The Biden FBI spied on priests for opposing abortion and defending the Latin Mass.
A new government report just confirmed the spying went far beyond what anyone admitted.
The FBI boss behind that operation just landed one of Virginia's most powerful jobs.
FBI's Richmond Memo Called Opposing Abortion a Warning Sign of Extremism
In January 2023, the FBI's Richmond field office wrote a memo warning about "radical traditionalist Catholics."
The bureau defined that label for agents across the country.
A radical traditionalist Catholic, according to the FBI, was someone who supported the Latin Mass and "conservative family values."
It also meant holding conservative views on "abortion rights, immigration, affirmative action, and LGBTQ protections."
Translation: if you're pro-life, you made the watchlist.
The FBI leaned on the Southern Poverty Law Center to build that profile.
One agent later admitted the bureau's "overreliance on the SPLC for hate designation" was "problematic."
That's federal law enforcement speak for we knew this was garbage and used it anyway.
The memo wasn't some hypothetical exercise, either.
Agents pulled credit card records, phone records, and flight records on Catholic priests.
One priest got flagged for a "secondary" screening at Boston Logan International Airport.
Agents followed him from the airport to the home he visited, then kept watching the house.
Customs and Border Protection searched his phone twice.
A foreign intelligence service even fed the FBI material on his church.
Two years later, the Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group finally admitted the truth.
Investigators found "nothing linking Catholics or groups not in full communion with the Catholic Church to domestic extremism."
They called the whole operation a "grave failure of responsibility."
Stanley Meador Ran the Richmond Memo and Just Got Promoted
He ran the FBI's Richmond field office when the memo went out.
Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray called himself "aghast" once Congress found out.
Attorney General Merrick Garland told senators the memo was "appalling."
When an analyst apologized to him for writing the memo, Meador brushed the whole thing off.
"No apology needed," Meador wrote back, "I'm glad you are on the team and thankful for your commitment."
Then he added the line that should end a career: "Will make for a great chapter in your memoirs some day!"
A federal investigation into targeting Catholic priests was a punchline to him, not a scandal.
The FBI gave the analysts who wrote the memo glowing performance reviews and raises for their work.
FBI Director Kash Patel finally fired them this year, years after the damage was done.
Meador never faced any of that.
Governor Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, hired him as Virginia's secretary of public safety and homeland security the moment she took office.
He now oversees roughly ten state agencies, including the ones that run Virginia's prisons.
Spanberger just tapped him again, this time to co-chair her new prison reform council.
CatholicVote's national political director didn't mince words about what that appointment signals.
He called it "an endorsement" of the memo, and proof that violating Catholics' civil rights is "a pathway to advancement" in Spanberger's Virginia.
Grassley Just Caught the FBI Hiding Thirteen More Anti-Catholic Documents
This didn't happen because one field office had a bad week.
The FBI has done this before, going back to agents wiretapping churches and civil rights leaders under COINTELPRO decades ago.
Congress shut that program down and swore it would never happen again.
Senator Chuck Grassley's investigators just found thirteen more anti-Catholic FBI documents that were never disclosed, sent to more than a thousand agents nationwide.
Wray told Congress under oath that Richmond produced "a single product."
Grassley's findings say that was false.
Here's what fires me up about this story – the man who joked about a memoir chapter is now running Virginia's prison reform council.
Pro-life Americans didn't do anything wrong here.
They went to Mass, said the rosary, and voted their conscience – and the federal government treated that like a terror cell.
Patel's firings and the DOJ report itself prove the truth eventually gets out, even against an agency this size.
But Spanberger just showed every FBI agent watching that spying on praying Catholics won't end a career in Virginia.
It might just get you promoted.
Sources:
- Gary Bauer, "Joe Biden Rewarded FBI Agents Who Spied on Pro-Life Catholics," LifeNews, September 1, 2026.
- Tyler O'Neil, "FBI Followed Catholic Priests, Worked With Foreign Intelligence, Continued Richmond Memo Work After Removal Order," The Daily Signal, August 28, 2026.
- Daniel Payne, "Department of Justice Report Says FBI's 2023 Richmond Memo Was Grave Failure of Responsibility," National Catholic Register/EWTN News, August 28, 2026.
- Chuck Grassley, "Grassley Oversight Unveils Disturbing Extent of FBI's Anti-Catholic Bias," U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, June 3, 2025.
- Jessica Schwalb, "Moderate Gov Abigail Spanberger Taps Former FBI Official Behind Retracted Biden-Era Memo Targeting Catholics as Terror Threat to Lead Prison Reform Council," Washington Free Beacon, July 13, 2026.
- Leif Le Mahieu, "FBI Official Now Working For Spanberger Said Anti-Catholic Memo Would Be Great For Memoir," The Daily Wire, April 30, 2026.
