Washington: The FBI has reportedly disavowed an intelligence report that recommended "radical-traditionalist Catholics" be targeted as potentially violent, white-supremacist extremists. The FBI said it is looking into how the contentious memo came to be.

The FBI said in a statement to Fox News and other media outlets that the report "does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI." "As soon as FBI headquarters became aware of the document, action was taken to remove it from FBI systems and review the document's foundation."

The FBI addressed the memo on Roman Catholics after a whistleblower made it public this week, sparking outrage from the general public. The FBI normally refrains from commenting on internal intelligence reports. The intelligence analyst in the Richmond, Virginia, field office of the bureau wrote the report, which was dated January 23.

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According to FBI agent Kyle Seraphin, the whistleblower, the agency appears to think that Catholics who prefer the Latin mass are where white supremacy "has found a home." He contended that the targeting of Catholics would result in similar campaigns against other Christian denominations, breaking an FBI rule that forbids opening cases or issuing reports based on activities that are protected by the constitution.

For the first time in history, many Americans will find themselves on the wrong side of this line because of what they are doing, according to Seraphin. "This is how a politicised FBI appears," someone said.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a discredited advocacy group that has branded numerous pro-Christian and anti-abortion organisations as "hate groups," and an article from Atlantic magazine that claimed rosary beads had turned into a "extremist symbol" were among the sources cited in the intelligence report. Traditionalist Catholics, according to the SPLC, make up "the largest single group of serious antisemites in America." Catholic organisations, which the FBI memo claimed ran the risk of being used by white nationalists to incite violence, were advised to be infiltrated by the bureau.

The controversy arises as congressional Republicans get ready to look into how the federal government has been "weaponized" against Christians and pro-life activists. After the FBI allegedly made little effort to look into the nearly 100 attacks against pregnancy resource centres and churches in the US last year and arrested dozens of anti-abortion activists, conservatives brought up the issue.

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To lessen the threat of extremism, the intelligence report recommended "outreach" to traditionalist Catholic churches. The Catholic Church, and eventually all Christians, opposing abortion, Seraphin said. "This document seems to be opening a door so that the leftist intelligence types can vent their dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church," Seraphin said.