EWTN News reports that text messages released by the Senate Judiciary Committee reveal two former federal prosecutors, Joseph Cooney and Molly Gaston, expressing a desire to prosecute Catholic nuns for wearing traditional religious habits. The messages, exchanged on government-issued devices, show Gaston writing about nuns near the Oath Keepers in a photograph from the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally, saying: “I would like to take a special assignment of finding and prosecuting them.” Cooney responded: “Although I’d like to prosecute any nun who still wears the head habit.” The women in the photo were not accused of any crime related to the Capitol breach. Grassley stated he was “appalled” by evidence of targeting people of faith. This incident reveals the deep-seated hatred of the naturalistic, anti-Christian spirit that pervades modern secular institutions and even former Catholic prosecutors, a spirit that directly contradicts the royal dignity of Christ the King over all nations and societies.
The Habit as a Sign of Consecration and Protest Against the World
The religious habit, far from being an arbitrary piece of clothing, is a sacramental sign of total consecration to God, a visible witness to poverty, chastity, and obedience, and a silent sermon to the world. The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles explain that their habit “calls out silently to people we meet or even pass by in the street… ‘Look up; for greater things you were born.'” The Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province state that their habit is “a sign of our consecration to God and witness to poverty,” with black symbolizing “the death valley of sin” and white “a life of intensified grace in Christ.” To despise the habit is to despise the evangelical counsels, the religious life itself, and the supernatural order it represents. It is a direct assault on the virtue of religion, which is a part of the cardinal virtue of justice, rendering to God His due.
The Prosecutors’ Hatred: A Manifestation of Modernist Naturalism
The casual, flippant contempt expressed by Cooney and Gaston — “I’d like to prosecute any nun who still wears the head habit” — reveals a profound animosity not merely against a religious garment but against the Catholic faith it embodies. This is the spirit of laicism, the secularism condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas as a “plague that poisons human society,” which “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” These prosecutors, products of the modernist era, see the habit as an affront to their naturalistic worldview, a worldview that denies the supernatural and seeks to relegate religion to the purely private sphere. Their desire to “prosecute” women for simply wearing a religious symbol at a public rally, without any criminal act, is a chilling example of the “frauds and machinations” of the “sects” (as Pius IX called them in the Syllabus of Errors, Error 80) that seek to “submit the Church of God to the most cruel servitude.” This is not justice; it is persecution disguised as law, a precursor to the “anti-Christian bias” the current administration’s DOJ report alleges plagued the previous regime.
The Silence on the True Enemy: Modernist Apostasy Within
While the secular world and its agents like Cooney and Gaston rage against the external signs of faith, they remain utterly silent about the true enemy of the Church: modernist apostasy within her own ranks. The Syllabus of Errors (Error 80) condemned the proposition that “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” This is precisely what the post-conciliar “clergy” have done, dismantling the external signs of faith, including the habit, under the guise of “renewal” and “aggiornamento.” The modernist “reform” of religious life, which led to the abandonment of the habit by many communities, was not a return to the Gospel but a capitulation to the spirit of the world, a denial of the supernatural, and a betrayal of the evangelical counsels. As St. Pius X warned in Lamentabili (Proposition 65), “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism.” The habit, as a visible sign of separation from the world and total consecration to God, is an offense to this modernist project. The secular prosecutors hate the habit because it testifies against their naturalistic ideology; the modernist “clergy” abandoned it because it testifies against their apostate “renewal.” Both are enemies of Christ the King.
The Duty of the State and the Primacy of the Supernatural
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that “the State must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations, both male and female, who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church.” He further stated that “the annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind states that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The actions of Cooney and Gaston are a direct violation of this duty. Instead of honoring Christ the King and protecting the freedom of His Church, they seek to use the power of the state to persecute those who publicly profess their faith. This is the logical consequence of the errors condemned in the Syllabus of Errors: Error 19, which denies the Church’s proper and perpetual rights; Error 24, which denies the Church’s temporal power; Error 44, which grants the civil authority power over spiritual matters; and Error 55, which demands the separation of Church and State. The modern secular state, having rejected Christ the King, inevitably becomes a persecutor of the faithful. The habit, as a public witness to the supernatural, is a constant reminder of the state’s duty to God, a reminder the naturalistic state cannot tolerate.
The Witness of the Faithful and the Call to Perseverance
In the face of such hostility, the faithful must hold fast to the traditions received from the Apostles and the Fathers. The religious sisters who continue to wear the habit are not merely preserving a custom; they are bearing witness to the unchanging truth of the Catholic faith, to the reality of the supernatural life, and to the kingship of Christ over all creation. Their habit is a silent protest against the modernist apostasy within the Church and the secularist tyranny without. As Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors (Error 63), “It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even to rebel against them” when they command what is contrary to the law of God. While the Church does not counsel rebellion, she does counsel resistance to unjust laws and persecution. The faithful, and especially religious, must persevere in their witness, knowing that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church” (Matt. 16:18). The habit is a sign of that perseverance, a banner of Christ the King in a world that has rejected Him.
Source:
Former federal prosecutor: ‘I’d like to prosecute any nun who still wears the head habit’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 01.05.2026