by Emily Mangiaracina, LifeSite News:
Virginia (LifeSiteNews) — Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election, defended the FBI’s monitoring of Latin Mass Catholics, according to a Sunday report.
Former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin released a bombshell memo in February from the agency’s Richmond, Virginia, office asserting that “violent extremists” were taking an interest in “Radical Traditionalist Catholic (RTC) Ideology” and that this presented “new opportunities for threat mitigation” via undercover sources.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Earlier this month, the FBI admitted to U.S. Congressman Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, that it had already relied on at least one undercover employee to produce its analysis.
In a statement to WSET-TV, a Virginia-based television station, Kaine framed the FBI’s intent as preventing “violent extremists” from targeting “radical traditionalist Catholics” for recruitment.
“We’ve done the same thing for years working in tandem with mosques because there have been groups that have tried to target or radicalize, especially young people,” Kaine, a self-professed Catholic, said.
Kaine suggested that backlash to the report was due to a “big misunderstanding that resulted from vague wording,” according to WSET-TV, and said the “key” to avoiding this in the future is “communication.”
“If the FBI has a concern like that, then go to the church leaders and say ‘Hey look, we have a concern and we don’t want your members to get unwittingly caught up in something’,” he added.
The Virginia news outlet shared that after “clarifying the matter with the FBI,” Kaine “said he helped connect Bishops with the FBI so they could further discuss these concerns with transparency.”
The FBI had disclosed to Jordan earlier this month that the Bureau had planned to contact “mainline Catholic parishes” and local “diocesan leadership,” which includes bishops, to cultivate sources to report on “suspicious activity.”
Both the original leaked FBI memo and the follow-up revelations to the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary were condemned by a slew of conservatives as anti-constitutional for appearing to target certain Catholics for their religious beliefs.
