This story originally appeared on The Advocate.
Sister Roma is pushing back against Vice President JD Vance after he described the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which he wrongly called "Our Ladies of Perpetual Indulgence, as “devil worshipers” while campaigning in Kansas this week.
“If he was talking about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, our name isn’t the only thing the vice president got wrong,” Roma, a prominent member of the organization, said in a statement to The Advocate.
Vance made the remarks Monday at a MAGA Inc.-organized rally at Webco Manufacturing in Olathe, Kansas, where he appeared in support of Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall. Marshall is facing the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a prominent United Methodist pastor and Democrat, in November. Kansas State Senate President Ty Masterson, the Republican nominee for governor, also attended the event.
Vance targeted Hamilton over Resurrection, the church Hamilton founded, being among dozens of sponsors of Kansas City PrideFest.
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Hamilton “proudly supported a drag group called Our Ladies of Perpetual Indulgence,” Vance claimed. There is no organization by that name. He appeared to be referring to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a volunteer network of queer and transgender nuns founded in San Francisco in 1979.
Vance went on to call the Sisters “the devil worshiping group” and an “anti-Christian hate group.”
The Sisters do not describe themselves as devil worshipers. The organization’s stated mission centers on community service, human rights advocacy, spiritual outreach, and using humor to combat shame and bigotry. Its members have raised money for community organizations and were early providers of sex-positive safer-sex information during the AIDS crisis.
Vance also claimed that the Sisters had offered “special blessings” before Los Angeles Dodgers games. In 2023, the Dodgers instead honored the Los Angeles chapter of the Sisters with a Community Hero Award ahead of the team’s Pride Night game in recognition of its charitable work. The decision drew objections from Catholic leaders and conservative politicians because of the group’s satirical use of Catholic imagery.
Vance did not provide evidence that Hamilton or Resurrection directly contributed money to the Sisters or endorsed every organization participating in PrideFest.
He also accused Hamilton of considering being white and eating meat sinful. The Kansas Reflector reported that those assertions were based on excerpts from previous sermons presented without their broader context.
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Hamilton’s campaign responded by pointing to Resurrection’s charitable work in 2025, including feeding more than 45,000 people, distributing nearly 60,000 children’s books, supporting foster families, and building affordable housing.
A spokesperson for Hamilton also invited Vance to visit Resurrection rather than attack the church while campaigning for Marshall.
Roma, meanwhile, rejected Vance’s characterization of the Sisters and emphasized the organization’s decades of charitable and advocacy work.
“I do not recognize or accept his inflammatory misrepresentation of who we are and what we do,” she told The Advocate. “The Sisters are a global human rights fundraising organization.”
“We do not mock nuns, we are nuns,” Roma continued. “You will find Sisters around the world serving meals to the hungry, providing warmth and comfort to the unhoused, or counseling the most marginalized and often ostracized members of society. From our early work as pioneers in HIV/AIDS education and prevention, to our continued ministry of service and compassion, the Sisters are committed to upholding our vows to expiate stigmatic guilt and promulgate universal joy.”
