The J. Edgar Hoover FBI headquarters building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 17, 2025 / 19:34 pm (CNA).

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a U.S. Senate hearing that there have been “terminations” and “resignations” of employees related to a 2023 anti-Catholic memo produced by Richmond, Virginia’s field office and the agency has made policy adjustments.

Patel made the comments during a Sept. 16 line of questioning from Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who requested an update on the administration’s investigation into the memo and asked about the FBI’s efforts to combat anti-Catholic and anti-Christian violence and hate crimes.

He did not specify how many people were terminated or what their roles were in drafting the memo.

“We are doing our investigation simultaneously with Congress,” Patel said. “Just to put it in perspective, we provided 700 documents on the Richmond Catholic memo, specifically to this committee, whereas my predecessor provided 19 pages.”

The referenced 2023 memo detailed an investigation into “radical traditionalist” Catholics and purported ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement.” It suggested “opportunities for threat mitigation” through “trip wire or source development” within parishes that celebrate the Latin Mass and within “radical-traditionalist” Catholic online communities.

Immediately after the document was leaked to the public in February 2023, the FBI retracted the memo for not meeting the agency’s “exacting standards.” Although the FBI said at the time that the issue was isolated to one document in one field agency, an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee revealed coordination between multiple field offices and at least 13 documents that contained disparaging language about traditionalist Catholicism.

Under Patel’s leadership, the current FBI director told Hawley “we looked into how the source recruitment structure at the FBI was conducted during this time and we made adjustments and permanent fixes to ensure that sources are not put into houses of worship unless there is an actual ongoing criminal or international terrorism threat.”

“We will not use sources at this FBI to investigate and cull information just for the sake of culling information in houses of worship,” he said.

60 reports of anti-Catholic hate crimes under investigation

Hawley also asked Patel about threats of violence against Catholics and other Christians during the hearing, particularly in light of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis last month.

Patel said the FBI is currently investigating 60 reports of anti-Catholic hate crimes, including ones in Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; Houston; Nashville, Tennessee; and Richmond, Virginia.

“Any ideologically-based attack against any faith, as a man of faith myself, will not be tolerated,” said Patel, who is Hindu. “The full resources of the FBI [are] committed to all of it.” He said the FBI will also look into ensuring that rewards of monetary value are offered for information on “all ideologically-based attacks.”

Regarding investigations into that violence, Patel said “we follow the money.” Whether it’s an attack based on people of faith or institutions of faith, he said, “someone’s paying for it.”

“We are reverse tracing those steps, we are not stopping at the perpetrator themselves,” he added. “We are reverse engineering to hold those accountable in our investigations to who funded them and knowingly funded them. We will [take] the appropriate steps against them.”

Hawley noted that there have been hundreds of instances in which houses of worship have faced direct violent action or threats, including arson, bomb threats, and shootings. He asked Patel whether the FBI would consider designating a senior official as a liaison to houses of worship.

“You’re speaking my language,” Patel said. “The private-public sector partnership on this specific issue, just like the other ones we’ve talked about, is equally transformative to finding those involved in these criminal activities. With your assistance, I would ask you if you’re able to identify someone who’s an expert in that area, we will work with them.”

In light of last week’s assassination of Christian and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Hawley also asked Patel whether the FBI is investigating the attack as “part of this broader pattern of anti-religious, anti-Christian violence.”

“We are investigating Charlie’s assassination fully and completely and running out every lead related to any allegation of broader violence, and we’re producing results on that that we’ll disclose when appropriate,” Patel told him.