In the mid-1850s a virulently anti-Catholic political grouping referring to itself as the Know Nothing Party (because they were told if asked about the party not to say anything, like Fight Club) came to relative prominence to oppose what they fancifully saw as an international papist conspiracy to subvert American institutions. If only.

Today that mantle of ignorance has been passed on to the once noble FBI, an organization that has decided to label traditional Catholics as radical extremists and even potential terrorists. As the Bureau was heretofore known as a redoubt of donkey brave Irish Catholic cops, it is an unfortunate turn of events.

Twenty Republican state AGs want info on this blatant effort to subvert freedom of worship. They wrote to AG Merrick Garland to “desist from investigating and surveilling Americans who have done nothing more than exercise their natural and constitutional right to practice their religion in a manner of their choosing” and “reveal to the American public the extent to which they have engaged in such activities…Anti-Catholic bigotry appears to be festering in the FBI, and the Bureau is treating Catholics as potential terrorists because of their beliefs.

“The targeting of Catholics for treatment as ‘violent extremists’ because of the language in which they pray or because of the beliefs to which they subscribe is unacceptable, unconstitutional, and deeply un-American,” they said. Good show AGs

Also from the letter, “Among those beliefs which distinguish the bad Catholics from the good ones are a preference for ‘the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings,’ and adherence to traditional Catholic teachings on sex and marriage (which the FBI glibly describes as ‘anti-LGBTQ.’” The FBI also actually wanted moles to infiltrate churches and report back on parishioners.

“In other words,” the AGs write, “the memorandum proposes recruiting Catholics to enter a sacred house of worship, talk to their fellow Catholics, and report those conversations back to the FBI so that the federal government can keep tabs on the bad Catholics.”

And the source intel on these charges against Catholics? The hard left Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Bureau can’t put a foot right these days. Buying Dem propaganda on Trump, trying to sink Trump in 2016, targeting conservative parents at school board meetings, and now this. It has gone from the nation’s premier law enforcement organization to a bully boy gang for radical leftists in less than a generation.

If a Republican wins in 2024 then a thorough cleaning at the Bureau needs to begin. The current Republican House has started the process. But until Republicans control the DOJ and thus the FBI they will be fought at every turn by entrenched leftist interests in the FBI. It’s time to return the FBI to its appointed task: non-partisan, non-ideological law enforcement.