Although we are well past the “Holiday Season” we see that government actions to denigrate, disparage, and demean religious groups continues in 2023.

A recent example is the “internal” FBI report labeling Latin Rite Roman Catholics as promoting extremism and terrorism. Yet another brand of “domestic terrorists” to investigate, surveil, round up, and of course, fear.

According to Breitbart, the leaked document has now been repudiated by the feebes. Not because it was “false” or “bigoted” but because it did not meet their standards. Not for dealing with “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism.” (Not sure how Latin Rite Catholics have anything to do with race or ethnicity. I know a few, of all different sorts of race and ethnic background. Even though the Southern Poverty Law Center says they are a “hate group.”)

Of course, this is far from the only way in which the FedGov (and many State and local and tribal governments) have been combating the evil ways and beliefs of religions. At least SOME religions. For some reason, it is Christendom and Judaism that merit the most attention from the authorities: despite loud cries of discrimination, we see little of this kind of thing when we are speaking of Islam, Shinto, Buddhism, or Confucianism. And little if any to Nordic, West-Indies, traditional African, or Wicca and their close versions. The only other group frequently the target of governments is so-called Native American faiths: traditional AmerInd religious beliefs and practices. But anyone who follows Moses or Christ – really follows them, not just as “ethnic” or “cultural” traditions – but really studies, teaches, and follows the Law of Moses or the New Covenant of the Christ? However poorly they might? They are, in the eyes of the modern Woke and powerful, power-greedy politicians and bureaucrats, to be hounded and confined even more than the average citizen-subject.

Examples are the Houck case in Pennsylvania, for praying near an abortion clinic. (He was recently found not guilty by a federal court.)

And of course, it is not just American governments. We see it in Canada, we see it in Britain, we see it in Europe, and we see it in the Middle East. Nor is it just governments: even private educational institutions and private and public corporations engage in such actions. More and more we see fundamental human rights violated and denied. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom to travel. Even when courts find someone “not guilty” the harassment and the cost of defense suppresses exercising these rights to a very high degree.

The old word for that is “persecution.” That very thing is what caused many soon-to-be Americans to flee their Old Countries. Catholics and Dissenters and Old Believers fled from Protestant-enforcing countries and regimes. Protestants and Old Believers and Dissenters fled from Catholic-supremacy regimes and countries. And some of them tried to do the same here in the New World – just as other evil institutions such as royalty, nobility, and slavery were brought over in the first couple hundred years. And just as evils we call socialism and communism and fascism also were introduced into the Americas. (Although many point out – perhaps correctly – that fascism in particular may have first reared its ugly head in modern times in the Americas and then been carried or imitated in Europe and elsewhere.)

So it is nothing new, is it? Even in what is now the fifty States, we see examples. The half-century and more war against the Latter-Day Saints by both State governments and the FedGov is one example, as is the century-plus suppression of various tribal religions among the AmerInd on and off the reservation.

For a few decades, it seemed as though some of those wrongs were ending, or even being righted. But now?

Let us discuss this more in a future commentary.