Vatican Bans Publishing Lists of ‘Credibly’ Accused Priests

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts, two other Vatican Dicasteries, and Pope Francis himself have banned publishing lists of priests ‘credibly’ accused.

April 2, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: This post may not move hearts, but it should move minds and consciences. It is of utmost importance to me, to the priesthood and to the whole Church. So we should not be silent in the face of injustice. So please share this post.

+ + +

On February 22, 2025, the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, the Vatican office responsible for issuing authoritative legal interpretations and directives for the universal Church, published online a long awaited guidance to bishops impacting the due process rights of “credibly accused” Catholic priests.

The announcement underscores the Dicastery’s decision that bishops considering publication of lists of priests deemed credibly accused of sexual abuse are prohibited under Canon Law from doing so. This guidance is for a multitude of reasons connected to long established civil and canonical rights of due process. I will describe below some examples of how these rights have been impacted.

From the point of view of official Church positions, the problem is, and has always been, the bishops’ collective interpretation and use of the term “credible” in their response to the crisis. It is a standard applied nowhere else in the world of civil or criminal jurisprudence. It means only that a claim of abuse cannot be immediately dismissed on its face. If a claimant alleges abuse in a specific community 30 or 40 years ago, for example, and the named priest had once been assigned there, the claim is “credible” unless and until it is disproven.

There is no court in America that admits such a standard of evidence but it is routinely applied now to accused Catholic priests. Courts have long recognized that older memories are highly malleable, and misidentification of the accused is a frequent risk.

Before delving further into this, I want to present a reaction to the Vatican news from William A. Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who has consistently defended the due process rights of priests.

From Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Vatican Finally Does Right by Accused Priests

Six years after Pope Francis rejected the practice of publishing the names of accused priests, the Vatican has finally codified his plea. Henceforth, dioceses are discouraged from publishing such a list. Among the reasons cited was the inability of deceased accused priests to defend themselves.

This should never have been an issue in the first place. But in the panic that ensued following the 2002 series in The Boston Globe detailing clergy sexual abuse, the bishops convened in Dallas in 2004 to adopt a charter that listed comprehensive reforms, some of which substantially weakened the rights of the accused.

At the time, I was highly critical of the way some bishops allowed a gay subculture to flourish, one that resulted in a massive cover-up of the sexual abuse of minors (homosexual priests — not pedophiles — were responsible for 8 in 10 cases of abuse). But I also said of the Dallas reforms, “There is a problem regarding the rights of the accused. It appears that the charter may short-circuit some due process rights.”

One of the problems was the desire to publish the names of accused priests. Egging the bishops on was Judge Anne Burke, the first person to head the National Review Board commissioned by the bishops to deal with the problem.

She made it clear that priests — and only priests — should be denied their constitutionally prescribed right to due process. “We understand that it is a violation of the priest’s due process rights — you’re innocent until proven guilty — but we’re talking about the most vulnerable people in our society and those are children,” she said. Such thinking allowed the bishops to make public the names of accused priests.

In an interview I had in my office with a female reporter from CNN, she became quite critical of the Church for not posting the names of accused priests on its diocesan websites. I picked up the phone and, holding it in my hand, asked her for the name and phone number of her boss. When she asked why, I said I was going to accuse her of sexual harassment. I added that I wanted to see if CNN would post her name on its website. She said, “I get it.” I put the phone down. (For more on this see my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse).

No organization in the United States, religious or secular, publishes the names of accused employees. That there should be an exception for priests is obscene.

The rights of accused priests need to be safeguarded, and the penalties for those found guilty need to be severe. The Church failed on the latter, which is why the scandal took place, and it failed on the former, which is why Pope Francis, and now the entire Church, had to act.

The sexual abuse of minors in the Church in America has long been checked — almost all the cases in the media are about old cases, and most of the bad guys are dead or out of ministry. Now that the rights of the accused have been given a much needed shot in the arm, we can say with confidence that the problem has been ameliorated.

Now back to Father MacRae............

But My Diocese Employs “Trauma-Informed” Consultants

On July 31, 2019, Bishop Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire proactively published a list of the names and assignment histories of 73 priests in his diocese who had been “credibly” accused of sexual abuse of minors and removed from ministry. Most of the claims deemed “credible” are decades old. The majority of the priests on Bishop Libasci’s list are long deceased. In most cases, the sole condition making the claims “credible” was the fact that money — lots of it — changed hands.

Bishop Libasci’s stated goal for publishing his list was “transparency.” In 2024, long after Pope Francis discouraged bishops from doing so, Bishop Libasci republished the list with the names of additional accused but deceased priests.

Weeks after Bishop Libasci’s original list was publicized in 2019, Ryan A. MacDonald penned and published a contentious objection: “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.” It was contentious because it represented well my disagreement with this action of the bishop of my diocese, something I otherwise hoped to avoid. Plaintiff attorneys and activist groups like SNAP pressured bishops to publish such lists for the purpose of “assuring victims they are not alone and that they are heard.”

The real reason for pushing for published lists, however, was to provide a forum and online database for false “copycat” claims, a lucrative business for contingency lawyers and claimants alike with little or no court oversight. In May 2024, Ryan A. MacDonald published a report on how and why this happens in “To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants.” Here is an excerpt from an official statement of my Diocese:

“The Diocese of Manchester provides financial assistance to those who have been harmed, regardless of when abuse occurred, through a process utilizing independent trauma-informed consultants.”

A basic problem with handling the matter of due process for the accused and outcomes for the Diocese by abdicating judgment to “trauma-informed consultants” is that the term is widely noted and critiqued by professionals as highly biased. It has a documented negative impact on judicial fairness and due process of law in claims of sexual abuse and assault.

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity (CPI ) is an organization that seeks to strengthen prosecutorial ethics, promote due process, and end wrongful convictions. Victim-centered investigations, also known in the sex abuse contingency lawyer industry as “trauma-informed,” presume the guilt of all accused and lead to wrongful convictions.

According to the Center’s website, “The most destructive types of victim-centered investigations are known as “Start by Believing,” and “Trauma-Informed.” The Center exhibits a professional bibliography documenting the “junk science” behind such investigations creating an epidemic of false witness and police and prosecutorial misconduct. Given the well-founded caution about false claims and financial scammers, it was alarming to read the following in a recent news article, “Diocese of Manchester Settles Sexual Abuse Claims from the 1970s.” Here’s an excerpt:

“No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, but the attorney representing the ‘John Doe’ who was involved said it’s important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process, … thus announcing a six-figure settlement outside the Diocese of Manchester office.”

Has it never dawned on anyone in Church leadership that there are those in our midst who would find a “six-figure settlement” an enticement for false accusations? This is especially so when there is no court oversight for such claims. The process has been made very simple. A lawyer writes a letter and a bishop writes a check.

In addition to these trauma-informed consultants retained by the Diocese of Manchester and other dioceses,”it seems that civil lawyers and risk managers, not bishops, are often running the show.” So wrote prominent canon lawyer, Michael Mazza, JD, JCD, in a recent First Things article (February 24, 2025): “Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries?” Mazza concludes:

“ln the wake of the clerical abuse crisis, church leaders may have surrendered too much authority to risk managers focused on eliminating every threat. Seasoned entrepreneurs understand that the moment lawyers run the show, adopting a zero-risk strategy as the business model, the company grinds to a halt. While the surest way for a car company to avoid getting sued is to stop making cars, that strategy is not an option for an institution that has received a divine call to preach the Gospel to all nations. Bishops must recognize this truth and seize the helm with the resolve their office demands.”

The Perspective of a Not-So-Credibly Convicted Priest

My name was on Bishop Libasci’s published list under the unique category, “convicted,” but that was not at all my point of contention with his list. Unlike most of the priests named on that ongoing list, I at least had public charges in a public forum — a 1994 criminal trial — no matter how jaded and unjust it was. The details of those charges and that trial have emerged over time and are also now in public view. They have raised awareness about the absence of truth and the aura of injustice in the forum in which I was condemned and sentenced.

As Ryan A. MacDonald’s article, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List” points out, Bishop Libasci’s predecessor, the late Bishop John B. McCormack, went on record in an unpublished media interview in the aftermath of my trial stating his informed belief that I was falsely accused, wrongly convicted, and should not be in prison. He insisted, however, that this information should never leave his office. These details were exposed in a 2021 post, “Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded.”

Going back even further in this history of neglected due process, Bishop McCormack’s predecessor, the late Bishop Leo O’Neil, chose not to wait for the outcome of a trial. Before my trial commenced, he published an official diocesan press release declaring that I victimized not only my accusers but the entire Catholic Church. After that, a trial seemed just a formality.

The most visible post-trial analysis of due process in the case, however, was that of Dorothy Rabinowitz, awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her courageous exposure of “accusation, false witness, and other terrors of our time.” Her series of articles in The Wall Street Journal culminated in “The Trials of Father MacRae” in 2013, six years before Bishop Libasci published his list.

In a compelling five-minute video interview produced by The Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz saw through all the smoke and mirrors and got to the heart of the matter. It is a brief but bold exposé of unassailable truth that ties the two-decade outbreak of clergy abuse claims to the very unquestioned settlements money promised by my Diocese in its statements above.

I give the last word to “A Video Interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz.”

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon Mac Rae: I thank Catholic League President Bill Donohue for his contribution to this post. His outstanding book on this subject is The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse (2021) published by Ignatius Press.

I also thank Michael J. Mazza, JD, JCD for letting us reprint a segment of an article that I highly recommend: Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries? First Things, February 24, 2025.

During Lent this year I created a list of our Scriptural posts and published them together under the title “From Ashes to Easter.” We shared the list on several Facebook Catholic groups. In response, Facebook dismissed it as “SPAM,” and then froze our account. (Again!) So we cannot share this post on Facebook, but you can. Thank you for doing so.

You may also like these related and eye-opening posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded

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 Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

With no court oversight the Diocese of Manchester paid a six-figure settlement for an expired abuse claim urged on by discredited “trauma-informed consultants.”

May 29, 2024 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Editor’s Note: The following post is by Ryan A. MacDonald who has published extensively on the sexual abuse narrative in the Catholic Church. His most recent was a collaboration with Los Angeles writer and researcher Claire Best entitled “The New Hampshire YDC Scandal and the Trial of Father MacRae.”

+ + +

I hear that there is a lot going on in New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” State. The State has long operated a juvenile detention facility called YDC — the Youth Development Center. In more recent years it was renamed the “Sununu Youth Development Center” after former Governor John Sununu, father of current Governor Christopher Sununu. They both now seem anxious to have their family name removed from that facility. The “YDC,” as it is commonly called has been at the center of a massive child sexual and physical abuse case in New Hampshire. There are currently an estimated 1,300 open lawsuits and other claims against the State and its officials for alleged physical and sexual abuse and attempts to cover that up. The alleged abuse was going on, but hidden, at the same time the Diocese of Manchester was on the public radar when Fr. Gordon MacRae faced trial in 1994. It was still going on in 2002 when the State launched a grand jury investigation of the Diocese whose abuse narrative paled next to the one being kept hidden by the State. After the State convened a grand jury to investigate the Catholic Diocese in 2002, it convened another to investigate the prestigious St. Paul’s School in later years. The State has convened no grand jury to investigate the YDC claims, though they dwarf other cases.

The YDC saga exploded into public view last year when former resident David Meehan filed a lawsuit against the State for hundreds of incidents of victimization by sexual and physical violence as a young teen held at YDC. He was but the first of many to come forward. Recognizing its liability, the State Legislature earmarked a $100 million fund to settle the YDC claims. The lawyers involved scoffed stating that it needed to be at least four times that amount. The list of plaintiffs then exploded. The State offers unquestioned settlements of up to $1.5 million for sexual abuse claims and $150,000 for claims of physical abuse.

A minority of the 1,300 claimants opted for a quick settlement while to date most others are holding out for a trial to present evidence and have their injuries heard in open court. The horrific case of David Meehan was the first to go to trial in early May, 2024. It generated lurid headlines about the abuse he suffered, including testimony of some staff who tried to report it, but were not allowed to. A shocked jury came back with a verdict just a week before I am writing this post. The jury awarded David Meehan $38 million in compensatory and punitive damages for his pain and suffering. Now there are over 1,000 trials yet to be scheduled and heard. Writer and researcher Claire Best has a companion post this week describing the connections in this story and how its tangled web has influenced the case against Fr. MacRae and the responses of the Diocese of Manchester.

Back in 2019, I wrote an article that I am told is among the most read and cited posts at this site. “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List” documents a 2019 decision of Bishop Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester, to publicize for at least the second or third time an ever expanding list of New Hampshire Catholic priests who have been “credibly” accused going back at least 50 years.

It is alarming to see that in that relatively small New England diocese, there are now over 75 names on Bishop Libasci’s list. Most of those priests are deceased, some for decades, and few have had anything resembling legal due process through which to defend themselves. That is most certainly so when they are accused posthumously like most of those on the list.

Bishop Libasci cited “transparency” as his motive for updating and republishing that list. However, the words “credibly accused” seem to have fallen off the list. In the Diocese of Manchester, the standard for public shaming is now simply “accused.” It seems far more Calvinist than Catholic. For some transparency of our own, we should clarify that Fr. Gordon MacRae is also on that list under the unique heading of “convicted.” There have been many published commentaries about the how and why of that, but perhaps the best of these is a series in the highly credible venue, The Wall Street Journal.

If you visit that link, be sure to view and listen to its first item, a five-minute video interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz, a member of the WSJ Editorial Board who was awarded a Pulitzer for her writings on “Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Time.”

Bishop Libasci’s published list does more than just inform the public. What would be the public interest in learning that a long deceased priest was posthumously accused of molestation? The list also acts as a “hit list,” giving an aura of credibility to scammers who would take advantage of the abuse crisis by filing false claims while using the list to get their facts straight. It is folly to believe this does not happen. Our bishops know full well that it does. Just recently in these pages, Fr. MacRae himself wrote of several modern examples in “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian. Courtesy of TheMediaReport

Given the well-founded caution about false claims and financial scammers cited above, it was alarming to read the following in a recent news article, “Diocese of Manchester Settles Sexual Abuse Claim from the 1970s.” Here is an excerpt:

“No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, ... but the attorney representing the ‘John Doe’ who was involved said it’s important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process. Attorney Mitchell Garabedian and Bob Hoatson, President of the non profit “Road to Recovery,” announced the six-figure settlement outside the Diocese of Manchester office.”

Activist Bob Hoatson said he drove all the way to Manchester from New Jersey to recognize what he called “the heroic actions of the accuser.” In a statement, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Manchester explained why the Diocese opted for a six-figure settlement despite the fact that the statute of limitations for filing any claim at all had expired many years ago:

“The Diocese of Manchester provides financial assistance to those who have been harmed, regardless of when the abuse occurred, through a process utilizing independent trauma-informed consultants.”

To understand how this is all connected to the vast number of unquestioned settlements in the State of New Hampshire YDC cases, just take a moment to listen to this brief advertisement from a local New Hampshire lawfirm. This diocese should prepare itself now for an onslaught of claims filed with no judicial oversight, but demands for settlements brought by the likes of Attorney Mitchell Garabedian and victim-activist Bob Hoatson. Ironically, the two of them were also at the center of a most important op-ed here in these pages entitled, “Betrayed by Victims’ Advocates.”

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity

A most basic problem with handing the matter of due process for the accused and outcomes for the Diocese by abdicating judgment to “trauma-informed consultants” is that the term itself is widely noted and critiqued as highly biased by professionals. It has a documented negative impact on judicial fairness and due process of law in cases of sexual abuse and assault.

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity (CPI) is an organization that seeks to strengthen prosecutorial ethics, promote due process, and end wrongful convictions. Victim-centered investigations, also known in the sex abuse industry as “trauma-informed” investigations, presume the guilt of all defendants and lead to wrongful convictions by steering their investigations around an initial presumption of guilt.

According to the Center’s website, “The most destructive types of victim-centered investigations are known as “Start by Believing,” and “Trauma-Informed.” The CPI displays an entire bibliography documenting the “junk science” behind them, and how they have turned the problem of wrongful convictions into an epidemic of false witness and police and prosecutorial misconduct.

This has crept into the arena of sexual abuse and assault convictions in just the last decade as advocacy groups flourish through federal Department of Justice grants. One of these groups, “End Violence Against Women International,” had been the recipient of 18 grants totaling millions of dollars from the US Department of Justice since 2011. It had been one of the main proponents of “Start by Believing” and “Trauma-Informed” investigations. The organization widely distributed a “Start by Believing” Action Kit to police and prosecutors nationwide. According to the CPI, it openly endorses investigator bias, utilizes guilt-presuming terminology, and contains false claims."

The CPI website lists dozens of scholarly articles refuting the “trauma-informed” methods of civil and criminal investigation and adjudication of claims. Nasheia Conway, the Civil Rights Program Director for Prosecutor Integrity complained in 2019 to the Office of the U.S. Inspector General:

“These concepts and investigative methods abuse the mission of the Department of Justice, which states in part, “... to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.” Termed a ‘multimillion dollar threat to justice,’ they abuse the purpose and intent of Congressional appropriations. And they abuse the public trust which is critical to the effective functioning of our criminal justice system.”

These facts have been documented and exposed by the Center for Prosecutor Integrity:

• Since 1989 there have been over 2,400 documented cases of persons who have been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated.

• An estimated 43% of wrongful convictions arise from misconduct involving prosecutors, police, investigators, and other officials.

• More than 90% of criminal cases are adjudicated during closed-door plea-bargain negotiations. These cases have little or no public accountability or even awareness.

• The most common types of ethical violations committed by prosecutors include:

  • Failure to disclose exculpatory evidence (Brady violation)

  • Use of inadmissible or false evidence/lack of candor

  • Plea bargain offenses (former Keene, NH Detective James F. McLaughlin vastly bolstered his conviction rate by offering minuscule and lenient plea-bargain deals to defendants.)

  • Inflammatory statements and witness harassment (Read the statement of Debra Collett.)

  • Mischaracterizing evidence

  • Vouching

In 2019, the CPI published an extensive report documenting the “Junk Science in Trauma-Informed Investigations.” The U.S. Department of Justice ceased funding for “trauma-informed” investigations because it was determined that they disavowed due process.

Upon information and belief, the trauma-informed prosecutorial organization to which the Diocese of Manchester has deferred in the matter of abuse investigations and settlements is the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV). The official investigator for the Diocese is now Julie Curtin, a former police officer in Concord, New Hampshire. She was also the principal investigator in a case that Fr. MacRae once wrote about in these pages: “Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester.” It is worth reading. It is also alarming to see that Ms. Curtin is now the investigator for the Diocese of Manchester Office for Ministerial Conduct.

Some months ago, Los Angeles researcher Claire Best wrote a long, nebulous, but entirely truthful analysis of the matter that sent Fr. MacRae to prison 30 years ago and keeps him there today. It is “New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case.”

This week, Claire Best has a commentary on current events in New Hampshire which is simultaneously published at the Voices from Beyond page at this site.

“A New Hampshire Ponzi Scheme Uncovered?”

+ + +

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.”

Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

While some high-profile priests are maligned from both in and beyond the Church, The Catholic University of America published its National Study of Catholic Priests.

“You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?”

— Matthew 7:16

January 11, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

In 2005, Catholic League President Bill Donohue was interviewed on the NBC Today show about accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests — some sadly true, but some also sadly false. Citing the case against me as an example, he said, “There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.”

Catholic priests in the United States have long been under assault from the news media, from activist groups, and at times even from within the Church. As most readers know, I have been the subject of many published articles, but not because I have been accused. It is because I strenuously refute the accusations as false. Much evidence has amassed in support of that. For some reason, this poses a threat to some nefarious agendas built around the sex abuse crisis in the Church.

When accused priests defend themselves in online media, seeding articles with vile comments using fake screen names had long been a tactic of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an organization that sought not so much to support legitimate victims, but to maximize monetary awards and media condemnation. Its representatives terrorized Church officials with media manipulation whenever any accused priest is defended in the court of public opinion.

Despite all that, some standout news media have bravely produced articles and commentary against the tide of public vitriol about accused priests. The Wall Street Journal recently published its fourth such article about the case against me. The most recent was by Boston Attorney Harvey Silverglate entitled “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.” This generated some excellent analysis by David F. Pierre, Jr. moderator of The Media Report. Those and other articles appear in our featured section, The Wall Street Journal.

I have much gratitude for Dorothy Rabinowitz, Harvey Silverglate, Ryan MacDonald, Bill Donohue, and David F. Pierre, Jr. for their valiant efforts to correct the public record. Without their truthful courage, I was at the mercy of nefarious means driven mostly by progressive political agendas and litigious greed. Most recently, however, even some bold Catholic writers have taken up the subject of Catholic Priests Falsely Accused.

The National Study of Catholic Priests

When I was first accused, my bishop and diocese published a press release declaring, without evidence, that I victimized not only my accusers, but the entire Catholic Church. That bishop’s successor later went on record to state his informed belief that I am innocent and should never have been in prison. Then his successor chose only to shun me, and to release my name on a public list of the “credibly” accused. He did this, he stated, for “transparency,” but that transparency has been highly selective.

My own experience leaves me with no trust at all that my bishop could, or would even try, to discern guilt from false witness in defense of me or any accused priest. Trust and distrust as the fallout from the scandal are now central issues in a recently published survey of 10,000 U.S. priests sponsored by The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. I highly recommend reviewing a report on the study results entitled, “The National Study of Catholic Priests: A Time of Crisis.” It was the largest study on the state of the priesthood in fifty years. Here is an overview of its parameters:

“Over the last two decades, the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has significantly eroded the trust between laity and clergy... Since the earliest days of the Dallas Charter there have been concerns that the bishops’ understandable eagerness to crack down on abusive priests was coming at the expense of due process protections for the accused: a de facto policy of ‘guilty until proven innocent.’ These concerns have been exacerbated by an expansion in the scope of the Church’s anti-abuse policies coupled with a perceived double standard in the way allegations against bishops have been handled in comparison to priests.”

Father Roger Landry, a columnist for the National Catholic Register, has an excellent analysis of The Catholic University of America study entitled, “Repairing the Relationship Between Priests and Bishops.”

The findings of the study are based on the responses of the thousands of U.S. priests who participated and submitted completed surveys. Given the difficult period of the last 20 years since the U.S. Bishops’ Dallas Charter was enacted, some of these responses are surprising, and point to the depth of commitment, spiritual life, optimism and resiliency of most priests. Most priests reported a high level of satisfaction in their ministry. A stunning 77% of priests self-reported that they are flourishing in their vocation.

Among the results, however, are some big red flags: 82% of priests report living with a fear of being falsely accused and left with no defense; 45% of priests report that they experience at least one symptom of ministry burnout, while 9% described their level of burnout as severe, and characterized by high levels of stress and emotional and physical exhaustion. Reports of high stress came particularly from younger priests. (I will get back to this later) .

The biggest concern among priests is related to the toll and fallout of the U.S. Bishops’ collective response to the sex abuse crisis in the Church. The sense of vulnerability among priests and their trust level for their bishops are the two most significant areas of negative fallout from the crisis.

In his NC Register column linked above, Father Roger Landry points to what I have called a disaster in the relationship between bishops and priests: the drafting and enactment of the 2002 “Dallas Charter” which imposed a draconian standard of “zero tolerance” and one-strike-and-you’re-out in response to any “credible” accusation against a priest. For an analysis of this standard of evidence, see my post, “The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests.”

Father Landry reports that the drafting of these policies in 2002 was done “hurriedly and under enormous pressure from the press, lawsuits and furious faithful.” Priests in the current study actually appreciated the efforts to respond to the crisis openly and with transparency. “But the priests surveyed gave stark testimony to the harms that have come from what the bishops in Dallas left out of balance.”

Guilty for Being Accused

The Vatican and Catholic hierarchy were unfairly maligned throughout publicity on “The Scandal.” At one point, SNAP partnered with the far-left, New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights to bring a crimes-against-humanity charge against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Some of the false claims against me were employed to shame Pope Benedict on a global scale. The scheme was nothing more than a publicity stunt to embarrass the Church into maximizing financial settlements. Many of its claims, including those against me were exposed as a fraud. Journalist Joann Wypijewski exposed this story in “Oscar Hangover Special: Why “Spotlight” Is a Terrible Film.”

Only in the Catholic Church is the highest echelon of governance blamed for the lowest level of misbehavior. Even in his later years, Benedict was demonized by German Catholics and others eager for any reason to blame him for the abuses of the past. Of interest, in the State of New Hampshire where I live more than 900 men between the ages of 20 and 50 have open lawsuits alleging systemic sexual abuse by State agents in the State’s juvenile detention facilities. Not one media outlet, not one victim group, not one of the victims themselves has blamed any of this on any present or former governor. This State carried out a witch-hunt in 2002 when the accused were Catholic priests. It is now confirmed that simultaneous to the witch-hunt was an active cover-up of the malfeasance of State agents.

As stated above, 82% of priests now report that they feel vulnerable to false accusations of sexual abuse that under existing policy will summarily end their ministry without due process. Compounding this fear, many report that they would be treated as guilty and left without support unless they could prove their innocence. Sixty-four percent said they would be left without support or resources to mount a defense, and almost half, 49%, think they would not be supported by their bishop. Father Landry added a sobering understanding of the reality:

“In most dioceses, when a priest is accused, he loses his home, his job, his good name — all within hours. He is removed immediately from his rectory and parish assignment, prevented from public ministry for the length of what is often an inexcusably glacial investigation, and required to dress like a layman. A press release is published in which the priest’s reputation is injured, if not ruined. He needs to exhaust his meager savings or beg and borrow money to hire a lawyer. Most excruciatingly, he has to linger for months or years under suspicion of being a sadistic pervert as well as a hypocrite to the faith for which he has given his life.”

Given the reality that most claims against priests are many years or decades old, establishing clear evidence is difficult if not impossible. So the bishops adopted what they called the “credible” standard. It means only that if a priest and an accuser lived in the same parish or community 20, 30, or 40 years ago, the accusation is “credible” on its face. No one in America but a Catholic priest could lose his livelihood, his reputation, sometimes even his freedom, under such a standard. I exposed one such case in “The Exile of Father Dominic Menna and Transparency at The Boston Globe.”

I am most appreciative to Father Roger Landry and the National Catholic Register for their bold and transparent analysis of what actually happens to an accused priest. By taking all the steps a diocese or bishop imposes above, such a priest is effectually silenced and unable to defend himself at all.

Stress along the fault lines between bishops and priests that these policies have caused is also clear in the survey. There is a wide disparity between how bishops view themselves and how they are viewed by their priests. Seventy-three percent of bishops reported viewing priests as their brothers. Only 28% of priests reported that their bishops treat them that way.

The disconnect revealed itself in several other ways as well: 70% of bishops reported that they are spiritual fathers to their priests while only 28% of priests thought the same. Father Landry reported that the biggest disconnect relates to a priest who is struggling. Ninety-percent of bishops reported that they would be present to and supportive of a struggling priest while only 36% of priests thought that this is true.

The Double Standard

Also evident in both the survey and Father Landry’s analysis of it is the double standard created when bishops failed to hold themselves accountable to the same standards imposed on their priests. In 2002, as the Charter was being debated during the U.S. Bishops Conference at Dallas, Cardinal Avery Dulles published a landmark article in America magazine entitled “The Rights of Accused Priests.”

The article was cheered by priests but largely ignored by bishops. Cardinal Dulles cited a 2000 pastoral initiative of the U.S. bishops entitled “Responsibility and Rehabilitation.” It criticized the U.S. justice system for the establishment of one-size-fits-all norms such as “zero tolerance” and “one strike and you’re out.” Then the same bishops, in a media panic, imposed those same standards on their priests.

But none of it ever applied to accusations against bishops, a reality that Father Landry described as “a double standard that profoundly affected their relationship [with priests].” While deliberating adoption of the Dallas Charter, the bishops removed the word “cleric,” which could have included bishops, and replaced it with “priests and deacons.” Now 51% of priests report that they do not have confidence in their bishop while 70% report a lack of confidence in bishops in general.

In a 2019 apostolic letter, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, Pope Francis addressed some of the disparities with mixed results. Father Landry points out that investigations of bishops, even in allegations of past sexual abuse, “seldom involve the draconian measures experienced by priests.”

I have written of a glaring example in my own diocese. Citing a desire for “transparency,” and with no one pressuring him to do so, my bishop proactively published in 2019 a list of the names and status of 73 priests of this diocese who had been “credibly” accused over fifty years. Most are deceased. Weeks later, a New Hampshire Superior Court judge barred publication of information from a grand jury investigation which was the source for most of the Bishop’s list. Ryan MacDonald wrote of the reasons for that in “Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm On the Priesthood.”

Months after publishing his list, my bishop was himself accused in a civil lawsuit in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York. He was unjustly caught up in the political fallout of former New york Governor Andrew Cuomo who generated the claims when he signed into law an exemption window in which old time-barred accusations can be brought forward after the statute of limitations had run. I defended my bishop in a widely read post, “Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo.”

Conservative Priests Face Greater Scrutiny

I mentioned above that I would revisit one finding of this report — that younger priests experience more stress than older priests. A separate research report on Catholic priests by the Austin Institute has documented that younger priests tend to be more conservative and traditional than older priests. That bears out from observations of our readers who find this distinction to be a positive development. Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Vatican Correspondent Francis X. Rocca reported on this in “Catholic Ideological Split Widens” (Dec.19, 2022):

“U.S. Catholic bishops elected conservative leaders last month, continuing to resist a push from Pope Francis to put issues such as climate change and poverty on par with the bishops’ declared priority of opposing abortion.”

The bishops appointed by Pope Francis tend to mirror his priorities. His recent elevation of San Diego Archbishop Robert McElroy, a leading liberal among U.S. bishops, to the College of Cardinals is an example. There is thus a growing disparity in liberal vs. conservative views as newly appointed bishops are more liberal while priests newly emerging from U.S. seminaries are more conservative and traditional.

Since the 1980s, successive annual ordinations have grown more conservative. Each successive 10-year grouping in the ordained priesthood supports Church teaching on moral and theological issues more strongly than the one before it. Those ordained after 2010, as a whole, are most conservative. When seminarians and younger priests do not have their views of the Church and Catholic practice affirmed, stress develops and increases. Younger U.S. priests represent a generation disillusioned with ideas of progress and religious pluralism, and the abandonment of the Church’s prolife charism in favor of topics like climate change.

This leaves a widening chasm between Pope Francis, his Episcopal appointments, and younger priests in the United States. The Catholic Project study also reveals that almost 80% of priests ordained before 1980 approve strongly of Pope Francis while only 20% of those ordained after 2010 share that view. Is their priestly interest in respect for tradition a plague upon the Church?

Or is it the whispering of the Holy Spirit?

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: This brief essay from American Thinker by Attorney Franklin Friday is perhaps the best commentary on the future Church after the death of Pope Benedict XVI, and not only because I am in it. Please read and share this timely article: No Easy Road for Men of God.

You may also be interested in these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Once and Future Catholic Church

Forty Years of Priesthood in the Mighty Wind of Pentecost

The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm On the Priesthood

+ + +

One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. The site has a real-time live feed of its Adoration Chapel with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We invite you to spend some some time before the Lord in a place that holds great spiritual meaning for us.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

2021 Saw Challenges to Life, Liberty, Even Laughter

The Year of Our Lord 2021 in review: a second pandemic wave worse than the first, wide political divisions, many losses, some regrets and even a few funny moments.

December 29, 2021

As I conducted a reality check over this “2021 Year End” post, I felt rather hard pressed to put the word “laughter” in its title. I don’t know about you, but I did not encounter much this past year that caused me to even smile let alone laugh out loud. I considered just reposting our first post of 2020, “A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers.” It resonated with more readers than most subsequent posts, and not much has changed since then in the landscape of our lives. If anything, the climate feels worse.

But as the year wore on, I found myself laughing a little at life in spite of it all. Also in January 2021 I wrote, “Pandemic in Prison: When the Caged Bird Just Can't Sing.” It described how difficult it is to write a weekly post where I live, and how the seemingly never-ending pandemic turned “difficult” into a high-endurance obstacle course. That post's top image — created by our excellent volunteer graphic designer— made me laugh anew so I am using it to top this post about our year in review. It is also fitting, as you will read below, because this year two “Catholic” venues barred me from ever posting at their sites.

So given that I am the caged bird in question, the graphic above is a reminder that letdowns and obstacles should not suppress our ability to smile. However, canary yellow is not my color. I might have preferred a cardinal to a canary, but some might think that a bit pretentious. I also laughed when I proofread this post. I had mistyped “Year End” and referred in the first paragraph to my “Rear End” post. I want to put 2021 behind me, but I’m glad I caught the error.

Despite many obstacles, we published 52 posts in 2021. I wrote most of them while others were by our friends, Fr George David Byers in North Carolina, Fr Stuart MacDonald and Fr Tim Moyle in Ontario, Fr Andrew Pinsent in the U.K., Ryan MacDonald in New York, and two by Pornchai Moontri in Thailand.

My apologies in advance for all the links, but a year in review is just that. I want to profile the four posts you seemed to like the most. That short list will be interspersed with four others that I think deserve a second view. The criteria for your top choices will be an algorithm composed of the post's number of readers at the time it was posted, the number of times it was shared on social media, and the number of times it has been revisited during the course of the year.

My own choices have more to do with how much time was spent in reading, writing and research to produce some posts with limited resources made even more limited in this pandemic. By the way, at the expense of sounding political, have you noticed that “pandemic” is the word, “panic” with a “dem” inserted in the middle?

Life and Liberty Beyond These Stone Walls

By a wide margin, your choice for the most important post of 2021 was “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul” published on July 7. It remains the number one most widely read and revisited post of the year. The Catholic League e-blasted it to its members and hundreds of readers printed off a PDF of it to send to their bishops. Two U.S. bishops wrote to thank me for writing it. In twelve years of writing, that has never happened before.

I fear, however, that the major point of that post became shrouded in the heat of our bipolar politics. The U.S. bishops ended up avoiding any political fallout at their annual meeting in Baltimore by avoiding any real clarity on the subject after Pope Francis cautioned them not to politicize the Eucharist. But sidestepping the questions raised was also a political statement. The bottom line of that post is that our bishops have a sacred duty to care for the souls of all, including Catholic politicians who openly support a pro-abortion agenda.

Receiving the Eucharist while promoting abortion, sans repentance, places a soul in grave spiritual danger. On this, Scripture and Church law could not be clearer as laid out in that post and in Canon Law. In the aftermath of my post and the U.S. Bishops’ meeting, President Biden quoted Pope Francis claiming that he called Biden “a good Catholic” and told him to “keep receiving Communion.” That has not been verified, and whatever you think of Pope Francis, I do not believe it is accurate.

It is ironic that new state laws in Texas, Mississippi, and Arizona might now serve as a catalyst for a stronger defense of life from the U.S. Supreme Court while our bishops — who ought to be our collective guardians of morality on the right to life — shrunk from such an expectation. There was another pro-life post that I wrote earlier in 2021. It was widely acclaimed by many in the pro-life community who read it, but it was not otherwise widely read. Some may have been daunted by its detailed but important historical view. From my perspective, a nation that fails to understand history is doomed to repeat it. That post, published on May 19, 2021, was “The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Civil Rights and the Right to Life.”

By a wide margin, your choice for one of the most important posts of 2021 was a boost to my spirit. Posted on September 22, 2021 it was, “A Catholic Priest 27 Years Wrongly in Prison in America.” That post was shared over 5,000 times on social media and became a featured post at the National Catholic Register news aggregator, The Big Pulpit. It was also one of several of our posts this year chosen for promotion by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. If you are not yet a member, please subscribe to this much needed effort. More than any other Catholic organization in the cause of Religious Liberty, the Catholic League has our backs.

But alas, that September 22 post was followed just two weeks later with my being “permanently banned” from posting or commenting by the unnamed Moderator of the r/Catholicism community at Reddit which boasts nearly 130,000 members none of whom even know of the ban. Then, just another week later, the Catholic Media Association declined this blog’s membership after inviting Catholic blogs to apply. Writer and media critic, Ryan MacDonald wrote of this at our new “Voices from Beyond” menu item under the not-so-subtle title, “At the Catholic Media Association, Bias and a Double Standard.”

Should a Vocation to Priesthood Be Perilous?

The state of Catholic priesthood was the focus of twelve of my posts in 2021, and two more by our Canon Law advisor, Fr Stuart MacDonald. Now a doctoral candidate in Canon Law, Father Stuart’s expertise shined brightly in “Bishops, Priests, and Weapons of Mass Destruction” published to wide acclaim on May 26. Just two weeks later, we published my post about a controversial priest in “Catholics to Fr. James Altman: ‘We Are Starving Out Here.’”

Father Altman brought some much needed prophetic witness to the assault on priesthood that has emerged not only in our culture, but, sadly, also in some corners of our Church. The Internet footprint of that post was as broad as that of Father Altman himself. The post was read by thousands and shared on social media nearly 4,000 times.

Father Altman was set aside with his priestly faculties withdrawn by his bishop, not because of any moral failure or impediment, but because of his tone. He never spoke a word contrary to Church teaching. Since then, removing priests from ministry without just cause seems to have become fashionable and has taken a bizarre and tyrannical turn. In some dioceses, bishops are suspending priests who decline to be vaccinated on legitimate moral and conscience grounds — even those who have natural immunity from already having and recovering from Covid.

This all highlights something that Catholic League President Bill Donohue asserted in an appearance on NBC’s Today Show in 2005 in a discussion about my own case: “There is no segment of the U.S. population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.”

A twist in the matter of the rights of accused priests came up near the end of July when I wrote, “Fr Stuart MacDonald and Our Tabloid Frenzy About Fallen Priests.” Once accused of virtually anything, a priest has a very steep climb to restore his life and priesthood. Ryan MacDonald reframed the “Catholic Abuse Crisis” this year as the “Catholic Accuse Crisis.” I think it is a much more accurate term. Anyone who wants to be rid of any priest for any reason has found a potent weapon of Mass destruction. In no other venue in America can a person lose his good name, his housing, his livelihood based solely on an unproven 30-year-old claim brought for financial gain.

The bigger twist came this year, however, with my post, "Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo." I have no doubt that Bishop Libasci, Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire, is entirely innocent. Unlike any accused priest, however, he remains in office with his rights and priestly faculties intact.

A Long Farewell, but Not Goodbye

The first five months of 2021 were overshadowed by the immense trial of ICE detention for Pornchai Moontri. He was trapped in a huge, overcrowded warehouse filled with detainees who had illegally crossed the U.S. southern border. Sleeping seventy to a room, with overhead lights blazing around the clock and unbearable noise, Pornchai’s spirit was fraying while I did all I could to get him out of there. Finally, in early February, five months after leaving this prison, Pornchai was flown to Thailand. I wrote of this ordeal, and the triumph of his trust in Divine Mercy in “ICE Finally Cracks: Pornchai Moontri Arrives in Thailand.”

This was the closing of one long chapter in our story and the beginning of another. All our carefully crafted plans for support and housing for Pornchai fell apart in the eleventh hour just a day before he boarded his deportation flight. My own trust in Divine Mercy and Divine Providence were heavily taxed by that point. Then, mysteriously from seemingly out of nowhere, in stepped Fr. John Hung Le, SVD, a Vietnamese missionary from the Society of the Divine Word. On the morning of Pornchai’s flight, Father John contacted me with an offer to provide support and a home for Pornchai upon arrival in Bangkok.

As a teenager in the 1970s, Father John was himself a stranded refugee, one of the infamous “Boat People” forced to flee Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. Today he is a priest of heroic virtue, selflessly providing food and sustenance to Vietnamese migrant worker families scattered across Thailand with no ability to earn an income during the global pandemic. But the threads of the Tapestry of God kept intertwining beyond these stone walls.

As Advent began, Fr. Tim Moyle and the people of St. Anne Parish, one of the poorest Catholic parishes in Canada, reached out to me with an Advent project to assist Father John and his people half a world away. I wrote of this profound example of the Gospel of the Widow’s Mite (Luke 21:1-4) in “A Struggling Parish Builds an Advent Bridge to Thailand.” The good people of Mattawa, Ontario made a great difference. There are many other parishes that are struggling less, and many other opportunities to make such a difference. Lent is coming. Just sayin’.

That post above was not the most read of the year, but for me it was one of the most important posts. It came into being because Fr. Tim Moyle in Ontario had been following Beyond These Stone Walls all year. He was deeply moved by our stories about Pornchai’s progress and his good fortune, brought about by Divine Providence, to become connected to the refugee work of Fr. John Hung Le, SVD.

We devoted nine posts in 2021 to Pornchai’s odyssey. Two of them were written by Pornchai himself who now merits his own Category under “Pornchai Moontri” in the BTSW Public Library. The several posts about him tell a deeply moving and magnificent story of suffering and Divine Providence that has gained notice all over the world. My own favorite among these posts is one I wrote on April 14. It was a real-life version of the Book of Tobit entitled "Archangel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri." And there is a dog involved, and the story is beautiful.

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: It is with profound thanks and admiration that I commend Fr. Tim Moyle and the good people of St. Anne Parish in Mattawa, Ontario for their sacrifice and mission of mercy this past Advent. And I hold in equal measure our readers who also responded to this Corporal Work of Mercy. It is not too late to visit our SPECIAL EVENTS page.

I just received this message from Fr. Tim Moyle writing from Mattawa, Ontario:

“Dear Father Gordon and Father John: I just wanted to drop you both a note to tell you that we have reached the $5000 mark in contributions from our parishioners in support of John’s missionary work in Thailand. We will forward the funds shortly after the start of the New Year to allow for any last minute contributions that have yet to be received.

My deepest appreciation to both of you for being so instrumental in focusing my parishioners needs on something beyond our local concerns. It has served as an excellent opportunity for them to appreciate the world-wide reach of our Church, as well as our obligation to support those areas in the world most in need of our assistance. I cannot think of a better Christmas gift to have presented to my community than to have their eyes opened to the realities of our universal ministry as Catholics so that they can truly live out their obligations to the least among us… a requirement for salvation for all who carry the names Christian and Catholic. Thank you so very much for becoming such effective ministers of God’s mercy and love. Wishing you both all the blessings of this festive season of hope.”

Many of our BTSW Readers also took part in this effort and added over $4,500 to the sacrifices of the people of Mattawa. $2,500 of this was earmarked by donors to be added to what was raised for Father John’s Refugee Assistance Foundation, and $2,000 was earmarked to assist with the special challenges faced by Pornchai Moontri while assimilating into his homeland after 30 years in a U.S. prison, 15 of them with me. I am beyond thankful for the response to this effort.

With Blessings for the New Year, Father Gordon MacRae

(Clockwise from upper left in the photos above: Saint Anne Church in Mattawa Ontario, Father Tim Moyle in Mattawa, Father Gordon MacRae in Concord NH, and Father John Hung Le SVD in Bangkok. All collaborating this season for an Advent of the Heart.)

Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded

Silencing the truth is never in the service of the Church. For one wrongly imprisoned priest, the buried truth and uncovered lies have both been crosses to bear.

“Have no fear, for nothing is covered over that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What you hear in the dark utter in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim from the rooftops.”

Matthew 10:26-29

Editor’s Note: The following is Part 2 of a guest post by Father George David Byers, SSL, STD. Part 1, was “A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church: Affidavits.”

+ + +

Last week here at Beyond These Stone Walls, I presented some examples of a plague of omertà that has arisen in recent decades in the Catholic Church in America. Omertà is an insidious code of silence that can too easily become a part of mob justice, influencing someone to set aside truth in deference to the mob’s preferred or demanded truth. Omertà empowered the mafia, but it has no place in the Catholic Church.

When fearlessly digging into truths that some want to be kept hidden and not shouted from the rooftops, other truths are also necessarily unearthed. Before delving into some truths in the form of some affidavits by courageous people revealed here in Part 1 of this post, I want to tell you a true story. It was revealed to me by the great Pornchai Maximilian Moontri who now dwells in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Pornchai has helped me to understand a truth that is nearly universal among those who have in fact been victims of sexual assault. The only thing that is as obnoxious to them as having been raped is to see their own sufferings capitalized upon by false accusers for money, and by clericalists who make themselves into heroes by paying out settlements with no evidence or due process of law. Priests are too often considered guilty just for being accused.

Pornchai conveyed the story of one day being in the cell alone with Father Gordon. They had been cell mates for about two years then. It was about a year before Father Gordon’s blog began. Father G was reading his mail and said to Pornchai, “This woman wants to know if I am safe here.” Pornchai responded spontaneously and with total sincerity: “Does she mean from us or from other priests?” Then the next letter Father G opened was from a priest of his diocese to whom he had written. The priest returned his letter with a note on the envelope: “Communication with you is neither prudent nor welcome.”

Prison, by nature, is often a violent place. As a child of 12 brought to the State of Maine from a foreign country, Pornchai became a victim of violent sexual abuse. Father Gordon wrote that shocking story in “Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam.” When Pornchai went to prison at age 18, he dealt with the prison violence in the only way he could. He vowed that he would never again be someone’s victim. So he understandably met violence with violence of his own. It landed him in repeated long years in solitary confinement. After 14 years, Pornchai was transferred to the New Hampshire prison.

(Not long after, PBS Frontline produced a feature about the very solitary confinement cell in which Pornchai had spent years. PBS Frontline “Solitary Nation” should not be missed.)

In New Hampshire, Pornchai ended up in a cell with a man accused and convicted of the very thing that destroyed his life. It did not take him long — with his innate alertness to predation — to discover that Father G had been falsely accused. Pornchai once told me this story that I held off writing until he was out of the prison system:

“One day, I got a notice from the prison mental health department that a new 2O-week program was beginning called ‘Interpersonal Violence.’ My friend Father G thought it might be an opportunity for me so I said I would go if he goes with me. So we both signed up for it. Prison is filled with needy young men who have really broken lives. Some of them look for safe, comfortable older prisoners who might buy them things and take care of them. The result is a sort of mutual exploitation and prisons are filled with this. One young kid, about 19, who was attending the program quickly tried to latch on to Father G without knowing anything about him. I was going to speak with him, but decided to wait.

“Over the next few sessions as I sat next to Father G, I was aware of how this kid was skillfully trying to gain his interest and maneuver his way into his life, but Father G was oblivious to it. Later that night I told him what I observed, but he had no idea what I was talking about. At the next session, Father G and I simply agreed to switch seats. In all his years in prison, Father G has been surrounded by people like this, many of them young drug addicts who would sell their soul for a few bucks for drugs. In all those years, Father G was never observed or even suspected of having any interest in them at all except to show those receptive to it a way out of their prison within a prison.”

The Egregious Double Standard of Justice

There is a lot more to Pornchai’s story of his years with Father Gordon MacRae in prison. As he came to trust Father G, he had a growing awareness of things changing for the better in his life. After a few years, Pornchai made a decision to become a Catholic. He was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday an event related beautifully by Felix Carroll in a chapter in his Divine Mercy Conversion book, Loved, Lost, Found.

In the years to follow, Father Gordon’s writing about Pornchai’s life garnered some attention in both the United States and across the globe, especially in Thailand where that story began. Thanks to Father Gordon’s writing, Pornchai’s tormentor was brought to justice 33 years after he brought destruction to this young man’s life. I am not certain we can actually call it justice, however.

In late 2017, Richard Alan Bailey was arrested at his Oregon home and indicted on forty (40) felony charges of sexual violence against Pornchai at ages 12-14. There was much evidence against him discovered in the form of police reports, school reports, social services battered child reports, medical reports, but none of it ever resulted in action. In September 2018, Richard Alan Bailey entered a plea of “no contest” but was found guilty on all forty counts in a Maine court. Bailey was sentenced to forty years in prison, all suspended, and 18 years probation. He will never serve a single day in prison.

Meanwhile, Pornchai was very much aware that in the neighboring State of New Hampshire, Father Gordon MacRae refused a plea deal that would have resulted in one year in prison, then was found guilty of five charges with no evidence at all and sentenced by a bitterly anti-Catholic judge to 67 years in prison. Pornchai was also aware that Father Gordon’s bishop and diocese stacked the jury with a pre-trial press release pronouncing him guilty of victimizing not only his accusers, but the entire Catholic Church.

Pornchai says that Father G “led by example” when explaining to him that bitterness and resentment over past wounds, however deep, are “like a toxic brew that you put in your own tea, and then drink to your own spiritual peril.”

On that Divine Mercy Sunday when Pornchai was received into the Church in 2010, it just happened to be a day that Bishop John McCormack offered his annual Mass at the Concord, New Hampshire prison. He Confirmed Pornchai in his faith and gave him First Eucharist, but never spoke a single word to Father Gordon. In the prison chapel sacristy after Mass, Pornchai shook Bishop McCormack’s hand. “You have a good friend,” said the Bishop who had read the accounts of Pornchai’s life. “You have a good priest,” Pornchai responded.

Father Gordon saw to it that Pornchai came into the Catholic faith with eyes open about the meaning and power of both sin and grace. “If these events had not happened to me,” Father Gordon said, “Pornchai and I would have never met.” He challenged Pornchai to rise above resentment, and it was in the rising that they both found grace. This was a story, however, in which the insidious practice of Omertà, that evil code of silence that I wrote about here last week, has played a destructive role. In First Things magazine in 2008, the late Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote:

“The Bishop and the Diocese of Manchester do not come off as friends of justice, or, for that matter, of elementary decency. You may want to read this Kafkaesque tale then you may want to pray for Fr. MacRae, and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

— A Kafkaesque Tale

Affidavits Expanded

In my first installment of this post, “A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church,” I revealed two affidavits prepared by a New Hampshire lawyer and a senior executive of PBS which produces the award-winning investigative news program Frontline. The affidavits were entirely independent from each other. They describe meetings with former Diocese of Manchester Bishop, the late John McCormack. To recap, the following are the most pertinent statements in these affidavits:

From the Affidavit of Attorney Eileen A. Nevins:

“In June of 2000, I met with New Hampshire Bishop John McCormack at the Diocesan office .… During this meeting with Bishop McCormack and [Auxiliary] Bishop Francis Christian, they both expressed to me their belief that Father MacRae was not guilty of the crimes for which he was incarcerated.”

From the Affidavit of Leo P. Demers:

“During October 2000, I met with Bishop John McCormack at the Diocesan office in Manchester, New Hampshire .... The meeting with Bishop McCormack began with him saying, ‘Understand, none of this is to leave this office. I believe Father MacRae is not guilty and his accusers likely lied. There is nothing I can do to change the verdict.’”

Fortunately, Mr. Demers prepared careful notes immediately following his meeting. They provide a most helpful context for what was going on in the background in the Diocese of Manchester at the time. The transcript is fascinating, and I begin it here with the initial telephone call to Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian at the Manchester Chancery office:

LEO DEMERS: “I am calling from WGBH-TV in Boston ... I am concerned that Fr. Gordon MacRae was being considered as a feature story for Frontline here on PBS. Since you are the only person left in the Chancery Office who was there at the time of the accusations and trial ... I would like to meet with you to discuss the matter.”

[Note from Father Byers: Just four months earlier, but unknown by Mr. Demers, Bishop Christian attended a meeting with Bishop McCormack and Attorney Eileen Nevins. At that meeting, as per the affidavit of Attorney Nevins above, Bishop Christian was quite clear in his view that Father MacRae was not guilty. Did something happen in the interim? Given his stacking of the jury in his 1993 pre-trial press release, was he intimidated by someone in the news media? Read on … ]

BISHOP CHRISTIAN: “This is not my responsibility. I have nothing to do with that. You will have to speak with Bishop McCormack.”

LEO DEMERS: “But you were part of what happened at that time and would have firsthand knowledge of all that occurred. Bishop McCormack was in Boston when all this happened.”

BISHOP CHRISTIAN: “You will have to speak with Bishop McCormack. He is the one who is responsible. I can arrange for you to have a meeting with him.”

LEO DEMERS: “I would rather meet with you.”

BISHOP CHRISTIAN: “Bishop McCormack handles all such inquiries. You will have to call him yourself or I can arrange a meeting with him for you.”

[ Note from Father Byers: Mr. Demers noted that he would be in Israel and the Middle East for the next two weeks. His notes indicate that a meeting was scheduled with Bishop McCormack for October 13, 2000, and that Father MacRae knew nothing of this planned meeting. He writes that upon arrival at the Chancery he was escorted to Bishop McCormack’s office. The Bishop spoke first: ]

BISHOP McCORMACK: “I don’t want any of this to leave this office because I have struggles with some people in the Chancery office that are not consistent with my thoughts, but I firmly believe that Father MacRae is innocent and should not be in prison.”

[Note from Father Byers: Mr. Demers then wrote in his notes: “This knocked the wind out of my sails. It seems to me that the wrongful imprisonment of Fr. Gordon is ongoing. Those concerned with this matter could be subpoenaed by a court of law or by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).” The transcript continued: ]

LEO DEMERS: “You know why I am here. I assume Bishop Christian has informed you of our phone conversation and my desire to speak with him. You are a busy man. Bishop Christian has firsthand knowledge of the events surrounding Fr. MacRae’s incarceration.”

BISHOP McCORMACK: “He was tried and found guilty.”

LEO DEMERS: “With all due respect, your Excellency, I was there and you were not. There was nobody present representing the Manchester Diocese.”

BISHOP McCORMACK: “I mentioned to you that I believe he is innocent. I plan on meeting with him when I visit the prison during the coming Christmas season and I will discuss this.”

LEO DEMERS: “You said that your hands were tied because of your belief in his innocence. How can you help him?”

BISHOP McCORMACK: “I want to do what I can to make his life more bearable under the circumstances of prison life. I cannot reverse the decision of the court system. What can I do?”

LEO DEMERS: “It is not a flawless judicial system. Many innocent people fall through its cracks. Correcting an injustice is a formidable task and Fr. Gordon does not have the resources to even begin the process.”

Epilogue: The Spin

The promised Christmas meeting with Father MacRae in prison never took place. On February 15, 2002, Bishop McCormack, Bishop Christian, and Father Edward Arsenault held a press conference to release the names of all priests of the Diocese who were “credibly accused.” Father MacRae was not on that list. (That scene is depicted in the graphic atop this post with, left to right, Father Edward J. Arsenault, Bishop Francis X. Christian, and the late Bishop John B. McCormack at the podium.)

Over the course of the next year, many “confidential” memos passed between Bishop McCormack, Father Edward Arsenault, and various attorneys for the Diocese. Father MacRae was privy to none of them. Father Arsenault, who oversaw all lawsuit settlements for the Diocese, had an egregious conflict of interest in that he was simultaneously Chairman of the Board of the National Catholic Risk Retention Group providing oversight of insurance settlements for Catholic institutions across the country. At some point, he took over communications with Father MacRae on behalf of the bishop.

Father MacRae was never told of the above affidavits and did not know of Bishop McCormack’s statements about his belief in MacRae’s innocence and wrongful incarceration. A major sticking point in the various subsequent exchanges from the Bishop’s office was a demand that Father MacRae cease all contact with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal, submit to the Diocese a list of the names of everyone with whom he has discussed this matter, and agree in writing to limit all future contacts only to those approved by Diocesan officials. He was also asked to agree to appeal only his sentence and not his conviction, and to allow Father Arsenault to choose his legal counsel. Father MacRae rejected those conditions.

After The Wall Street Journal published an explosive series of articles by Dorothy Rabinowitz on the Father MacRae case in 2005 and again in 2013, Father never again heard from any official of his diocese with the exception of letters described below.

In 2008, Bishop McCormack wrote in a letter to an advocate of Father MacRae denying that he ever stated a belief that Father MacRae is innocent and should not be in prison. In 2009, Father Edward Arsenault became Monsignor Edward Arsenault and assumed a $160,000 per year position as Executive Director of the St. Luke Institute in Maryland where Bishop McCormack served on the Board of Directors. In 2015 he went to prison for embezzlement and forgery. Among the documents he is now suspected of forging were letters to the Holy See about the MacRae case.

Monsignor Arsenault was subsequently dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis. He has since changed his name to Edward J. Bolognini.

Bishop Peter A. Libasci, the current Bishop of Manchester, has, to this day, not once allowed Father MacRae to speak of this case in his own defense. Ryan A. MacDonald wrote of the unconscionable statements in this regard by the diocesan spokesman in “The Post-Trial Extortion of Father Gordon MacRae.”

+ + +

Please share this post and review these related posts:

Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List by Ryan A. MacDonald

The Trials of Father MacRae — The Wall Street Journal

Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Father George David Byers, SSL, STD is a parish priest in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, a chaplain to law enforcement, and a Missionary of Mercy appointed by Pope Francis for the Jubilee Year of Mercy, a position the Holy Father has extended to the present day. Father Byers writes at the faithful and bold Catholic blog, Arise! Let Us Be Going!

From the BTSW Editor: Ryan A. MacDonald has a new post at A RAM in the Thicket that impacts both Father Gordon MacRae and this blog. Please read “At the Catholic Media Association, Bias and a Double Standard.”

Monsignor Arsenault served two years of a four-to-twenty year sentence with the remainder suspended. He is depicted here shaking hands with his prosecutor from the NH Attorney General’s Office after accepting a plea bargain.

A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church: Affidavits

Silencing truth is never in service to the Church. No priest should ever have been sacrificed on the altars of tort lawyers, insurers, or a predatory news media.

(Pictured above: The Chancery Office of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire.)

November 10, 2021

Editor’s Note: The following is Part 1 of a two-part post by Father George David Byers, SSL, STD, parish priest, chaplain to law enforcement, an accomplished theologian, and a Missionary of Mercy appointed by Pope Francis for the Year of Mercy, a position extended by the Holy Father to the present day. Father Byers writes of how a code of silence has inhibited justice in the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae.

+ + +

This post has spent a long time being written. I first wrote it, or rather one quite like it, a decade ago for my now retired blog, Holy Souls Hermitage. Its purpose now is to bring the abuse crisis full circle. It is about an ongoing abuse of power in the Church. It is about the replacement of one abuse with another.

The same abuse of power in which youngsters were abused is the same abuse of power in which guilty priests were moved from parish to parish with omertà, that evil code of silence. It is also the same abuse of power which, when caught out today, will feign heroism by throwing merely accused priests out of the priesthood or into prison with no presumption of actual innocence. It is the same abuse of power which will cover up actual innocence for the sake of self-referential self-congratulations, ad infinitum.

It is this self-referential element in the Church that Pope Francis once said he wants to bring to its knees in repentance and conversion to our Lord Jesus Christ. Just because actual cases of contemporary sexual abuse have wound down to zero, as they have today, does not necessarily mean that anything has changed. Until the abuse of power changes, it is all the same. It is manifested in omertà.

Omertà is a mafioso term with its origin in 13th Century Sicily. It refers to a code of silence practiced by the mafia, a highly organized crime syndicate with a strong hierarchy. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it spread to the United States. Of interest, the original meaning of omertà was connected to “humility.” To practice a code of silence required the humility to set aside one’s own truth in deference to the organization’s preferred or demanded truth. It has no place in a Catholic setting.

The Late John Brendan McCormack

Four years after Father Gordon MacRae was convicted in a sham trial and sent to prison, Auxiliary Bishop John Brendan McCormack of the Archdiocese of Boston was appointed by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to serve as Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire. Complicating this story somewhat, Bishop McCormack passed away in a Manchester, New Hampshire Catholic nursing home just weeks before I began to write this article. From his prison cell, Father Gordon offered Mass for him. Father Gordon had some concern about the timing of this post, but the truth has its own life and must not be buried with anyone.

Bishop McCormack became a part of the code of silence practiced in his new diocese, but there were signs that he may not have been an entirely willing one, at least, not at first. Back in Boston, Bishop McCormack had been instrumental in seeking the administrative laicization of Boston priest and notorious abuser, Father John Geoghan. Later, Geoghan was brutally murdered in prison, in part due to the publicity that his dismissal from the clerical state brought about.

In 1998, at the time of Bishop McCormack’s appointment as Bishop of Manchester, he received a letter from Mr. Leo Demers, a senior official from WGBH-TV in Boston, a flagship production house for PBS public television. Mr. Demers revealed that he was present for much of the 1994 trial of Father Gordon MacRae. He expressed concern that this was not a fair trial and any dismissal from the priesthood could not justly be based upon its outcome.

Bishop McCormack responded that he was unfamiliar with the case, but is aware of no plan in the diocese to seek Father MacRae’s dismissal. He pledged to begin an investigation of the matter to determine what, if anything, he could do. There were also some media rumblings at the time. An organization known as the National Justice Committee worked with FOX News to review Father MacRae’s trial, but prison officials blocked these contacts. A Fox News representative appealed to then Governor Jeanne Shaheen, now U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) who responded:

“I understand your organization’s interest in the matter of Gordon MacRae, now an inmate in the NH prison, but I will not interfere with the decision not to allow media access to Mr. MacRae.”

— 1999 letter of Gov. Shaheen

The Wall Street Journal

It is likely that a file on the case was then sent from FOX News to The Wall Street Journal. Later in 1999, a correspondence ensued between Father MacRae and Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on the WSJ Editorial Board who opened an inquiry on the case. The Diocese of Manchester suddenly became much more interested in the fate of Father MacRae. Then, in 2000, Bishop McCormack was approached by New Hampshire attorney Eileen Nevins who also had been present throughout the MacRae trial. Ms. Nevins later produced the following sworn affidavit:

Affidavit of Eileen Nevins, Esq:

1. “My name is Eileen A. Nevins and I am an attorney licensed to practice in the State of New Hampshire and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

2. I met Reverend Gordon MacRae in the early 1980s when he was an associate priest assigned to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Parish in Hampton, New Hampshire.

3. On or about 1994, while still a law student, I became aware of charges of sexual misconduct filed against Gordon MacRae. I contacted his . . . attorney, Ron Koch, to offer my assistance in doing any legal research that may assist Father MacRae in New Hampshire.

4. Upon acting in a clerk capacity for Attorney Koch I became firmly convinced that the charges against Father MacRae were false and brought for financial gain.

5. I believe now as I believed during his trial that the charges against him are false and have assisted him however possible in obtaining further legal assistance to address the wrong against him. My belief is based on personal knowledge of the case against Father MacRae acquired during the investigation prior to his trial and my ongoing pursuit and review of the investigation into his situation subsequent to his trial and incarceration.

6. In June of 2000, I met with New Hampshire Bishop McCormack at the Diocesan office in Manchester, New Hampshire to discuss the possibility of the Diocese offering some financial assistance to obtain an appellate relief.

7. During this meeting with Bishop McCormack and [Auxiliary] Bishop Francis Christian, they both expressed to me their belief that Father MacRae was not guilty of the crimes for which he was incarcerated and that Bishop McCormack would consider offering some financial aid to assist with a legal defense.

8. In follow-up correspondence with the Bishop, I stated that it was my understanding that the Diocese would now consider financial aid to retain an attorney to assist in [Fr.] Gordon’s appeal.

9. I had been working with Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal and she recommended Attorney Robert Rosenthal to assist with the appeal.

10. Due to the unforeseen events of clergy abuse scandals in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the Bishop subsequently failed to act on his offer of assistance. It is my understanding that Bishop McCormack has transmitted Father MacRae’s case to the Vatican for disposition.”

Signed and sworn by Eileen A. Nevins, Esq. 18 October 2005.

Falling Towers and Fallen Hope

Father MacRae knew nothing about the above affidavit or the meetings it described until years after it was issued in 2005. In the interim, there were many setbacks and disappointments. After two years of gathering evidence from prison and submitting reams of documentation to The Wall Street Journal, the imprisoned priest learned that all had been destroyed along with The Wall Street Journal offices in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

He would have to start over, and he was not certain that he could. Meanwhile, a series of correspondence began between Father MacRae, Bishop John McCormack, and the Diocesan Moderator of the Curia and Delegate for Ministerial Conduct, Father Edward J. Arsenault.

Without ever telling Father MacRae of his stated belief in his innocence, Bishop McCormack and Father Arsenault appeared to make their offer of legal assistance contingent upon the priest’s assent to curtail his contacts with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal. This effort to sever any media contact was clear in a series of confidential memos between the Bishop and Father Arsenault. These memos were later released as part of an Attorney General grand jury report in the diocese in 2003. (In 2019, Father MacRae described this report and its consequences in “Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester.”)

The internal memos and the Bishop’s correspondence also set other conditions. Father MacRae was asked to agree to allow the Diocese to choose his legal counsel. He also had to agree that he would appeal only his sentence and not his convictions. Father MacRae refused these conditions, and then the matter went silent. The account of what transpired at this time was stunning. It was revealed by Ryan A. MacDonald in “The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence.” It was a classic example of omertà.

However, Attorney Nevins was not the only one with an affidavit. Enter Leo Demers, the PBS executive who earlier wrote to Bishop McCormack in 1998 with a concern about the fairness of Father MacRae’s trial. He, too, was summoned to a meeting with Bishop McCormack in 2000, six months after the Bishop’s meeting with Attorney Eileen Nevins. At the time, Mr. Demers was Director of Engineering for WGBH-TV in Boston which produced, among other PBS programming, the award-winning investigative journalism program, Frontline. This affidavit and the dialogue that follows is an eye-opener:

Affidavit of Leo P. Demers, Jr.

“The purpose of this affidavit at this time is to convey the context and substance of a meeting by me with Bishop John McCormack during which he expressed his belief in the innocence of the charges against Fr. Gordon MacRae that led to his conviction and subsequent imprisonment for the past twelve years.

1. My name is Leo P. Demers, Jr. and I have been a broadcast engineer in New England since 1962. I am a practicing Catholic.

2. I first met Reverend Gordon MacRae in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s when he was a Franciscan Friar in Novitiate training at the former St. Anthony’s Capuchin Friary in Hudson, New Hampshire.

3. During 1994, I visited Father MacRae in New Mexico where he was working in ministry. At that time Father MacRae informed me that criminal charges of sexual misconduct with a minor had been filed against him in New Hampshire.

4. I believe now, as I testified under oath during the sentencing phase of his trial in Keene, New Hampshire, that the charges against him are false.

5. During October 2000, I met with Bishop John McCormack at the Diocesan office in Manchester, New Hampshire. At the time, my employer, the WGBH Educational Foundation, wanted to produce a segment of Frontline. This production would have resulted in a national story about Father MacRae. Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian arranged the meeting with Bishop McCormack.

6. I had contacted assistant Bishop Francis Christian from my office at WGBH to inquire about the story because he was the only person in the Manchester Chancery Office who was present during the time of the accusations against Father MacRae. Bishop Christian wanted nothing to do with my inquiry regarding Father MacRae but did offer to arrange a meeting with Bishop McCormack.

7. The meeting with Bishop McCormack began with him saying, ‘Understand, none of this is to leave this office. I believe Father MacRae is not guilty and his accusers likely lied. There is nothing I can do to change the verdict.’

8. I have recently learned that Bishop McCormack submitted an expert report to Rome. This report purportedly concludes that Father MacRae’s trial was fair and his sentence just. Further, this report avers that no avenue of appeal is available to Father MacRae. Since I have been in contact with various professionals representing Father MacRae, who are actively involved in investigating his case and prosecuting an appeal, I believe any expert opinion submitted by the Diocese of Manchester to be subject to challenge and serious defect.

9. I am motivated to submit this affidavit, obviously in disregard of any confidentiality requested by Bishop McCormack, because I cannot accept the inconsistency between Bishop McCormack’s statements to me regarding Father MacRae’s innocence and his submission of an expert report to the contrary that is in clear opposition to his stated belief.”

Signed and sworn by Leo P. Demers, 13 February 2005.

Those with Ears to Hear but Hear Not (Ezekiel 12:2)

Anyone familiar with all that remained hidden in this story might readily understand the hesitance of Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian to be involved in that meeting with Leo Demers. It was Bishop Christian who penned a pre-trial press release of the Diocese which had the effect of stacking the jury against Father Gordon:

“The Church has also been a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae just as these individuals have been. It is clear that he will never again function as a priest.”

Editing out any mention of mere allegations serves to mask the complete lack of any evidence behind this case. This point was made in yet another affidavit, that of FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott, now retired. He had one of the more spectacular FBI careers in the Bureau’s history. David F. Pierre, Jr., Moderator of The Media Report, performed a public service when he analyzed and summarized the vast documentation on this case available at the website of the National Center for Reason and Justice. David F. Pierre’s summary is available at The Media Report under the title, “Alarming New Evidence May Exonerate Imprisoned Priest.” Among that evidence is an affidavit of Special Agent James Abbott who concluded:

“In the entirety of my three-year investigation of this matter, I found no evidence that MacRae committed these crimes or any crimes. Indeed, the only ‘evidence’ was [Thomas] Grover’s stories that have since been undermined by his family and others who surrounded him at the time he made his claims.”

There is a very necessary Part 2 to this post that will hopefully be forthcoming soon. There is much more to this story, and to the practice of omertà that fueled it. Fortunately — or perhaps not so much for those bent on blindly assuming this priest’s guilt — the Holy See has not seen fit to remove him from priesthood. At one point, officials there asked for copies of the affidavits contained herein. That speaks well of them. Perhaps omertà is not as widespread as some believe.

There has nonetheless been a grave injustice here. Whatever one might conclude about the case against Father Gordon MacRae, he has never been allowed a defense — not in his trial, not in any appeals, and not at all before the one person charged with the defense of truth: his bishop. Bishop John McCormack retired and now has passed away. Father Edward Arsenault became Monsignor Edward Arsenault, then went to prison for financial misdeeds. Now he has a new life and a new name, Edward J. Bolognini.

In 2011, Bishop Peter A. Libasci became Bishop of Manchester. Whatever story he might have inherited about this matter, he has never allowed himself to hear a single word from the imprisoned Father Gordon MacRae speaking in his own defense. Whether he has reviewed any of the vast evidence of fraud in this case is entirely unknown, but that would require an open mind.

In July, 2021, Bishop Libasci was himself accused of sexual abuse stemming from his ministry as a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York in 1983, the same year as the accusations against Father MacRae. Ironically, from his prison cell, Father MacRae has presented a spirited and rational defense, linked below, for why the case against his bishop is not “credible” at all.

+ + +

Editor’s Note: Next at Beyond These Stone Walls Father George David Byers will present Part 2 of this article. Father George David Byers holds a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem and Rome, and a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

Please share this post. You may also wish to read the following:

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

The Trials of Father MacRae by Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ

The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence

Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam

Fr Gordon MacRae in the Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell

Shunned by some Catholic media, wrongly imprisoned Fr Gordon MacRae appears prominently in the Prison Journal of Cardinal George Pell published by Ignatius Press.

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald author of “Truth in Justice: Was the Wrong Catholic Priest Sent to Prison?”

+ + +

October 13, 2021

I was incensed recently to learn of the treatment one of Fr Gordon MacRae’s most important recent posts received from a purportedly Catholic online venue. His eye-opening post, “A Catholic Priest 27 Years Wrongly in Prison in America,” was typed, as he described it, “ten minutes at a time here and there” on whatever typewriter wasn’t already in use in the prison library where he works. He had to type half on one machine and the rest on another. He finished it seconds before a deadline for getting it into the mail on time.

And it was a blockbuster, shared to date about 5,000 times on Facebook alone. Some 800 members of Linkedin read it. Over the next week, thousands came to it from around the Globe, including many thousands in the United States. Many who read that post learned of Father G for the first time and were aghast at the story it told.

Then the heavy hammer of jaundiced Catholic judgment fell. With the help of a friend outside, that post was shared at the r/Catholicism community at Reddit which boasts some 129,000 members. A multitude of positive comments poured in, and then suddenly stopped. On September 28, Father MacRae received this message read to him in prison from his Gmail inbox. It was from the unnamed r/Catholicism moderator at Reddit:

“You are permanently banned from participating in r/Catholicism. You can still view and subscribe, but you won’t be allowed to post or comment. Due to the nature of your participation, we cannot permit you to continue participating in the r/Catholicism community.”

This suppression of a much respected voice in the public square is shameful and merciless. I cannot see any difference between this and recent decisions at Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon to cancel voices that do not stick to an established media narrative. The fact that this suppression was done in the name of a self-described Catholic community is an outrage, especially given the conditions under which this priest has to write.

Fr Stuart MacDonald, JCL, the Canon Law advisor for Beyond These Stone Walls, attempted to engage the r/Catholicism moderator with a statement that, despite his imprisonment, Fr MacRae is quite widely considered to be innocent of his charges, has not been dismissed from the clerical state, and has earned the respect of thousands of Catholics including priests and bishops.

Father MacDonald’s intervention was simply ignored.

The Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell

Now contrast this treatment with that from another prominent Catholic voice in the public square, that of Cardinal George Pell. Formerly the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, Australia, Cardinal Pell had been appointed by Pope Francis to serve as Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy of the Holy See and the Vatican Council of Cardinals, a body of eight close advisors to the pope.

Then, like Father MacRae, Cardinal Pell was tragically accused of “historic” sexual abuse alleged to have occurred decades earlier in Australia. Also like Father MacRae, he was convicted in a sham trial without evidence despite a multitude of inconsistency and fraud surrounding his trial. This, too, was a case shamelessly tried in the media before it ever got to a court of law. The 78-year-old prelate was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison on March 13, 2019. It was, as was the Father MacRae trial, a case of prosecutorial “Trophy Justice.”

On November 3, 1170, King Henry II raged in public against Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. The latter had rightly challenged the King’s claim to ultimate authority over Catholic affairs and the discipline of priests. When the King asked aloud, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” four of his guards took it upon themselves to murder Becket during Mass in the Canterbury Cathedral.

Not that much has changed in a thousand years. Unlike most other Catholic journalists, I am no longer going to make any reference to the “abuse crisis” in the Church. It is now the “accuse crisis” in the Church. Any priest can be “gotten rid of” by a mere accusation of uncorroborated sexual impropriety dating back decades. It is, as Father MacRae described in a stand-out article at Linkedin, “A Weapon of Mass Destruction: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused.”

Many thinking people long suspected, and now know without a doubt, that Cardinal George Pell was entirely innocent of the claims against him. Following a first failed appeal, he served 13 months in the harshness of prison in solitary confinement before sanity returned to Australian justice. Finally, in a unanimous 7-to-0 decision, he was exonerated by the Australian High Court. The victory was not just his alone, but that of the entire Church too long held hostage by the “accuse crisis.”

During his time in prison, Cardinal Pell kept a journal that today has been hailed as a masterpiece of prison writing in the ranks of Saint Paul of Tarsus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Father Walter Ciszek, and Saint Thomas More. Archbishop Charles Chaput described the Pell journal with clarity:

“Two lessons emerge from this astonishing work. The first is the length to which a hate-filled judicial process will go against an innocent man. The second is the power of a good man’s endurance in the face of humiliation and poisonous deceit.”

— Archbishop Charles Chaput

Echoing that long before even hearing it, Father MacRae wrote from his own prison cell his first of several articles about this story in defense of Cardinal Pell. He said he wonders today if Cardinal Pell was even aware of his first post about the state of Australian justice: “Cardinal George Pell Is on Trial and So Is Australia.”

Today back in Rome, Cardinal Pell might understandably have every reason to want to distance himself from the grave injustice that befell him, and from the “accuse crisis” in the Church that ensnared him and paved the way for his wrongful conviction. In this, he was not alone. I don’t think there was anyone, except perhaps the Cardinal himself, who pondered and prayed over this injustice more than the wrongly imprisoned Fr Gordon MacRae. So what a shock it was to him when he learned that while in prison Cardinal George Pell had pondered his plight as well.

The following is an excerpt from Prison Journal Volume 2 by George Cardinal Pell (Ignatius Press, 2021):

---

From the prison cell of Cardinal Pell - Friday, 2 August 2019:

“By a coincidence, today I received from Sheryl [Collmer], a regular correspondent from Texas, a copy of the 15 May 2019 post on the blog These Stone Walls written by Fr Gordon MacRae. The article was entitled, “Was Cardinal George Pell Convicted on Copycat Testimony?” Fr MacRae was convicted on 23 September 1994 of paedophilia and sentenced to sixty-seven years in a New Hampshire prison for crimes allegedly committed around fifteen to twenty years previously. The allegations had no supporting evidence and no corroboration.

“It is one thing to be jailed for five months. It would be quite another step up, which I would not relish, to spend another three years if my appeal were unsuccessful. But we enter another world with a life sentence. Australia is not New Hampshire, and I don’t believe all the Australian media would blackball the discussion of a case such as MacRae’s.

“The late Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, whom I admired personally and as a theologian, encouraged Fr MacRae to continue writing from jail, stating, ‘Someday your story and that of your fellow sufferers will come to light and be instrumental in a reform.’ Fr MacRae recounts the extraordinary similarities between the accusations I faced and the accusations of Billy Doe in Philadelphia, which were published in Australia in 2011 in the magazine, Rolling Stone. Earlier this year, Keith Windschuttle, editor of the quality journal, Quadrant, publicized the seven points of similarity, pointing out that ‘there are far too many similarities in the stories for them to be explained by coincidence.’ [See Keith Windshuttle, ‘The Borrowed Testimony that Convicted George Pell.’ Quadrant, 8 April 2019].

"The author of the 2011 Rolling Stone article was Sabrina Rubin Erdely, no longer a journalist, disgraced and discredited. In 2014 she had written, and provoked a storm which reached Obama’s White House, about ‘Jackie’ at the University of Virginia, who claimed she was gang-raped at a fraternity party in 2012 by seven men. As MacRae points out, ‘The story was accepted as gospel truth once it appeared in print.’ [Note: Rolling Stone later retracted the article in April, 2015]. Jackie’s account turned out to be a massive lie. A civil trial for defamation followed; the seven students were awarded $7.5 million in damages by the jury; and Rolling Stone was found guilty of negligence and defamation.

“The allegations behind the 2011 Rolling Stone article, published in Australia, have also been demolished as false by, among others, Ralph Cipriano’s ‘The Legacy of Billy Doe’ published in the Catalyst of the Catholic League in January-February 2019.

“No one realized in 2015, when the allegations against me were first made to police, that the model for copycat allegations, or the innocent basis for the remarkable similarities, was also a fantasy or a fiction.

“I am grateful to Fr MacRae for taking up my cause, as I am to many others. These include in North America George Weigel and Fr Raymond de Souza and here in Australia Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Gerard Henderson, Fr Frank Brennan, and others behind the scenes.

“I will conclude, not with a prayer, but with Fr MacRae’s opening quotation from Baron de Montesquieu (1742) [from BTSW ‘About’],

‘There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.’”

— George Cardinal Pell, Prison Journal Volume 2, p. 58-60

---

+ + +

Editor’s Note: Please share this important post from Ryan A. MacDonald. After the harsh condemnation Fr MacRae received from rCatholicism at Reddit, he and we were grateful to learn that a recent article from Beyond These Stone Walls received a commendation in the October 2021 issue of Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The citation was for “exposing with clarity the double standard applied when priests are accused.” The article receiving the citation was: Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

You may also like these other posts from Ryan A. MacDonald:

The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud

The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence

The Post-Trial Extortion of Father Gordon MacRae

You may also wish to see our new feature on the BTSW Menu: Voices from Beyond.

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Readers may recall that Father Stuart A. MacDonald, JCL, is the volunteer Canon Law advisor for Beyond These Stone Walls. He was also the subject of a post in July, 2021 entitled “Fr Stuart MacDonald and Our Tabloid Frenzy about Fallen Priests.” Father Stuart has since received the approval of his bishop to commence a doctoral degree program in Canon Law. We want to congratulate Father Stuart in this important development and the recognition of his expertise for which we hope to soon be a beneficiary. Please keep Father Stuart in prayer as he pursues this exhaustive program in addition to his parochial ministry.

A Catholic Priest 27 Years Wrongly in Prison in America

Father MacRae being led to prison, September 23, 1994

On the Feast of St Padre Pio, Fr Gordon MacRae marks 27 years of wrongful imprisonment amassing tools for coping mentally and spiritually with life’s unjust wounds.

September 22, 2021

Note from the Editor: The title for this post was inspired by a 2019 article at LinkedIn by Fr. James Valladares, Ph.D. entitled, “A Catholic Priest 25 Years Wrongly in Prison in America.” It was written by Father Valladares from excerpts of his acclaimed book on priesthood cited below. Still in prison two years later, this version is written entirely from the perspective of Fr. Gordon MacRae as his 27th year in prison comes to an end.

+ + +

Wounds from the Church

As most readers know, I was convicted and sent to prison on September 23, 1994, the same day the Church honors Padre Pio, a great saint whose shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo is the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. Padre Pio was canonized by another saint, Pope John Paul II, on June 16, 2002 at the height of the Catholic sex abuse scandal as it emerged out of Boston and spread like a virus.

For fifty years, Padre Pio bore the visible wounds of Christ on his body. He also bore the less visible wounds of slander and false witness inflicted from inside the Church. On several occasions in his life, his priestly ministry was suspended because lurid and ludicrous accusations were hurled at him from unscrupulous critics, many of whom were Church personnel. It was because of this, and some uncanny threads of connection, that Padre Pio entered our lives and became a Patron Saint of Beyond These Stone Walls. This is an account last told in 2020 in “Padre Pio: Witness for the Defense of Wounded Souls.”

In 2012, Australian Catholic priest, psychologist, and author, Fr. James Valladares, Ph.D., published a widely acclaimed book, “Hope Springs Eternal in the Priest1y Breast” (iUniverse). It cites a good deal of my own writing on the subjects of sacrifice, suffering, and priesthood. I am not at all worthy of this citation that appears on his "Acknowledgments" page:

“Fr. Gordon MacRae — an extraordinarily heroic priest with indomitable courage, unrelenting tenacity, unwavering patience, and Christ-like magnanimity who personally reflects what Pope Benedict XVI confessed: ‘All of us [priests] are suffering as a result of the sins of our confreres who betrayed a sacred trust or failed to deal justly and responsibly with allegations of abuse.’”

— Hope Springs Eternal in the Priest1y Breast, p.xviii

I don’t know about any of that, especially the part about “unwavering patience.” (Maybe Pornchai, writing from Thailand will weigh in on that.) Anyway, the book extensively cites the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal whose three major articles on my trial and imprisonment took this story out of the darkness of one-sided suppression. It also cites the work of Ryan A. MacDonald, most notably his investigative journalism compiled in “Truth in Justice.”

However, the cryptic statement of Pope Benedict cited by Father Valladares above needs clarification. The Pope’s reference to “the sins of our confreres who betrayed a sacred trust” needs no explanation. His further statement referring to those who “failed to deal justly and responsibly with allegations of abuse” is broader in scope. Fr. Valladares understood it to refer to some in the Church who tried to remedy one injustice by inflicting yet another. Some bishops went far beyond what has been required by the rule of law and also acquiesced to demands of the media and others with an agenda by publishing lists of priests deemed “credibly accused” but without basic due process of law.

Before my trial in 1994, for example, a past bishop of my diocese wrote a press release declaring me guilty of victimizing not only my accusers, but the entire Catholic Church. Two years ago, twenty-five years into my unjust sentence, a subsequent bishop joined the mob with stones in hand by publishing anew such a list with the stated goal of “transparency.” A year later, that same bishop was himself accused in a case that on its face is “credible” according to the standards bishops have used against priests.

The claims against Bishop Peter Libasci are alleged to have taken place in 1983, the same year as the claims against me. His defense is being handled by a law firm that most priests could never afford. But as I have documented in the post linked below, I believe the claims against him to be untrue and unjust. I was criticized for defending my bishop after my own name appeared on his list, but I am not looking for the mob approval my bishop was apparently looking for. I wrote of the injustice he faces in “Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo.”

Detective James McLaughlin celebrates his 350th arrest.

Wounds from the State

I cannot bring myself to rehash the litany of false witness and official misconduct that sent me to prison on September 23, 1994. I just read a report by the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE). It reveals the disturbing fact that in more than half of the cases overturned with new evidence revealing that the person in prison did not commit the crime, misconduct by prosecutors or police was the primary cause. (See Dale Chappell “Report Shows Official Misconduct Responsible for More than Half of Exonerations.”)

In the cases of many falsely accused Catholic priests, however, misconduct usually has a different outcome. There is never any “planted evidence,” but there is usually a lot of money in play as accusers become plaintiffs in civil lawsuits. Money is often an enticement to corruption and false witness. In many of these cases, no actual crime was ever committed 20, 30, or 40 years earlier when claims were alleged to have occurred.

In the Exonerations Report, sex offenses constituted the second highest category of wrongful convictions. Exonerations in that category encompassed a wide range of official misconduct including police threatening defendants and witnesses, falsified forensic evidence, police not pursuing exculpatory evidence, and police lying under oath. All of this was in the background of my trial and is documented in “Wrongful Convictions: The Other Police Misconduct.”

Many people ask me why I am still in prison when others have come forward with evidence and testimony that casts doubt on the integrity of my conviction. I believe that the most important factor in my continued imprisonment is that the officer behind it has scored convictions via lenient plea deals in over a thousand cases of suspected sexual abuse. Lenient plea deals bolstered his conviction rate without totally destroying the defendants for life. As most readers know, I was offered such a deal in 1994 which would have had me released from prison by 1996 had I actually been guilty or willing to pretend so.

Reversing a conviction based on Detective James F. McLaughlin’s malfeasance in my case may have the unintended consequence of reopening a thousand others that he was involved with. It would have required moral courage and judicial integrity on the part of the judge, a former federal prosecutor who declined a hearing in my habeas corpus appeal. Judges rely on a procedural ruling giving state courts a right to finality. No judge has ruled on the evidence or witnesses that have arisen in the years since my trial. No judge has ever even heard the evidence or witnesses.

This raises a hard truth about our justice system. Guilty defendants are inclined to accept lenient plea deals while many innocent defendants cannot or will not. I am one of them. As a result, many guilty defendants spend far less time in prison than innocent ones. You have already seen a glaring example.

As a direct result of my writing about the horrific crimes perpetrated against Pornchai Moontri when he was brought to America against his will at age 12 in 1985, Richard Alan Bailey was found and arrested in Oregon. Due to extensive evidence, he pled no contest to forty felony charges of sexual assault in the State of Maine in 2018. He was sentenced to 18 years probation and never saw the inside of a prison. In nearby New Hampshire, I refused a one year plea deal and faced trial with no evidence. I was then sentenced to 67 years in prison. Let that sink in.

The Prophet Jonah: A Final Chapter

But none of this addresses what I intended to be at the heart of this post that marks those 27 years. There is nothing I can do to secure justice or freedom for myself. And there was nothing I did do to bring about my loss of them. But there was a lot I could do to secure justice and restore freedom for one whose path on this journey from Jerusalem to Jericho crossed with mine.

I did nothing so grandiose as the conversion of Nineveh, but through the Grace of God I became a necessary instrument in the conversion of Pornchai Moontri who once was lost and broken and now lives free in the light of Divine Mercy. In a September 10 telephone call to him in Thailand on his birthday, his first as a free man, he told me that his deliverance from both prison and his past could not have happened without me. I do not regret paying that ransom. I today believe this to be the purpose for what I have endured.

In my recent post, “The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner,” I wrote about the Seventh Century BC Prophet Jonah and why much of the Book of Jonah is today considered to be a parable. I did not want to detract from the hopeful outcome of that story, so I held its final chapter until now. Its last chapter also took place in Nineveh, but in our time and not Jonah’s.

Though the story of Jonah and the Great Fish is a parable, the Prophet Jonah was a historical figure honored by all three of the great monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. When Jonah was sent by God to the ancient city of Nineveh in the Seventh Century BC, it was the capital of the Assyrian Empire in its time of glory. Nineveh was a center for commercial trade routes on the Tigris River in what is now northern Iraq, just opposite the modern city of Mosul. Nineveh was established in the Neolithic period more than 8,000 years ago, and inhabited almost without a break until about 1500 AD.

In the centuries before the Prophet Jonah was sent to Nineveh, the city was known as a religious center, but it fell far away from its religious roots. The city honored the Assyrian goddess, Ishtar, a goddess of healing who somehow was transformed by the time of Jonah into a goddess of war. The Assyrians built the city with broad boulevards, parks and gardens, and a magnificent palace of more than 80 rooms.

Today, Nineveh is reduced to two large mounds beneath which are the ruins of a city once thriving. The mounds are called, in Arabic, “Kuyunjik” and “Nebi Yunus” which means “place of Jonah.” In ancient times, a massive tomb in honor of the Prophet Jonah was built in a Sunni mosque in Nineveh on the site of an Assyrian church where the remains of Jonah were thought to be buried. This part of the city was revered by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The Tomb of the Prophet somehow managed to survive intact until just a decade ago. After standing for over a thousand years, the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah was blown up and destroyed in 2011 by the fundamentalist Islamic group, al Qaeda.

The Taliban had been doing the same thing in Afghanistan. Islam was preceded there by Buddhism which was eventually eclipsed by Islam and driven out around the Seventh Century AD. In the Sixth Century AD, Buddhist monks carved into a cliff side the world’s largest statue of Buddha. Standing at 180 feet, it survived for 1,500 years before it was blown up by the Taliban in 2001. It was destroyed at about the same time the Taliban harbored Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda while the September 11, 2001 assault on the United States was planned.

I bring all of this up now because witnessing in my own recent lifetime the demise of people, places, and things once held sacred by many people has had an outsized impact on me that some might find perplexing. Why would I care so much about the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah or a 1,500 year-old gigantic stone Buddha? No matter who these monuments ultimately served, they arose from the hearts and souls of a people. When religious icons are destroyed by evil intent, so is the spirit of those people.

Catholicism and the cancel culture assault on the priesthood now risk this same fate. That risk is manifested most in America over just the last two decades. This threat does not come from the Taliban or Islamic State — though they may be poised to take advantage of the vacuum of hopelessness left in its wake. The terrorism behind this threat is called “apathy.”

If the priesthood and the Mass fall away, it will have as its primary cause the agendas of a few and the silence of too many.

We have witnessed in just recent years a chronic disparagement of the priesthood even from Pope Francis and our bishops, a canceling of a widely reverenced ancient form of the Sacrifice of the Mass, a handing over of the Church’s patrimony to the Chinese Communist government, a disparaging of our Church and faith as a “non essential service” by secular authority, a rampant capitulation to that by some bishops, a failure to defend the sanctity of life and the sanctity of the Eucharist, and a Catholic President who believes in neither.

This is why the Taliban despise us and judge us to be “Infidels,” which means exactly what it implies: “A people of little faith.”

+ + +

From a Homily of Padre Pio

“Why does is there evil in the world? Listen closely to me. There was a mother who was embroidering on a small weaving frame. Her young son was seated in front of her on a small low stool watching his mother work. But as he watched, he saw only the underside of the weaving frame. And so he said, ‘But Mother, what are you doing? The embroidery is so ugly!’ So his mother lowered the frame to show him the other side of the work, the good side with all its colors in place and all the threads in a harmonious pattern. That is it. Have you seen what evil is like? Evil is the reverse side of that embroidery and we are all sitting on a small stool.”

— From a homily of St. Padre Pio

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: I want to thank readers who have consulted our Special Events page to assist our friend Pornchai in the daunting task of rebuilding his life. As you know, he was taken from Thailand at age 11. On his September 10 birthday this month, he had a touching reunion with his cousin who was eight when they lived together and is now 45 and an officer in the Royal Thai Navy. They met on September 10th for a birthday celebration at the Gulf of Thailand.

You may also wish to review the related posts linked herein:

Padre Pio, Witness for the Defense of Wounded Souls

Wrongful Convictions: The Other Police Misconduct

The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

Before he was himself accused New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a window in the civil statute of limitations spawning claims against a Catholic bishop.

August 25, 2021

Back in 2010, I closely followed a story that appeared in most national news media outlets. It was about Bishop Eddie Long, a well-known preacher, TV evangelist, and pastor of a Baptist mega church in Georgia. He was accused of sexual assault in multiple lawsuits brought by three young adult males.

Unlike in nearly all similar claims against Catholic clergy, all three of the men, barely out of their teens, opted to allow their names to appear in media coverage. The story unfolded in stark contrast with similar claims against Catholic priests in other ways as well. Lawyers and victim advocates have explained away the sometimes decades-long gaps that have comprised 70-percent of the claims against priests. It is routinely claimed that accusers of Catholic clergy — the vast majority of whom were teens at the time of an alleged offense — may require decades to come forward due to the trauma inflicted on them. In contrast, the three young men accusing Bishop Eddie Long filed lawsuits within two years.

Bishop Long denied that the claims were true. Criminal charges were never filed so the claims were not investigated. The story came down to his word against theirs. When The Wall Street Journal published a 2010 account of Bishop Long’s vow to fight these claims, it was among the five most-read stories of that week at WSJ.com. Clearly, many in the news media presumed at first reading of the headlines that he was a Catholic bishop. The decision to fight the claims rather than simply settle thus stood out as a news story of its own.

In the end, however, Bishop Long and his congregation decided to settle the claims for an undisclosed sum in 2010. No one questioned their assertion that settlement of such claims is common and in no way should be seen as an admission of guilt or culpability. Beyond Bishop Long’s congregation, there were no deeper pockets to pursue. He simply resumed his ministry as though nothing had ever happened.

This could never happen when the accused is a Catholic priest. It was once explained to me by another bishop, Most Rev. John B. McCormack, formerly Bishop of Manchester, NH, that one of the hard lessons of the Catholic clergy abuse narrative is the fact that once a priest is accused, his legal interests and those of his bishop and diocese diverge. When I maintained my innocence against lawsuits that I knew were fraudulent, I was dropped as a defendant so I no longer had standing to challenge settlements.

The New Hampshire statute of limitations for lawsuits was six years then. (In 2020 the civil limitation statute was removed entirely.) The allegations against me were from twelve years earlier. My defense against the claims was that they never took place. The sole argument of my diocese was that the statute had expired so the lawsuits should be time barred. Judge Carol Ann Conboy ruled in Merrimack County Superior Court that the six-year statute begins to toll “only when a victim becomes aware” of a connection between a claim of abuse and a current injury.

My diocese opted to settle rather than appeal that dubious lower court precedent which has since evolved into a pattern of unquestioned mediated settlements in other claims against priests going all the way back to 1950. In many cases no lawsuit was even filed. In his once published resume, former Msgr. Edward J. Arsenault (now Edward J. Bolognini) claimed that he personally negotiated 250 settlements in allegations against NH priests.

Of interest, one NH lawyer told the news media that he personally obtained 250 settlements in claims against NH priests. In a 2002 media report he added,

“During settlement negotiations, diocesan officials did not press for details such as dates and allegations for every claim. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ [Attorney Peter] Hutchins said.”

— Mark Hayward, NH Diocese Will Pay $5 Million to 62 Victims, NH Union Leader, November 27, 2002

Manchester Bishop Peter A. Libasci

Misuse of the word, “credible” has been a source of injustice in the U.S. Church since 2002. Prior to the events described above, Bishop John McCormack told a lawyer and a media producer that he believed I was falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned. His statements were documented in a pair of independently sworn affidavits in 2001.

In 2002, after the USCCB adopted the Dallas Charter and “zero tolerance,” claims against me entered a category used by all bishops since. Once money changed hands, they became “credible.” I wrote of the fallout in “Our Tabloid Frenzy About Fallen Priests.”

What the bishops collectively mean by “credible” is not a standard of justice used in any other circumstance. It means no more than “possible.” If a priest and an accuser lived in the same parish or community 30, 40, 50 years ago, then a sexual abuse claim against the priest is “credible.” It is deeply unjust that bishops continue to use that term while knowing that the public and the news media wrongly interpret it as “substantiated.”

There has been a point of contention with my current Ordinary, Bishop Peter A. Libasci. In 2019, while under no pressure from anyone to do so, he published the names of 73 priests of this one diocese who, he says, were “credibly” accused. Many are deceased. This resulted in a pair of pointed articles by Ryan A. MacDonald: “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List,” and “Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm on the Priesthood.”

Now Bishop Libasci has himself been “credibly accused.” On July 22, 2021, the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, in an article by Mark Hayward, reported, “NH Bishop accused of sexual abuse by an altar boy decades ago.” Whatever differences I have had with Bishop Peter Libasci and his published list, I was and am deeply saddened by this development. The accusation stems from 1983, the same year as the accusations against me. The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk County, New York, alleges that then Father Peter Libasci sexually assaulted a boy aged 12 to 13 “on numerous occasions” at a parish and Catholic school in Deer Park in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York.

Bishop Libasci maintains through counsel that he is entirely innocent of these claims. I believe that he is in fact innocent. I do not find the claims to be credible at all, but I do not use that term in the same manner the bishops use it against priests. I will get back to this.

One of the claims from the now unnamed 50-year-old accuser is that he was assaulted in the sacristy while setting up for a Mass. That has all the earmarks of a “copycat” claim that is almost verbatim a claim in a different but much more notorious New York case, that of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. No one who knows Bishop Libasci could or should conclude that these claims are at all credible. It would be a grave injustice if such claims prevail without clear evidence.

However, that also leaves the matter in a conundrum. If that accuser lived in Deer Park, New York and attended that parish or school at the time Bishop Libasci was there, then this is more than enough for his fellow bishops to conclude — as they would in the case of any similarly accused priest — that the claims are “credible.” Bishop Libasci has not, at this writing, been removed from ministry by the Vatican. As unjust as that would be, any priest in the same circumstance would have been removed immediately.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

This is happening to Bishop Libasci and others with roots in the State of New York because in 2019, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo promoted and ultimately signed a bill that opened a window to allow civil claims to be filed even if they had been time barred by the statute of limitations. The window in which these claims could be filed expired on August 14, 2021. The Catholic bishops of the state of New York knew well what the result would be so they opposed the unjust bill.

Before signing it into law, Governor Cuomo accused the bishops and other Church officials of threatening politicians who did not support their opposition to the bill. In response to similar bills that were not passed in previous efforts, Cuomo said, “I believe it was the conservatives in the Senate who were threatened by the Catholic Church, and this went on for years.” Catholic League President Bill Donohue pointed out in “Cuomo Had A Different Standard for Priests,” Catalyst, April 2021,

“When teachers’ unions oppose a bill, it is called lobbying. When bishops oppose a bill, it is called a threat. Cuomo’s double standard, and his animus against the Catholic Church, could not be more plain.”

— Dr. Bill Donohue

Governor Cuomo also promoted and signed a June 2020 bill that set a very low bar as a standard of evidence in claims of sexual abuse or harassment in the workplace. The New York Times reported that the legislation eliminates the state’s “severe or pervasive” standard. When signing the bill into law, Governor Cuomo said,

“The ongoing culture of sexual harassment in the workplace is unacceptable and has held employees back for far too long. This critical measure finally ends the absurd legal standard for victims to prove sexual harassment in the workplace and makes it easier for those who have been subjected to this disgusting behavior to bring claims forward.”

— Governor Andrew Cuomo, June 2020

I once wrote a post entitled, “Be Wary of Crusaders! The Devil Sigmund Freud Knew Only Too Well.” It documented multiple stories of crusaders against sexual abuse who turned out to be guilty of the same sorts of offenses they were crusading against. It was the result of a combination of forces within the psyche in the form of two classic defense mechanisms described by the Father of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. From recent news accounts of his resignation to avoid a pending impeachment, Governor Cuomo seems to have been a textbook case for this.

As accusation after accusation emerged against Cuomo, he insisted on a presumption of innocence and his due process rights. He responded to the allegations with, “You can allege something. It might be true or it might not be true. You may have misperceived. There may be other facts.” All true, but when it came to allegations against priests — whether in the present or in the distant past — innocence was never a possible conclusion. As Catholic League President Bill Donohue observed in the link above,

“Cuomo showed no respect for the due process rights [of priests]. He was happy to sign legislation that gave rapacious lawyers out to sue the Church all the leeway they wanted.”

— Dr. Bill Donohue, Catalyst, April 2021

This is the Pandora’s Box our bishops opened with their use of the term, “credible” as a standard of evidence for removing priests. The current claims against Bishop Peter Libasci arose only because Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law in New York a bill that takes advantage of the lowest possible standard of evidence to score lucrative windfall settlements from the Catholic Church.

According to the standard our bishops have adopted, however, those claims are as “credible” as many of the claims against the priests on Bishop Libasci’s published list. I would like to believe that Bishop Libasci may now, in hindsight and humility, rethink his decision to publish that list. Injustice, however, is often a bell that cannot be unrung.

Nonetheless, absent compelling evidence — and so far there is none — I firmly believe Bishop Peter Libasci is entirely innocent. I hope and pray that his good name is restored and he is delivered from this injustice.

+ + +

Update by Editor — September 8, 2024: In July 2024 it was announced in news media that the accuser of Bishop Peter A. Libasci has died in Rockville Centre, New York. The cause of death has not been public, but he would have been a man in his mid-fifties. This sadly leaves the case against Bishop Libasci unresolved both civilly and canonically.

Since then, the Diocese of Manchester under Bishop Libasci has revised its policy regarding accusations against Catholic clergy. Bishop Libasci has approved a new standard to be applied to cases of accusations against priests. The “credible” standard has been discarded within this Diocese. Now any priest merely accused, from however long ago, substantiated or not, will be removed from ministry and his name added to a public list of the accused. The Diocese has announced that financial compensation for all accusers will be arranged by “trauma-informed consultants.” This new standard will apply to all diocesan personnel, except apparently, Bishop Libasci himself.

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Please share this post. Please also pray for a just outcome for Catholic priests falsely accused, and for legitimate victims of sexual abuse and exploitation. Let us remember as we walk through this minefield that we are a Church.

You may also like these relevant posts:

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List by Ryan A. MacDonald

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Great Harm on the Priesthood by Ryan A. MacDonald

A Weapon of Mass Destruction: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused by Father Gordon J. MacRae, LinkedIn Pulse

Accused Priests Deserve Better by Catholic League President Bill Donohue (Catalyst, March 2020)

Bogus Charges Against Priests Abound by Father Michael Orsi, Ed.D., Ave Maria School of Law

The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence

The Diocese of Manchester demonstrates the difference between the stated rights of accused Catholic priests in Church law and actual observance of those rights.

February 26, 2014 by Ryan A. MacDonald (updated June 14, 2025)

Editor’s Note: This is Part Two of a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald. Part One was “The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud.”

“I don’t share your belief in Father MacRae’s innocence. I just don’t believe a judge and jury would sentence a priest to life in prison with anything less than clear and compelling evidence.”

The above quote was the reply of a prominent American Catholic writer when I challenged him to take a closer look at the trial and imprisonment of Father Gordon MacRae. There is nothing to be gained by publishing the writer’s name. I still hope he might accept my challenge to study this matter with more depth than the New Hampshire news media and priests of the Diocese of Manchester have given it. I have asked the writer to show me the evidence he feels so certain must exist. He is wrong about this. There is simply no factual evidence to support this conviction.

But for some, the absence of evidence is evidence of evidence. That Catholic writer’s presumption about evenhanded justice and due process reflects the naiveté of the innocent and just. I once shared such naiveté, but I have since learned that ignorance is not bliss. I know too much about this case to cling to any delusions that everyone in prison must be guilty, or that a Catholic priest, while actually innocent, could not be railroaded into prison based on false witness.

So does The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz, one of the most just and courageous journalists I know. She has a talent for enabling readers to place themselves in the shoes of the falsely accused, and it’s a terrifying place to be. A recent article, “On Woody Allen and Echoes of the Past” (WSJ.com, February 9, 2014), had that same effect. It isn’t long, but it’s compelling and powerful.

Despite its title, the article’s great power is in its depiction of falsely accused men and women — such as Violet, Cheryl, and Gerald Amirault of Massachusetts and Kelly Michaels of New Jersey — who were ripped from ordinary lives to be tried and sent to prison because of trumped up charges, lots of media hype, and the ambitions of prosecutors.

These same people were profiled in No Crueler Tyrannies (WSJ Books, 2005), a book by Dorothy Rabinowitz that has opened many eyes, including mine. She found a common denominator among those falsely accused and betrayed by the justice system during the “child terror” prosecutions of the 1980s and 1990s, the same era, and the same terror, that convicted Father MacRae. Rabinowitz wrote,

“Those who are falsely accused often naively believe that their innocence is obvious, that the allegations will be dropped.”

In “Judge Arthur Brennan Sentenced Fr Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison,” I wrote that plea deals work well for the guilty but not for the innocent. The guilty come before the justice system prepared to limit punishment by accepting any reasonable plea deal offered. The innocent cannot fathom such twisted justice, and therefore often spend far more time in prison than the guilty.

For preserving his right to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial — though he got neither, as you will see, from either Church or State — Father Gordon MacRae was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to more than 30 times the sentence offered by prosecutors in the plea deal he refused. As I wrote in part one of this article last week, it is a perversion of justice that, had he been actually guilty, this priest would have been released from prison 17 years ago.

The Lie Detector Disaster

In the above article, Dorothy Rabinowitz cited that some of the innocent accused were anxious to take lie detector tests (aka polygraphs). Those who passed them, however, did so to no avail as prosecutors refused to consider, or even hear, the results. Father MacRae also voluntarily submitted to two lie detector tests conducted by an expert who reviewed the claims of Thomas Grover and his brothers, Jonathan and David Grover, who also accused the priest for settlement money from his diocese. I have repeatedly called upon MacRae’s accusers to agree to lie detector tests, a challenge met only with silence.

Had Father MacRae failed the polygraphs administered before his trial, you can be certain that fact would have found its way into court, or at least into the newspapers. He passed them conclusively, but the results were ignored, and not only by state prosecutors. The most difficult act of suppression to comprehend came from his bishop and diocese.

Defense attorney Ron Koch (pronounced “Coke”) often appeared to be as naive and trusting as his client. He seemed to believe that the Diocese of Manchester might be more inclined to defend its priest if clarity about his innocence could be established. However passing pre-trial lie detector tests, and making that fact known, actually proved disastrous for the defense of Father MacRae.

Within weeks of the defense lawyer’s effort to have polygraph results reviewed by Church lawyers, the Diocese of Manchester issued a press release that inflicted a mortal wound to MacRae’s civil and canonical rights. Plastered in the news media throughout New England before jury selection in his trial, this press release destroyed his defense in the court of public opinion, and influenced jurors in the court of law:

“The Bishop and the Church are saddened by and grieve with the victims of Gordon MacRae…and he was ultimately removed from his status as one who could ever function as a priest again…The Church is a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae as well as the individuals… [The Diocese] will defend its officials who have been falsely accused [and] it will continue to cooperate in bringing those who have harmed others to light.”

— Bishop of Manchester Press Release, Sept. 11, 1993

Canonical Advocate, Father David Deibel, J.C.L., J.D., protested this gross violation of Church law and civil liberties. He was reportedly told that the press release “was a carefully crafted statement meant to respond to media concerns” about the MacRae case. When defense attorney Ron Koch called to protest, he was told that Father MacRae was the sole priest to have been so accused in the Diocese of Manchester.

Nine years later, officials for the Manchester Diocese worked out a plea deal of their own to avoid a misdemeanor charge based on a theory of law the state’s Attorney General admitted was “novel.” The published files as a result of that deal revealed that 62 New Hampshire priests had been accused, and some $23 million changed hands in mediated settlements. 

 For his first six years in prison, 17 miles from the Chancery Office of the Diocese of Manchester, Father MacRae was summarily abandoned. The company line was that it was MacRae himself who refused to be visited in prison by any priest. The bitter refusal was reportedly issued through unnamed third parties who have never been identified. However, the prison’s Catholic chaplain during Father MacRae’s first years in prison saw this differently:

“I have been told by priests that Diocesan officials claimed that Father MacRae refused, through unnamed third parties, to be visited by a priest … During my tenure as chaplain, no one representing the diocese ever asked me to arrange a visit with Father MacRae [who] indicated to me he would welcome such contacts … . It remains my belief that Father MacRae is for some reason viewed differently from other priests that are, or have been, incarcerated.”

— Prison Chaplain John R. Sweeney, Sept. 20, 2004

Bishop’s Delegate Monsignor Edward Arsenault

Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled “To Azazel: Father Gordon MacRae and the Gospel of Mercy.” It was about some shockingly uncharitable conduct toward this imprisoned priest, but the offenders were not other prisoners trying to make names for themselves in the brutal prison culture. They were priests of the Diocese of Manchester.

In the year 2000, however, Diocesan interest in Father MacRae was radically altered when it became known that two media giants, Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal, and PBS Frontline, expressed interest in the facts of this case. You may read for yourselves the manipulation aimed at this imprisoned priest, and the devastation of his rights in an article by Father George David Byers entitled, “Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded.”

Throughout this period, the official Delegate (2000 until 2009) for the Bishop of Manchester was Monsignor Edward Arsenault. His published resume reveals that he personally negotiated mediated settlements in 250 claims against Diocese of Manchester priests. At the same time, Monsignor Arsenault was wearing another hat — some might say a highly conflicting one.

While negotiating settlements in the MacRae case and hundreds of others on behalf of the Diocese of Manchester, Arsenault was also Chairman of the Board of the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, an organization underwriting insurers of Catholic institutions and dioceses across the U.S. It is unclear which of these hats Monsignor Arsenault was wearing when he negotiated this typical round of mediated settlements described in David F. Pierre’s 2012 book, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused:

“In 2002, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, faced accusations of abuse from 62 individuals. Rather than spending the time and resources looking into the merits of the accusations, ‘Diocesan officials did not even ask for specifics such as the dates and specific allegations for the claims,’ New Hampshire’s Union Leader Reported. ‘Some victims made claims in just the past month and because of the timing of negotiations, gained closure in just a matter of days,’ reported the Nashua Telegraph. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ a pleased and much richer plaintiff attorney admitted.”

— Catholic Priests Falsely Accused, p. 80

In 2001, Monsignor Edward Arsenault developed a policy statement for the Diocese of Manchester. As Bishop John McCormack’s Delegate, Monsignor Arsenault published the “Diocese of Manchester Statement of Rights and Obligations of Persons Accused of Sexual Misconduct.” The document was straightforward, and listed, in accord with Canon law and Diocesan policy, the rights of the accused and the obligations of the Diocese:

• The Delegate (Monsignor Edward Arsenault) will:

  • Inform the person being interviewed of the process to be used;

  • Inform the person being interviewed what information will be shared with whom;

  • Inform the person being interviewed that he [the Delegate] is acting in the external forum on
 behalf of the Bishop of Manchester;

  • Inform the person being interviewed that any and all information disclosed will be treated with discretion, but not subject to confidentiality…

• Rights of the Person Accused: The accused cleric or religious has:

  • The right not to implicate oneself;

  • The right to counsel, civil and canonical;

  • The right to review the results of one’s own psychological evaluations;

  • The right to know what has been alleged and to offer a defense against the allegations;

  • The right to know and understand the review process;

  • The right to discretion in the conduct of the investigation and to have his/her good name protected.

Over the next three years as the Diocese of Manchester submitted individual cases to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, every tenet of the above statement of rights was silently ignored or outright violated by Monsignor Arsenault and officials of the Diocese of Manchester in regard to the case of Father MacRae.

No investigations took place. No interviews took place. The imprisoned priest’s repeated requests for details of what has been represented in Rome in regard to this case have been ignored, and no right of defense has been honored. The promised assistance of legal counsel was never acted upon. Repeated and documented requests from Father MacRae that Bishop John McCormack and Monsignor Arsenault agree to confer with his Canonical Advocate to assure his rights under Church law were refused.

In the ultimate insult, when Monsignor Arsenault finally did agree to consult Father Deibel, the canonical advocate, he reportedly told the priest that, should Father MacRae be involuntarily laicized, “I’m sure Bishop McCormack will still send him $100 a month” to survive in prison. The suggestion that this was MacRae’s sole concern for the future of his priesthood left him feeling humiliated and violated.

A promise by Bishop McCormack to set aside $40,000 for Father MacRae’s appellate defense — on the condition that he set aside contacts with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal — was instead used to hire counsel to bypass MacRae’s lawyers and investigators, and to conduct a secret review of his trial and any chance of overturning the convictions. To this day, Monsignor Arsenault and the Bishop of Manchester have ignored requests to share that review with the wrongly imprisoned priest’s defense team struggling to afford his day in court.

Remember Those in Prison as Though in Prison with Them (Heb. 13:3)

In 2009, Monsignor Edward Arsenault was appointed Executive Director of Saint Luke Institute, a nationally known facility in Maryland for the psychological treatment of priests. Bishop John McCormack was the sole U.S. bishop on the Saint Luke Institute Board of Directors at the time. Monsignor Arsenault took leave from the diocese to assume the post with an annual salary of $170,000.

Earlier this month, on February 4, 2014, the news media announced that Monsignor Edward Arsenault has accepted a plea deal to plead guilty to three felony charges. He was indicted on multiple counts, and has agreed to plead guilty to the theft of thousands of dollars from the Diocese of Manchester while serving as Chancellor and Bishop’s Delegate, from Catholic Medical Center Hospital where he served on its Board of Directors, and from the estate of a deceased priest of the Manchester Diocese for which he served as Executor. According to news reports, the theft of funds from the Diocese of Manchester continued until 2013, four years after Monsignor Arsenault began his $170,000 a year post at Saint Luke Institute.

The plea deal Monsignor Arsenault has entered into forgoes trial and any testimony under oath. The exact number of felony charges and the exact amounts of stolen funds involved have not been made public, and possibly never will be. The New Hampshire Attorney General stated that the plea deal, and the minimum four year prison sentence Monsignor Arsenault has agreed to, are in “recognition of the extensive cooperation of the defendant,” and in anticipation of his continued cooperation in the ongoing investigation of “improper financial transactions.”

The investigation into financial wrongdoing was launched, according to news sources, when the Diocese began investigating a “potentially inappropriate adult relationship.”

For at least the next four years, Monsignor Edward Arsenault will share the same prison as Father Gordon MacRae, a priest who — armed only with the truth and his faith — refused plea bargains to face the cruelest of tyrannies, wrongful imprisonment. This is the priest against whom Monsignor Edward Arsenault and his prosecutorial friends have worked so arduously, and in secret, to undo and discard.

UPDATE:

Monsignor Arsenault served only a few weeks of his sentence in the New Hampshire State Prison. He was moved early one morning to serve out his sentence in the Cheshire County House of Corrections. This, we are told, was highly unusual. A State Senator who asked not to be named said that Monsignor Arsenault received “very special treatment” in the judicial and corrections systems. Special treatment did not end here. After serving only two years of the four-to-twenty year sentence, Arsenault’s sentence was commuted to house arrest. While serving that sentence his $300,000 restitution was paid by unnamed third parties. His entire twenty year sentence was then commuted by Judge Diane Nicolosi. Subsequently, Arsenault was dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis. In April of 2021 he legally changed his name to Edward J. Bolognini.

Under this new name, with his $300,000 restitution paid by unnamed third parties and his sentence for multiple financial felonies suddenly commuted Edward J. Bolognini was awarded with management of a multimillion dollar contract with the City of New York.

In 2018, sixteen years after Fr. MacRae and his advocates were told that MacRae was the only of the Manchester Diocese ever to be accused, current Bishop Peter A. Libasci proactively published a list of 73 priests of the Diocese of Manchester accused of sexual abuse. He cited “transparency” as his motive for publishing the list. Subsequently, Bishop Peter A. Libasci was himself accused of sexual abuse dating from his years as a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York. The charges were alleged to have occurred in 1983, the same year as the charges against Fr. MacRae.

Bishop Libasci maintains his innocence and remains Bishop of Manchester, and all transparency ceased.

In October 2022, The Wall Street Journal published its fourth article on this matter entitled, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.”

---

Please share this post!