THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE )
MERRIMACK, S.S. )

I, Father Gordon J. MacRae, state that the following account is my own, is the truth, and is recalled and written to the best of my ability.

1. I was born on the 9th of April 1953 in Beverly, Massachusetts. I attended Lynn Public Schools through high school graduating in May of 1970. From 1970 until 1973 I was employed as a machinist at Glenmere Hub Die Co., Inc. in Lynn, MA. while participating in evening courses at North Shore Community College in Beverly, Massachusetts. In 1973, at the age of twenty, I was accepted as a postulant of the Order of Friars Minor, Capuchin, and in August of 1974 I entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Order in Milton, Massachusetts. Upon completion of the novitiate year in August of 1975, I professed simple vows as a Capuchin and commenced formation and academic studies for the Roman Catholic priesthood.

2. While residing with my Capuchin community at St. Anthony Friary in Hudson, New Hampshire from 1975 to 1978, I attended St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire with major courses of studies in Classics, Philosophy and Psychology. I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, with honors, in May of 1978. At that time I decided to leave the Capuchins and, upon strong and positive recommendations from my superiors and the formation staff of the Capuchins, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire accepted me as a candidate for the diocesan priesthood.

3. From September, 1978 through December, 1981, I studied theology at St. Mary Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland where I was ordained to the diaconate on the 21st of November, 1981. In December of 1981 I was awarded the Bachelor of Sacred Theology and Master of Divinity Degrees, with honors, from St. Mary Seminary and University in Baltimore. From January to June of 1982 I was a deacon intern at two parishes in Groveton and North Stratford in the far north of New Hampshire. On the 5th of June, 1982 I was ordained to the priesthood at St. John the Evangelist Church in Hudson, New Hampshire by The Most Reverend Odore Gendron, Bishop of Manchester. My first Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated in the same church on the 6th of June, 1982. I was the only candidate for ordination in the Diocese of Manchester that year.

4. Three years prior to my priesthood ordination, in 1979, a tragedy, which took place in the Diocese, became a national news story. I was beginning my second year of theological studies in Baltimore at the time, and learned from a radio news broadcast that a priest in New Hampshire, Father Joseph Sands, was being held hostage by an armed man and woman in the rectory of St. Rose of Lima parish in Littleton, in the north of New Hampshire. Father Sands was a friend whom I had met during my years as a Capuchin when I spent the summers of 1976 and 1977 in parochial ministry in the town of Groveton, New Hampshire. Father Sands was a Cistercian who was on leave from that Order, and he resided in the Town of Lancaster, New Hampshire, where he directed a residential home for troubled adolescents known as Alpha House. Father Sands and I became friends when he filled in for the vacationing pastor, Father Robert Simard (now deceased) for one of the summers during which I ministered at the Groveton parish while a Capuchin. I therefore carefully followed the news accounts of Father Sands being held hostage at gunpoint. At the end of the day I learned that Father Sands was shot and killed in the rectory, and that the gunman then killed his woman companion, and, finally, himself.

5. In the weeks following this tragedy I traveled to Groveton, N.H., during a break from seminary studies to talk about the incident with the pastor, Father Simard, who was also a friend of Father Sands. Father Simard related to me that Father Sands had been replacing the pastor of St. Rose of Lima parish in Littleton, about fifteen miles south of Father Sands’s home in the Town of Lancaster. I learned that on the morning of the tragedy a man and woman rang the doorbell of the Littleton rectory. When the parish secretary answered they asked to see the parish priest to discuss a baptism. When the secretary let them in and explained that the pastor, Father Stephen Scruton, was vacationing in Ireland, the man produced a gun and ordered the secretary to call another priest. The secretary’s young son was in the rectory with her at the time. At gunpoint, she called Father Sands telling him that there was an emergency requiring his immediate presence. Father Sands then drove the fifteen miles to the Littleton rectory and walked in on the armed gunman and woman. Shortly thereafter, Father Sands managed to throw the young boy out a first floor window from which the secretary also escaped. Father Sands was then tied up and beaten. The secretary went for the police who then surrounded the rectory and began a daylong telephone negotiation with the gunman.

6. Ironically, that very morning the Pastor of the parish and intended target of the gunman, Father Stephen Scruton, left for a vacation in Ireland with his mother. Father Simard related to me that a year earlier the gunman had some sort of negative encounter with Father Scruton at the parish rectory, and was seeking revenge. The gunman was a transient who had recently been released from the state mental hospital following a brief commitment there. During the daylong negotiations between the gunman and a State Police hostage unit, the Governor of the State, Hugh Gallen, flew by helicopter to Littleton to attempt to aid in the negotiation. Governor Gallen was a native of Littleton, a parishioner of that parish, and a friend of the pastor, Father Stephen Scruton. During the daylong negotiation, which was tape recorded by the State Police, the gunman demanded Father Scruton’s return. When this did not occur the gunman shot and killed Father Sands, his female companion, and himself. Father Scruton was returned immediately, and he remained in the parish for another year. The tape recordings of the negotiations had been sealed by Governor Gallen and never became public. Governor Gallen died of cancer while in office a year later, and Father Scruton was transferred as pastor to St. John the Evangelist parish in Hudson, N.H. on the state’s southern border. It was there, shortly before my ordination, that I met Father Scruton for the first time.

7. The former pastor of St. John’s in Hudson, Father Gerard Boucher, had been transferred to Miraculous Medal parish in Hampton when Father Scruton came to Hudson. Because the Capuchin Friary where I once studied was in the Hudson parish, I knew Father Boucher quite well from my years as a Capuchin. It was Father Boucher who sponsored my admission to the Diocese, and it was through my friendship with Father Boucher that I planned for my ordination ceremony to be held in the Hudson parish. Though I had never lived or been assigned there, I considered it to be my home parish since my family and parish of origin were in Massachusetts.

8. Early in 1982, about six months after Father Boucher transferred to Miraculous Medal Parish in Hampton, he and that parish were also thrust into a controversy, which became a national news story. The Hampton parish had a small parochial school staffed by four Sisters of Mercy and three lay teachers. The four sisters, Honora Reardon, Mary Rita Furlong, and Justine and Kathryn Coliton (who were also blood sisters) had been there for eight years by then, but had a long standing dispute with the parish’s pastoral staff. Father Boucher had the task of attempting to resolve this dispute, but experienced little success. In March of 1982 the Superintendent of Diocesan Schools, Brother Roger Lemoyne, FSC, visited the sisters and, without father Boucher’s knowledge, presented them with an unsigned memo from Bishop Gendron which stated that their teaching contracts at the parochial school would not be renewed for the next school year. The memo was released to the statewide news media and publicized the next day. In the days which followed, the sisters, Father Boucher, the parish and the Diocese were thrust into the spotlight of local and national news attention as the four sisters obtained legal counsel and filed a precedent setting lawsuit against Bishop Gendron, the Diocese, the parish and Father Boucher. The parish divided evenly into supporters of the sisters, who created an activist organization known as SOS or Save Our Sisters, and a larger but less vocal group of parishioners who supported the pastor and the decision of the Diocese. The SOS group tended to also draw activists from outside the parish as the matter became transformed in the media from a parish dispute into a feminist cause in protest of what was portrayed as an oppressive, male dominated Church. The sisters barricaded themselves into the parish convent next to the rectory and refused to move. There were daily protests in front of the church organized by the SOS, and Sunday liturgies drew crowds of supporters of the sisters who conducted demonstrations both inside and outside the church. These protests became media events gradually resulting in ongoing television and press coverage of the dispute.

9. At the time I was ordained on June 5, 1982 I recall that there was some substantial concern that members of the SOS would use that event to demonstrate at the ordination Mass since the bishop and many priests of the Diocese were there, and the Hudson church in which the ordination took place was Father Boucher’s former parish. There was, to everyone’s relief, no demonstration. However, there was a very surprising announcement. Two days before my ordination I talked with Father Boucher, who also served on the Diocesan Personnel Board which was responsible for recommending assignments to the bishop. Father Boucher told me that the Personnel Board had met to discuss my first assignment as a priest, and jokingly said that since I was the only ordination that year it was the shortest Personnel Board meeting he had ever attended. In our discussion he teased me saying that he is not permitted to divulge the assignment, but finally told me that the Board had assigned me to St. Catherine Parish in Manchester, one of the largest parishes in the diocese. Father Boucher told me to act surprised when the Bishop gave me the assignment.

10. A few days later, in the sacristy before the ordination Liturgy, Bishop Gendron handed me an envelope containing a letter instructing me that my first assignment as a priest is to Miraculous Medal parish in Hampton assisting Father Boucher. The letter also indicated that I would be replacing the current two parochial vicars, Fathers Roger Fournier and George Robichaud who were both reassigned. The bishop’s letter said nothing about the public controversy and divisions in the parish, which had become an expected part of the daily television news and front-page press. At the end of the ordination Mass Bishop Gendron announced the assignment. I will always remember the collective gasp among the approximately 500 members of my family, friends and priests of the Diocese who were present. In the days that followed there was much controversy about the appropriateness of this situation as a first assignment for a priest, but in time the controversy diminished. In the middle of June, 1982 I began what was to be a painfully difficult ministry at Miraculous Medal Parish in Hampton.

11. It was my intention that the parish, and its programs, should continue to function despite the ongoing controversy and the attention it drew. At first, I was seen as somewhat of a neutral party in the parish dispute, but rumors about my presence there were rampant. Members of the SOS group went to extremes to disrupt the day to day life and administration of the parish, and even hired the services of a private investigator to investigate Father Boucher and I. It was an impossible situation in which to minister because of the depth of feeling of the Sisters’ supporters. They attended every parish meeting, and every agenda was dominated by their accusations of a conspiracy by the bishop, the pastor and others to destroy the parish school, and accusations of gross injustice toward the Sisters. Parish Council and School Board meetings, which were ordinarily attended only by the dozen or so members, now had to be held in the parish hall to accommodate the overflow crowd who came to demonstrate, disrupt the meetings, or voice their concerns.

12. There were constant demands for Father Boucher’s resignation, and demands that I state my position taking either one side or the other. The removal of the two previous associate pastors was wrongly interpreted as a victory for the SOS group, and only served to fuel their sense that the parish could be governed by public outcry and popular demand. By my second month there, police officers had to be present at all parish meetings to prevent the threat of violent confrontations. I watched Father Boucher, over the next several months, gradually buckle under the immense pressure, and finally he erupted in anger at protesters following a Sunday Mass. Television cameras and newspaper photographers recorded his outburst and foul language at a woman who thrust a sign in his face, and the outcry for his removal was renewed.

13. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this situation was the fact that, as a newly ordained priest, I had certain expectations of the diocesan leadership which were never met. I was dismayed at the lack of contact and support from Diocesan officials throughout the process. At one point I finally called the Chancellor of the Diocese, Msgr. Francis Christian (now the Auxiliary Bishop). Msgr. Christian seemed to be the person making most of the public statements about the situation, and most of the policy decisions. I expressed my concerns to Msgr. Christian that the pastor, Father Boucher, needed more support from the diocese than he was receiving. I also related to him an accusation, which was made to me by some members of the SOS group that Father Boucher was placing telephone calls to their homes in the middle of the night and then would hang up the phone, sometimes after making lewd comments. Msgr. Christian merely told me to confront Father Boucher about this myself. In the year that I spent in the Hampton parish throughout this dispute, I never once heard from any diocesan official.

14. In the fall of 1982 the civil lawsuit filed by the Sisters and the SOS suffered a setback. The Rockingham County Superior Court judge who heard the motions ruled that the matter was internal to the Church and therefore the civil court did not have jurisdiction. The Court ordered that the lawsuit be dismissed on this basis. The attorney for the Sisters and the SOS appealed the matter to the New Hampshire Supreme Judicial Court, and for the following months the battle on behalf of the Sisters gained momentum in the local area as the statewide newspaper, The Manchester Union Leader, joined their cause through frequent editorials deeply critical of the diocesan and parish leadership, the apparent lack of due process in unilaterally terminating the Sisters’ positions, and the lack of response by diocesan and parish officials in the many calls for an explanation. Someone on the diocesan level leaked inaccurate and out of context information to the newspapers that the real reason the Sisters were fired was that one of them had been “morally inappropriate” with a student while the others covered this up. This accusation, quoting an unknown source, drove the entire matter to the level of frenzy.

15. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, 1982 the New Hampshire Supreme Court, in a precedent setting decision, vacated the earlier decision of the Superior Court judge, and ordered that the matter was a contract dispute over which the Court had jurisdiction. The appellate court wrote in its decision that the Sisters’ religious status did not preclude their civil rights, and therefore they were granted access to the Court to have their lawsuit heard. This was a major victory for their supporters in a case which, I believed from the very beginning, the Diocese should not have been involved. The Sisters were, in fact, dismissed without due process and without being given an opportunity to respond. On the night of Christmas Eve I was called to the home of one of the Parish Council members along with the police. Supporters of the Sisters organized a motorcade and drove to the homes of each of the Parish Council members who supported the decisions of the pastor and diocese blowing their horns in victory. In one case, a rock was thrown through the window of one of the homes. The matter took on a vigilante tone. In the months to follow, the SOS gained broad support and momentum while both sides awaited a date to try the case in court. Other organizations, such as the National Association of Women Religious and the National Conference of American Nuns, issued statements in support of the Sisters’ cause drawing further national attention to what at this point had become a cause celeb, for what was perceived as the hierarchical oppression of women religious.

16. In the months following Christmas of 1982 Father Boucher and I came under constant public attack. One woman who was a staunch and outspoken member of the SOS made a series of appointments with me to discuss how this matter has affected her faith. After three meetings she falsely accused me to other SOS members of making sexual advances toward her. Another woman told a newspaper reporter, resulting in a headline story, that I had refused to give her the Eucharist at Christmas Mass, and had fiercely refused to offer her children the Sign of Peace at Mass when they approached me. None of this was true. One of the Sisters was quoted in the local press as claiming that she came to the rectory door on Christmas day to extend a greeting of peace to me, and that I then swore at her and slammed the door in her face. This, too, was untrue. Throughout all of this, the Diocese maintained absolute silence.

17. In May of 1983 my father died suddenly in Massachusetts at the age of 52. On the same day as his death the Diocese announced, a few days before a scheduled court trial, that it had reached a settlement with the Sisters and their attorneys, and that the matter would not have to go to trial. The announced settlement was that the Sisters and the SOS would withdraw their lawsuit, and in exchange the Diocese and parish agreed to allow the Sisters to remain in residence in the parish convent for another year, would pay each of the Sisters two year’s salary, and would pay all their legal expenses in bringing the lawsuit. The legal expenses alone reportedly amounted to over $100,000.00. Father Boucher and I both learned of this for the first time by hearing it on the television news. Quickly the news of the settlement spread, and now those parishioners who had remained supportive of the pastoral staff accused us of selling out. No one believed that we were not a party to, or even aware of, the settlement. On May 17, 1983 I celebrated my father’s funeral Mass in Massachusetts at 10:00 AM, and attended a hearing at Rockingham county Superior Court to finalize the settlement at 2:00 PM.

18. Following that hearing Father Boucher and I met. I told Father Boucher of my intention to resign from the parish and urged him to do the same. I felt that the wounds of the parish were deeply felt, and could only be healed with an entirely new pastoral staff. Father Boucher agreed, and said that he would address this with the Bishop. The next day Father Boucher informed me that the bishop accepted his resignation but did not want to accept mine since he feared that it would appear that our leaving was a part of the deal, and would be interpreted negatively. I then contacted the bishop for an appointment, which I obtained for the following afternoon.

19. The next day I met briefly with Bishop Gendron at his office in Manchester. Bishop Gendron was unhappy about my decision to leave the Hampton parish, but said that he would permit it. He told me that he had some misgivings about my being assigned there as a first assignment, but that the Personnel Board recommended it and he acceded to their recommendation. He then instructed me to meet with Auxiliary Bishop Robert Mulvee (now Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island), who chaired the Personnel Board, to discuss an assignment. Bishop Mulvee met with me on the same day, and told me that I had really messed things up by my insistence on resigning. He said that he and the Personnel Board had strong misgivings about Hampton as my first assignment, but that Bishop Gendron overruled the Board and assigned me there against their recommendation. I did not confront him on the divergent accounts of the two bishops. Bishop Mulvee then said that I had earned a better assignment and said that he would assign me to St. Bernard Parish in Keene effective June 15, 1983. Bishop Mulvee then asked me to return to Hampton, and to ask Father Boucher to agree that we would both keep our resignations confidential to give the Diocese an opportunity to announce that it was our own decision. That evening, Father Boucher and I were watching the 11:00 P.M. news on a local television station, and were surprised to hear the news anchor say that officials of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester have announced their decision to remove the two parish priests in the wake of an out-of-court settlement of the Sisters’ lawsuit. Father Boucher and I both protested this to the Bishop, but he insisted that he had no idea how this account was released to the media. On June 15, 1983 Father Boucher and I said good-bye. Father Boucher left for the city of Laconia as pastor, and I left for St. Bernard Parish in Keene as associate pastor.

20. I arrived at St. Bernard Parish in Keene on the same day, June 15, 1983. When I arrived I learned that there were three other priests living in the rectory. These were the Pastor, Father Gabriel Houle (now deceased), who had been there for seven years; Father Wilfrid Bombardier, an elderly priest who was semi-retired; and Father Daniel Dupuis (who is now laicized and married). Father Dupuis informed me that he had made a decision to leave ministry after three years there, and that Father Houle had recently relapsed after two attempts at residential treatment for alcoholism. The Diocese, I then learned, had arranged for Father Houle to again be admitted for residential alcoholism treatment at Guest House, a facility for priests in Minnesota. Father Houle was to be admitted upon my arrival, and Father Dupuis had agreed with the Bishop that he would remain at the parish for most of that summer to assist me until Father Houle returned. Neither bishop had related any of this information to me when I was assigned there. Father Houle’s elderly mother also resided in the rectory and was the cook and housekeeper for her son. Because the living quarters were all in use, I spent that first summer in a guestroom on the rectory’s second floor.

21. Later in that same summer I learned from news accounts that Father Stephen Scruton, the pastor of St. John Parish in Hudson where I was ordained, had been arrested and charged with indecent exposure and lewd conduct for allegedly making sexual advances to a young adult male at a highway rest area near his parish. This was one of the first highly publicized scandals involving a priest of the Diocese so it received much press coverage. Following the arrest, Father Scruton was placed on paid sick leave by the diocese for the next two years. Also during that Summer I learned that the associate pastor in Hudson, Father Mark Flemming, who was working with Father Scruton, was accused of the sexual abuse of a minor male in the Hudson rectory, and was quietly removed form the parish. Father Scruton was investigated for having witnessed the behaviors of Father Fleming, but neither was charged with a crime, and the matter quietly dissipated. Father Fleming left the Diocese at that time. I also then learned that Father Fleming had been assigned to St. Bernard Parish in Keene as a deacon just prior to his ordination and first assignment in Hudson, and that he had also been accused of sexual abuse in Keene.

22. At the end of the summer of 1983, Father Houle returned from his stay at Guest House, and Father Dupuis left the parish and the priesthood. Within days of his return, however, Father Houle began drinking alcohol again. I was dismayed at the atmosphere and tension of the rectory situation following a difficult year in Hampton. This only became worse, however, when in November of 1983 I too was accused of sexual misconduct in a claim from my previous parish in Hampton alleged to have occurred sometime before I left there. The claim was baseless, but disturbing. The claim was brought by a young man who told a counselor that I had hugged him inappropriately when he came to me for counseling in the months before I left the parish. The claim was passed onto investigators for the state’s Division of Children and Youth Services who were responsible for the investigation of all claims of suspected child abuse.

23. At first I thought that the claim was simply more of what I had been experiencing in Hampton in terms of the constant barrage of false accusations attempting to discredit Father Boucher and me. In the weeks following the claim, however, I learned that it was something much more. The young man making the claim, Lawrence Camivale, was a fourteen-year-old boy who had come to see me three times when I was in Hampton. Each time I met with him in a first floor office after the secretary allowed him in. When I left Hampton, the young man was angry about the entire situation and accused me of abandoning him and the parish. He continued to call me collect at my new assignment, but after a few months I ceased accepting his calls. I learned of the accusation from Msgr. Christian who also told me that the young man claimed that Father Boucher walked in on the alleged inappropriate behavior and witnessed it. He also claimed that he had complained to Father Boucher that I made inappropriate advances to him. I called Father Boucher to ask about this. Father Boucher told me that none of this was true, but also added that no one from either the Diocese or the Division for Children and Youth had contacted him about it. I later learned that the Diocese told the investigators that I had admitted to this, and it was then dismissed as a founded but minor incident. I had admitted to nothing, but it seemed that Diocesan officials were fearful of resurrecting the entire Hampton affair again so they took “the path of least resistance” to adjudicate the matter. Two years went by before I learned anything further about this allegation.