By 
Text messages released by the Senate Judiciary Committee show two former federal prosecutors discussing desires to prosecute nuns during investigations of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Joseph Cooney and Molly Gaston, career prosecutors at the Justice Department rather than political appointees, played a role in prosecuting President Donald Trump during former President Joe Biden’s administration. Both were fired shortly after Trump became president a second time and are legal partners at Gaston & Cooney PLLC. Cooney is running for Congress in Virginia.
While texting on government-issued devices, Gaston wrote about a photo published by The New York Times from Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, which preceded the Jan. 6 attack, saying: “I just noticed for the first time the nuns near the oathkeepers in one of the NYT photographs.”
Cooney said, “I know!” to which Gaston replied: “I would like to take a special assignment of finding and prosecuting them.”
Cooney, who worked in the Justice Departmentʼs Public Integrity Section, responded to her comments about prosecuting the women by saying “I’m with you” and adding: “Although Iʼd like to prosecute any nun who still wears the head habit.” Gaston, who was a lead prosecutor in the special counsel’s Jan. 6-related case involving allegations of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, replied to the message with “hahaha.”
The photo shows three women wearing traditional habits standing on the National Mall near the stage for the rally and does not show them trying to breach restricted areas or enter the U.S. Capitol. The women appear to be associated with a convent that is not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church and does not have canonical standing with the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, where they are located.
Another photo of the women at the rally published by The Conversation also does not show anyone trying to enter restricted areas or the Capitol. EWTN News could not reach the women in the photos.
The text messages also show Gaston saying “people are insane” for wanting priests to deny Communion to Biden. The two also discussed the COVID-19-era restrictions on the Mass, with Gaston saying she has been “really bad about [tuning into] video Mass” and Cooney saying “video Mass is really hard.”
Nearly all Catholic sisters and nuns wore habits prior to the Second Vatican Council, although the practice since then often depends on the religious community to which the person belongs or can come down to personal choice.
The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles explain on their website that a habit is “economical, simple, modest, and above all a sign, a symbol, of God and his love for each of us.”
“Our habit calls out silently to people we meet or even pass by in the street, the store, even the beach,” the website states. “It says, ‘Look up; for greater things you were born.’ It says, ‘Hold on, this too shall pass, and God is with you always leading you in the way you are to go.’ It says, ‘I am a symbol, a reminder, of God’s presence in our world. You can’t actually see him, but in seeing me you are reminded of him.’”
The Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province state on their website that their habit is “a sign of our consecration to God and witness to poverty.”
“We are vested with a white tunic, a black belt with a rosary attached, a white scapular, a veil, and cappa,” it states. “Symbolically, black reminds us that we have been called from the death valley of sin toward a life of intensified grace in Christ (white). The visible habit furthermore reflects the simplicity of life, innocence, renunciation, penance, and mortification, a hidden life in Christ.”
‘I was appalled’
EWTN News received copies of the text exchange, first reported by the Daily Wire, from the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. EWTN News contacted Cooney’s campaign and the law firm where both are partners to request a comment and did not receive a response.
The messages were provided to Grassley’s office by the Justice Department in relation to a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into federal efforts to prosecute Trump during Biden’s presidency.
“Freedom of religion is a cherished First Amendment right enshrined in our Constitution by the Founding Fathers,” Grassley, chair of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement provided to EWTN News.
“I was appalled, but sadly not surprised, to discover evidence of Biden DOJ prosecutors threatening to use the power of the federal justice system to target people of faith,” he said. “Time and again, my oversight has shown the Biden Justice Department, including these prosecutors who went on to advance Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation, showed total disdain for equal justice.”
Nearly 1,600 people were prosecuted in Jan. 6 cases for a range of offenses connected to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including unlawful entry, assault, property destruction, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy, with President Trump later granting clemency to about 1,500 of them.
It does not appear the photographed women faced prosecution, although some Catholic sisters have fended off federal encroachment into their religious activities in recent years.
Most famously, the Little Sisters of the Poor won a U.S. Supreme Court case in 2020 following a nine-year-long battle against the mandate to cover contraception in their insurance plans, per rules in the Affordable Care Act. In spite of that victory, the sisters are still fighting federal contraception rules in court.
In New York, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who provide care to terminally ill people, faced a warning from the state Department of Health for “refusing to assign a room to a resident other than in accordance with the resident’s gender identity.” They are also fighting the rules in court.
On April 30, Trump’s DOJ published a report on “anti-Christian bias” it alleges plagued the federal government under Biden’s presidency. It documents rules and regulations that damaged religious liberty related to abortion, contraception, and gender policies. It alleges weaponization of the government against Christians, including pro-life protesters.
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Kinda shocking.
BTW – “Nearly all Catholic sisters and nuns . . . to which religious community the person belongs . . .”
In my day, all Catholic sisters/nuns were women.
The names Cooney and Gaston…Irish, French, could easily be Catholic family names. I’d bet they are. We worry about ecumenical affairs when we are denying our own the content of the faith?
The enemy is within, and whether my assumption regard these two is accurate or not, the broader estimation of things is absolutely correct.
NOTHING gets before political ambition.
Ask the Kennedys, Bidens, Pelosis…Congress is filled “Catholics” that postured as indifferent or ambivalent to religion when it comes to protecting the unborn or the ordinary person’s free exercise. This one says the quiet part out loud.
And I’m pretty sure this is the swamp creature running for Congress in Virginia, where “defending” democracy means rigging elections with the most blatant form of gerrymandering, since they elected that hideous former CIA spook as Governor.
“J.P. Cooney, a longtime federal prosecutor and former member of Jack Smith’s Special Counsel’s Office, built a reputation taking on major corruption cases after nearly 18 years at the Department of Justice. Raised in Arlington by a single mom and educated at Notre Dame and UVA Law, he now runs a small law practice and lives in the home where he grew up with his wife and three children. J.P. is running for Congress to defend the rule of law and stand up to powerful interests on behalf of working families.”
Tell me about the value of a Notre Dame election again.
The P is no doubt “Patrick”, but it could as easily be parasite, since he really fond of being on the dole.
Yes, defending democracy today means countering MAGA wherever possible. Spanberger is more qualified for Governor than any other candidate in memory.
It’s a free country, Miss Susanne.
I visited Gov. Spanberger’s state last week & it’s interesting that when you drive just a mile or 2 outside “Blue Voting” cities like Charlottesville you immediately see Trump signs everywhere.
The GOP need to learn how to run better campaigns, cooperate with each other instead of infighting, & get out the vote.
In my community of Discalced Carmelite Nuns, we joyfully wear the full Carmelite habit and we proudly proclaim our support of Pope Leo XIV!
https://flemingtoncarmel.org/
https://flemingtoncarmel.org/statement-of-support
Thank you! God bless you!
ditto
“Prosecute you, prosecute you!”
He already has, with his support of synodality. Of course, as a religious, he knows that synodality has been part of the Church from the beginning.
https://wherepeteris.com/habits-of-synodality/
https://wherepeteris.com/the-circle-of-vision-an-architecture-for-synodality/
Yes, I don’t think that the present administration will be very happy with those who support Pope Leo.
Knowall, I’m sorry, I posted my first comment under your post, when I menat to post it under The Pitchfork Rebel’s comment. I re-posted it, slightly expanded, in the correct place.
God bless oyu.
I hope he’ll return your support.
He already has, with his support of synodality. Of course, as a religious, he knows that synodality has been part of the Church from the beginning. And he had extensive experience of it in parishes when he was in Peru.
https://wherepeteris.com/habits-of-synodality/
https://wherepeteris.com/the-circle-of-vision-an-architecture-for-synodality/
The difference between PF/PL’s “synodality” and a Carmelite “synodality” or better to say the way of life outlined by the Rule of St Albert is that Carmelite “synodality” is totally Christ-centered, “nada – nada – nada”, nothing but Christ. In fact, Carmel is designed to empty its dwellers from all “I, me” including a desire to be liked. Carmel has a meaning only if God there has a full possession of a soul. God and a soul, nothing else. The current papacy is very far from that. It is more about “todos” and that “todos” – unlike the “todo o nada” of St John of the Cross who meant Christ (nothing but Christ Who is all) – is very far the true Carmelite ideal.
Anna, I am afraid that you have a mistaken understanding of Carmel and especially of the teaching of St. John of the Cross. He teaches detachment, as do all the spiritual masters, but detachment is the opposite of isolation. We can identify with “all” because we are detached from “all created things”, as St. Teresa teaches, in order to love with “God’s love, which is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.” That is the only way to follow the new commandment to “love one another as Christ has loved us.”
St. Teresa teaches: “If we practice love of neighbor with great perfection, we will have done everything. I believe that, since our nature is bad, we will not reach perfection in the love of neighbor if that love doesn’t rise from love of God as its root.” (“Int. Cast.” V, 3, 9) There is no isolation in Carmel!
We Carmelites are hermits AND mendicants, which means that we go into the desert in order to go out to the whole world to embrace them with God’s love. This is perfectly shown in St. Therese of the Child Jesus who accepted to “sit down at the table of sinners”.
It is no coincidence that Pope Francis carried St. Therese’s “Story of a Soul” with him and that Pope Leo XIV is a follower of Brother Laurence of the Resurrection, who wrote “The Practice of the Presence of God.” They both understand Carmel very well.
God bless you.
Sister Gabriela, your argument rests on a strawman, namely that your opponent said “Carmel means isolation and not loving/caring for others”. I said none of the sort. Attributing those (mistaken) views to me, you then argued with your own construct to prove that I have “a mistaken understanding of Carmel and especially of the teaching of St. John of the Cross”. Finally, using something I have never said, you tried to prove that PF and PL “understand Carmel very well”, unlike me.
It is the same as if you would engage in argument with the words of Apostle Paul (often quoted by St John of the Cross) “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” or “I count all things but dung, that I may win Christ”, saying that “You cannot do that, we must not live in isolation but sit at the round tables with sinners etc.” This is by the way what two last papacies have been about: minimizing Christ/a need to be faithful to Him for the sake of… doing good for others. This is “a heresy of being nice” which seeks self-glorification (being seen as “nice” by others) and not God-glorification, a psychological heresy which warps a faith (‘Fiducia Supplicans’ being the most obvious example).
It is evident, from the activity and letters of Apostle Paul, that his radical paradigm “Christ only” by no means stopped him from serving others. Only one who has no idea about spiritual life (and is proud) can counter position a focus on Christ, inner life, contemplation and an active love for others. We can do nothing sound on our own; it is Our Lord who, via contemplation, propels a person to act in a true way. This is why one who obtained a close relationship with Christ, who is surrendered to Him, can most effectively help others for His sake – most effectively precisely because he is focused on Christ and measures everything by Him, not by his own ego or world’s expectations. Such a person no longer acts his own “likes”; he does the will of God.
To make a total, a Christian life is about a total focus on Christ (which is extreme in Carmel which is supposed to strip a person from fakes much faster) which progressively releases a person from his warped fake self which is about manipulations, lies, duplicity, desire to be liked, to conform to the world and so on. Then it is “no longer I live but Christ lives in me”. This state or a vector towards that state is the ground for any true (not self-seeking) love for a neighbour. If one is neither surrendered to Christ nor aspires to it, he can easily delude himself and the whole world with his pseudo-charity, no matter how many great Carmelite books he carries in his pockets. The way to verify his actions is to place them and him in front of Christ:
Would Christ approve ‘Fiducia Supplicans’?
Would Christ be silent “gay-parade” at St Peter’s?
Would Christ approve a procession of the Latin Mass?
Would Christ approve of worshipping Pachamama?
Would Christ recognize as his own the warped/overly ambiguous and gaslighting?
Would Christ approve downplaying Him while “ecumenical meetings”?
Until it is clarified I reserve my right to not recognize the two latest Popes as “Carmelites in spirit”.
Thank you, good Sister.
Another example of how evil the Dem party has become.
Yet a lot of the left have never gotten their hands dirty in service of their fellow man or in worshipping God – but they have such conclusive convictions of how everyone else should act.
Yet, these same people are just fine with the Muslim Hijab
good observation
It’s a part of our broken human nature to project those sorts of prejudices. How many Catholics object to Muslim women’s dress but have images of the Blessed Mother clothed in a very similar fashion?
Your confusion seems to plumb new depths with an alarming frequency.
Women wear veils in Christianity voluntarily during prayer or through professing vows and as a sign of respect to God. In Islam it’s submission and enforced by coercion and force at all times.
As I write this, the date is the anniversary of both my first Communion and my great-grandfather’s death. In the decades since, we have seen a radical transformation in American society. Then if a woman was seen in a veil then, she was almost certainly a nun and they were a common sight. Today, a woman in a veil is almost certainly Muslim and nuns in habits are a rare sight.
That change was engineered and done so to de-Christianize America. You think these two are the only Christophobes in what the late Angelo Codevilla characterized as “The Ruling Class”?
“In Islam it’s submission and enforced by coercion and force at all times:” no. Many women that wear hijabs do so willingly.
That’s true, steveb.
Perhaps not so much in places like Iran though.
That doesn’t change that it’s submission and enforced by coercion and force at all times. There were people that “willingly” converted to Islam because of the imposition of the jizya as well.
It’s a free country, Miss Susanne. Thankfully we can vote for who we choose.
I visited Gov. Spanberger’s state last week & it’s interesting that when you drive just a mile or 2 outside “Blue” cities like Charlottesville you immediately see Trump signs everywhere.
The VA GOP need to learn how to run better campaigns, cooperate with each other instead of infighting, & get out the vote. And start having more children.
mrscracker: We moved to VA from SC to be closer to family. We now see that corrupt Democrats have taken over the State. As retirees, we’re tired of paying $7,000+ in income tax to VA this year. We are hoping to relocate to Florida for the better part of each year, establish residency there, pay NO INCOME TAX, and stop feeding Moloch.
It’s really pervasive in our society, Mrs. Crackersbarrel, double standards are just fine.
I was recently on a jury, and the defendant’s lawyer questioned me during voir dire, “…is it possible for someone to be wrongfully accused of something, even outside a courtroom..? My reply, “of course it is, it’s pervasive in society, in schools growing up, and always has been in the states – someone will pay.”
Obviously, it took place 2,000 years ago as well.
You might find it interesting, the case was over a stolen pleasure horse.
Horse-napping?
🙂
I was visiting with a Mennonite friend last week. They live in an area where horse & buggies are the means of transportation for families.Stealing a horse is a pretty serious thing.
The clothing isnt the issue. Its the ideology it represents. A person in this country is free to become a nun, or not, as they choose. In point of fact many orders no longer even require a traditional habit. Orthodox Islam is a repressive ideology which MANDATES its women follow certain behaviors, whether they want to or not. Its been well documented that some Muslim women in Islamic majority countries have been struck in public, and some arrested or killed for defying such mandates. This is NOT benign. In my opinion it is unfortunate that the US permitted immigration here from these countries. Their numbers, and mindset, is aggressively spreading, and we have some of them now serving as elected US officials, as they publicly disparage the US and its culture. Their hate is obvious. I hope catholic democrats will use a brain cell when voting in the upcoming election.
There was a time when Protestants thought Catholics were spreading too quickly, and condemned us for our practices that set us apart.
That’s true, steveb. I heard comments like that from Protestant family members years ago but they were directed more at Catholics from Latin America.
Going further back, Protestants could have very large families themselves.My Protestant great grandparents came from families of 10-15 children.
Indeed.
It doesn’t really matter what you wear to an insurrection. You will be prosecuted.
They should both lose their law license for that
Lose their licenses?
They’ll be on a short list for some GS-14 in the federal leviathan.
From the fact that these 2 prosecutors were talking about Covid’s Mass-streaming, it seems likely that they’re Catholics, and practicing.
Catholics wanting to prosecute Catholic nuns because they wear their habits is some kind of messed up.
Its well known that there was sometimes no love lost between Christian denominations, especially back many decades. Thats a far cry from threatening bodily harm or taking steps to suppress another group’s practices, which is common in Islam.
Yesterday a big story broke that caused an uproar. In Grand Prairie, Texas, a public water park was rented out by a group which specified the event they were running was for Muslims ONLY. They further dictated the dress code. Again, this is not a matter of a simple difference of perspective. They believe their way is superior and will go to some lengths to force you to observe their point of view. Any parks funded with PUBLIC tax money should not be allowed to do this.
This behavior flies in the face of American culture and I have no use for it.
Personally, I wish every water park would hold a modest dress day. But restricting entrance to only one faith community doesn’t sound like a good idea.
As far as the waterpark “controversy” it isn’t one. The group rented the whole park (as anyone is able to do) and had an event to celebrate a religious holiday. When the “muslim only” advert got negative attention, the group quickly changed the ad to “modest dress” and reiterated no one was excluded based upon faith. It is important that as Christians, we don’t commit sins of detraction and remain charitable in judging others.
That’s good news. Thank you.
Anna, there is no reply button on your latest reply to me, so I need to respond to your latest comment by a separate comment. As far as Carmel goes, isolation is not a strawman. I know Carmelites who refuse to interact with those who understand our charism differently from their own interpretation of it. I don’t know how much interaction you have with Carmelite communities, but what you have written here about Carmel shows little knowledge of the actual life.
As far as what Christ would approve, I think you would have done better if you used the name Jesus instead of Christ. We have an Augustinian in the chair of St. Peter, and he knows well that Christ refers to both the head and the both. Christ is the whole Christ, Jesus AND every one of His members. Every baptized person is a member of Christ, and every unbaptized person is created to be a member of His body. We need to remember that in our interactions with everyone.
When you are using public funds to support a business or institution there is an obligation for parity of access, no matter WHO is “paying” for the venue. For example, if you have a wedding in a public park, you are NOT allowed to prohibit entrance to members of the public who are not wedding guests. Yeah, after the uproar they were “asking” for modest attire. Never explained is what would happen if someone NOT modestly dressed appeared. My bet would be that some members of this Muslim crowd would confront them and escort them out of the venue. Funny that we cant have the 10 commandments posted in public schools run with public funds but this group is allowed to set terms according to their religious belief in a setting which receives public funds. These intrusions will become more frequent as they grow in numbers. Tolerance doesnt appear to be an American concept they understand.
Lets try a third time.
When you are using public funds to support a business or institution there is an obligation for parity of access, no matter WHO is “paying” for the venue. For example, if you have a wedding in a public park, you are NOT allowed to prohibit entrance to members of the public who are not wedding guests. Yeah, after the uproar they were “asking” for modest attire. Never explained is what would happen if someone NOT modestly dressed appeared. My bet would be that some members of this Muslim crowd would confront them and escort them out of the venue. Funny that we cant have the 10 commandments posted in public schools run with public funds but this group is allowed to set terms according to their religious belief in a setting which receives public funds. These intrusions will become more frequent as they grow in numbers. Tolerance doesnt appear to be an American concept they understand.