“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
— Deacon David Jones
Fr Stuart MacDonald and Our Tabloid Frenzy about Fallen Priests
Our Catholic tabloid frenzy about fallen priests has become a scandal of its own. As we tackle it Beyond These Stone Walls, Fr. Stuart MacDonald joins our team.
Our Catholic tabloid frenzy about fallen priests has become a scandal of its own. As we tackle it Beyond These Stone Walls, Fr. Stuart MacDonald joins our team.
Wednesday July 28, 2021
Back in 2019, I wrote a post entitled, “Was Cardinal George Pell Convicted on Copycat Testimony?” I had no idea at the time that a reader in Texas sent a copy of it to Cardinal Pell who was then serving a deeply unjust sentence in an Australia prison. I also did not know at the time that he was writing a prison journal that, after his exoneration and release, would be published to become a highly celebrated masterpiece of priestly witness in a time of trial. I have been reading the Second Volume of the Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell published by Ignatius Press, and I was moved to see that I appear prominently therein.
Over the course of four pages in the book (57-61) Cardinal Pell, from his prison cell, recounts a summary of my own travesty of justice and then thanks me, at the end, for my support of him:
I was deeply moved because there are not many in our Church, and certainly precious few with the prominence of Cardinal Pell, who would openly cite something I wrote and commend me for it. I will return to the importance of this.
Writing my own prison journal for Beyond These Stone Walls has always been somewhat of a letdown in the summer months. I do not write for accolades or approval, but I admit that it is nice to at least be noticed. In eleven years of writing this prison journal, the months of June through August have always seen our smallest readership. Who could blame you? I, too, would rather be in the water.
Something unexpected happened this year, however. My posts for June and July 2021 generated an explosion of readers and new subscribers setting an eleven-year record. My recent post, “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul” topped the list of recent titles that went off the charts. That post is about a matter of Sacramental integrity, but it also speaks to the very heart of what it means to be Catholic in the public square. The “Catholicism” moderator at Reddit rejected it twice as a “political post,” but I do not think the Reddit moderator actually Reddit (pun intended!). Some in other venues who dismissed it as political or partisan changed their minds after reading it to the end. Most Catholic readers thanked me for writing it. A smaller minority of Catholics were furious with me for writing it, but they refuted none of it.
I did not at all expect the vast response that post evoked. It was most evident in the comments it generated, but it was also evident in the traffic. Readers by the thousands came to it from Washington DC, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and unlike most other BTSW posts, 90-percent of its readers were in the U.S. It had the highest one-day record for both visitors and new subscribers.
But I have no awareness that the people who most should read it did read it: the Catholic Bishops of the United States. So at the request of several readers, our friend and new Canon Law advisor, Father Stuart MacDonald, JCL, created a printable 5-page PDF version that you could print and mail to anyone you wish, including your bishop. We have also compiled a PDF contact list of the United States Catholic Bishops organized by state. Here are the links:
PDF of Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul
Our Catholic Tabloid Frenzy about Fallen Priests
As recent posts here have demonstrated, this is not an easy time to be a priest in a divided and politically partisan America. It is an exponentially more difficult time to be a bishop. Please keep that in mind when writing to them. Our shared goal must be communion and solidarity, not confrontation. That should not in any way inhibit the faithful from being faithful in the clarity of our message. We should write as though the very integrity of the Catholic Church in America is at stake — because it is.
Few of us ever awaken in the morning with a decision to become an activist that day. Activism is technically defined as “a theory or doctrine of assertive action, such as a strike or public demonstration, used as a means of supporting or opposing a controversial issue, person, or event.” Having known Father Stuart MacDonald for some time, I would never have considered him to be an activist, nor would I have ever applied that term to myself.
In recent years, as a number of my posts suggest, the need for Catholic action in support of priests and the priesthood has become evident. The newly formed “Coalition for Canceled Priests” is a good first step in that direction. I cannot speak for this coalition, but one facet of its activism has become clear to me. A minority of more “progressive” and powerful bishops of the United States has tried to steer the narrative, not only about the priesthood, but also about the hierarchy of concerns of Catholics. My post, “Biden and the Bishops” lays out the fault lines of this effort. (More recently, we have seen the influence of this progressive suppression in the Motu Proprio of Pope Francis on the Traditional Latin Mass. This will be our topic on BTSW next week.)
But there is something else that must happen before Catholics engage their bishops about the treatment of priests. We must put an end — in our own hearts and beyond — to our Catholic tabloid frenzy about fallen priests. Satan has never felt more fulfilled than in seeing priests fall at the hands of their own bishops.
Many priests have fallen morally to the point of the total collapse of their priesthood. Why should this be a surprise to any of us? Is there anyone, in the spiritual battlefield of our time, with a bigger satanic target on his back than a Catholic priest in the trenches? In our current climate of fear and loathing, the Church does nothing to catch them on their way down as they fall, nor is anything done to stem the tide of their descent. We just let them fall, and then discard them at the bottom. We as a Church make it very clear that there is to be no redemption for a fallen priest, no path upon which to step back into the light. Should this be the practice of a body of faith in a Church built upon the Blood of Christ? I must repeat, as I have done a few times in these pages, how my friend and mentor, the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, described our bishops’ collective response to their fallen priests in the pages of First Things:
The trends that allowed this to happen in the U.S. Church and then spread throughout the world now lend themselves toward the demise of any priest for any cause that displeases his bishop — or even a more influential bishop in the diocese next door. Catholic League President Bill Donohue boldly addressed this in a quote on our “About” page: “There is no segment of the U.S. population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic Priest.”
Father Stuart A. MacDonald, JCL
There is a reason why false witness is included among the Ten Commandments. Its presence there is clear in Sacred Scripture: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16). The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 19, lays out the conditions under which this Commandment is to be observed: “A single witness shall not prevail against a man.” (Dt. 19:15). False witness is destructive, not only of the person who falls prey to it, but also to the entire community of believers and the justice system of an entire people.
Sometimes false witness takes the form of gross exaggeration of what otherwise might just be a slip in judgment. This is how public stoning, as a means of execution, is done today. It is not a person’s body that is stoned to death now, but a person’s good name. I fell prey to this. Standing by the truth sent me to life in prison while a simple lie would have released me a quarter century ago. And it was my own bishop (at that time) who first told the bigger lie when he declared me guilty in a press release even before jury selection in my trial.
My activism now takes the form of standing by other priests falsely accused or accused with great exaggeration which always has a specific goal: a swifter, more lucrative monetary award from a bishop anxious to settle, or some animus against the Catholic Church. Cardinal George Pell was very much an innocent victim of the latter.
Sometimes the animus comes from Catholics who blindly use The Scandal to further some agenda of their own. Father Stuart MacDonald also became a victim of grossly exaggerated false witness. It involved only an exchange of words for which he was entirely cleared of wrongdoing by the Holy See and fully restored to ministry. That should be enough for any of us, but it sadly never is for those wanting only to demean the priesthood.
As a witness in support of Father Stuart and his priesthood, I have invited him to assist Beyond These Stone Walls with his expertise in Canon Law. We have also established a Category under his name at the BTSW Public Library. Father Stuart has written several excellent posts for BTSW which are now being restored for addition to the Library. First up will be his superb and timely post, “Bishops, Priests and Weapons of Mass Destruction.” You may not recall this name, but last month, Raymond J. Donovan died. He was a member of President Ronald Reagan’s cabinet who resigned forty years ago after being charged with a crime. When he was exonerated by a New York City jury, he famously asked, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”
No priest should have to ask that question in a community of believers who have been offered Divine Mercy. No priest should have to claw his way back to redemption or just disappear into the night. What have we done?
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Important announcement from Father Gordon MacRae: Just days before this is posted, the Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester and my bishop has been accused of sexual abuse in the State of New York. The accusations against him are alleged to have occurred in 1983, the same year in which claims against me were also alleged to have occurred. Bishop Libasci has stated his innocence as did I. I know painfully well the great difficulty in defending against claims that are so old and brought forward with financial expectations but zero evidence or corroboration. Despite Bishop Libasci denying these accusations they may still result in his removal from ministry. Please pray for him and for a just and truthful outcome.
Please read and share these relevant posts.
Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo
In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List by Ryan A. MacDonald
Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm on the Priesthood by Ryan A. MacDonald
Bishops, Priests and Weapons of Mass Destruction by Fr. Stuart A. MacDonald, JCL
The Faithful Departed: Bishops Who Bar Catholics from Mass
As President Trump called upon governors to classify churches as essential, a Catholic Bishop in a state among the least impacted by Covid-19 suspended public Mass.
As President Trump called upon governors to classify churches as essential, a Catholic Bishop in a state among the least impacted by Covid-19 suspended public Mass.
I have to write about this now because I wrote about it then. During the now notorious presidential election of 2016, I wrote “Wikileaks Found Catholics in the Basket of Deplorables.” If you missed it then, you probably should not miss it now. I and many others naively lent credence to all the media hype about Russian collusion back then — now proven to be entirely false and an egregious injustice to General Michael Flynn. The above post actually commended the Russian hackers for providing transparency often promised but rarely delivered by American politicians.
That post was about revelations found in the emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, about the Democratic Party’s plans for the Catholic Church in America. I wrote the post just after Mrs. Clinton’s now infamous debate declaration: “Supporters of Donald Trump are a Basket of Deplorables.” I was not one of Donald Trump’s supporters, but I knew that Hillary lost the election then and there. Attacking candidates is just politics as usual. Attacking voters is political suicide.
The post above cited several examples of emails between the Clinton campaign and various Catholic entities with overtures to move the Church from a pro-life agenda toward a more left-leaning script for Catholic social progress. Climate change and open borders are to be the moral imperatives of the day.
I had more or less forgotten about the now famous Basket of Deplorables until the current election raised it anew — though not in so many words. Three years after the term was first
uttered, many in the news media still apply it by inference to everything and everyone in any way connected to the current American President.
Now thrust upon his growing heap of media scorn is a call from the President to America’s governors to give churches and other houses of worship the same treatment some of them have bestowed upon liquor stores, abortion clinics, and beauty salons. This President wants churches to be deemed “essential.” He at first threatened to “override” any governor who balks at this, a notion that the news media has gone to great lengths to ridicule. In a hastily scheduled White House Press Conference, Trump said:
On May 22, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control supplemented the President’s request by laying out a series of guidelines for houses of worship to safely provide services. These include the usual recommendations for social distancing, cleaning practices, and face coverings all of which churches could easily observe.
The Real Presence and the Present Absence
But what do we do when it is Catholic bishops, and not politicians, closing church doors to faithful Catholics? As the American President deemed churches to be essential and called to reopen them, the Catholic Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire, one of the states least impacted by the contagion, issued his formal “Decree Establishing Liturgical Norms During Covid-19 Pandemic”:
There are a multitude of reasons why the ongoing suspension of Catholic Mass in this of all states is an unintended assault upon the religious needs of the people. In a surprising juxtaposition of roles, as some bishops closed churches and barred the faithful from Mass, the Centers for Disease Control issued a statement that should give pause to secular and spiritual leaders alike: “Millions of Americans embrace worship as an essential part of life.”
I would have expected such a sentiment from our bishops, not from a government entity established to control contagion. Sadly, however, that truth professed by the CDC applies less to New Hampshire than any other state. According to the Pew Research Center, New Hampshire is ranked 50th out of the fifty states for religious identity, observance, and influence. It also ranks 50th out of the fifty states in charitable giving.
In publishing his recent Decree, the Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester, NH, Bishop Peter A. Libasci, stated that as of May 18, 2020, over 3,600 New Hampshire citizens [out of a population of over 1.3 million] have tested positive for Covid-19, and 172 of our neighbors have lost their lives.” This is true, and at this writing the death toll in New Hampshire stands at about 250. Tragically, all but 65 of them were residents of nursing homes, the most vulnerable among us but they would not have been present at Mass anyway. These figures pale next to how Covid-19 has impacted some other states where governors and bishops are reopening churches while applying the norms for safety recommended by the CDC.
But there is another New Hampshire statistic that should be far more alarming to both the Governor and the Bishop. Among the fifty states, New Hampshire has the nation’s highest and most hopeless rate of death among working age young adults between the ages of 16 and 40. This is driven by another, far more deadly contagion: opiate addiction and all the physical, mental and spiritual hopelessness it entails. I wrote about this Grim Reaper in “America’s Opioid Epidemic Is Wreaking Havoc in this Prison.”
That post described a wall of sorrows in one unit in this prison containing the photos of young men who have lost their lives to addiction after leaving prison. The 37 photos on that wall of death included only those who lived in this one unit of 288 prisoners. And just as I sat down to type this post, a 38th photo was added. One of our good friends just tragically ended up on that wall.
Jerry came to prison at age 19 in 2005. In recent years, he attended Sunday Mass with Pornchai Moontri and me. Before the Covid-19 shut down he was able to come and talk to me in the prison Law Library where I work. On Friday, May 15, 2020 he was released from prison having completed his sentence at age 33. He lived in freedom for only a single day before losing his life to a fentanyl overdose. This is a painfully familiar story here as young prisoners face the reality that life in freedom sometimes means bringing the bondage of addiction home with them.
Bishop Libasci’s Decree cited his justification for keeping the churches closed: “172 of our neighbors have lost their lives” to Covid-19 statewide. This pales next to the grim truth of those in his Diocese who lost their lives in hopeless addiction. The New Hampshire Chief Medical Examiner reports that 2,500 young lives were lost to opioid drug overdoses in this small state since 2015.
Most of these deaths were those of young men and women from 16 to 40 years of age. One small New Hampshire city recently saw over 400 drug overdose deaths in a single year. There is likely no other state more in need of the spiritual strength and solace of open churches and the Sacrifice of the Mass than New Hampshire.
Trusting Faithful Catholics
One commenter on this subject in a Facebook discussion (which I could not see because I have never seen Facebook) commended Bishop Libasci and other bishops for helping to keep people safe by closing churches. I could only think of a statement of Saint Paul in his letter to the Corinthians:
The point should be obvious. When I was seven, I needed the help of adults to take care of myself. At sixty-seven that is simply no longer so. The Centers for Disease Control issued guidelines for what we adults must do to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe in public environments, including at Mass.
This is a point for which conservatives and Libertarians refer to the Left as purveyors of Big Government and “The Nanny State.” And it’s a point for which George Orwell cautioned us all in his dystopian 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. We surrender our freedoms when we hand the interpretation of them over to “Big Brother.” Remember the cautionary words of the late President Ronald Reagan:
America is vigilant about concessions to totalitarian governments but too many turn a blind eye to how our political, social, economic, intellectual, and spiritual narratives are dominated in our media by the extreme left of our cultural elite. For someone to make the decision for us by denying Mass to the faithful when they should be entrusted with caring for themselves is insulting, at best.
When that decision leaves faithful Catholics in spiritual deprivation, they are placed at even greater risk by traveling long distances to seek out Mass in a more reasonable Diocese. This point was made by some readers of a recent post of mine. One comment that stands out is this one by “Judith” posted on “Pandemic Lockdown: Before the Walls Close In.”
Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy Seal and one of the most honorable members of Congress, wrote a March 19, 2020 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal entitled, “Why Does Reopening Polarize Us?” He raises an interesting twist of political psychology. Liberal and conservative brain functioning shows differences in their mapping when risk-taking is considered.
But it is now the conservatives who “are the ones ready to confront risk head-on.” He says this is also consistent with his experience in the military, and may explain why the vast majority of Special Forces operatives identify as political and social conservatives. But he cautions that liberals lagging behind in re-opening society may have another agenda, treating the lockdowns and consequent economic devastation as an opportunity to restructure America into a socialist utopia.”
In the National Catholic Register, Thomas M. Farr, President of the Religious Freedom Institute, has a recent column entitled, “Coronavirus and Religious Freedom.” He cites that the line drawn between “essential and nonessential” businesses and services by government decree is highly suspect. He singled out Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, former pediatrician, and notorious proponent of late-term abortion, as declaring that religious services are not essential,” but abortion clinics and liquor stores are.
Thomas Farr also adds that for Catholics, access to the Sacrifice of the Mass is “essential to our happiness in this life and the next.” I can only repeat what Father James Altman so courageously declared in a recent, now viral, homily entitled, “Memo to the Bishops of the World”:
Effective June 6, 2020, Bishop Libasci modified his Decree to allow public Masses to resume in his diocese with strict conditions and limitations in addition to those recommended by the CDC.
Elsewhere, on the topic of faithful priests with courage, Father George David Byers had a memorable quote in a recent post, “Coronavirus ‘Creativity’ for Mass: ‘Just do it in the Parking Lot.’ No. And… Hell no!”
But I am giving the last word to Saint Paul’s Second letter to Timothy:
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: You may also wish to read and share these memorable related posts:
The Once and Future Catholic Church
Wikileaks Found Catholics in the Basket of Deplorables
In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List
Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester