“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
— Deacon David Jones
Fatherhood Wandering in the Land of Nod
Behind the high walls and razor wire of American prisons, the most visible and deeply felt deprivation and longing is not just for freedom, but also for fatherhood.
Behind the high walls and razor wire of American prisons, the most visible and deeply felt deprivation and longing is not just for freedom, but also for fatherhood.
June 11, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae
“Nikolai Petrovich went out to meet (his son, Arkady) in the garden and, upon approaching the arbor, suddenly overheard the rapid footsteps and voices of two young men. They were walking on the other side of the arbor and could not see him. Nikolai Petrovich hid.
‘You don’t know my father well enough,’ said Arkady. ‘Your father is a good man,’ Bazarov said ‘but he is antiquated; his song has been sung.’
Nikolai Petrovich listened more intently. Arkady made no reply. The ‘antiquated’ man stood there without moving for a few minutes, and then slowly made his way home.”
— Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, 1862
Once upon a time, when Beyond These Stone Walls was in its earliest existence, I wrote a post about the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. Cain first appears in Scripture in the Book of Genesis (4:1). Having given birth to the first human born of a woman, Eve declared, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” It was great, of course, that Eve acknowledged the role of the Lord in this, but some have erroneously interpreted this to mean that no role at all is to be attributed to Adam. Just seven verses later, Cain has murdered his brother, Abel, and is exiled to wander in the Land of Nod, East of Eden. In only 11 verses in the fourth chapter in the Book of Genesis Cain is conceived, born, grows up, and murders his brother Abel. The Lord said to Cain:
“The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the earth. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth … . Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, East of Eden.”
— Genesis 4:1-12, 16
The Land of Nod is also where I wander now. The word, Nod, (or “Nad”) in Hebrew means to wander. In the story of Cain, he is disenfranchised not only from the family of man but is also to be deprived of the fatherhood of God. The story is not told in Scripture as a justification of eternal punishment, but rather it sets the stage for the most visible, hurtful, and deeply felt deprivation, not just for the demise of freedom but also the demise of fatherhood. And it is felt as well far beyond these stone walls. Humanity is weaker for its absence.
You have probably, at some time in your life, heard of a term in modern philosophy called “nihilism.” It comes from the Latin word, “nihil” which means “nothing.” You may have seen the term, “Nihil Obstat” on the title pages of Catholic books. It is the mark of a censor noting that “nothing objectionable” to faith is found in the book.
An English derivative is the word, “annihilate,” which means to reduce to nothing. Nihilism was a movement in philosophy that began in mid 19th-century Russia. It scorned authority and tradition and promoted radical change in society. Its adherents believed that tradition, reason, and family systems lent nothing to humanity except bondage. Its agenda was to end Christian influence and to render obsolete the faith of our fathers … and even our fathers themselves. We can readily see in this the roots of Socialism, when the State becomes our father and the Nation our Fatherland.
When nihilism paved the road to Communism, Christianity was its greatest threat. The term first appeared in literature in the 1862 novel, Fathers and Sons by Russian novelist Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev. His principal character, Bazarov, introduced nihilism to Western minds by rendering fatherhood and tradition obsolete. The sad excerpt atop this post set the stage for that story.
One result of the slow but steady annihilation of fatherhood in our culture was what the world witnessed in Ireland several years ago. The Irish “Pro Choice” referendum to repeal a 1983 Constitutional amendment banning abortion reflected not only the diminishment of respect for life but also the diminishment of fatherhood, and even life itself. A natural development of that diminishment has been the growth of assisted suicide, such as in the bill just passed in New York State, but not yet signed into law.
All the language and rhetoric preceding the Irish vote was dominated by the same terms that swept America in the wake of the 1973 decision in “Roe v. Wade”: “a woman’s right to choose,” “a woman’s reproductive rights,” and “my body, my choice.” The right to life itself fell silently away, and along with it, the partnership of fatherhood also fell silently away — or perhaps rather was “silenced.” All of this rhetoric went itself to the diminishment not only of the right to life, but also the right to fatherhood.
Many readers had asked me to write about this, and I did so in several posts. Since 1973 when the United States Supreme Court issued its deeply divided vote affirming Roe v. Wade, American voices of respect for life have grown thunderous despite being largely silenced by the mainstream news media and our increasingly socialist politics of the left. That has now changed and that change is reflected in two important posts at this blog: “After Roe v. Wade, Hope for Life and a Nation’s Soul,” and “The Unspoken Racist Arena of Roe v. Wade.” The latter post examined how the demise of fatherhood rendered almost meaningless the role of African American fathers and their “right” to fatherhood.
The Fallout from Absent Fathers
The photograph atop this section, presents some faces familiar to many of our readers. All of them were prisoners who did the hard work of reclaiming their lives from the Purgatory of prison. In the center is the one most familiar to readers. It is Pornchai Max Moontri who was Valedictorian for his high school graduation class for the prison’s Special School District in 2012. His story is told in a multitude of posts, including “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom.” To the far left is Evenor Pineda, whose rising star in freedom was told in “Evenor Pineda and the Late Mother’s Day Gift.” To the rear and right of Pornchai is Alberto Ramos, a story told in “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.”
The stories of each of these young men, who have paid in full any debt to society that they owed, are characterized most especially by the absence of fathers in their lives. This is not just a crisis for the right to life, but for the right to manhood, and the right to fatherhood. Something amazing has taken place in the United States of late, and is hopefully spreading throughout the Western world. Men are only now rising up to respond to the diminishment of both manhood and fatherhood. Since 1973 or so, men had drifted from embracing traditional roles as fathers and leaders. The six young men above are striking examples of the great harm caused by that diminishment. The trend had for too long been for men to remain silent on this issue, going gently into that good night instead of standing up to rage, rage against the dying of the light. The most natural expression of manhood in our culture has been fatherhood, and when manhood fades so does fatherhood. If fades with disastrous consequences. There is a direct and alarming correlation between the explosive growth of America’s prison population and growing up without direction from an attentive, involved, and nurturing father. Even elephants have figured this out, and we have failed to take the hint.
Who can look at the photo above and conclude that these are evil men not worthy of redemption? Evil is found here in abundance, but these young men have, with just a little help, placed all their newfound energy as men into repelling it.
There are other realities involved in the fact that prisons are now replacing parents in the upbringing of large numbers of discarded adolescent and young adult men. The sentences judges impose have grown longer to reflect the politics of tough-on-crime agendas like those promoted in the 1990s Clinton Crime Bill. It has not gone without notice that former President Joe Biden, on the very eve of leaving office, pardoned a convicted federal judge in Pennsylvania whose “Kids for Cash” scheme enriched him with kickbacks after sending a multitude of adolescents into the prison system illegally. What is the message sent by such a betrayal which most of the news media simply passed over without comment? What was the message sent when the President showered mercy upon that betrayal while showing none whatsoever to the young men betrayed?
Prisons have also burgeoned with the closing of services and facilities that once housed the mentally ill. Now they are warehoused in prisons instead of state-funded hospitals and treatment centers. The most devastating factor is the massive increase in drug traffic and drug addiction throughout America and especially throughout American prisons. Growing numbers of young men who came into the prison system without a drug problem are leaving with one.
Regardless of the demographics of crime and punishment, the people who are coming to prison in mindless, aimless droves all have this one thing in common. Eighty to ninety percent of them grew up in fatherless environments. Without reinventing the wheel, I wrote about this phenomenon in a Father’s Day 2012 post that was recently cited for “The Best of the Catholic Web” in the National Catholic Register. That article was “In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men” linked again at the end of this post.
That article struck a chord with readers who know experientially that the story it tells is true. Here is another staggering statistic about these young men. In 2008, 1,070 of them were granted parole to serve the remainder of their sentences under public supervision. By 2010, over 500 of them were back in prison for either parole violations or new offenses. What about the victims of these new crimes? What other publicly funded endeavor could exhibit a fifty percent failure rate, and still function as “business as usual”? Until we acknowledge that very often one of the victims of a crime is also the perpetrator, no effective intervention can take place in lives ruined by absent or, far worse, abusive fathers, and the addictions caused by attempts to medicate that loss.
Prison has become not only something that will teach them any lesson to prevent future bad acts. Despite many efforts at rehabilitation, our overcrowded and understaffed prisons have become merely something that young men must somehow survive. Prison has become a place where they are more likely than not to encounter the polar opposite of what they need most.
Jordan Peterson’s Summons to Manhood
In some recent posts, I have recommended a book that, I am glad to see, is still on the “Best Seller” lists. Canadian psychologist and author, Jordan Peterson, was described by Wesley Lang in Esquire magazine as being, “on a crusade to save masculinity.” That itself may explain why, in the liberal culture of Canada’s progressive politics, Jordan Peterson had been all but silenced.
I first wrote of him in a reflection on a Wall Street Journal column by Peggy Noonan. Her January 27, 2018 column was entitled, “Who’s Afraid of Jordan Peterson?” Formerly associate professor of psychology at Harvard, Jordan Peterson taught psychology at the University of Toronto for 20 years. Ms. Noonan wrote about his book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
Peggy Noonan was intrigued because the interviewer was critical of Professor Peterson for his resistance to adopting the new orthodoxy of political correctness. Peggy Noonan summarized that the interviewer tried to silence Peterson’s…
“Scholarly respect for the stories and insights into human behavior — into the meaning of things — in the Old and New Testaments. ‘Their stories exist for a reason,’ he says, ‘and have lasted for a reason.’ They are powerful indicators of reality, and their great figures point to pathways.”
Men and women are different, Peterson says, and men should resist becoming “androgenized.” Progressive critics have attacked him repeatedly — probably a good sign that he’s on the right track — and some have labeled him an “alt-right reactionary.” But that is far from true and was leveled by the same crowd that would warehouse your sons in prison just to hide the evidence of what radical feminism has visited upon us and them. As Peterson writes,
“When softness and harmlessness become the only acceptable virtues, a man will start to act like an overgrown child.”
I now live among many of them. This is how bullies are created, and they are the very antithesis of what manhood should be. They grow up to make horrible fathers — and then absent ones — if indeed they grow up at all.
So, wake up, men! Get your heads back in the game. And get your butts back in church, and bring your sons with you! You have no idea of the devastation your absence has wrought.
“Prisons cannot replace fathers. At best new prisons constitute an expensive endgame strategy for quarantining some of the consequences of fatherlessness. It is not an act of justice. It is an admission of failure, of the retreat of men.”
— David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America Confronting our Most Urgent Social Problem, p 32
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Over past years, we have maintained a Facebook page for this blog. A number of Catholic groups there have expressed gratitude for our posts. About two months ago some anonymous person at Facebook decided that our posts with Catholic content are “SPAM.” Now Facebook blocks our attempts to post. So we cannot share this post on Facebook, but you can, and we hope you will.
Meanwhile BTSW still maintains pages at LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest and Gloria.tv, all of which gladly accept and promote our posts. You may follow us if you wish at any of these sites.
You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Evenor Pineda and the Late Mother’s Day Gift
Like many single mothers of prodigal sons, Evenor Pineda’s Mom struggled against formidable forces — the streets, the gangs, jail, then prison — but never gave up.
Like many single mothers of prodigal sons, Evenor Pineda’s Mom struggled against formidable forces — the streets, the gangs, jail, then prison — but never gave up.
May 15, 2024 Fr Gordon MacRae
Toya Graham is not exactly a household name, but odds are you’ve seen her. Just about every cable and network news outlet in America carried a video clip of Mrs. Graham chasing her masked and hooded teenage son down a Baltimore street back in 2015. She searched for him, and found him in the middle of an urban protest surrounded by police in riot gear. Not long after she left with her prodigal son in tow, the crowd erupted into a rampaging mob that laid waste to one of the poorest neighborhoods of Baltimore.
As the news footage of a desperate mother chasing down her son went viral, Toya Graham quickly became a national icon of sorts, a single mother struggling to raise her son alone against the lure of the streets. My heart went out to this woman. The very scene she unwittingly brought to national attention was one I described in a post entitled, “In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men.” Seven years after it was published, it was cited by the National Catholic Register as being among the best of Catholic blogs because it struck a very exposed nerve in our culture.
I hope you will read it and share it in these weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in America. That article has been the most widely read and shared post at Beyond These Stone Walls, having been republished in hundreds of venues and shared over 30,000 times on Facebook alone. It told a story that might be the real catalyst behind the looting, raging mobs that overtake inner city streets across America. It is a story about much more than race.
Toya Graham became an icon of the one thing necessary to keep a peaceful and legitimate protest from descending into a lawless mob: a loving, caring, responsible and available parent — preferably two of them in faithful partnership — willing to meet head-on the challenge of parenting. In the now epidemic absence of fathers in neighborhoods like that one in Baltimore — and in prisons all over America — Toya Graham met that challenge heroically, and alone.
A few days later, Mrs. Graham and her son, Michael Singleton, appeared on one of the morning network news shows. He presented as a remarkably articulate and respectful son, traits that no doubt spoke more of his Mom than himself, and he joked that running toward the police in riot gear on that street that day made more sense to him after seeing the look on his mother’s face.
For her part, Mrs. Graham apologized to the nation for a few foul words delivered before cameras in the heat of the moment, but she apologized to no one for the almost comical smack she delivered to the son who towered over her. “As long as I have breath in my body,” she said, “my son will not be down there doing that!” If this blog had a Mother-of-the-Year award, it would have gone to Toya Graham.
But she would have to share it with Rosa Levesque. Rosa is the mother of another young man I know, Evenor Pineda, and I have come to admire her very greatly even though we have never actually met. You have previously met Evenor Pineda however. He appears in a photograph that you will see again below.
Evenor's is a remarkable story of the undying love and urgent hope of a single mother struggling to redeem her prodigal son. It is best to tell it in Evenor’s own words:
Here Is Evenor Pineda:
“I was born on Wednesday, December 30, 1981 to immigrant parents in Nashua, New Hampshire. My father, Cosme, was a political refugee who fought on the losing side of a civil war in Nicaragua. My mother, Rosa, was an orphan adopted into an oppressive and abusive family that emmigrated to the United States. My sister, Lina, was born two years and a day after me, and by her second birthday our mother left our father, fleeing in an attempt to protect us from the drug dealing and growing addiction that was consuming his life and our family.
“As I grew into adolescence with the wonderful woman struggling to raise us alone, I betrayed her faith, hope, and trust by becoming the next male role model in our family to become an abuser and addict, and I added a new twist — a gang member.
“While my mother struggled to pay the bills I did everything to undermine her. Our home became a hangout for the gang. I brought alcohol and drugs into our home and police to our door, because there was no one there to stop me. Under my influence, even my younger sister began to stray into my world, but our mother took a much harder line with her, pulling her back from the brink upon which I lived.
“It wasn’t that my mother didn’t take that same hard line with me. She did. But she also knew that outside our home were the streets always luring her rebellious son from beyond her influence. She knew that she risked losing me forever, so my Mom did what she always did. She struggled as best she could.
“Between the ages of fifteen and eighteen I would drop out of school, be arrested a dozen times, incarcerated four times in both juvenile detention and then county jails, but my mother never gave up on me. Not even when I gave up on myself.
“On my eighteenth birthday, I maxed out of a county jail and was able to land a real job. I held it for five years, but the ties to my gang grew stronger and I simply became better at evading arrest. And my Mom still struggled against them.
“By the time I was twenty-two, I had two beautiful children of my own, my son, Tito and my daughter, Nati. Fatherhood was something I had to learn from scratch, having had no personal experience of it in my life. The relationship I was in with their mother collapsed, but my mother was, as always, right there to help me raise my children. She was an incredible grandmother.
“I was balancing two different lives, however, one as a young father and family man and the other as a gangster. Those two lives collided on April 17, 2005. My friend Kaleek and I had a falling out over drugs that escalated. We both fell victim to the street culture we had embraced, and that would not release us from its grip. It ultimately took Kaleek’s life, and my freedom.
“This marked the lowest point in my life. It was the point at which I learned who my true friends were — and were not — and it reinforced how much the adage is true — that blood is thicker than water. It was a selfish moment in my life where I thought of no one but myself. I knew I suffered, but I had no idea how much I made my family suffer. By this time, my sister, Lina was serving in Iraq, and at a time when I should have been a support to my family, I instead went to prison. I had been in this place for ten years, with eight more left to serve.
“My mother had become both grandmother and mother to my children, and the one mainstay of my life who never stopped struggling to save me. So when there came a time when I had to decide who I am, I looked to the one person who might know. My mother taught me by the sheer force of example the meaning of love and sacrifice, the meaning of parenthood.
“In 2010, I became a volunteer facilitator for the prison’s Alternatives to Violence Program. I trained for this alongside two men you know: Michael Ciresi and Pornchai Moontri. In 2012, Pornchai Moontri and I graduated together from Granite State High School, an accredited school in the Corrections Special School District. My friend, Alberto Ramos.
“One day, my friend, Gordon MacRae showed me an article he wrote about our graduation. It told my friend, Alberto’s story and was titled, “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.” It was then that I realized that I must never give up on myself. I know you have seen the photograph of us that I am told is now rather famous. That is Pornchai in the middle with Alberto just behind and to his right.
“I am on the left, and clearly in the very best of company. Gordon is not in the picture, but stood next to the photographer. We were all proudly showing him our diplomas.
“In the ensuing years I served with my friend Gordon on the Resident Communications Committee (RCC), a representative group of ten prisoners that met monthly with prison administration to keep open channels of communication and to try to make this a better and safer environment. After a year I was appointed co-chairman of the RCC having been nominated for that post by Gordon. I want to thank him. At least, I think I do!
“I also was a member of Hobby Craft and its woodworking department where I have learned the skill to produce furniture and other items that were then sold to the public. I used the funds I earned to help my mother and my children, and also to further my education. Through this effort, I was able to afford one or two courses per semester at New England College which had a presence in this prison.
“I formally renounced my gang membership. There was no longer any room for that past in my present. I remember something my friend, Pornchai Moontri wrote in an article I read. ‘One day I woke up with a future when up to then all I ever had was a past.’ Sometimes the truth just smacks you in the head. Today, I find reason to be proud, not only of my mother, but my sister, Staff Sergeant Lina Pineda of the New Hampshire National Guard, and of my children. I am their future, and it is an awesome responsibility from which I must not shrink.
“When we graduated from high school in 2012, Gordon MacRae was there to hear Pornchai’s great graduation speech. He wrote about this in an article I read. I gave a speech that day, too. My mother, Rosa, was there, and I wrote it for her. Gordon later asked me for a copy, and then asked me to let him reproduce it here.”
Evenor Pineda’s Commencement Speech:
“Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an opportunity to receive an education or to have parents to encourage their education. I, however, was one of those fortunate enough to have both an opportunity and someone who cared enough to show interest in my education.
“Yet I then took for granted what I now recognize was then a luxury and I squandered a wonderful opportunity to seize a controlling stake in my future. It was a future which up until high school was very promising. All I had to do was stay the course.
“It was a far cry from other children in the world not as fortunate as I was to have a parent who cared and who valued education, children whose future is bleak, at best. The most shameful part about this is that I knew how good I had it and how bad others did.
“I know of such a woman whose childhood was the polar opposite of mine. She was parentless at the age of three, placed in an orphanage with her six sisters all of whom were eventually placed with different families. At nine she found herself in a home where she was denied an education, robbed further of her childhood, forced into a life of servitude: cooking, cleaning, caring for that family’s biological children, and abused both physically and mentally. She was told that she would amount to nothing, would be nothing.
“Yet this woman did not allow circumstance to dictate her future, and as fate would have it, when the family she was living with emmigrated to the United States, the Land of Opportunity, she did just that. She seized an opportunity and a controlling stake in her future. At the age of just seventeen in a foreign land, she struck out on her own, started her own family, learned English, and with only a third grade education, earned her GED.
“Then she earned a college certificate in her field of work, earned her citizenship, earned a home, and earned the American dream. It was a dream this woman, my Mother, struggled to obtain, and I was a product of that American dream. I was born into an opportunity not afforded to my mother, yet she — unlike me — capitalized on her opportunities.
“I had to endure great loss and suffering to finally grasp and understand to what lengths my mother had to struggle and sacrifice to solidify her place in this country, and how much it must have pained her to see me throw away the opportunities bestowed upon me.
“Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an opportunity at an education, let alone a second chance. This is why this diploma has taken on a whole new meaning. It is a step toward redeeming myself to my mother and my family. It is a symbol of my commitment to follow in the steps of my mother in pursuing the American Dream.
“I’m sorry to be late this Mother’s Day, Mom, and all the Mother’s Days past. I love you, and I thank you. I am so very proud of you. Your struggle has not been in vain.”
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Editor’s Note: Evenor emerged from prison in 2017 and has never returned. He is today the Intervention Programming Coordinator for the Manchester Police Athletic League where he diverts many young people from the lure of the streets. He has also assisted other inmates emerging from prison by challenging them to employ the tools needed to move forward. He is today an outstanding father thanks to the support of an outstanding mother.
Thank you for reading and sharing Evenor’s profoundly moving story. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men
Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
The Music of Eric Genuis Inspired Advent Hope
A prison concert by composer Eric Genuis and his outstanding musicians made Advent spirits soar for a prisoner priest and an old friend whom you have come to know.
A prison concert by composer Eric Genuis and his outstanding musicians made Advent spirits soar for a prisoner priest and an old friend whom you have come to know.
December 13, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae
“Music is a language with the profound ability to stir the heart, inspire the mind, and awaken the soul .”
— Pianist and Composer Eric Genuis
Note from the Editor: The above image shows Eric Genuis and his ensemble performing his composition The Butterfly at a Concert of Hope in Ft. Collins, CO.
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I have, over time and of necessity, become somewhat attuned to signs and wonders here at Beyond These Stone Walls. As Advent loomed, there was no shortage of them and little time to ponder them. The wonders began in the weeks before Advent began. I was descending the multiple flights of stairs from the prison law library where I work as a clerk when, at the bottom, I heard someone call my name.
It was the Director of the prison’s Recreation Department who stopped me. He asked if I know a music composer named Eric Genuis. I said that I did not, but that I had heard of him. “Well, he has heard of you, too,” said the Director adding, “We are scheduling a music concert with him next month, and he emailed me to ask if you might be able to attend.” It was suggested that I keep an eye out for the notice and then sign up if I want to go. Weeks later, I saw a poster advertising the concert. There would be two performances in the prison gymnasium, one at 8:30 AM and the other at 1:00 PM. I signed up for the earlier one thinking that it might be less crowded.
When I arrived for the concert that day, all the front rows were filled with prisoners anticipating something very special. Like a good Catholic, I took a seat at the end of an empty row of seats at the rear. Then someone came over to me, pointing out Eric Genuis conversing with some of his musicians off to one side. I got up and walked over to them. Eric spun around and vigorously shook my hand. “This is Father MacRae, the priest and writer I told you about,” he said to the others. I wanted to sink back into my seat and disappear. Eric spoke of it being an honor to meet me and said that he is a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls. Others in the small group also shook my hand and commented that they appreciated my recent post “Pell Contra Mundum.”
Thirty years in prison have not exactly left me accustomed to recognition, or even basic human respect for that matter. Being where I am, I do not have a sense of the impact of anything I write or of who reads it. When we finished our greetings, Eric asked me for a blessing. Every eye in the huge room was riveted to this scene as I made my way back to the seat I had just vacated. I will get back to this in a moment.
The Memorare
By longstanding tradition at Beyond These Stone Walls, but with occasional exceptions, we publish one post per week on Wednesday mornings. The tradition was born out of the limits of prison writing. As described here recently, this blog has to contend with many obstacles to appear in print. With no computer and just an old fashioned standard Smith Corona typewriter, I count on postal mail — sometimes in vain — to get my completed post from New Hampshire to New York each week. However, one particular post did not cooperate. It was “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Some Older Songs.”
Fourteen days after mailing it, that post still had not arrived for scanning and editing. So we had to do the unthinkable. At the behest of our editor who does all the hard work, I had to dictate my new post word for word over the telephone while our editor typed it one character at a time. She was a paradigm of patience while I imagined little clouds filled with expletives hovering about my head like in the comic books while she typed.
Adding to the frustration, just about every phone call from prison is dropped multiple times and has to be reconnected. Writing like this leaves me feeling a bit like Saint Paul in the middle of his shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:25). So here we are in the middle of the Second Week of Advent, and I struggle to decide what I will write about in this post. Advent is a most difficult time for a Catholic writer who can publish only once per week.
The reasons may not be so obvious. Just two days after my Wednesday post of last week, the Church honored the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a most important Marian Feast that I cannot let pass by without notice. She is central to Advent, and there is no Christian hope at all without her Fiat, her “Be it done to me according to Thy Word.” I wrote of her during a past Advent in “Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us.” (We will link to it again at the end of this post.)
Then, just a few days later in Advent is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a very special Catholic observance for me because she appeared to me as well. Hmmm — I should modify that a little. She did not appear as she did to Saint Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill in Mexico in 1531. She came to me quite differently, and it could easily be dismissed as coincidence, but it wasn’t. You had to be there to see and feel the impact of it, but no one was there except me. Ten years ago, in 2013, I was leaving my job in the prison law library for the day late in an afternoon.
There is a computer at my desk there containing the Law Library database that I must use daily. As I was shutting everything down for the day, I had the sudden inkling to change the background image on the screen. I had never done so before, so when I went to the listings of thousands of background photos to choose from, I could see only identifying numbers but no text or titles or descriptions. I had but minutes left. So I randomly chose one of them only by number from among the thousands of numbers on the screen. I could not see it. Then I shut down the computer.
My next work day that year was December 12, but I was not even conscious of the date. I arrived at my desk at the usual time on that morning and booted up the computer. I opened drawers to pull out files I had to work on, and when I looked back at the screen, I gasped. There was no one I could tell because no one here would understand it and the few who might understand it also might not have believed it. So I told no one except my friends Father Michael Gaitley and Father George David Byers who both took it in agonizing stride.
On my screen that day was a brilliant painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe as she appeared to Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill. In the background is the modern day Basilica of Our Lady, all painted on a canvas in Mexico City. Then, as if tasered, I noted the date this happened. It was December 12, 2013 — ten years ago on the Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. My friend Father George David Byers found a grainy copy of the same image which is posted above, but it does not do justice to what is on my screen.
Two other things happened in the months preceding this. Two persons who had been my friends in prison also became my family. It was mostly by default because none of the three of us had one. December 2013 was the most trying month of my entire, and entirely unjust, imprisonment. It was also the month that Pornchai Moontri and I, with profound reluctance at first, signed up for a six-week program that would end in our Consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That story is told on the Marian Fathers own website in “Behold Your Son! Behold Your Mother!”
Then, in that same month, our other family-friend, Alberto Ramos, was suddenly transferred from New Hampshire to a Florida prison from where we would likely never see each other again. “Likely,” however, does not always get the last word.
Now back to 2023 and the Eric Genuis concert ... .
The Measure by Which You Measure
After Eric and his musical entourage asked for a blessing, I made my way back to my seat — only now there was someone else sitting in it. To my utter shock and surprise, it was Alberto Ramos who ten years earlier had been moved to another state to serve out his sentence. Discounting that anything positive can come from any association between prisoners, most states do not allow them to communicate with each other. So for ten years there was nothing but silence from or about Alberto who was sentenced to 30 years in prison at age 14. He is now 44, and has never known any other life.
I wrote of Alberto’s life, and his offense at age 14, in a post many years ago entitled, “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.” In 2022, after ten years in distant silence, I wrote of him again in “The Measure by Which You Measure: Prisoners of a Captive Past.” Here is an excerpt from that post:
“Alberto was 14 years old when the knife in his hand severed the artery of an 18-year-old with whom he struggled. It was a vicious end to a late night drug deal gone very bad in a dark Manchester, New Hampshire alley. It happened in 1994, the same year that I was sent to this prison. It seemed a flip of a coin which combatant would die that night and which would survive only to wake up in prison. At age 14, Alberto had won the battle but lost himself. Sentenced to a prison term of 30 years to life, he spent his first few years in solitary confinement. The experience extracted from him, as it also did from Pornchai Moontri, any light in his heart, any spark of optimism or hope in his eyes.
“Then, when finally age 18, Alberto was allowed to live in the prison’s general population where the art of war is honed in daily physical and spiritual battle. It is a rare day that a City of Concord Fire Department ambulance doesn’t enter these prison walls shutting down all activity while some young man is taken to a local hospital after a beating or a stabbing or a headlong flight down some concrete stairs. The catalyst for such events is the same here as it was in the alley that sent Alberto here. There is no honor in any of it. It is just about drugs and gangs and money.
“Alberto’s path to prison seemed inevitable. Abandoned by his father, he was raised by a single mother who lost all control over him by age 12. Drugs and money and avoiding the law were the dominant themes of his childhood. By age 14, he was a child of the streets and nowhere else, but the streets make for the worst possible parents. In ‘Big Prison’ it was discovered that there is more to Alberto than the violence of his childhood. Alberto was 22 when he earned his high school diploma here. He will soon be released after having spent more than two-thirds of his life behind bars.”
The photo atop this section is that of his graduation class at Granite State High School within the New Hampshire State Prison. I wish today that I could have made a movie clip of that graduation. Pornchai Moontri was the class valedictorian so he had to give a speech. Alberto, who is just over Pornchai’s shoulder to the right, snickered when Pornchai momentarily lost his place, but quickly recovered.
Back to the concert again. When Alberto was brought back to New Hampshire from prison in another state to prepare for his upcoming release on parole, he was housed in a different unit than the one I am in. When he saw a poster for the Eric Genuis concert, he signed up hoping that he might see me there. It is for Alberto and Pornchai and thousands like them in prisons across America that Eric Genuis so gracefully and generously shares his God-given gifts.
It is very difficult to describe in words. Eric Genuis is a world class classical pianist and a composer of the most stirring music I have ever heard. Eric’s piano, along with accompaniment from a cello, a violin and the angelic voice of a vocalist reached deeply into our souls. After the ensemble’s rendition of “Panis Angelicus,” an original composition by Eric Genuis with words composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Alberto turned to me with a look of awe. “I have never heard anything like this before,” he whispered with tears in his eyes. For the next two hours, we and others in that gym were lifted up and out of prison into a melodious visit to the lower heavens. I began to fear that we might all get charged with attempted escape.
Just a few days later, Alberto was gone again — this time to a minimum security prison unit outside these walls where he can prepare to reconstruct his broken life. Divine Mercy is real, and because it is real, Mrs. Rose Emerson read of Alberto in these pages. She is the mother of the young man Alberto killed all those years ago at age 14. She contacted me asking me to convey to Alberto her forgiveness of him, and her wish to help him when he is ready for parole and release.
On the evening after the concert, I called Pornchai Moontri in Thailand. I told him that Alberto was back, and that we had spent two hours together in a magnificent concert by Eric Genuis. I told Pornchai that we had very little by way of Advent hope going for us this year. Just little snippets of fleeting hope that we cling to on dark winter days in prison. Eric Genuis set that fleeting hope to music, and then set it ablaze.
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Notes from Fr. Gordon MacRae:
Please visit the music of Eric Genuis at www.ericgenuis.com. His cds would be a gift of hope in any Christmas stocking.
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Our Salvation
In Judeo-Christian tradition the scales of Saint Michael the Archangel measure souls for eternity, weighing not only justice and mercy for us but also from us.
In Judeo-Christian tradition the scales of Saint Michael the Archangel measure souls for eternity, weighing not only justice and mercy for us but also from us.
September 27, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae
In September 2010, when this blog was but a year old, I wrote a post that was to become one of the most-read posts of the last decade. I had no idea at the time that it would find readers year after year on six of the seven continents. (Is there no one reading BTSW in Antarctica?) The post was “Angelic Justice: St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Hesed.”
The last word of its title, “Hesed,” is a Hebrew term associated with two central tenets of salvation: Mercy and Righteousness. The story that post tells began within these stone walls and brought about a resurgence of interest in this Patron Saint of Justice. Over time, his Angelic Presence — his name means “who is like God” — has developed a seemingly mystical connection with this imprisonment.
This connection began with a simple gesture from a devout young man named Alberto Ramos. Sent to prison at age 14 for murder — a back-alley drug deal gone horribly wrong — Alberto was a psychology student of mine at age 18 in a prison program for college credit. Alberto also lived in the same prison unit as me and Pornchai Moontri. His painfully amazing story was told at Beyond These Stone Walls in “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.” We will link to that post again at the end of this one, and if you click on it you will see a wonderful photo of Alberto and Pornchai as they are graduating from high school.
A startling thing happened after I wrote it. The mother of the young man who died in that Manchester, NH alley that night read it. Then she agonized over it. Then she had a conversion of heart, something she says she would not have thought possible after years of entrenched bitter resentment toward Alberto. She forgave him, and wrote of her forgiveness in a moving comment on that post. She also decided to try to help him.
Mere words cannot capture the meaning of “Hesed” relative to the Scales of Saint Michael and the weighing of souls, but the mother of that murdered boy attained it as much as any human being can. A conversion of heart that sets aside bitterness to give way to mercy made her righteous in the eyes of the Lord.
Some of the images of Saint Michael with his scales depict Satan, even while subdued under his feet, reaching to tip the scales by stifling our ongoing conversion. The battleground of spiritual warfare is our very soul, and the battle is real. One day Alberto walked into my cell carrying a card with a painting on it. He silently climbed up onto a concrete counter and taped the image above my door. “You need this here,” he said, “and you should never take it down.” It was a startling image depicting this scene from the Apocalypse:
“War broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, the ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to Earth and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, ‘Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Anointed One, for the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who night and day accused them before God.’”
— Revelation 12:7-10
At the center of the painting was St. Michael the Archangel, sword in one hand and scales in the other, subduing Satan after a fierce battle. I asked Alberto why he thinks I need this. “Because you were falsely accused,” he said, “And you need his protection so you won’t be bitter and never trust anyone again.” Now, almost 14 years later, that image is still above the door of my cell.
Guardian of the Covenant
Sometime later, Alberto was moved to another prison in another state, but I have for years pondered what he said. I did not include his warning about bitterness when I first wrote in “Angelic Justice” of his placing that image above my door. I am not certain why I left it out. But I have come to see that false witness is a powerful tipping of the scales in the measure of souls, and so is succumbing to bitterness. We are far more spiritually vulnerable than most of us realize. It took a long time, but I was finally able to convince both Pornchai and Alberto of a tough lesson I was slow in learning myself. Bitterness is like a toxic brew that we mix for our enemies just to end up drinking it ourselves.
In Jewish tradition, Saint Michael is one of the four angels who stand in the Presence of God. The Book of Daniel (12:1) also identifies Michael as “One who stands beside the sons of your people,” an allusion that he is the guardian of God’s chosen people. His name is mentioned in the Shema, a prayer from Hebrew tradition:
“In the Name of the Lord God of Israel, on my right hand stands Michael, on my left, Gabriel, before me, Uriel, behind me, Raphael, and above me, the Divine Presence of Yahweh.”
Every mention of Michael in the Hebrew Scriptures identifies him as an advocate for Israel and therefore an advocate for the Covenant relationship with God. Advocate in that sense is used in the same manner that someone falsely accused of a crime might describe his defense attorney. And Satan is presented as prosecutor. It is fascinating that in the Book of Revelation, the scene of Satan’s expulsion from heaven by Michael and his angels ends with a declaration: “The accuser of our brethren is cast out.” The offense for which Satan accuses us is something he himself is denied: a hope for salvation. In ancient traditions, Michael defends the righteous in the presence of Yahweh in our final judgment.
Like much of what I write at Beyond These Stone Walls my post, “Was Cardinal George Pell Convicted on Copycat Testimony?”appeared on the professional social media site, Linkedln where it had hundreds of views. I rather like Linkedln even though I have never actually seen it. It’s a little tamer than some other social media platforms where the give and take can become overbearing. And on LinkedIn, you will never have to look at pictures of other people’s cats.
So I was a little surprised when even at the venerable LinkedIn, my rational and factual defense of Cardinal Pell ran into some pointed opposition. One writer who identified himself as “a practicing Catholic” wrote that Cardinal Pell is in prison where he belongs for “abusing children.” Several readers responded that the evidence does not support that claim. In my response, I wrote that his practice of Catholicism needs more practice. And as you know, Cardinal Pell was ultimately exonerated in a unanimous decision of Australia’s highest court.
The abuse crisis in the priesthood is a two-edged sword in seemingly equal measure. It is a story of clerical corruption, but it is by same measure a story of false witness. Clerical corruption has had ample play in the news media, and social media has been no exception. False witness, however, is grossly under-reported.
Also under-reported are the wonderful expressions of Catholic faith by people of real fidelity undaunted by the arena in which scandal plays out on the front page. Father George David Byers sent me a link to a short video of the Eucharistic Congress Procession in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina. Wonderful!
The Origin of the Eighth Commandment
From the first signs of Satan’s pursuit of the hearts and souls of humankind, the Covenant conscripts us into Saint Michael’s battle against evil. The separation of light from darkness in the human relationship with God portrays Saint Michael as a warrior tasked with the protection and defense of human souls, and the preservation of the covenant.
Written contracts did not exist in the Hebrew society of our Old Testament. In their place, the spoken word had the authority of a signed contract. A blessing or curse was understood to follow the person to whom it was directed for all of his or her life. Spoken words were thus carefully considered. The parties of a covenant were bound by mutual agreement with serious repercussions for those who violated its terms. God’s covenant with Abraham was seen in Jewish culture as the foundation of our relationship with Yahweh. For that story, see “The Feast of Corpus Christi and the Order of Melchizedek.”
However, the covenant with Israel itself, the covenant that made Israel a people of Yahweh, was the Sinai Covenant in the Book of Exodus (19:1-ff). It made them a people because it set down ethical standards for being a people. The Covenant was set down in the stone tablets of the law, and had the authority of God’s Presence housed in the Ark of the Covenant.
One of these sacred tenets, the Eighth Commandment — “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” — is thought by both Jewish and legal scholars to have an unusual origin: Genesis, Chapter 39. When Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and taken down to Egypt, he was purchased as a slave by Potiphar, a high ranking officer of Pharaoh. In the account in Genesis (39:6-21), Potiphar’s wife repeatedly pursued Joseph but he would not consent. In one episode, she tried to grab his garment, but he fled, tearing off a section of his garment in her hand. She later accused him of sexual assault using the garment as evidence against him.
For this, Joseph was unjustly imprisoned. Alan Dershowitz, a Jewish scholar and Emeritus Professor of Law at Harvard, addressed this in his book, Genesis of Justice (Warner Books, 2000):
“The Ninth Commandment [Eighth in the Christian texts] — “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” — derives directly from Potiphar’s wife bearing false witness against Joseph and Joseph then bearing false witness — even as a pretense — against his brothers. [His brother] Yehuda’s desperate question, ‘How can we clear ourselves?’ is answered by this prohibition and the subsequent procedural safeguards that rest upon this Commandment.”
— Genesis of Justice, p 250
The subsequent procedural safeguards were laid out in the Books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus. The accusation of a single witness, without evidence or corroboration, could not result in a conviction. The testimony of a witness who had a financial stake in the outcome of a juridical trial could not be admitted as evidence against the accused. Today’s juridical proceedings have fallen far from these safeguards.
In both its active and passive forms, false witness was seen in the Covenant as a slayer of souls. Safeguards against it were implemented from the earliest days of Salvation History. In its active form, false witness was any testimony not based on absolute truth. In its passive form, it spreads through rumor, innuendo, and judgments based on bias and agendas instead of facts.
The Necessity of Allies in Spiritual Warfare
It is because of the great danger to the soul that false witness poses that Saint Michael the Archangel took up his cosmic role, as described in the passage from the Book of Revelation above, to cast out the false accuser who no longer has a place in heaven.
Hebrew Scripture and tradition was not unique in this concept. Egyptian mythology depicts a rite in the underworld in which the heart of the deceased was weighed on a set of scales against a “truth feather.” If the heart was heavy with falsehood and false witness, it could not pass on to paradise.
The grave effect of false witness on the person accused, on the souls of accusers, and on the Covenant with God is reflected throughout Sacred Scripture as evidenced in just this partial sampling of passages:
Exodus 20:16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Exodus 23 1-2 “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness. You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing to bear witness in a lawsuit.”
Exodus 23:6-7 “You shall not pervert justice. Keep far from a false charge. Do not kill the innocent or those in the right for I will not acquit the guilty.”
Deuteronomy 5:20 “Neither will you bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Deuteronomy 19:18 “If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, then [the judge] shall do to that witness what he intended to do to the other. So shall you purge the evil from your midst.”
Psalm 27:12 [This is one many priests could plea to their bishops] “Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen up against me.”
Proverbs 6:16-19 “There are six things that the Lord abhors: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, a hand that sheds innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked plans, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.”
Proverbs 19:20 “A false witness will not go unpunished.”
Proverbs 25:18 “Like a war club, a sword, or a sharp arrow is one who bears false witness against a neighbor.”
This list of excerpts from the Word of the Lord could go on for pages. We live in an age of falsehood, a time when the rule of law is collapsing under the weight of political correctness, identity politics, expediency, and moral relativism. These will spell the ruin of both souls and society.
This is why we have allies in spiritual warfare behind and beyond these stone walls, and we are more than willing to share them with you. They include Mary, Mother of God, whose heart was wounded by seven swords; Saint Maximilian Kolbe, wrongly imprisoned under an evil regime, who gave his life for another; Saint Padre Pio, falsely accused, suspended from priestly ministry, even while openly bearing the wounds of Christ.
And Saint Michael the Archangel who prevailed when “the accuser of our brothers was cast out who night and day accused them before God.” (Revelation 12:10) False witness, sans repentance, is a path to spiritual ruin for eternity.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do you, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, cast into hell Satan, and all evil spirits who prowl about this world seeking the ruin of souls.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: You may also like these related posts :
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POSTSCRIPT
As indicated in this post, my friend Alberto Ramos was sent to another prison about six years ago. While I was writing this post he was returned to the New Hampshire prison to prepare for his coming release after 30 years “inside.” At his earliest opportunity, he came to the prison law library where I am the clerk. His smile was visible in Heaven. As he took my hand in his firm grip he asked three rapid-fire questions: “How are you?, Where is Pornchai? Is Saint Michael still above your door?”
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
To Vanquish Evil, and Disney in La La Land
Writing on current events behind and beyond these stone walls Fr. Gordon MacRae presents ‘Archangel Michael Atop My Prison Door’ and ‘From Disneyland to La La Land.’
Writing on current events behind and beyond these stone walls Fr. Gordon MacRae presents ‘Archangel Michael Atop My Prison Door’ and ‘From Disneyland to La La Land.’
April 27, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae
Pigeon poop! I apologize in advance for such an inauspicious beginning to an otherwise respectable post, but that is in fact how this story began. In the weeks before Holy Week this year, a nasty norovirus raged through this prison with a vengeance. Some prisoners have a bad habit of feeding pigeons who amass inside these walls for a daily feast. Some of the pigeons are so obese from a steady diet of stale bread that it’s a marvel they can still get off the ground. Finally, prison officials banned the practice of feeding them after the pigeons became possible suspects in a recent outbreak of norovirus.
I was just beginning to feel some gratitude that it passed me by, but alas, I was among the last to get it. My own version of it was like the “Big Barrage” at the end of a Disney World fireworks display where the biggest explosions are saved for the end. I will spare you the more gory details, but on the night of April 1st into April 2nd, I spent twelve hours memorizing the patent number on one of our housing unit toilets.
That twelve hours from hell was followed by a few days of overtaxed abdominal muscles and grumbling queasiness, but it’s all behind me now. I always wash my hands many times each day here, and I avoid as much contact with others as I can, but because I am the law clerk in the prison legal library, everyone wants to shake my hand upon arrival. Rather than refuse the gestures, I thought it better to just wash my hands more often.
Anyway, my bout with norovirus is over now so I’ll get to the point. After the early April experience, I found myself with a sudden disdain for pigeons and their calling cards. I cannot see this blog, but in some printed images that were sent to me, I noted an abundance of pigeon remnants beneath the statue of St. Michael the Archangel on our Home Page. It never bothered me until my abdominal apocalypse, but now the pigeon poop was all I could see.
The majestic marble statue, located somewhere in France, was mostly spared by some obviously devout French pigeons, but poor Satan beneath was subjected to relentless pigeon bombardment. It’s not that I have sympathy for Satan. I just wanted all evidence of pigeon fecetiousness gone from my blog. Yes, I know “fecetiousness” is not a word, but it should be.
So as Holy Week loomed, I asked our editor if we could possibly replace the image of St. Michael on our Home Page with one less ... um, decorative. My only condition was that I wanted St. Michael to stay. He is, after all, the Patron Saint of Justice and I wasn’t about to let him fly off with the pigeons.
The only problem was in selecting a replacement from among the thousands of statues, sculptures, paintings, sketches, and stained glass depictions of Archangel Michael. I could be no help in choosing one because I cannot see any of what our editor sees while preparing this blog for publication. Seeking an inspiring one, she settled on an 1850s painting by French artist, Eugene Delacroix entitled, “Saint Michael Overcoming Satan.” It hangs in the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris. So sight unseen I asked for that one because I attended a Sulpician seminary, St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, the oldest Pontifical Institute in the United States.
Our new Home Page was up on Palm Sunday, but it was the middle of Holy Week before I could see a copy of it. I was astonished because that very same image — one of thousands of Saint Michael images from which our editor could have chosen — has been above the door on the inside of my prison cell for twelve years. It was put there by Alberto Ramos, a young man I wrote about in “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.”
In a phone call to Thailand this week, I told Pornchai Moontri this story. He recalled being bombarded by a pigeon in the prison yard while sitting next to me watching a basketball game two summers ago. He assumes now that the pigeon was actually aiming for me. More importantly, Pornchai was astonished by the St. Michael story. He was present in our cell in 2010 when our friend, Alberto silently climbed up onto the sink to tape that same image of St. Michael on the lintel above our door.
“Never take this down,” Alberto said. Having been in prison since age 14, he knew only too well the underworld currents of evil that drift through here by osmosis. He wanted the Patron Saint of Hope and Justice to be the last thing we see before venturing out our door into the prison world beyond.
When Pornchai and I were moved to another place seven years later in 2017, I climbed up to carefully remove Alberto’s St. Michael image for placement above our new cell door where it remains to this day. It is now also the same image that welcomes visitors to Beyond These Stone Walls. The full story of Saint Michael and why Alberto put him above my prison door is told in one of our most popular posts, “Angelic Justice: St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Hesed.”
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From Disneyland to La La Land
You may have noticed that I mentioned Disney World in our first entry for this double post. Disney World has been in the news lately, but not for anything that contributes anything to the common good. Following some currents of parental anxiety over “woke” trends in education, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill restricting public schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to the third grade. In a bizarre twist for a corporation counting on Florida for its success, Disney World protests that decision.
Supporters of the bill say it was aimed at asserting more parental control over content in the classroom, a trend that swept the nation after a Democratic former Governor of Virginia declared last year that parents should have no say in what is taught in schools. That is why he is still a “former” Governor of Virginia. The loudest reaction came at the polls. Some of the most liberal school board members in some of the most liberal Democratic-led cities are now also voted out of office.
Lest you think this Florida bill squashes legitimate debate about public policy, it does nothing of the kind. It simply limits classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through grade three, a development that should need no defense. The law also requires that information in subsequent grades must be age appropriate. The bill allows parents to sue school districts that do not comply. Governor DeSantis defended the new law amid an onslaught of “woke” protests:
“You’ve seen a lot of sloganeering and fake narratives by leftist politicians, by activists, and by corporate media. We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare and wellbeing of their children.”
Tolerance, respect for human rights, and justice for all people are desirable goals for every society, but there is a gaping chasm between such a noble effort and woke demands for education to teach and promote LGBT and gender identity issues as an evolution in human development that contributes to the common good. The “common good” is the most abused and debatable part of this discussion. I once wrote a post on the special handling of this subject that was an eye-opener for many. It was entitled “Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix.”
Disney’s Falling Stars
Disney executives are likely aware that the history of their own company was not always on board with the current woke trend. Just a few months ago, there was an obscure story buried in the news media about Tommy Kirk. If his name rings no bells, his most memorable acting role probably will. The entire nation shed tears in the 1960s while watching him as a teen movie icon compelled to euthanize his beloved dog in the blockbuster Disney film, Old Yeller. I was ten years old then, and overcome with grief.
Tommy Kirk went on in adolescence and young adulthood to make a few more big box office Disney films such as The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, and The Absent Minded Professsor, but none were quite as memorable as Old Yeller. Walt Disney introduced him to a film director then as “My Moneymaker.”
Then, at age 21, Tommy Kirk was seen holding hands with another young man near a Disneyland pool. Walt Disney ordered Kirk to be escorted from Disney property and fired. Kirk was blackballed and ruined as an actor. He went on in young adulthood to struggle with addiction. He died in 2021 having gotten his life together running a small business in obscurity.
I wonder what Tommy Kirk might think today about the Disney drift to the polar opposite extreme of LGBT concerns. One need not travel back more than a few decades to find a parade of young actors used, used up, and discarded by Corporate Disney. Remember Bobby Driscoll? He found stardom as Jim Hawkins in the 1959 blockbuster Disney production of Treasure Island. Bobby Driscoll died from drug addiction in his early thirties after spending much of his youth anonymously discarded on skid row.
In its public opposition to a common sense law, Corporate Disney has descended into La La Land and is out of touch with the currents of parental rights and discourse. Disney’s dive into the culture war should raise alarms for stockholders whose concerns for Disney’s bottom line might dwarf its woke agenda.
It should also raise alarms for parents whose children are lured from parental influence by a woke agenda mixed with heavy doses of glitter and fun.
Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek initiated a public dispute with Governor DeSantis over Florida’s common sense measure. Mr. Chapek and Disney World are on the wrong side of public policy and parental rights in this. The Walt Disney franchise can only be harmed by this oblivious descent into the woke politics of our time and their insistence on suppressing parental rights. I predicted such a development in another post, The “Woke” Have Commenced Our Totalitarian Re-Education.
Since then, the Florida Senate and House of Representatives both voted to rescind a decades-old agreement allowing self-government for Disney World and tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks.
“What father among you would hand his son a stone if he asks for a fish?” (Matthew 7:10). What parent among you would take a cue from Disney on the education of your child?
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Please visit our “Special Events” Page for our announcement about Easter Season posts leading up to Pentecost, and for information on our aiding our refugee project in Thailand.
You may also like the related titles linked in this week’s post:
Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being
Angelic Justice: St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Hesed
