Sock Puppets, FBI Director Wray? Sock Puppets?
Sock Puppets: Good Enough for US Naval Command & Good Enough for the FBI who labels Catholics "Violent Extremists" & "Racially and Ethnically Motivated"
Sock Puppets, FBI Director Wray?
Sock puppets?
They were good enough for U.S. Naval Command,1 so I’m certain they’re good enough for the FBI’s leadership.
My dear Catholic friend, Navy Intelligence Officer,2 New Yorker, Roman Catholic priest, Catholic University of America PhD alumnus and scholar Fr. Daniel Vitz, IVE, (requiem pax) told me he had used sock puppets to explain dangerous troop movements to his US Naval Command in Iraq.
They were not listening to his reports about imminent regional threats.
FBI Director Wray, I don’t think you nor members of your team are listening to American Catholics nor Americans of faith and goodwill as to the FBI’s imminent threats to our 1st amendment rights of assembly and faith.3
Thus, the sock puppets.
Father Danny, a faithful Catholic, good man, talented Naval officer, beloved brother, devoted son, faithful priest — and an American patriot who was a Naval Intelligence Officer entrusted with the most secret of missions4 lay down his life for his friends on the battle field and among the church.5
(Danny was treading the noble path of other patriotic Americans of faith who have served our country honorably: devout Jewish soldiers in the U.S. Civil War and University of Virginia graduate and U.S. Army Captain and practicing Muslim Humayn Khan who died in 2004 serving in Iraq)
Fr. Danny Vitz, IVE was also a good story teller and prankster. 6 He had told me that he was not getting through to his commander in Iraq.
Sock puppets were the go-to, sure to succeed, Plan A proposal.7
He said his direct commanding officer, after seeing the sock puppets, said,
“You think that’s funny? Now you’re going to give the same presentation to Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq (MNSTC-I) when they visit,” -- which would have been Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, or Martin E. Dempsey in 2005.”
He did.
Command loved it, and they heard his message loud and clear.
Hence, the sock puppets.
They’re a memorable and hilarious way to remind FBI Director Wray and his FBI team: you serve our nation at the behest of the American people under a robust Constitution - not the other way around.
What was the title of the Richmond, Virginia FBI field office memo on January 23, 2023? Oh, that’s right:
‘Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.’8
Oy vey. You cannot make this stuff up.
Washington State, Virginia, and California FBI field offices had an FBI generated memo that stated Catholics are “violent extremists and racially and ethnically motivated.”
FBI Director Wray, I trust in the faith and good will of our fellow Americans — and their kids.
Whether Lutheran, Muslim, Mennonite, Jewish, Catholic, Presbyterian, or Sikh, I think these American children’s parents have a robust understanding of the U.S. Constitution’s tenets.
I think good old-fashioned sock puppets will teach you, FBI Director Wray and the most intrepid of your FBI team, that we Catholics take our constitutional rights quite seriously.
Our rights, like yours, go back to the Magna Carta of 1215, the Petition of Right, and the English Bill of Rights.
We do not like the tenets of our faith maligned; our American Catholic culture literally destroyed;9
— nor our practitioners of the faith harassed, spied upon, and investigated - which has happened with this FBI and this Administration and vestiges within it left from the Obama Administration.
We’ve not forgotten the ugly treatment of the Little Sisters of the Poor.10
(Biden’s pick for Health and Human Services (HHS) sued the Little Sisters of the Poor - who care for the health and well-being of the poor elderly.)11
We Catholics and Americans of faith have a long historical track record of defending the Constitution and serving our United States with honor.
Even if team FBI does not get the sock puppets’ take away, I am hopeful that regular American kids — by their letters, phone calls, text messages, and honest queries to your FBI team will remind you:
In the United States it’s “liberty and justice for all” and a government “of, by, and for the people,” — even when they’re Catholic,
-or people of faith.
Stand by for the sock puppets.
They were made by an Indiana Amish farmer’s wife who also believes in freedom of religion and assembly.
Remembering Daniel Vitz, IVE, Years in the Navy, https://frdanielvitz.wordpress.com/years-in-the-navy/
Navy, Human Resources, “Intelligence Officer,” https://www.navy.com/careers/intelligence-officer https://frdanielvitz.wordpress.com/years-in-the-navy/ (accessed April, 2024).
U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution, 1st amendment, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Ibid.
USCCB, Bible, Book of John, John 15:13, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/15, accessed June 4, 2024).
Remembering Fr. Daniel Vitz, IVE, Early Adulthood, https://frdanielvitz.wordpress.com/early-adulthood/
Here his family tells that story: “In 2005 he did a tour of duty in Iraq, where he led a “discernment group” in Baghdad. He was in Intel so he couldn’t share too many stories about his work in Iraq with us—but he did tell us that at one point he made a presentation to his commanding officer about some Muslim figures they were concerned with, using be-turbaned sock puppets (which he brought home with him from Iraq). The general seems to have appreciated them.”
The United States Congress, The Judiciary Committee, Judiciary Committee Uncovers Multiple FBI Field Offices Coordinated to Prepare Anti-Catholic Memo “https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/judiciary-committee-uncovers-multiple-fbi-field-offices-coordinated-prepare (accessed April, 2024).
Catholic News Agency (CNA), St. Junipero Serra statue torn down in San Francisco Park https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/44925/st-junipero-serra-statue-torn-down-in-san-francisco-park (accessed June 4, 2024). Junipero Serra was an advocate of the poorest of the poor all along the now California Coast - specifically indigenous people being exploited by the Spaniards.
Little Sisters of the Poor, Victory for the Little Sisters of the Poor,
https://thelittlesistersofthepoor.com/#sisters (accessed June 4, 2024) and read Obama’s War Against the Little Sisters of the Poor at https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/11/11/obamas_war_on_the_little_sisters_of_the_poor_128691.html
https://catholicherald.co.uk/bidens-pick-for-hhs-secretary-sued-little-sisters-of-the-poor/