Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with The Download...

Adult family members arrested for violence.

Recently in Nashville, a juvenile was physically assaulted by Muslim members of his own family for becoming a Christian. In this episode of The Download, hosts Bradley Eli, Rodney Pelletier and Kyle Kopy discuss violence against Christians and how Catholics can respond to various kinds of persecution.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with The Download...

Lawmakers grill head of FBI.

This week, FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some of the GOP senators challenged him over an internal memo, leaked earlier this year, discussing so-called radical traditionalist Catholics. In this episode of The Download, hosts Bradley Eli, Rodney Pelletier and Kyle Kopy discuss the fallout from the memo.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Power in your hands.

Despite various court rulings in cases touching on government censoring free speech, the reality remains that private companies do it left, right and center. And private includes social media as well as Big Tech companies.

What many people don't stop and think about is that the First Amendment only protects against the government stifling your speech. It says nothing about companies doing so. And so companies do. Routinely.

They also simply refuse to do business with you if the censorship gang gets to them and accuses you of anything they don't like. That has happened to us here at Church Militant too many ways to count, from Amazon Smile crossing us off their "acceptable charities" list (even though Planned Parenthood is still on) to video hosting service Vimeo bouncing us a few years back, to our own long-time business insurance company dropping us because of our conservative output. Our former accounting agency did the same, as the list just goes on, from direct mail companies to billboard advertising to internet advertising — one by one, across the board.

The stifling of Church Militant has truly been something to behold. It's an enforcement of the woke brand, without it being done by the government.

But since corporate America, including social media giants, all see eye to eye with the Marxist swamp in D.C., they do the politicians' bidding because they are in perfect lockstep with them. In fact, this is actually more effective than the government trying to do it, because the companies are essentially bulletproof, proving the old adage that there's more than one way to skin a cat.

They can deny service and they don't have to tell you why. And that's just the way it is. If you don't like it, sue 'em. But after a few years as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars, don't be surprised if you lose anyway.

So political conservatives, including many orthodox Catholics, have been relegated to the land of "make it up as you go along." We've sort of been forced to. There are various topics and various words you simply cannot say out loud on major social media platforms or you'll get shut down, get a strike against you, canceled, whatever.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

It's not even close to justice.

If you didn't see the fireworks in the U.S. Senate hearings last Wednesday when Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley tore into Attorney General Merrick Garland, you missed one of the most epic scenes ever on Capitol Hill and — the heart of the matter — the anti-Catholicism of the U.S. Attorney General and his unjust Justice Department.

Garland sat there like a petulant little child who'd been busted (which he had) and then pretended to not really know about anything. Hawley was having none of it. The seven-minute mauling by the Missouri senator was over two specific issues. 

The first, the unjust prosecution of faithful Catholic Mark Houck, whom Garland's Department of Justice sent a couple dozen FBI SWAT troopers to arrest at his house — completely out of line. Houck had already volunteered to turn himself in to face the trumped-up charges, but anti-Catholic Garland staged the law enforcement assault anyway, in the early morning hours. For the record, so preposterous was the case that the jury came back with a "not guilty" verdict in just one hour.

But the other part of Hawley's questions (attack, really) centered on the now infamous FBI report where Church Militant was discussed on Page 4. The dossier associated faithful Catholics who attend the Latin Mass with domestic terror organizations and White nationalists and anything else you can imagine. The Catholic-hater Attorney General dodged and weaved and pretended to denounce the FBI dossier, but, of course, all of this was only after it was leaked to the press.

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Our dollar-a-day campaign — $30 a month — asks you to step up and pledge just $1 a day for our invaluable work here. In the last approximately 18 months, Church Militant has spent close to $1 million to fight against this communist leviathan, both in federal court as well as setting up our very own server farm in a hidden location before we could get canceled on that front.

No other apostolate, not a single one, is as well-positioned as Church Militant to lead the assault against the communists as we are. "Locked and loaded," as they say, and we will not be bullied and threatened and forced to the margins of our own nation by Catholic-hating interlopers.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

They really don't like us.

That FBI report discussing Church Militant and naming some other groups in a list in the appendix is getting a lot of attention — increased attention. The New York Post just recently published its analysis of it, as did The Signal and The Washington Post, including an insightful follow-up piece by The Federalist. There's a portion of the Federalist piece we'd like to highlight for you because we think the publication may be onto something.

The context of the passage is that the U.S. bishops' conference has still not said anything publicly about the FBI dossier — which is beyond strange. In fact, the only bishop to say anything is the bishop whose diocese is home to the local field office that produced the dossier — Richmond.

Bishop Barry Knestout of that Richmond diocese only released a statement after a phone-call campaign by faithful Catholics to his office demanding he say something. So days after the report was leaked and it was gaining media traction and that call-in campaign, he reluctantly released a statement saying what the FBI did was bad. Thanks, Bishop.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.