

The memo – which was later withdrawn – talked of tracking interactions between so-called “radical-traditionalist Catholics” (RTC) and white nationalist groups, according to the online publication The Hill. It also proposed asking church leaders to spot “warning signs” of radicalization. The memo cited the SPLC in a list of nine Catholic organizations as “Defined RTC Hate Groups in the United States.”

As CBN News reported in February, the internal memo from the FBI’s Richmond office was rescinded by the agency after whistleblower Kyle Seraphin published it on UncoverDC.com on Feb. 8. The bureau’s national office said at the time the memo “does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI” and vowed to “conduct a review of the basis for the document.”

During a recent interview with the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, Michael J. Matt, editor of the Catholic newspaper The Remnant and producer of Remnant TV in Forest Lake, Minnesota, said, “I have this suspicion that the SPLC was just laying the groundwork so that when the government gets far enough to the Left, they can start using these resources like the hate map to silence people.”

Matt told the outlet the SPLC brands Catholics “extremists” if they “still accept traditional church teaching on faith and morals,” describing Vatican II as an “updating of the church’s moral teachings, even though the teachings of the church haven’t actually changed at all.”

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