“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
In a Mirror Dimly: Divine Mercy in Our Darker Days
Your friends behind and Beyond These Stone Walls have endured many trials. Divine Mercy has been for them like a lighthouse guiding them through their darkest days.
Your friends behind and Beyond These Stone Walls have endured many trials. Divine Mercy has been for them like a lighthouse guiding them through their darkest days.
April 3, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae
Editor’s Note: In 2018, Mrs. Claire Dion visited Pornchai Moontri in prison and wrote a special post about the experience which we will link to at the end of this one. In the years leading up to that visit, the grace of Divine Mercy became for them both like a shining star illuminating a journey upon a turbulent sea. Divine Mercy is now their guiding light.
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I had clear plans for the day I began writing this post, one of many at this blog about Divine Mercy. But, as often happens here, my best laid plans fall easily apart. The prison Library where I have been the Legal Clerk for the last dozen years has been open only one day per week for several months due to staff shortages. During down times in the Law Library, I am able to use a typewriter that is in better condition than my own. So this day was to be a work day, and I had lots to catch up on, including writing this post.
I kept myself awake during the night before, mapping out in my mind all that I had to accomplish when morning came and how I would approach this post. Divine Mercy is, after all, central to my life and to the lives of many who visit this blog. But such plans are often disrupted here because control over the course of my day in prison is but an illusion.
Awake in my cell at 6:00 AM, I had just finished stirring a cup of instant coffee. Before I could even take a sip, I heard my name echoing off these stone walls as it was blasted on the prison P.A. system. It is always a jarring experience, especially upon awakening. I was being summoned to report immediately to a holding tank to await transport to God knows where. I knew that I might sit for hours for whatever ordeal awaited me. My first dismayed thought was that I could not bring my coffee.
It turned out that my summons was for transportation to a local hospital for an “urgent care” eye exam with an ophthalmologist. For strict security reasons I was not to know the date, time, or destination. Months ago, I developed a massive migraine headache and double vision. The double vision was alarming because I must climb and descend hundreds of stairs here each day. Descending long flights of stairs was tricky because I could not tell which were real and which would send me plummeting down a steel and concrete chasm.
So I submitted a request for a vision exam. My double vision lasted about six weeks, then in mid-February it disappeared as suddenly as it came. I then forgot that I had requested the consult. So two months later I made my way through the morning cold in the dark to a holding area where a guard pointed to an empty cell where I would sit in silence upon a cold concrete slab to await what is called here “a med run.”
Over the course of 30 years here, I have had five such medical “field trips.” That is an average of one every six years so there has been no accumulated familiarity with the experience. The guards follow strict protocols, as they must, requiring that I be chained in leg irons with hands cuffed and bound tightly at my waist. It is not a good look for a Catholic priest, but one which has likely become more prevalent in recent decades in America. During each of my “med runs” over 30 years, my nose began to itch intensely the moment my hands were tightly bound at my waist.
The ride to one of this State’s largest hospitals, Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, was rather nice, even while chained up in the back of a prison van. The two armed guards were silent but professional. My chains clinked loudly as they led me through the crowded hospital lobby. The large room fell silent. Amid whispers and furtive glances, I was just trying hard not to look like Jack the Ripper.
I was led to a bank of elevators where I was gently but firmly turned around to face an opposite wall lest I frighten any citizens emerging from one. As I stared at the wall, I made a slight gasp that caught the attention of one of the guards. Staring back at me on that wall opposite the elevators was a large framed portrait of my Bishop who I last saw too long ago to recall. I smiled at this moment of irony. He did not smile back.
A Consecration of Souls
The best part of this day was gone by the time I returned from my field trip to my prison cell. I was hungry, thirsty, and needed to deprogram from the humiliation of being paraded in chains before Pilate and the High Priests. My first thought was that I must telephone two people who had been expecting a call from me earlier that day. One of them was Dilia, our excellent volunteer editor in New York. The other was Claire Dion, and I felt compelled to call her first. Let me tell you about Claire.
As I finally made my way up 52 stairs to my cell that day, I reached for my tablet — which can place inexpensive internet-based phone calls. I immediately felt small and selfish. My focus the entire day up to this point was my discomfort and humiliation. Then my thoughts finally turned to Claire and all that she was enduring, a matter of life and death.
I mentioned in a post some years back that I grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, a rather rugged industrial city on the North Shore of Boston. There is a notorious poem about the City but I never knew its origin: “Lynn, Lynn, the City of Sin. You never go out the way you come in.” After writing all those years ago about growing up there, I received a letter from Claire in West Central Maine who also hails from Lynn. She stumbled upon this blog and read a lot, then felt compelled to write to me.
I dearly, DEARLY wish that I could answer every letter I receive from readers moved by something they read here. I cannot write for long by hand due to carpal tunnel surgery on both my hands many years ago. And I do not have enough typewriter time to type a lot of letters — but please don’t get me wrong. Letters are the life in the Spirit for every prisoner. Claire’s letter told me of her career as a registered nurse in obstetrics at Lynn Hospital back in the 1970s and 1980s. It turned out that she taught prenatal care to my sister and assisted in the delivery of my oldest niece, Melanie, who is herself now a mother of four.
There were so many points at which my life intersected with Claire’s that I had a sense I had always known her. In that first letter, she asked me to allow her to help us. My initial thought was to ask her to help Pornchai Moontri whose case arose in Maine. The year was late 2012. I had given up on my own future, and my quest to find and build one for Pornchai had collapsed against these walls.
Just one month prior to my receipt of that letter from Claire, Pornchai and I had professed Marian Consecration, after completing a program written by Father Michael Gaitley called 33 Days to Morning Glory. It was the point at which our lives and futures began to change.
Claire later told me that after reading about our Consecration, she felt compelled to follow, and also found it over time to be a life-changing event. She wanted to visit me, but this prison allows outsiders to visit only one prisoner so I asked her to visit Pornchai. He needed some contacts in Maine. The photo atop this post depicts that visit which resulted in her guest post, “My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri.”
The Divine Mercy Phone Calls
From that point onward, Claire became a dauntless advocate for us both and was deeply devoted to our cause for justice. In 2020, Pornchai was held for five months in ICE detention at an overcrowded, for-profit facility in Louisiana. It was the height of the global Covid pandemic, and we were completely cut off from contact with each other. But Claire could receive calls from either of us. I guess raising five daughters made her critically aware of the urgent necessity of telephones and the importance of perceiving in advance every attempt to circumvent the rules.
Claire devised an ingenious plan using two cell phones placed facing each other with their speakers in opposite positions. On a daily basis during the pandemic of 2020, I could talk with Pornchai in ICE detention in Louisiana and he could talk with me in Concord, New Hampshire. These brief daily phone calls were like a life preserver for Pornchai and became crucial for us both. Through them, I was able to convey information to Pornchai that gave him daily hope in a long, seemingly hopeless situation.
Each step of the way, Claire conveyed to me the growing depth of her devotion to Divine Mercy and the characters who propagated it, characters who became our Patron Saints and upon whom we were modeling our lives. Saints John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Faustina Kowalska, Therese of Lisieux, all became household names for us. They were, and are, our spiritual guides, and became Claire’s as well by sheer osmosis.
Each year at Christmas before the global Covid pandemic began, we were permitted to each invite two guests to attend a Christmas gathering in the prison gymnasium. We could invite either family or friends. It was the one time of the year in which we could meet each other’s families or friends. Pornchai Moontri and I had the same list so between us we could invite four persons besides ourselves.
The pandemic ended this wonderful event after 2019. However, for the previous two years at Christmas our guests were Claire Dion from Maine, Viktor Weyand, an emissary from Divine Mercy Thailand who, along with his late wife Alice became wonderful friends to me and Pornchai. My friend Michael Fazzino from New York, and Samantha McLaughlin from Maine were also a part of these Christmas visits. They all became like family to me and Pornchai. Having them meet each other strengthened the bond of connection between them that helped us so much. Claire was at the heart of that bond, and it was based upon a passage of the Gospel called “The Judgment of the Nations.” I wrote of it while Pornchai was in ICE Detention in 2020 in a post entitled, “A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King.”
Father Michael Gaitley also wrote of it in a book titled You Did It to Me (Marian Press 2014). We were surprised to find a photo of Pornchai and me at the top of page 86. Both my post above and Father Gaitley’s book were based on the Gospel of Matthew (25:31-46). It includes the famous question posed in a parable by Jesus: “Lord, when did we see you in prison and visit you? And the King answered, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me’” (Matthew 25:39-40)
That passage unveils the very heart of Divine Mercy, and as Father Gaitley wrote so eloquently, it is part of a road map to the Kingdom of Heaven. It was Claire who pointed out to me that she was not alone on that road. She told me, “Every reader who comes from beyond these stone walls to visit your blog is given that same road map.”
The God of the Living
In Winter, 2023 Claire suffered a horrific auto accident. While returning home from Mass on a dark and rainy night a truck hit her destroying her vehicle and causing massive painful tissue damage to her body, but no permanent injury. I have been walking with her daily ever since. Miraculously, no life-threatening injuries were discovered in CT or MRI scans. However, the scans also revealed what appeared to possibly be tumors on her lung and spinal cord.
At first, the scans and everyone who read them, interpreted the tumors to be tissue damage related to the accident that should heal over time. They did not. In the months to follow, Claire learned that she has Stage Four Metastatic Lung Cancer which had spread to her spinal cord. The disruptions in her life came quickly after that diagnosis. I feared that she may not be with us for much longer. This has been devastating for all of us who have known and loved Claire. I was fortunate to have had a brief prison visit with her just before all this was set in motion.
Claire told me that on the night of the accident, she had an overwhelming sense of peace and surrender as she lay in a semi-conscious state awaiting first responders to extricate her from her crushed car. Once the cancer was discovered months later, she began radiation treatments and specialized chemotherapy in the hopes of shrinking and slowing the tumors. She is clear, however, that there is no cure. Claire dearly hoped to return to her home and enjoy her remaining days in the company of her family and all that was familiar.
As I write this, Claire has just learned that this will not be possible. Jesus told us (in Matthew 25:13) to always be ready for we know not the day or the hour when the Son of Man will come. I hope and pray that Claire will be with us for a while longer, but I asked her not to call this the last chapter of her life, for there is another and it is glorious. Just a week ago, Christ conquered death for all who believe and follow Him.
In all this time, Claire has been concerned for me and Pornchai, fearing that we may be left stranded. I made her laugh in my most recent call to her. I said, “Claire, I am not comfortable with the idea of you being in Heaven before me. God knows what you will tell them about me!” I will treasure the laughter this inspired for all the rest of my days.
This courageous and faith-filled woman told me in that phone call that she looks forward to my Divine Mercy post this year because Divine Mercy is her favorite Catholic Feast Day. I did not tell her that she IS my Divine Mercy post this year. Now, I suspect, she knows.
“Now we see dimly as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part, but then I shall understand fully even as I am fully understood.”
— St Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:12
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae:
Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Please pray for Claire Dion in this time of great trial. I hope you will find solace in sharing her faith and in these related posts:
My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri by Claire Dion
A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King
Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare
The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead
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.”
New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case
A researcher unravels a trail of financial corruption behind the cases of Father Gordon MacRae in the Diocese of Manchester and Owen Labrie at St. Paul’s School.
A researcher unravels a trail of financial corruption behind the cases of Father Gordon MacRae in the Diocese of Manchester and Owen Labrie at St. Paul’s School.
September 6, 2023: An Op-Ed by Claire Best
For the last 29 years, Father Gordon MacRae has been denied justice, relegated to Concord Men’s Prison in New Hampshire. Despite an ex-FBI agent’s 3-year investigation, a Pulitzer prize-winning Wall Street Journalist’s multi-part exposé, even a current investigation into the police officer who framed him, nothing has thus far moved the needle — except perhaps in the court of public opinion.
Finally in 2023, the pieces of this puzzle have come together to explain why this might be: The New Hampshire Department for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), some New Hampshire Police, local attorneys, the “compliance officer” for the Diocese of Manchester, and the Attorney General’s office have been involved in a racket. For Father Gordon MacRae to get justice, they would all risk being exposed in an organized crime to frame him in order to extort the insurance for the Diocese and trigger an expansion of business that spreads to the Catholic Medical Center, schools, nursing homes, day care centers, clinics, addiction recovery centers, banks, insurance companies and media. This is an enterprise worth billions that stretches far beyond the borders of New Hampshire across the US and internationally.
While Father Gordon MacRae has been incarcerated, New Hampshire has covered up horrific child sex abuse by its very own employees at the State’s Youth Detention Center. The NH DCYF has failed multiple audits by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (DHHS OIG). It has downplayed Medicaid fraud. Opioids and fentanyl overdoses have skyrocketed. Children and young adults have died or disappeared, drugs have been trafficked, arms have been trafficked, money has been laundered, billions have been made and a monopoly without accountability has blossomed. That monopoly is tied to the interests of the US Government and its three letter agencies. Framing Father Gordon MacRae to get inside the Diocese of Manchester looks like it was a strategic plan that has had catastrophic consequences not just for MacRae but for anyone who has become a tool for, or victim of, the Government infiltration of Catholic organizations.
Father Gordon MacRae was prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned in 1994, the year the Clinton Crime Bill (authored by Joe Biden) was enacted. It is also the year that the Violence Against Women Act was passed enabling $9 billion in grants from the Department of Justice to police, prosecutors and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). Creating crimes that didn’t exist (while hiding those of state employees or friends of law enforcement and the courts) in order to access grants has undermined the integrity of the justice system in the State of New Hampshire and across the land.
“Justice for the Victim” has been a rallying cry in New Hampshire which has deliberately and consistently failed to ascertain the validity of claims of domestic and sexual assault, while pre-determining victims and predators without doing anything that could remotely be called due process.
Lots of people are denied justice each year and decades later a few of them go free after prosecutorial and police misconduct, or other flaws in the original investigations and trials, are exposed. Some years ago in Pennsylvania, a “Kids for Cash” scheme was unravelled. It involved police, prosecutors, judges and private attorneys. In California, a local journalist came across a series of gatherings in which judges, prosecutors, private attorneys and the media conspired to rig cases in civil, family and criminal courts. What has transpired in New Hampshire bears all the same markings as these. A few breadcrumbs here and there have provided clues to an epic scandal that has been carefully hidden from the public for decades — in large part due to a small “club” who are vested in the profits from it. That club comprises law enforcement, non-profits, local councils, attorneys general, elected representatives, justices, other members of the New Hampshire Bar and certain media outlets. They figured out that by controlling the news, they could control the narrative. And by controlling the narrative they could leverage the outcomes of criminal trials and civil lawsuits. Father Gordon MacRae is a victim of this corruption which even includes local “investigative” reporters who have no critical thinking skills but are determined to reinforce the court corruption in their coverage — presumably due to the sponsorship of their media outlets.
In 1995, a prosecutor in New Hampshire failed to let the defense know that a police officer who arrested a man on trial for murder had a dishonest track record. The state dropped the case. The defendant’s name was Carl Laurie, for whom the “Laurie List” is named. A 1963 US Supreme Court case, Brady v Maryland, requires the prosecution to provide any and all exculpatory evidence to the defense in a timely manner before any criminal trial. Somehow New Hampshire ignored this rule, and for decades judges and prosecutors have been OK with that. This is most likely because there isn’t really a division between police, prosecutors, judges and media in New Hampshire. So a lie that works for one finds its way up the ladder to work for all. Elected DAs who have challenged the ethics of this have been voted out of office (Robin Davis, DA of Merrimack County) or have been undermined by the Attorney General taking over their prosecutions (Michael Conley, DA of Hillsborough County). It is easier in New Hampshire to promote a lie than it is to defend the truth because there is a waterfall of money to be made in the lie — federal grants, civil settlements, contracts, promotions, rewards.
Detective James F. McLaughlin
In June 2018 the police detective who began investigating Father Gordon MacRae in the late 1980s was added to the Attorney General’s secret list of corrupt police officers — the “Laurie List” — also known as the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule for a charge of “Falsification of Records.” James F. McLaughlin, New Hampshire’s top child sex crimes detective, was brought out of retirement in 2017 to work on a Grand Jury Criminal Investigation of St Paul’s School following the framing of scholarship student, 18-year-old Owen Labrie, by Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin. Attorney General Gordon MacDonald brought McLaughlin into the investigation to supervise Detective Julie Curtin and Lieutenant Sean Ford. The report into the school and alleged cover-ups of sex abuse from 2009 to 2017 was completed in August 2018 and a settlement agreement was reached between the Attorney General and the school administration in September 2018. The agreement required a “compliance officer” and a contract with victims advocacy organization the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV).
The agreement mirrored one that had been entered into in 2002 after James F. McLaughlin’s investigation into Father Gordon MacRae triggered the circumstances for a Grand Jury criminal investigation, a “compliance officer” and settlement with the Diocese of Manchester. The NHCADSV had brought on board Brian Harlow of SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) in 2012. Though Harlow had no connection to the MacRae case, he had been one of the original “victims” to come forward for the Diocese of Manchester investigation in 2002. NHCADSV wanted him to help them expand their business and they had a contract with the Department of Defense as well as with the University of New Hampshire which had a strategic agreement with the (Obama) White House 2014 “Not Alone” task force to combat sexual assault on campuses. The Chair of the University System in New Hampshire is Alex Walker. He just so happens to also now be the CEO of Catholic Medical Center in the Diocese of Manchester. As published in a Catholic Medical Center statement:
“Alex has been actively involved in the community for many years. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the University System of New Hampshire and on the New Hampshire Business Committee for the Arts. In 2019 and 2020 he co-chaired the Bishop’s Charitable Assistance Fund with his wife, Lisa. He was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Palace Theatre, and past Chairman of the Board of Directors of Granite United Way. He has also served on the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Board of Governors, the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission, the Board of Directors of City Year New Hampshire, the Board of Directors for the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire, and the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors where he served as Chairman of the Board in 2011.”
Alex Walker provided counsel to the Diocese alongside the Nixon Peabody law firm which was formed in 1999 in Boston and Manchester. Gordon MacDonald, an attorney at Nixon Peabody became Attorney General and is the current New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice. Before he took office as AG, he successfully managed to block an audit of his client Purdue Pharma. New Hampshire’s opioid crisis has been one of the worst in the country. Catholic Medical Center was fined $3.8 million recently for a kick back scheme. The Boston Globe has exposed cover-ups of medical malpractice by CMC’s administrators headed by Alex Walker. Curiously however, the Boston Globe Spotlight team which covered the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in 2002-2003 is only interested in exposing a portion of the story that benefits ambulance chasing civil attorneys. The Globe is guilty of removing comments under articles which smacks of the newspaper’s own compromised position preventing its journalists from seeking the real truth as opposed to the monied subjective “his/her/their truth”.
With the addition of Detective James F. McLaughlin on the police misconduct “Laurie List,” AG Gordon MacDonald was suddenly compromised. He had hired McLaughlin because of his history with the Diocese and now he had to hide the fact that he knew McLaughlin was dishonest in the middle of the investigation into St Paul’s School which he had ordered. Instead of coming clean, Gordon MacDonald kept McLaughlin’s dishonesty secret because he was part of the club that had profiteered from McLaughlin’s misconduct. His success as an attorney is deeply tied to his representation of the Diocese of Manchester.
The “compliance officer” in the Diocese was Father Edward Arsenault who became a Monsignor before being defrocked by the Pope after he pled guilty to defrauding the diocese, a dead priest’s estate, and Catholic Medical Center in 2014. Among the expenses Edward Arsenault had clocked up using church funds were the purchase of cell phones, computer equipment, trips to Boston, meals out and work with journalists as well as travel expenditures for himself and his young adult lover.
Recent articles in the last few weeks have revealed that the FBI had planned to infiltrate and undermine the Catholic Church. Christopher Wray, head of the FBI, has tried to toss this off. But the case of Father Gordon MacRae and those of police officer, James F. McLaughlin and Monsignor Edward Arsenault should force a wider inquiry into the Government’s involvement in Catholic institutions going back to the 1980s when Sylvia Gale made up a false rumor about MacRae and shared it with McLaughlin launching his investigation of MacRae.
I have long suspected that Edward Arsenault was never really a priest but actually an FBI operative who got inside the Diocese of Manchester to increase the business of The National Catholic Risk Retention Group and Catholic Charities in such a way that they would become intertwined with Maximus Inc — a for-profit enterprise acting on behalf of the Government. His background is in accounting and finance and he also seems to be heavily involved in big pharma-adjacent enterprises: health/mental health non-profits.
Around the same time (1975) that the US Senate “Church Committee” Inquiry revealed the CIA’s work with 186 educational institutions and non-profits for MK Ultra experiments, Maximus Inc was founded by David Mastran, a Vietnam vet involved with DARPA. Since then Maximus has grown to become the most enormous outsource company for the Governments of the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Its tentacles have reached into pretty much any Government program you can think of from the IRS to Medicaid, from student loans to Title IV funds, from Department of Defense contracts to Covid vaccination tracking. For all intents and purposes, Maximus has taken over where the CIA and FBI left off when their clandestine and abhorrent human experiments were exposed by the US Senate Church Committee. It would be hard to imagine that the CIA just stopped its experiments in its tracks with so many organizations involved.
In the 1980s in Keene New Hampshire, Sylvia Gale, an employee with State Child Protective Services and DCYF, created a false rumor about Father Gordon MacRae. In an official DCYF letter in 1988, she told Keene Police Detective James F. McLaughlin that MacRae had been involved in a serious crime: the sexual abuse and murder of a child in Florida. Sylvia Gale cited that the source of the fake Florida murder molestation that became McLaughlin’s “probable cause” was Msgr. John Quinn who was at the time Director of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Manchester.
The crime did not exist and Father Gordon MacRae had never even been in Florida. McLaughlin was known in 1985 for dishonesty but for some reason it took until June 2018 for his name to appear on a State list kept in secret by the Attorney General. In December 2021 Detective McLaughlin’s name appeared publicly on the “Laurie List” of corrupt police for just a few hours before it was removed by Attorney General Gordon MacDonald. Whether Sylvia Gale knew of McLaughlin’s dishonesty when she spread her rumor will forever be an unanswered question but since there were rewards being bandied about by McLaughlin, I believe she probably did know and that money was involved as a reward to her as a “witness” for creating the rumor. Sylvia Gale was a DCYF supervisor of Patricia Grover, the mother of Father MacRae’s accuser at his 1994 trial.
In the time frame from 1985-2018, James F. McLaughlin rose to be New Hampshire’s most celebrated child and internet sex crimes investigator who instructed others in his tactics which included making false statements, procuring and coercion of “victims,” deleting exculpatory evidence, working with media to “shape the message,” federal entrapment (sending unsolicited images of minors), working with civil attorneys and non-profits/victims rights advocates in kick-back schemes. He was given a lifetime achievement award in 2016. At the same ceremony, Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin, was given an award for her work in investigating St. Paul’s school, singling out and framing 18-year-old Owen Labrie. She worked with domestic and international agencies to censor social media for the “victim” who had been recruited in June 2014 for the latest sick experiment. She was carrying the McLaughlin torch forward while he was supposed to retire.
James F. McLaughlin’s crooked enterprise yielded millions in grants, increases in police budgets, non-profit budgets and grants for DCYF, the University of New Hampshire and other affiliated agencies. Why did it matter if a few people had to be framed when so much money could be extorted and former federal prosecutors working at Nixon Peabody are on their side? The law firm’s business grew, turning it into a giant in representation for the health care industry. Particularly that tied to Catholic healthcare institutions — where Monsignor Edward Arsenault was tasked with increasing profits — and the opioid industry. Nixon Peabody represented Purdue Pharma when it was sued by the State of New Hampshire. Creating sex offenders, extorting Catholic establishments, creating drug addicts and claiming Medicaid for medical treatments and facilities has been a sustainable business in New Hampshire for over two decades.
James F. McLaughlin’s enterprise is reminiscent of that of Tom Coleman, aka “T.J. Dawson,” a police officer in Tulia, Arizona who built a business, with accolades all along the way, framing members of the black community for drug offenses they did not commit. Drugs would be planted on unsuspecting targets. Instead of drugs, for Keene Detective James F. McLaughlin, it was sex crimes that were planted. He would fabricate whatever story he could pull off to get plea deals and convictions. In New Hampshire it was easy because the statutes for sex crimes require no corroborating witnesses or evidence. Add qualified immunity for police officers to that, and sovereign immunity for prosecutors, judges and non-profits tied to the courts such as CASA, NHCADSV and agencies like DCYF. They had the perfect racket: collect the federal grants, fabricate the crimes, hide the exculpatory evidence, train the witnesses, use media to garner public outrage to leverage civil settlements with attorneys at the ready to profiteer, and non-profits to train victims and write impact statements. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The National Catholic Risk Retention Group
Attorney General Gordon MacDonald went on to become New Hampshire’s Supreme Court Chief Justice without ever having served as a judge in any capacity. He has a lot to thank James McLaughlin for. MacDonald joined the Nixon Peabody law firm to represent the Diocese of Manchester in the early 2000s. Together with his partner David Vicinanzo, a former federal prosecutor for Massachusetts who had spent time working in the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, they settled dozens, if not hundreds, of claims against the Diocese of Manchester. Monsignor Edward Arsenault was the appointed compliance officer — nominally. Actually he was in charge of all financial affairs of the Diocese and increasing its reach. He had a business to run; a business to grow. In Monsignor Arsenault’s once-published resume, since removed from view, he boasted of having personally negotiated multi-million dollars settlements in 250 sexual abuse claims against the Diocese of Manchester with a select few personal injury lawyers.
Meanwhile, James F. McLaughlin’s father had been a member of the Concord City Council for 25 years. The Council approves the budget for police investigations including the payments of witnesses for Grand Juries. Although Concord only has 43,000 residents, it is the capital of New Hampshire and is home to the 2nd largest legislative body in the United States after the US Congress in Washington, DC, and the 4th largest in the world. There are 400 elected representatives in New Hampshire. It is an important first stop for any presidential candidate making it a magnet for dark money and a perfect place for three letter agencies involved in clandestine operations to experiment.
The Concord Police Department is not accredited. The current police chief, Bradley Osgood, stated that his department did not have the time or resources to get accredited. The cost is under $20,000. Bradley Osgood was trained in Virginia by the FBI. His predecessor, Timothy O’Malley, left the job to join Vanguard Securities in the fraud department. Dartmouth College and other institutions have accounts with Vanguard Securities. These institutions also have accounts tied to the “Pandora Papers” as does Maximus.
In 1996 Maximus went public. It was the same year that Father Gordon MacRae was denied his first appeals. Bill Clinton was President. He and Hillary were friends with Jeanne and Bill Shaheen. Attorney General Philip McLaughlin, who ordered the investigation into the Diocese in 2002, had been appointed by Governor Jeanne Shaheen who achieved her position with the help of the Clintons. John Sununu, the father of current Governor Chris Sununu, was close to George Bush senior and worked in his administration as White House Chief of Staff. The State of New Hampshire renamed its “Youth Development Center” the “Sununu Youth Development Center” after Governor John Sununu. It is now exposed that youths in the detention center were subjected to sexual, physical, and mental abuse, a scandal that exploded in secret in the early 2000s while the State was investigating the Catholic Church. There are currently over 1,330 pending lawsuits alleging sexual and physical abuse by State employees. The State has hidden millions of documents pertaining to this abuse. Curiously, unlike in the cases of the Diocese of Manchester and St. Paul’s School, no grand jury has been convened to investigate the State and create a report. Maximus and DCYF are front and center in this, but local news organizations have not scrutinized this relationship or that of Catholic Charities and New Hampshire’s police.
In 1999, Nixon Peabody formed in Boston and Manchester, New Hampshire, bringing together a law firm comprising 450 lawyers across New England. The Diocese of Manchester was their client and Maximus was a generous donor to Catholic Charities while starting to get contracts with Catholic institutions. But Maximus was a for-profit wing of the federal government that was effectively now wheedling its way into the vast array of businesses that fall under Catholic Charities. Disgraced Monsignor Edward Arsenault was Chairman of the Board of the Catholic insurance wing for these, The National Catholic Risk Retention Group. David Vicinanzo had been a federal prosecutor who joined Nixon Peabody. Vicinanzo and Nixon Peabody were thus connected to the FBI and so, by association at least, was Edward Arsenault and the Diocese of Manchester, Catholic Charities and their insurance.
The Diocese today refers children to the Children’s Trust Fund for claims of child sex abuse. Children’s Trust Fund shares the same address (10 Ferry Street) as Maximus and Virtus LLC founded in 1999 by Edward Arsenault. Virtus is owned by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group. Also located at 10 Ferry Street is Policy Studies Inc which Kathleen Kerr (on the board of Maximus) joined after she received a letter from US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) regarding failures of NH DCYF in 1999. She was legal counsel for DCYF and was there 12 years before she segued into Policy Studies Inc and Maximus which bought it after it was taken over by Veritas. She would have been working with DCYF when the MacRae case took place involving staff members of the DCYF and their families.
Coincidentally, Sylvia Gale, who created the first untrue rumor about Father Gordon MacRae back in 1988, successfully appealed a complaint against her for conflicts of interests that arose between her work for the Nashua DCYF and other non-profits. Sylvia Gale died in 2020 and left behind a legacy for her work in children’s advocacy, but judging by reports on New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center scandal, the State’s Foster Care System, failures of the DCYF, and the drugging of children in State care, I am not sure it is a legacy to be proud of. It was Sylvia Gale’s colleague, Patricia Grover whose son Thomas Grover became a drug addict before he was convinced by James F. McLaughlin that he could make substantial money by being a witness/victim of Father Gordon MacRae. The Diocese of Manchester coughed up $200,000. Years later, Grover admitted to family members that he was bribed and that the case was a fraud. A therapist sat at the back of the courtroom motioning for him to cry during his testimony against the priest, a story exposed in “Psychotherapists Helped Send an Innocent Priest to Prison.”
The Diocese of Manchester and St. Paul’s School
The Catholic links of Maximus go all the way to the Vatican. Disgraced Monsignor Edward Arsenault appears to have been a conduit between the Diocese, the FBI and the Vatican. When Arsenault went to jail for multiple felony counts of embezzlement in 2014, Assistant Attorney General Jane Young (now the US Attorney for New Hampshire) shook his hand. She even allowed him to continue consulting from behind bars. He was sentenced to prison for four to twenty years, but released on home confinement. Ultimately he had the remainder of his sentence vacated and his restitution of nearly $300,000 was paid in full by unknown third parties during his confinement. Then he appeared with a new name: Edward Bolognini. This time, he claimed he was married — to Francesco Bolognini-Arsenault. They own a Sicilian ceramics import shop together, a luxury condo and Edward Bolognini works for ReServe a non-profit with a $10 million contract from the City of New York despite his financial crimes. Edward Bolognini’s current boss does not seem remotely bothered that he had been convicted of defrauding another non-profit before joining ReServe. Is he just FBI infiltrating/controlling another business related to the Government? Does his sales pitch include promises to increase profits and provide access to Catholic Charities databases in return for immunity for his own crimes?
In September 2018, Laura L. Dunn, an advisor to the White House “Not Alone” Task Force which was partnered with the University of New Hampshire and the NHCADSV, tweeted a congratulations on the settlement agreement reached by Attorney General Gordon MacDonald (David Vicinanzo’s ex-partner from Nixon Peabody) with St Paul’s School following a grand jury criminal investigation. She had actually been introduced to the trial of NH v Owen Labrie by James F. McLaughlin’s protegé, Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin sometime between June 2014 and March 2015, five months before the high profile high school sexual assault trial. Laura Dunn had lied about her own case on NHPR in 2010 but the White House, (then) Vice President Joe Biden, the DOJ and DOE do not mind. She was a useful tool. She helped plant the Rolling Stone UVA “A Rape on Campus” fake story by Sabrina Rubin Erdeley who previously wrote a story about a Catholic priest’s sexual abuse — which also turned out to be untrue. Ironically, Father Gordon MacRae exposed that story from prison in an article entitled, “The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy on the Cover of Newsweek.”
The Attorney General’s settlement agreement with St. Paul’s School was identical to the one arranged for the Diocese of Manchester in 2002. In the case of St. Paul’s School, however, Nixon Peabody Attorney David Vicinanzo commended the Judge for keeping the St. Paul’s School Grand Jury Report private. Vicinanzo’s client, the NHCADSV, got a contract out of it and Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, Vicinanzo’s former partner at Nixon Peabody, got to install a “compliance officer” (an ex-police officer) at the school’s expense. News about this arrangement was lauded by the NHCADSV and others. Allowing the Government to get inside a private Episcopal School was praiseworthy and novel. It would set the example for other private schools around the nation. The compliance officer implemented a behavior reporting software called maxient.com which has been criticized by many as being something the Stasi would have approved of. AG Gordon MacDonald knew that James F. McLaughlin was on the dishonest police officer list when he was carrying out the grand jury criminal investigation into the school but he never revealed that knowledge to the public. Instead he released the settlement agreement just hours after Owen Labrie’s first NH Supreme Court appeal was argued and then later denied. In September 2019, the same month Judge Richard McNamara ruled that the St. Paul’s School Grand Jury Report should remain private, the NHCADSV published a report which asserted that Gordon MacDonald wanted to increase the number of prosecutions for sexual assault.
Before becoming Attorney General, Gordon MacDonald also knew about a thriving false accusations industry for lawyers in New Hampshire because, according to Father Gordon MacRae and a 2005 article in The Wall Street Journal, MacDonald asked the priest to admit to the sexual assault of males he had never met nor even heard of just so Nixon Peabody could reach a quick settlement.
In November 2019, I ran into S. Daniel Carter who had been a partner with Laura L. Dunn in her non-profit SurvJustice tied to the White House “Not Alone” Task Force. He admitted to me that the real interest in NH v Owen Labrie was in St. Paul’s School as opposed to the framed scholarship student himself. The real interest was in the Diocese of Manchester, not Father Gordon MacRae. Both cases were about power, money, control and politics. This explains why Father MacRae was originally offered a lenient plea deal to serve one to three years. Because he would not go along with the lie, he was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to up to 67 years.
On reflection, with recent news regarding the FBI’s memo about its plans within the Catholic Church, I believe that the real goal behind NH v Gordon MacRae and NH v Owen Labrie was a Government goal to get inside Catholic and Episcopal institutions to undermine their religious principles and force them to be subjected to corrupt and greedy Government operatives hiding behind NGOs or Maximus, for-profit enterprises. In contrast, police did not bother going after State employees at the Youth Detention Center leaving it covered up even as they went after the Catholic Church. They also did not bother going after sex abusers in local public schools. There was no money in those and they were already under Government control whereas the private institutions were not. But Government-tied extortionists wanted a piece of those pies.
The FBI in Bedford, New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts seem none too bothered by the extortion rackets of these institutions. Why would they be? Their members might even be complicit in them. Robert Mueller was head of the FBI in 2014 when St. Paul’s School was targeted and Owen Labrie framed. He had expanded the definition of rape in 2011. He also happened to be an alum of St Paul’s School in the same class as Senator John Kerry.
Neither the Diocese of Manchester nor St. Paul’s School seem to have benefitted from the fake “independent” compliance officers who are actually spies. Donald Sullivan, the current compliance officer at St. Paul’s School, wrote in a recent report that the information from maxient.com on student conduct is now entering the “analysis phase.” The information is shared with RAINN which has a contract with the Department of Defense as does the NHCADSV. It is also shared with the Attorney General’s office. Data on kids in private religious schools — not exactly what anybody might be interested in except the FBI, the DOD and the DOJ.
Are the Government’s MK Ultra programs still alive and thriving behind Maximus, Virtus, maxient.com and “compliance officer” police state spies? Thomas Grover was offered financial rewards to accuse Father Gordon MacRae. He was a drug addict and he was the son of a DCYF social worker supervisor. Chessy Prout was offered financial rewards to accuse Owen Labrie. She had taken “health” leave for downing nail polish remover in an attempt at self-harm. Like Thomas Grover, she was coached in the courtroom. Useful and malleable tools to frame disposable assets to get at the money and control of Catholic and Episcopal institutions.
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Claire Best is the founder and CEO of Claire Best & Associates — an international film and television agency based in Los Angeles. Her clients include Oscar and Emmy Award winners. Her background is in documentaries.
Suspicious of the over-sensationalism surrounding the high-profile criminal sexual assault trial of St. Paul’s School (Concord, New Hampshire) scholarship student Owen Labrie in August 2015 she started to investigate. In the fall of 2019 she came across Beyond These Stone Walls and Father Gordon’s post comparing the settlement agreement and players involved in the St. Paul’s School and Diocese of Manchester cases. This led her to follow the money to find out what was really going on and why there was such a desire to quash inquiry. Although New Hampshire is the 5th smallest state in the US, it is “First In the Nation” for primary presidential elections. It has a global significance in the financial affairs of Catholic Charities, Maximus and three letter agencies.
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SOURCES
DCYF:
Joe Biden and the Crime Bill
Violence Against Women Act
VAWA $9 billion in grants
Kids for Cash Scandal
California Bench, Bar, Media Scandal
Article mentioning the “club” in New Hampshire’s Bar/judiciary from 1999
Controlling the Narrative: “Pretrial Publicity Friend or Foe: Advice from the Experts Amanda Grady Sexton (NHCADSV, City of Concord Council member) and Steve Kelly Esq (lead attorney in multiple Does v St. Paul’s School suits, and Rappuano and Does v Dartmouth which yielded $14 million of which the NHCADSV was a financial beneficiary to the tune of $2.865 million)
Laurie List
Father Gordon MacRae
Brady v Maryland / Brady Rule
Robin Davis
Michael Conley
James McLaughlin caught in lies
Diocese of Manchester and St. Paul’s School Agreement mirror each other
White House strategic partnership with UNH for “Not Alone” task force
Alex Walker tapped as Chair of New Hampshire University System
Gordon MacDonald defended Purdue Pharma
Catholic Medical Center Kick-back scheme $3.8 million fine
Boston Globe exposes Catholic Medical Center cover-ups for medical malpractice
FBI targeted Catholic Church and Christopher Wray lied about it
Maximus, Inc
Edward Arsenault — defrocked former priest
Senate Church Committee
MKUltra
James F. McLaughlin
Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin receives award
Tulia Drug Bust Revisited
Diocese of Manchester pays for dozens of claims
Dark Money in NH Politics
AG Phil McLaughlin, mentor to Jeanne Shaheen
YDC Abuse Lawsuits survive State’s attempt to dismiss
Attorney who represented church abuse victims (Chuck Douglas) defends State’s YDC settlement plan
10 Ferry Street
Pandora Papers
US DHHS OIG complaint sent in 1999 to Kathleen Kerr at NH DCYF
Maximus links to the Catholic Church
Laura L. Dunn
NH v Owen Labrie
maxient.com Stasi like
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/feb/20/as-colleges-become-more-stasi-like-students-live-i/
Virtus LLC
David Vicinanzo: WASHINGTON (June 5) — Attorney General Janet Reno announced Friday career federal prosecutor David Vicinanzo of New Hampshire will head the Justice Department’s campaign finance task force.
“Who is David Vicinanzo?”
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 the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
The 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.
The Diocese of Manchester demonstrates the difference between the stated rights of accused Catholic priests in Church law and actual observance of those rights.
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.”