Mike and Kitty Burke are devout Roman Catholics who live in Massachusetts. They attend Mass regularly and even work as musicians for local churches. So, as a result of their Christian faith, they decided to become foster parents, and made their application.

The Burkes received glowing reviews and high marks from the state agents who assessed their fitness to foster a child. However, Massachusetts turned down their application. Why? The state claimed their “faith is not supportive and neither are they” of transgender medical procedures for children.

Never mind that the odds of this happening are quite small. Never mind that about 19% of the children in the Massachusetts foster-care system are never placed with a family. Apparently in Massachusetts the LGBTQ dogma reigns über alles.

However, Mike and Kitty Burke are not leaving without a fight. They filed suit against the State of Massachusetts on August 8, with the assistance of the Becket Law legal aid group. And they have a good case: two years ago the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Catholic Social Services in Fulton v. Philadelphia when the city tried to bar the group from placing children due to its religious beliefs.

The FBI Has Been Targeting Catholics

In January, former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin leaked a dossier revealing that the Richmond, VA, field office was targeting “radical traditional” Catholics as possibly having ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement.” Guess who instigated that? The Department of Justice. And where did the DOJ find their information? The Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of alleged “hate groups.”

What a shocker.

Tenor.com. 

Seraphin told the New York Post:

As a Catholic and a former Agent, it was yet another example of the FBI trying to pick winners and losers in an arena it is forbidden to engage in. It also shows how woefully out of touch the FBI’s intel cadre are compared to regular people who never consider this type of connection between Catholics and white supremacists remotely fathomable.

However, the left-leaning Religious News Service excused the FBI’s actions, claiming that “The FBI is worried violent extremists will exploit and recruit radical-traditionalist Catholics.” Kathleen McChesney, who formerly held high rank in the FBI before leaving to work for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, pooh-poohed the notion that the FBI was anti-Catholic:

The vast majority of FBI Agents over time have been Catholic. Recruitment was high at Canisius, Seton Hall and other Catholic colleges. 

“Over time” the vast majority of FBI agents may have been Catholic. But what about the current crop? Are they practicing Catholics, or have they lapsed? Besides, not everyone who attends a religious college is an adherent of that school’s faith, either. McChesney must think we’re chumbolones to accept those explanations.

FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed he was “aghast” when he heard of the dossier, and “ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems.” He also insisted that the memo was part of the Richmond office alone, and not the FBI as a whole.

Well, that was a lie. The House Judiciary Committee revealed that multiple FBI field offices are targeting traditional Catholics:

Subpoenaed document reveals that the FBI Richmond Field Office coordinated with MULTIPLE field offices across the country to produce a memo targeting traditional Catholics as domestic terrorists Wray previously said the actions were limited to “a single field office.”

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1689321215641493518?s=20

Wray Gets Exposed

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), being the pugilistic bulldog he is, shared with the Wall Street Journal the new information that not only did the Richmond field office target traditional Catholics, but offices in Portland, OR, and Los Angeles were doing likewise. He and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) co-authored a letter they sent to Wray, asking him to appear before the Judiciary Committee to amend his comments:

This revelation raises the question of why you redacted this information in previous versions of the document you produced to the Committee. This new information raises additional concerns about the accuracy, completeness, and truthfulness of your testimony.

Wray could obfuscate, excuse, and squirm all he wanted as he appeared before the committee on Thursday, but the damage has been done. Traditional Catholics are now wary of federal government.

It’s Not Just Catholics Who Should Be Concerned

Religious people who aren’t Catholic shouldn’t think they’ve dodged the government bullet, however. Roman Catholics are the single largest Christian denomination in the United States, so they present the biggest target. But that doesn’t mean the government, armed with LGBTQ dogma, won’t aim their sights at other churches or faiths.

As a lifelong member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, I worry when Catholics have their religious freedoms targeted. We share the same social convictions as our Catholic brethren: we are pro-life, support traditional marriage, regard the practice of homosexuality as a sin, and deny gay marriages in our churches. Nor do we ordain women as clergy. (Please don’t confuse us with the faux-Lutherans of the “Sparkle Creed,” either.)

So even though LCMS Christians may not be on the FBI radar, they are also targets for LGBTQ activists — as are all practitioners of traditional faith.

British political commentator Douglas Murray is a gay atheist who still admires Christianity, particularly for the way it shaped Western culture.  As Murray wrote in the New York Post:

Whether you are a Christian or not, there is no point denying that Christian ethics underpinned the foundation of this country and of the wider West.

He noted that the current zeitgeist is in the process of eliminating Christianity:

The Founding Fathers were careful to keep religion out of the political realm.

They knew from Europe what happened if you didn’t.

But they certainly didn’t believe in banishing faith altogether.

Or launch a new religion and impose that on the population.

Yet this is precisely what our own era is trying to do. And from the very highest quarters in the land.

It doesn’t matter if one is Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox — or an Orthodox Jew or Muslim. If practitioners of a faith fly in the face of progressive dogma, they will be seen as enemies of the state by radicals and aided by allies in the federal government.

Featured image: “Saint Patrick Catholic Church (Junction City, Ohio) – stained glass, Saint Patrick – detail” by Nheyob is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped.