Catholic and SPLC lawyer talk:
Catholic: Surely, you can see the difference between holding a religious belief and threatening society.
SPLC: Not so sure what you mean.
Catholic: I’m referring to an unconfirmed and hopefully untrue report in the National Review online entitled “FBI Internal Memo Warns against ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology.’" The report centers on a memo from the FBI’s Richmond field office. * Some whistleblower leaked the memo yesterday. I wasn’t really familiar with the term “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology,” but the leaked report brought it to my attention and made me wonder about the ever-increasing intrusive nature of a government influenced by people who suppress those whose ideas they don’t like. Aren’t people supposed to be allowed to believe as they wish without government interference?
SPLC: Yes. But why bring this up? End of story, really. Did the FBI act on this memo? Is it persecuting or spying on Catholics?
Catholic: I’m mentioning this to you because the report in the National Review says that the FBI office wrote the memo on the basis of information provided by the SPLC. Yeah, the very Southern Poverty Law Center for which you work. If it’s true, I have to ask, “Are you guys the new KKK? Is there some systemic anti-Catholicism running the SPLC amuck?
SPLC: No. I can assure you that I am not anti-spi, anti-Catholic.
Catholic: Okay. I’ll trust you on that. Was that an unconscious “anti-spic” that popped into the conversation? Just asking. I’ll go on.
SPLC: I was just talking too fast. It was a slip of the tongue. I’m DEFINITELY NOT anti-Catholic. I have friends who are Catholic, neighbors. I think John in our International Law Department is Catholic. But before you go about casting accusations, maybe you should look into the RTC people’s actions. Maybe there are Catholics in the RTC movement who want to do harm.
Catholic: By "harm" you mean “beliefs” you do not like, don’t you? I haven’t seen any actions to speak of. But I’ll give you the background that I just learned from reading the article. It says that RTC ideology is anti-immigrant, anti-semite, anti-alphabet, and white supremacist. It also says that a RTC differs from traditional traditionalist belief, which has no tendency to speak violent rhetoric.
SPLC: Well, you know just about every religion has its extremists. And we all know where extremism ends.
Catholic: Interesting comment. I’ll get around to “where extremism ends” in a sec. So, is it just a matter that the SPLC seems to place all conservative groups in the category of dangerous radical terrorists, as it did for the pro-Life Alliance Defending Freedom and the American College of Pediatricians, you know, those labeled as “hate groups” by the SPLC? I saw an online response by the American College of Pediatricians that labels the SPLC a hate group for “falsely” claiming that ACPeds is anti-LGBTQ. **
SPLC: Well, ACPeds is anti-LGBTQ.
Catholic: Not according to the response. I really am unfamiliar the motivation, but I believe that some doctors decided that they had research to support their position. Of course, nowadays, that really doesn't matter. We saw that with Twitter execs shutting down doctors over Covid treatments. Anyway, pediatric organization says that children of same-sex parents don’t generally fare as well in society as children of heterosexual couples. I will admit that they do not include references to specific studies in their response, but refer only to “facts,” such as “Science documents significant physical and psychological illness among youth and adults with gender incongruence, even among LGBT-affirming societies.” I would, to give the SPLC some leeway, have to check out that research before I accept it, but on the surface, it doesn’t seem to make ACPeds anti-LGBTQ. Can't doctors express concerns? Their response seems to imply a concern for the well being of children. And I’ll grant that gay-adoption is relatively new in American society, so it might even be too early for any such studies to hold much validity. In fact, there might be many instances of gay adoption that have worked out just fine for both parents and children. Not everyone responds the same way to social circumstances. But putting that aside, the ACPeds doesn’t seem to be advocating hate. And I have to say I don’t know that those adherents of RTC aren’t similarly mislabeled as members of “hate groups” because they want their Latin Mass back in the churches.
SPLC: No, no, it’s more than that. RTC fosters hate and extremism.
Catholic: Remember that you just said we all know where extremism ends? You mean the way the SPLC labeled the pro-Life Family Research Council a “hate group” that subsequently motivated someone to attack its headquarters, resulting in injury? Remember? You guys labeled the pro-Life group as a hate group, and then it was attacked. Shouldn’t you be labeled a member of a hate group, one that hates all conservative causes and one whose product is extremist action? Hey, that guy who attacked the Family Research Council headquarters said he did so because he saw that SPLC labeled it as a hate group. And didn’t you have to pay a $3,375 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit because you labeled a group as anti-Muslim? Look, here’s the SPLC statement: “The Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong to include Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation in our Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.” Don’t you guys jump to conclusions based on your own extreme ideology that sees conservatism and traditionalism as inherently evil?
SPLC: Well, those two instances were a mistake.
Catholic: Mistake? You’re lawyers; yet, you go about making accusations without substantiation? And one of those accusations, the one about RTC, ended up being the basis of an FBI memo. What is this, a manifestation of the “Russian Collusion” syndrome? Didn’t you also attack Ben Carson? Ben Carson! Your labeling led to your acknowledgement of his contributions to the medical field! But only after the attack. Was there something in his saving children's lives that infuriated you, or was it his political affiliation with the Trump Administration?
Maybe there are extremists in RTC. I don’t know. Maybe there are extremists in ACPeds. I just know that your organization jumps to unsubstantiated conclusions, and now the government has used your opinions in authorizing a document. That makes you a rather powerful influence on the Feds. This all reminds me of the letter from the school board association that got the AG to write a memo to field offices, labeling parents “terrorists” when they express their concerns at school board meetings. It reminds me of your newsletter in which your editor called a guy who ran a plane into an IRS building a conservative when he was, in fact, not one.
SPLC: All that shouting! Anyone could see the extremists at the school board meetings. And they were against non-binary people.
Catholic: Really. Or were they against an agenda of indoctrination that had biological boys peeing in girls' restrooms? Tough to express an opinion when a school board refuses to listen or to hear complaints. Really tough to be a father whose daughter was sexually assaulted in a girls’ bathroom when a biological male claiming to be “female” was given permission to use that restroom by an administration and school board. Tell me, was he an extremist or a guy whose family was terribly wronged? Was his motivation anti-trans or pro common sense? So, do you male SPLC lawyers use urinals in the ladies’ room to show how liberated you are? Tell me that your women lawyers are comfortable with that. And if they aren’t, do you label them as anti-trans? Do you sue them? Fire them? Ostracize them?
SPLC: Maybe we made a few mistakes, but generally we do good work representing the poor.
Catholic: Look, when a well-funded organization labels people as haters without substantiation in a society interconnected by social media, that labeling is a wildfire that boils the blood of actual extremists like the guy who attacked the FRC headquarters because of your accusation. And that makes me think that if supposedly educated lawyers can foster hate under the guise of being anti-hate, that there’s little hope for humanity. There isn’t any progress. Every generation undergoes the same battle between those who would preserve the traditions of the previous generation and those who would throw those same traditions out the window. Every generation struggles to balance the desire to change and the desire to remain the same.
Am I in favor of Catholics returning to the Latin Mass? Not really. I had Latin in school, and I find it difficult to follow; I’m constantly trying to translate. But do I understand the movement to preserve tradition? Yes. Catholicism is basically a ritual. A person can go to a Mass on any continent to find the ritual to be the same though now veiled in a country's vernacular. When the Church decided to go to the vernacular, it overturned about 2,000 years of language tradition in that ritual. I remember being in the Dominican Republic and going to a Spanish-language Mass a few years ago. It’s the same Mass, the same ritual, of course, just not in Latin as it would have been before Vatican II. Did I care? Not really. The Mass was the same though the language was different. Did I have trouble following the language. Yes. But if I were a Spanish-speaking Catholic, I would find that Mass to be immediately intelligible. Is it abnormal for RTC people to want a return to a moral and liturgical order they see as part of their religion?
We humans say we like change, but often do not want it because it makes us insecure. We wear tradition the way we wear old comfortable T-shirts, sweatpants, or jeans. Anything new is like getting used to stiff clothing or new stiff shoes.
I don’t think there will be much “human progress.” I think that because your organization, which seemed to have originated in the spirit of helping actually ended up being an organization with an agenda that does at least occasional harm.
Human progress is a myth. I want all people to enjoy their freedoms as long as those freedoms cause no mental or physical injury to others. I realize that that desire is somewhat unattainable. Even like-minded people sometimes bump heads. Certainly, I want a less intrusive government, a government that substantiates a wrongdoing before it labels an action thus or a group as wrongdoers. And I certainly don’t want groups with either an anti-conservative or an anti-liberal agenda making accusations without substantiation when those accusations alone make the government target the innocent.
You want to know why I don’t think there’ll be much human progress? It’s because a group like the SPLC will go about trying to remove the speck in others’ eyes without removing the timber in their own eyes. Yes, I’m pessimistic in that regard. I don’t want extremism from any group, but I also don’t want to see the hypocrisy that occurs when groups that claim to be against extremism inspire extremism in others or are extremists themselves.
SPLC: Yes, but…
Catholic: “Yes, but?” Doesn’t that response in itself support my argument? What is the “but”?
*https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-internal-memo-warns-against-radical-traditionalist-catholic-ideology/
**https://acpeds.org/about/faq/acpeds-responds-to-splc-criticisms
Catholic: Surely, you can see the difference between holding a religious belief and threatening society.
SPLC: Not so sure what you mean.
Catholic: I’m referring to an unconfirmed and hopefully untrue report in the National Review online entitled “FBI Internal Memo Warns against ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology.’" The report centers on a memo from the FBI’s Richmond field office. * Some whistleblower leaked the memo yesterday. I wasn’t really familiar with the term “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology,” but the leaked report brought it to my attention and made me wonder about the ever-increasing intrusive nature of a government influenced by people who suppress those whose ideas they don’t like. Aren’t people supposed to be allowed to believe as they wish without government interference?
SPLC: Yes. But why bring this up? End of story, really. Did the FBI act on this memo? Is it persecuting or spying on Catholics?
Catholic: I’m mentioning this to you because the report in the National Review says that the FBI office wrote the memo on the basis of information provided by the SPLC. Yeah, the very Southern Poverty Law Center for which you work. If it’s true, I have to ask, “Are you guys the new KKK? Is there some systemic anti-Catholicism running the SPLC amuck?
SPLC: No. I can assure you that I am not anti-spi, anti-Catholic.
Catholic: Okay. I’ll trust you on that. Was that an unconscious “anti-spic” that popped into the conversation? Just asking. I’ll go on.
SPLC: I was just talking too fast. It was a slip of the tongue. I’m DEFINITELY NOT anti-Catholic. I have friends who are Catholic, neighbors. I think John in our International Law Department is Catholic. But before you go about casting accusations, maybe you should look into the RTC people’s actions. Maybe there are Catholics in the RTC movement who want to do harm.
Catholic: By "harm" you mean “beliefs” you do not like, don’t you? I haven’t seen any actions to speak of. But I’ll give you the background that I just learned from reading the article. It says that RTC ideology is anti-immigrant, anti-semite, anti-alphabet, and white supremacist. It also says that a RTC differs from traditional traditionalist belief, which has no tendency to speak violent rhetoric.
SPLC: Well, you know just about every religion has its extremists. And we all know where extremism ends.
Catholic: Interesting comment. I’ll get around to “where extremism ends” in a sec. So, is it just a matter that the SPLC seems to place all conservative groups in the category of dangerous radical terrorists, as it did for the pro-Life Alliance Defending Freedom and the American College of Pediatricians, you know, those labeled as “hate groups” by the SPLC? I saw an online response by the American College of Pediatricians that labels the SPLC a hate group for “falsely” claiming that ACPeds is anti-LGBTQ. **
SPLC: Well, ACPeds is anti-LGBTQ.
Catholic: Not according to the response. I really am unfamiliar the motivation, but I believe that some doctors decided that they had research to support their position. Of course, nowadays, that really doesn't matter. We saw that with Twitter execs shutting down doctors over Covid treatments. Anyway, pediatric organization says that children of same-sex parents don’t generally fare as well in society as children of heterosexual couples. I will admit that they do not include references to specific studies in their response, but refer only to “facts,” such as “Science documents significant physical and psychological illness among youth and adults with gender incongruence, even among LGBT-affirming societies.” I would, to give the SPLC some leeway, have to check out that research before I accept it, but on the surface, it doesn’t seem to make ACPeds anti-LGBTQ. Can't doctors express concerns? Their response seems to imply a concern for the well being of children. And I’ll grant that gay-adoption is relatively new in American society, so it might even be too early for any such studies to hold much validity. In fact, there might be many instances of gay adoption that have worked out just fine for both parents and children. Not everyone responds the same way to social circumstances. But putting that aside, the ACPeds doesn’t seem to be advocating hate. And I have to say I don’t know that those adherents of RTC aren’t similarly mislabeled as members of “hate groups” because they want their Latin Mass back in the churches.
SPLC: No, no, it’s more than that. RTC fosters hate and extremism.
Catholic: Remember that you just said we all know where extremism ends? You mean the way the SPLC labeled the pro-Life Family Research Council a “hate group” that subsequently motivated someone to attack its headquarters, resulting in injury? Remember? You guys labeled the pro-Life group as a hate group, and then it was attacked. Shouldn’t you be labeled a member of a hate group, one that hates all conservative causes and one whose product is extremist action? Hey, that guy who attacked the Family Research Council headquarters said he did so because he saw that SPLC labeled it as a hate group. And didn’t you have to pay a $3,375 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit because you labeled a group as anti-Muslim? Look, here’s the SPLC statement: “The Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong to include Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation in our Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.” Don’t you guys jump to conclusions based on your own extreme ideology that sees conservatism and traditionalism as inherently evil?
SPLC: Well, those two instances were a mistake.
Catholic: Mistake? You’re lawyers; yet, you go about making accusations without substantiation? And one of those accusations, the one about RTC, ended up being the basis of an FBI memo. What is this, a manifestation of the “Russian Collusion” syndrome? Didn’t you also attack Ben Carson? Ben Carson! Your labeling led to your acknowledgement of his contributions to the medical field! But only after the attack. Was there something in his saving children's lives that infuriated you, or was it his political affiliation with the Trump Administration?
Maybe there are extremists in RTC. I don’t know. Maybe there are extremists in ACPeds. I just know that your organization jumps to unsubstantiated conclusions, and now the government has used your opinions in authorizing a document. That makes you a rather powerful influence on the Feds. This all reminds me of the letter from the school board association that got the AG to write a memo to field offices, labeling parents “terrorists” when they express their concerns at school board meetings. It reminds me of your newsletter in which your editor called a guy who ran a plane into an IRS building a conservative when he was, in fact, not one.
SPLC: All that shouting! Anyone could see the extremists at the school board meetings. And they were against non-binary people.
Catholic: Really. Or were they against an agenda of indoctrination that had biological boys peeing in girls' restrooms? Tough to express an opinion when a school board refuses to listen or to hear complaints. Really tough to be a father whose daughter was sexually assaulted in a girls’ bathroom when a biological male claiming to be “female” was given permission to use that restroom by an administration and school board. Tell me, was he an extremist or a guy whose family was terribly wronged? Was his motivation anti-trans or pro common sense? So, do you male SPLC lawyers use urinals in the ladies’ room to show how liberated you are? Tell me that your women lawyers are comfortable with that. And if they aren’t, do you label them as anti-trans? Do you sue them? Fire them? Ostracize them?
SPLC: Maybe we made a few mistakes, but generally we do good work representing the poor.
Catholic: Look, when a well-funded organization labels people as haters without substantiation in a society interconnected by social media, that labeling is a wildfire that boils the blood of actual extremists like the guy who attacked the FRC headquarters because of your accusation. And that makes me think that if supposedly educated lawyers can foster hate under the guise of being anti-hate, that there’s little hope for humanity. There isn’t any progress. Every generation undergoes the same battle between those who would preserve the traditions of the previous generation and those who would throw those same traditions out the window. Every generation struggles to balance the desire to change and the desire to remain the same.
Am I in favor of Catholics returning to the Latin Mass? Not really. I had Latin in school, and I find it difficult to follow; I’m constantly trying to translate. But do I understand the movement to preserve tradition? Yes. Catholicism is basically a ritual. A person can go to a Mass on any continent to find the ritual to be the same though now veiled in a country's vernacular. When the Church decided to go to the vernacular, it overturned about 2,000 years of language tradition in that ritual. I remember being in the Dominican Republic and going to a Spanish-language Mass a few years ago. It’s the same Mass, the same ritual, of course, just not in Latin as it would have been before Vatican II. Did I care? Not really. The Mass was the same though the language was different. Did I have trouble following the language. Yes. But if I were a Spanish-speaking Catholic, I would find that Mass to be immediately intelligible. Is it abnormal for RTC people to want a return to a moral and liturgical order they see as part of their religion?
We humans say we like change, but often do not want it because it makes us insecure. We wear tradition the way we wear old comfortable T-shirts, sweatpants, or jeans. Anything new is like getting used to stiff clothing or new stiff shoes.
I don’t think there will be much “human progress.” I think that because your organization, which seemed to have originated in the spirit of helping actually ended up being an organization with an agenda that does at least occasional harm.
Human progress is a myth. I want all people to enjoy their freedoms as long as those freedoms cause no mental or physical injury to others. I realize that that desire is somewhat unattainable. Even like-minded people sometimes bump heads. Certainly, I want a less intrusive government, a government that substantiates a wrongdoing before it labels an action thus or a group as wrongdoers. And I certainly don’t want groups with either an anti-conservative or an anti-liberal agenda making accusations without substantiation when those accusations alone make the government target the innocent.
You want to know why I don’t think there’ll be much human progress? It’s because a group like the SPLC will go about trying to remove the speck in others’ eyes without removing the timber in their own eyes. Yes, I’m pessimistic in that regard. I don’t want extremism from any group, but I also don’t want to see the hypocrisy that occurs when groups that claim to be against extremism inspire extremism in others or are extremists themselves.
SPLC: Yes, but…
Catholic: “Yes, but?” Doesn’t that response in itself support my argument? What is the “but”?
*https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-internal-memo-warns-against-radical-traditionalist-catholic-ideology/
**https://acpeds.org/about/faq/acpeds-responds-to-splc-criticisms
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