“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

Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD 9/4/24 Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD 9/4/24

From Arizona State University: An Interview with Our Editor

Having pondered the project questions from a student at Arizona State University, the Editor of Beyond These Stone Walls tells the story of this prison journal.

Having pondered the project questions from a student at Arizona State University, the Editor of Beyond These Stone Walls tells the story of this prison journal.

September 4, 2024 by Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD, Editor

Prelude from the Student:

“Truth in its simplicity, revealed by suffering, carries a quality in writing. I believe this is what has drawn me to Beyond These Stone Walls and retained my readership over the years when there is not a single other blog or newspaper that I read consistently. I believe it is also a mercy of God that I have been able to read authentic Catholic voices here regarding the tumultuous current events in our world because it has helped keep my Faith alive despite much darkness. I chose this topic because I love God and wish to glorify him.”

— an Arizona State University student

+ + +

How did you discover Beyond These Stone Walls, and how did you become the Editor?

I had never heard of Father Gordon MacRae or this blog. On the Feast of Saint Joseph in 2019, I searched “Pope Benedict XVI on St. Joseph,” and the fourth or fifth result was one of Father MacRae’s articles. I read several others, and I read his story at the About Page. Deeply saddened, I wanted to help with my prayers and in any other way I could. On the Feast of the Annunciation, I sent him a letter introducing myself and offering to be a Simon of Cyrene to him.

A priest friend of Father MacRae in North Carolina had been volunteering as acting editor for the previous few years while also having been given additional parish assignments. I was close to the end of my career as a civilian scientist for the United States Air Force. I had been pondering retirement for some time and this volunteer work for Beyond These Stone Walls seemed a perfect fit for me as I now manage all the nuts and bolts of a widely-read popular Catholic blog written under the most unusual conditions.

What is the process for you to receive posts from Father MacRae, post them, and then send the comments to him?

From inside a small prison cell, Father MacRae types each post on his old typewriter and mails it to me. I scan it using optical character recognition software. With the typewritten post he includes a description of the suggested images he would like to include above each section of the post, as well as at the top. Beyond These Stone Walls was built using Squarespace, which also hosts it. Using its services I compose text, images and links to create the post on the blog. We publish every Wednesday morning, and send out an email alert to our 2,000 or so direct subscribers. But the readership of this blog is much larger. Many people go directly to the posts without subscribing. We also publish the posts on some social media such as Gloria.TV where Father MacRae has been given a page. His Christmas post about shepherds had about 50 thousand readers, many in some of the poorest parts of the world such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Father Gordon has never actually seen his published posts. As a prisoner he has no access to the online world and has never seen any social media where his posts are published.

Prisoners cannot receive calls. So when Father Gordon calls me I read him the comments that have been posted on BTSW and some of the ones that have been posted on social media.

Do you believe your Faith life has changed since taking on this position? Why or Why not?

Beyond These Stone Walls shines a light on how Father Gordon MacRae is sharing in the Cross of Jesus. It nourishes me with his example and meditations. It reports on what is happening in society and in the Church, which corporate media and many Catholic media do not. Without Beyond These Stone Walls and the witness of Father MacRae I would miss much of what is going on in the world and in the Church, in which Jesus wants me to be His instrument. I pray that I may hear His voice and do whatever He tells me.

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” In my youth I had an agnostic period in which I agonized in search of Truth. Jesus, Truth, attracted me to Him. Father Gordon MacRae has most beautifully and faithfully answered Jesus’ ardent prayer to the Father, “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) When the corrupt and perverse “justice” system wanted him to lie about having committed crimes that never happened, he did not lie. As punishment Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced him to life in prison. Almost everyone abandoned him. But he clung to Truth, to Jesus. He is a model and a challenge to me and many, a light in the darkness.

This is a time in which astoundingly many are “those who call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). I ask myself what does Jesus want me to do. He says, “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Mt 10: 16)

In the midst of so much evil in our time, the Catholic sexual abuse scandal is most significant. Many outside and within the Church seek to confuse what is evil and what is good concerning this scandal. There are two wrongs: the abuse of young people by priests, and the false accusations of abuse of young people by priests. The latter wrong remains hidden from most, deceptively presented as the first wrong by an industry of lawyers, “victims’ advocates,” attorneys general, and anti-Catholic bigots; and very sadly and scandalously, by a bishops’ policy that encourages and promotes this evil industry. Father MacRae wrote of how this has evolved in his own diocese in To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants.”

Had I not crossed paths with Beyond These Stone Walls and Father Gordon MacRae, I would not know about the false-accusation industry. I have come to believe that as ugly and depraved as the secular world has become, and as the Church is beset by multiple problems, it is the explosion of false accusations of priests that is the worst ever attack on the Church, the most diabolical attack on the Body of Christ, and therefore the world.

The immediate victims are the falsely accused priests. Their reputations are destroyed. The search for the truth of the accusation is nonexistent. The reputation of all priests is tarnished. The laity are also victims of this attack on the Church. Billions of dollars have been handed out to those who claimed to have been abused. No billionaire donated these funds. Dioceses have been bankrupted. Parish life has been affected.

And incredibly the worst members of this false-accusation industry are (most of) the bishops. In 2002, the Dallas Charter was adopted over the objections of Cardinal Avery Dulles, Father Richard John Neuhaus and a few others. The bishops adopted the “credible” standard, a fig-leaf term to convey a sense that accusations are investigated. They are not. I remember a couple of readers commenting that in their dioceses their bishops investigated the accusations, proved they were false, and the false accusations ceased.

Knowing that it is Jesus Who calls a man to be a priest, it is unimaginable that a bishop would discard a priest without a most thorough investigation. But it is a policy that has been enforced for over two decades. It masquerades as compassionate. It is an evil being called a good. The cruelty and the attack on priesthood it represents is astounding.

Shamelessly, quite a few years after the Dallas Charter was adopted, when there was talk of extending the “credible” standard to accusations against bishops, the USCCB got lawyers to begin defining the term [The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests]. This year the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire dropped altogether the fig-leaf term. Any priest accused of sexual abuse of a young person will be added to the list that publicly shames, and discards priests. The “credible” standard, as weak as it is, has been discarded. The accuser will be monetarily rewarded. Apparently, it should cross no one’s mind that handing out large sums of money would ever entice false accusations. Again, evil gets presented as good. Twenty-two years after the Dallas Charter was adopted a new generation of bishops upholds it.

How can this be anything but a diabolical, concerted effort to destroy priesthood, to destroy the Church?

How does this affect my Faith? This is not a superficial, little problem that for the most part I can forget while I go on with my life. With “fear and trembling” I ask, “What do You want me to do? Open my ears that I may hear. Without You I can do nothing,”

Certainly, it is a privilege for me to use my time and talent to help project the voice of Father Gordon MacRae outside that prison in New Hampshire as he tries to open minds and hearts to the truth of what is happening in the world and in the Church, to Truth Himself.

As to my treasure, I micromanage my donations. I have stopped donating to the lukewarm and to those who wittingly or unwittingly collaborate with the Father of Lies in trying to destroy priesthood, and I support some of the courageous people and entities that unceasingly defend and proclaim truth.

I pray that my righteousness may surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees. I am sickened when I hear priests, bishops or the Pope consider every accusation of a priest to be true, as well as the media and lay people. May Jesus teach me to love them as He loves them.

What are your favorite things about editing BTSW? What are your least favorite?

It is a privilege and a joy to work with Father Gordon and watch his creativity as he directs me to edit an article on the fly. I want what we post to be beautiful and enjoy creating images to make it so. I want as beautiful images as I can get, and that usually takes me quite a bit of time. What I like least is not finding good images, or finding them but not being able to use them because they are copyrighted.

One of my other least favorite things, though it has come to some good, is the ocassional post that gets lost or delayed in the U.S. mail. Our choices in those weeks are to either skip a post entirely or for Father MacRae to slowly dictate a 2,000-word article to me by telephone.

What articles do you remember most? Why?

It is amazing the breadth of topics that Father MacRae tackles, from Scripture to history, to science, to current events. And he writes about his life. Pure evil placed him where he is, and he is sharing in the Cross of Jesus, but he shows how in magnificent ways God is ever present to him.

His Scripture articles are full of facts and striking insights. The collection of Holy Week posts is a gift. Another example is, “Casting the First Stone: What Did Jesus Write On the Ground?” Father MacRae brings out in fascinating detail the interplay between the law of Moses and the Roman law, and how Jesus’ response is a trap of the Pharisees. It seems to me that this and other Scripture articles need a second or third reading to fully grasp and appreciate the depth of what he is presenting.

Father Gordon loves science, especially cosmology. Many think or accuse the Church of being anti-science, but that has never been true. Not only have there been scientists in the Church, but some of the most significant advances in science were introduced by priests. For example, the father of modern genetics was a monk, Gregor Mendel. And a hero of Father Gordon discovered the Big Bang, Father Georges Lemaitre. He had known about Lemaitre for years, and was most flattered when in response to a letter he sent to Carl Sagan about his novel Contact, Sagan replied to Father MacRae, “You write in the spirit of Georges Lemaitre!” But God was not pleased to leave it just at that, He decided to make the most extraordinary connections between Father MacRae and Father Lemaitre.

Though Father Gordon has written several times about Father Lemaitre, maybe the most significant post on this subject is “Fr Georges Lemaître, the Priest Who Discovered the Big Bang.” It is an article about the great scientist Father Georges Lemaitre, co-written with noted physicist Father Andrew Pinsent, a research scientist at the University of Oxford. The article had two postscripts by Father Gordon MacRae. In the article Father Pinsent writes, “Among Catholics with some kind of popular outreach, Fr Gordon MacRae through his widely-read blog has done more than almost anyone I know in recent years to draw attention to Fr Lemaître.” For his part, Father Gordon recounts that after reading one of his posts on Belgian priest-scientist Lemaitre, Belgian BTSW reader Pierre Matthews, who is Pornchai Moontri’s Godfather, wrote to tell him that Fr. Lemaitre was his Godfather.

What makes the breadth of articles so surprising is that in prison, Father MacRae has no online access at all and no resources for research.

Initially, I was struck by how many posts are about or mention Pornchai Moontri. After a while I came to think that their profound bond was like that of friends who endure the horrors of war together and survive. Now I think that it is much more profound than that.

God has inspired many truth seekers to investigate the case of Father MacRae: Dorothy Rabinowitz, Harvey A. Silverglate, Ryan A. MacDonald, Dr. William Donohue, David F. Pierre, Jr., Father James Valladares, former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott, and investigative reporter Claire Best. Any fair-minded person who studies their work is convinced that a corrupt system put him in prison and Father Gordon MacRae is innocent.

But God wanted to reveal this with more than facts. He would reveal it with the powerful transformation of lives and souls. Pornchai had been viciously sexually and physically abused for years by a man who trafficked him from Thailand at the age of 11 and murdered his mother. Pornchai escaped and lived on the streets for all of his teen years. Then at age 18 he killed a man who tackled him and pinned him to the ground. After years of enduring violent sexual abuse this sent Pornchai into a rage. He spent the next 13 years in solitary confinement. He was then sent to the prison that houses Father Gordon. Having learned that he had been convicted of sexual abuse, Pornchai should have wanted to stay as far away as possible from Father Gordon. Yet, they became friends and then Pornchai asked Father Gordon if he could be his cellmate.

On the other hand, the corrupt and evil people who railroaded Father Gordon derailed his priesthood, took his freedom and viciously defamed him. It should be noted here that to their great credit, Vatican officials have not dismissed Father MacRae from the clerical state.

Most in the Church who should have stood by him instead abandoned him, or even worse denounced him. If this is how people in the Church treated Father Gordon, how much more understandable it would have been had Pornchai looked at him with suspicion and distrust. Yet, Pornchai has said that Father Gordon is the person in the whole world whom he most trusts. That must be a precious balm that heals Father Gordon’s heart. Many posts describe this most extraordinary friendship. Most important among them is Pornchai’s own words in, “On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized.”

Though the suffering of Father Gordon MacRae’s cross has not abated in 30 years, God has not abandoned him. He has sent Father Gordon two special friends who let him know that he is not alone: the prisoner-priest Saint Maximilian Kolbe; and the stigmatist and mystic, who was accused of sexual abuse and attacked from within the Church, Saint (Padre) Pio of Pietrelcina. Two of my favorite posts describing their presence in Father Gordon’s life are “St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Man in the Mirror,” his first encounter with Saint Maximilian Kolbe; and “Saints Alive! When Padre Pio and the Stigmata Were on Trial,” a very interesting post, which among other things describes a most special blessing that connected Father Gordon, Pornchai Moontri and Saint Padre Pio through time and space.

Have any comments left an impression on you? Why?

One of the early comments on BTSW was that of Deacon David Jones:

“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.”

I think Father Gordon deserves such a testimonial.

In 2010 Father MacRae’s blog was selected by readers of Our Sunday Visitor as The Best of the Catholic Web in the area of Catholic spirituality. About.com selected it as the second-place finalist for the Best Catholic Blog Award. Readers at the Fishers Net Award selected it as The Best Catholic Social Justice Site.

+ + +

Beyond These Stone Walls is a prison journal. Evil people did much to destroy the lives of Father Gordon J. MacRae and Pornchai Maximilian Moontri. But as this blog documents, their story is one of priesthood, sacrifice and conversion writ large. They met in the New Hampshire Prison for Men in Concord, New Hampshire, but as we have seen in some posts God had much earlier connected their lives in some intriguing ways. Into these lives weighed by deep suffering Divine Mercy entered at first in hidden ways, and then it overwhelmed them.

Shortly before the nightmare of arrest, trial and wrongful imprisonment, Father MacRae was invited to write an intention to be placed on the altar for the Mass of Beatification of Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska. He wrote:

“I ask Blessed Faustina’s intercession that I may have the strength and courage to be the priest God wants me to be.”

His strength and courage would be sorely tested. After six long years in prison he celebrated his first Mass on April 30, 2000, which unbeknownst to him was the day Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Faustina and the first official Divine Mercy Sunday.

Six years later at a most dark period in Father MacRae’s life and priesthood, Franciscan Father James McCurry, who had been a vice-postulator for the cause of sainthood of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, visited him and asked him, “What do you know about Saint Maximilian Kolbe?” Thereupon began a most special friendship between these prisoner-priests.

At just this time Pornchai Moontri was transferred from solitary confinement in Maine to the New Hampshire prison. When he first entered Father MacRae’s cell and saw Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s image on a card, half in the garb of a prisoner and half in the garb of a priest, he asked, “Is this you?” Father MacRae writes, “From that moment on, we were caught up in the light of Divine Mercy.” Pornchai’s conversion was set in motion by Father Gordon’s example and writings. Pornchai Maximilian Moontri was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2010.

When they both learned that at the end of Pornchai’s prison term he would be deported to Thailand, the prospect seemed dismal. He had been taken from there decades earlier, he did not speak the language, and no one would be waiting for him. But Father Gordon said, “We will just have to build a bridge to Thailand.” And so it happened. Today Pornchai Maximilian Moontri lives in Pak Chong, Thailand and continues to be active in this blog.

Pornchai has recently been selected to represent Father Gordon MacRae and the group, Divine Mercy Thailand, at the Fifth Asian Conference on Divine Mercy in the Philippines this year. For Father Gordon, this is the best evidence that Mary is still at work here.

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. We are simultaneously publishing the article by the Arizona State University student at the Voices from Beyond page:

A Voice for the Voiceless: Beyond These Stone Walls

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.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 6/5/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 6/5/24

The Power and the Glory If the Heart of a Priest Grows Cold

After 42 years of priesthood, 30 unjustly in prison, ‘The Whisky Priest,’ the central figure of Graham Greene’s best known novel, comes to my mind in darker times.

After 42 years of priesthood, 30 unjustly in prison, ‘The Whisky Priest,’ the central figure of Graham Greene’s best known novel, comes to my mind in darker times.

June 5, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

“You are sure to find another cross if you flee the one you bear.”

— Anonymous Mexican Proverb

+ + +

I was ordained to the priesthood on June 5, 1982, the sole candidate for priesthood in the entire State of New Hampshire that year. On the next day, June 6, 1982, I was nervously standing in a corner in the Sacristy as I prepared to offer my First Mass in Saint John the Evangelist Church in Hudson, New Hampshire. The church was packed with friends, family, and strangers from near and far. I was standing in a corner because the Sacristy was filled with my brother priests all vesting to join me for the occasion. I imagined they were watching me for signs that I might flee.

I peered through the open sacristy door at the huge, anticipating crowd and my anxiety level was off the scales. I wished for a way to calm my nerves. Just then, a young lady came into the sacristy and handed me a written note. The driver of a Buick out in the parish parking lot had left the lights on and a thoughtful person jotted down the license plate number. So I totally broke protocol. I walked out of the sacristy into the sanctuary, approached the lectern microphone, and announced that someone had parked a car with its lights still on.

It worked! All the attention was suddenly off me as everyone looked around to see who would get up and embarrassedly walk outside. Then, still at the microphone, I announced, “I don’t know what the rest of you are expecting because I don’t have a clue how to say Mass!” The church erupted in laughter and spontaneous applause, and my anxiety went up in smoke. Back in the sacristy, the others did not understand what I had said. “What are you up to?” They asked.

In the years to follow, as you know, priesthood took me down some dark side roads. In many ways, and at many times over those years, I have felt as though I had been an utter failure as a priest. I should not be in this prison-place from where I write yet another epitaph on yet another year of priesthood offered up like incense to drift out beyond these stone walls. Yet here I am, and in the midst of sorrow and tears, I am powerless to change any of it.

I know today that I had been caught up in a dense web of corruption that resists unraveling despite some concerted efforts. I did not see any of this corruption as it arose around me. Priests tend not to be attuned to such things, but others have written about it. Among them is Claire Best, a most tenacious investigator, researcher, independent writer, and Hollywood talent agent who wrote, “New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case.”

On the Day of Padre Pio

Back in 2009 as my 27th anniversary of priesthood loomed, this blog was just beginning to take shape. I did not foresee that coming either. I did not even know what a blog was. It was proposed to me by a writer in Australia. This is a familiar story to most readers, but I recently came upon a different perspective on this blog’s beginning. It’s a sort of parallax view, a telling of the same story but from a different angle. From his newfound cradle of freedom in Thailand, Pornchai-Max Moontri wrote about this with some help from our editor. We will link to it again at the end of this post, but if you plan to read it, bring a tissue. It is, “On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized.”

On the very day I was ordained in 1982, my friend, Pornchai Moontri was eight years old, living in abject poverty, but happy, on a farm in northeast Thailand. He was three years away from being taken, trafficked to America, his mother brutally murdered, and his life consumed in the wreckage of real abuse by a real predatory monster while all the “officials” looked the other way. Our lives, his and mine, were on a collision course.

When this blog had its debut in July, 2009, a small number of self-described “faithful” Catholics, and some faithfully anti-Catholic activists, took umbrage with the notion that an accused and imprisoned priest might have such a voice in the Catholic public square. Some of them sought out anything and everything they could unearth and throw at me to discourage my writing. It was effective. Discouragement comes easily to a prisoner.

The strangest of the insults came from a man who felt obliged to tell me that he refuses to read anything written by “another Whisky Priest.” That was a bit of a mystery until months later when I read Graham Greene’s masterful 1940 novel, The Power and the Glory. Its main character is a priest without a name. He is the “Whisky Priest” known mostly for the prison of addiction.

That particular insult seemed entirely misplaced. Google did not always pay attention to punctuation back then. It turned out that the letter writer had Googled “Father Gordon MacRae” and stumbled upon a reference to an interview with actress Meredith MacRae in which she revealed, “My father Gordon MacRae was an alcoholic.” Gordon MacRae the film and Broadway star went on to win a multitude of awards for starring roles in Carousel and Oklahoma, among others. But, alas, I am not he, and nor am I the “Whisky Priest.” I have not consumed alcohol in any form other than at Mass since 1983.

But “Whisky Priest” did not quite have the force of insult the letter writer intended. Graham Greene’s “Whisky Priest” was sadly all too human, but his priesthood towered over his flawed humanity. The Power and the Glory is set in early 20th Century Mexico when an emerging totalitarian regime there outlawed the practice of Catholicism in a nation that was almost 100 percent Catholic. This is the story of the Cristeros, Catholics who rose up in civil war against a Marxist regime that tried to banish their faith. Priests were hunted; many were martyred; and those who remained, and stayed alive, were forced to abandon their priesthood, enter into marriage, and denounce the Church or face prison and eventual execution.

Many who were not martyred did as required, but not the Whisky Priest. In the most unique of literary twists, a police lieutenant made it his life’s mission to hunt down and trap the Whisky Priest. He knew of the priest’s alcoholism so he enticed him by leaving a trail of bottles of wine. The story conveys the priest’s spiritual battle within himself as he consumed the wine to silence his addiction while through grace and sheer force of will always forced himself to leave enough to offer Mass all throughout the country for Catholics who remained steadfast in their faith at a time when there was no other priest.

The Whisky Priest is the most unlikely of spiritual heroes. Priesthood was his greatest cross because it placed his life, and the lives of those who sought his sacraments, in grave danger. It was also his liberation. When he was finally arrested, the Police Lieutenant asked him why he stayed only to be captured and likely martyred:

“If I left, it would be as if God in all this space between the sea and the mountains ceased to exist. But it doesn’t matter so much my being a coward and all the rest. I can put God into a man’s mouth just the same — and I can give him God’s pardon. It wouldn’t make any difference to that if every priest in the Church was like me.”

A Voice in the Wilderness

But also among the din of objections to my writing came far louder and more voluminous words of encouragement from other sources. Among them, as most readers know, was Cardinal Avery Dulles who famously wrote,

“Someday your sufferings will come to light and will be instrumental in a reform. Someone may want to add a new chapter to the volume of Christian literature from those unjustly in prison. In the spirit of St Paul, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Walter Ciszek, and Fr Alfred Delp, your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”

I was stunned to receive the support of this nation’s most prolific Catholic writer and prelate. But I was not sure that I believed him. Then, 15 years later as yet another ordination anniversary loomed, I learned from others just a week ago about a brief article at the blog, Les Femmes — The Truth. The writer, Mary Ann Krietzer, had written a letter to me about a year earlier.

I get many letters, a few of them hate mail but most of them strong gestures of support. However I fail, though not by choice, to answer most. I can purchase only six typewriter ribbons per year so I must preserve them for BTSW posts. I had carpal tunnel surgery on both hands so writing a large volume by hand is most difficult. I came upon a letter kindly sent to me from Mary Ann Krietzer that I somehow had misplaced. Six months later, near Pentecost, I discovered it in a pile of paper and wrote a brief reply. That prompted her to write a post on her widely-read blog entitled, “Fr Gordon MacRae and Beyond These Stone Walls.”

In many ways I was shocked by it. The author gave clear voice to all that Cardinal Dulles had predicted, without even knowing that he had predicted it. Mary Ann Kreitzer’s article included this passage published earlier by a recently ordained deacon that was given a magnified voice at Les Femmes — The Truth:

“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.”

For people who base their core purpose upon a lie, the truth is an especially threatening thing. I had no idea that my voice in the wilderness was no longer in the wilderness. I hope you will read Ms. Krietzer’s post linked again below. She provided articulate balance to the loud din of those who pursued me across the land just to disparage and demean. For my part, after reading Mary Ann Krietzer’s post, I just wanted to go hide under my bunk. But in truth, as I mark 42 years of priesthood in the deep peripheries to which Pope Francis once summoned the gaze of the whole Church, I remain a man in prison, and a priest in full.

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: I want to thank you for your support and prayers. I also want to ask for your prayers for a young man who encountered this blog along with his mother and father and family, back in its infancy in 2009. They have been devoted readers ever since. On May 29 this year Ben Feuerborn became Father Ben Feuerborn when he was ordained a priest in Lincoln, Nebraska. His first Mass went without a hitch — perhaps because no one had left their car lights on. His second Mass was offered at a Benedictine abbey near Kansas City, Missouri. While Father Ben was in the sacristy vesting for Mass, his mother spotted a plaque under the title “Ad Altare Dei” (To the altar of God). She took out her phone and snapped this photo, which I received this week. It is a bit of a mystery, one among many.

+ + +

We also recommend these related posts:

Fr. Gordon MacRae at Beyond These Stone Walls
by Mary Ann Krietzer @Les Femmes — The Truth

On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized
by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri

A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece
by Dilia E. Rodríguez, Ph.D.

Priesthood in the Real Presence and the Present Absence

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Ryan A. MacDonald 5/29/24 Ryan A. MacDonald 5/29/24

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

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

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

May 29, 2024 by Ryan A. MacDonald

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

+ + +

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian. Courtesy of ***TheMediaReport***

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

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

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

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

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

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since 1989 there have been over 2,400 documented cases of persons who have been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated.
An estimated 43% of wrongful convictions arise from misconduct involving prosecutors, police, investigators, and other officials.
More than 90% of criminal cases are adjudicated during closed-door plea-bargain negotiations. These cases have little or no public accountability or even awareness.
The most common types of ethical violations committed by prosecutors include:
- Failure to disclose exculpatory evidence (Brady violation)
- Use of inadmissible or false evidence/lack of candor
- Plea bargain offenses (former Keene, NH Detective James F. McLaughlin vastly bolstered his conviction rate by offering minuscule and lenient plea-bargain deals to defendants.)
- Inflammatory statements and witness harassment (Read the statement of Debra Collett.)
- Mischaracterizing evidence
- Vouching

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

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

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

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

“A New Hampshire Ponzi Scheme Uncovered?”

+ + +

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Ryan A. MacDonald 1/24/24 Ryan A. MacDonald 1/24/24

In New Hampshire Courts, Police Corruption Is Judged in Secret

Former Detective James McLaughlin, aka John Doe, has a single incident on a list of police misconduct but only because the public is barred from providing evidence.

Former Detective James McLaughlin, aka John Doe, has a single incident on a list of police misconduct but only because the public is barred from providing evidence.

January 24, 2024 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Editor’s Note: The following is Ryan A. MacDonald’s continuation of a post that appeared here recently entitled, “Detective James McLaughlin and the Police Misconduct List.”

+ + +

Just a day before starting this article, I received a surprising message with a link to a new title posted in Australia by Andrew Urban on the well-known Wrongful Convictions Report blog . The title of the new article is “Sexual Abuse or Justice Abuse?”

The well-researched article first appeared in Australia on January 8 this year, but by the end of the day it had found its way around the globe. I read it with concern at first, wondering if Mr. Urban’s article somehow preempts this one which is also well researched. Our two pieces were written with similar conclusions but from very different points of view. I am struck by how incisively Andrew Urban and several reader comments unmasked the questionable police tactics of former Keene, NH Detective James McLaughlin, architect of the case against Father Gordon MacRae.

Since then, I have had a chance to peruse Mr. Urban’s excellent Wrongful Convictions Report with a special interest in his posts about the case against the late Cardinal George Pell. The case of Cardinal Pell and Father MacRae seem remarkably similar in their background origins, their shady police investigations, and in the extent to which money changed hands. Most interestingly, Cardinal Pell and Father MacRae also wrote about each other in their respectively unjust imprisonment. Father MacRae’s latest report on the Pell matter was his recent bombshell, “The Trial of Cardinal Becciu, the Betrayal of Cardinal Pell.”

Preceding all the above by several months, Los Angeles-based documentary researcher, Claire Best also performed a public service with one of her many incisive articles published at Medium.com. This one, published September 1, 2023, is entitled simply, “Who Is James F. McLaughlin — New Hampshire’s Top Child and Internet Sex Crimes Detective?” Here’s an important excerpt:

“When McLaughlin’s name first appeared on a list of police with credibility issues in late 2021, it disappeared within hours. Something’s up, and past and present Attorneys General and District Attorneys know it. What are they hiding that they don’t want to come out, and why? For the majority of the sex crimes James F. McLaughlin investigated, plea deals were reached before trial. Money seems to be involved... He owns companies in Jaffrey (NH) with an agent/attorney who specializes in trusts and municipal laws. His wife owned a real estate company in Keene (NH). How were they funded to invest in real estate?

"Thomas Grover, the accuser of Father Gordon MacRae, admitted to his former stepson — Charles Glenn and a victim of YDC abuse who has demanded federal investigation of Attorneys General for their role — that he was offered money by James F. McLaughlin to accuse the priest who has been denied justice for the past 29 years — framed by the former sex crimes police officer.”

[See also “The New Hampshire YDC Scandal and the Trial of Fr MacRae,” a collaborative effort by Claire Best and Ryan A. MacDonald.]

Police Misconduct under Shield of Law

As indicated in “Detective James McLaughlin and the Police Misconduct List,” former detective James McLaughlin has petitioned the court to remove his name from an official NH Attorney General’s List of police with credibility or misconduct issues. McLaughlin has been allowed to seek his removal from the list under a pseudonym, “John Doe,” in Court filings. Thus any hearing before a New Hampshire judge will be held in secret at a time and place that is also secret. His police personnel file has been sealed. If any New Hampshire citizen had input or pertinent information that could further inform the Court in this process, that information is rendered moot by concessions to “John Doe’s” judicial secrecy.

At least one New Hampshire judge has published his disagreement with this process in a published op-ed, “Judge: Laurie List Police Lawsuits Are Being Improperly Sealed.” The judge, former NH Senior Assistant Attorney General Will Delker, stated:

“One of the fundamental precepts of a democracy is that public officials must be accountable to the citizens. This concept has been codified in the New Hampshire Constitution since 1784. Part I, Article 8 provides: ‘All power residing originally in, and being derived from, the people, all the magistrates and officers of government are their substitutes and agents, and always accountable to them. Government, therefore, should be open, accessible, accountable, and responsive...’” “Cases cannot be fully sealed from the outset.... The party seeking to maintain court records under seal must demonstrate a ‘sufficiently compelling interest’ that outweighs public right of access.”

Whatever that ‘sufficiently compelling interest’ is or was in the case of former Detective McLaughlin, it, too, remains under seal and beyond public view. Having followed his cases and activities for years, I simply cannot fathom what that “compelling” secrecy interest could be. The Court process itself smacks of corruption.

The obvious public hazard here is that the McLaughlin petition to be removed from the Laurie List is thus heard in a vacuum. All that is publicly known is an original, non-descript 1985 incident labeled “Falsification of Records.” In other postings, specifically in articles by Damien Fisher at InDepthNH.org, the Laurie List incident is described as “Falsification of Evidence,” a far more serious infraction for a police officer.

Whether the original matter was “falsification of records” or “falsification of evidence,” or both, McLaughlin’s 1988 and 1994 investigations of Fr. Gordon MacRae involved both. I will clarify evidence for this below.

Damien Fisher appears to be the sole New Hampshire reporter covering the matter of the Laurie List. He reports multiple attempts at obtaining information under Freedom of Information Act requests with limited success. What he has obtained and reported on, however, raises serious questions about the judicial secrecy under which this matter still hides. It seems that as a sworn officer, James F. McLaughlin is culpable of far more malfeasance than his 1985 “Falsification of Records” infraction alludes, but it remains the sole publicly known infraction. There are hints of many others, however, but public accountability is hindered by judicial secrecy.

Attorney Andru Volinsky, who is representing the New Hampshire Center of Public Interest Journalism in its ongoing lawsuit to unseal the complete Laurie List:

“I have no idea whether any of the judges who looked at these cases applied an appropriate standard whether to make this anonymous or sealed or not. It creates a system of secrecy that does not build confidence in the court system.”

**Keene, NH Det. James McLaughlin celebrates his 350th arrest as a sex-crimes crusader.**

Infractions That Never Made the Laurie List

Listed below, therefore, I have itemized specific New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated (NH RSAs) governing police misconduct laws. Each is followed by examples of claimed misconduct raised by citizens or reporters regarding Detective James McLaughlin that had been kept out of any official investigation due to the seal of judicial secrecy. No one has investigated these claims:

RSA 641 : 6 (I) — Falsifying Physical Evidence

A person commits a Class B felony if, believing that an official proceeding as defined in RSA 641:1, II, or investigation is pending or about to be instituted, he alters, destroys, conceals, or removes any thing with a purpose to impair its verity or availability in such proceeding.

RSA 641 : 1 (I a) - Perjury

A person is guilty of a Class B felony if in any official proceeding he makes a false material statement under oath or affirmation, or swears or affirms the truth of a material statement previously made, and he does not believe the statement to be true.

RSA 641 : 2 (I b)— False Swearing

A person is guilty of a misdemeanor if he makes a false statement under oath or affirmation or swears or affirms the truth if (b) the statement is one which is required by law to be sworn or affirmed before a notary or other person authorized to administer oaths;

EVIDENCE FOR VIOLATIONS: In sworn interrogatories in the 1994 case of NH v. Gordon MacRae, Detective McLaughlin was ordered by the Court to produce to the defense any taped conversations with MacRae or other witnesses in the case. McLaughlin wrote in a police report logged as Case No. 89-0-2440, “I also told [MacRae] the interview would be recorded to safeguard both him and the police from misunderstandings about what was exactly stated.”

McLaughlin then went on in his report to attribute statements to MacRae that were never made. When MacRae’s defense requested a copy of the tape, McLaughlin responded under oath that the recording in question had been recycled for other investigations and is thus no longer available.

Eleven years later, in 2005, McLaughlin sent that very tape recording to a reporter at The Wall Street Journal who then described its contents very differently than McLaughlin first reported them. Neither McLaughlin nor the prosecutor has ever explained this. This “Falsification of Evidence” should have been logged as an additional finding on the Laurie List about McLaughlin, but no one has acknowledged or investigated it.

RSA 641 : 3 (I a) — Unsworn Falsification

A person is guilty of a misdemeanor if he or she makes a written or electronic false statement ... on or pursuant to a form bearing a notification authorized by law.

EVIDENCE FOR VIOLATION: Throughout the “investigation” of MacRae, multiple tape recordings were referenced in police reports, but none were ever turned over for defense review as ordered by the court. McLaughlin’s signed reports attributed to named witnesses allegations about Gordon MacRae that those witnesses insist were never made. However the recordings containing such statements became inexplicably unavailable.

RSA 105 : 19 (I) — Reports of Misconduct by Law Enforcement Officers

For the purposes of this section, “misconduct” means assault, sexual assault, bribery, fraud, theft, tampering with evidence, use of a chokehold, or excessive and illegal use of force.

EVIDENCE FOR VIOLATION: From a Signed Statement of Steven Wollschlager: (October 27, 2008):

“Again during this meeting I mostly just listened to scenarios and statements being spoken to me by the police. The lawsuits and money were of greatest discussion and I was left feeling that if I would go along with the story I could reap the rewards as well.

“McLaughlin had me believing that all I had to do was make up a story and I could receive a large sum of money as others already had. McLaughlin reminded me of the young child and girlfriend I had and referenced that life could be easier for us with a large amount of money.”

RSA 641 : 5 (I a) — Tampering with Witnesses and Informants

A person is guilty of a class B felony if: Believing that an official proceeding, as defined in RSA 641 : 1, II or investigation is pending or about to be instituted, he attempts to induce or otherwise cause a person to a) Testify or inform falsely.

EVIDENCE FOR VIOLATION: From a Signed Statement of Debra Collett (February 20, 2008)

“I am Debra Collette I am making this Statement to James Abbott, Investigator for Gordon MacRae. My involvement leading to speaking with James Abbott was as Clinical Director at Derby's Lodge in NH. I was contacted by Keene Police Detective McLaughlin. I was uncomfortable with repeated stopping and starting the tape recorder when he did not agree with my answers to his questions ...

“His treatment of me included coercion, intimidation veiled and more forward threats as well as being disrespectful. I was overtly threatened. McLaughlin told me he would personally come to my home, drag me out of it bodily if necessary, and force me to appear in court and testify despite my information to him.

“My overall experience in interacting with [him] was one of being bullied with [his] attitude of animosity, anger, and preconception of guilt ... [He] presented as argumentative, manipulative, and threatening via use of police power in an attempt to get me to say what they wanted to hear.”

RSA 641 : 7 (III) — Tampering with Public Records or Information

A person is guilty of a misdemeanor if he purposely and unlawfully destroys, conceals, removes or otherwise impairs the verity or availability of any such thing.

EVIDENCE FOR INFRACTION: Detective McLaughlin’s tape recordings of his interviews with Ms. Debra Collett cited above simply disappeared before MacRae’s 1994 trial and therefore could not be heard by defense counsel, the judge, or the jury.

+ + +

Citations from reported articles at InDepthNH.org by Damien Fisher regarding content not reported on the Laurie List

1. Altered Tape Recordings: Source: Damien Fisher, “County Investigates McLaughlin Complaint Filed By Man Convicted Decades Ago” (November 15, 2022):

“In 1988, James McLaughlin received a letter of reprimand from then-Chief Thomas Powers after James McLaughlin was involved in a December 1987 heated verbal confrontation on the phone, and later inside the station. It was during this incident that the audio portion of the tape was destroyed under suspicious circumstances, according to Powers ... . Powers called James McLaughlin’s explanation for the tape erasure ‘unacceptable.’”

2. Other Undocumented Infractions:

a) [From the same source as above]: From a 1988 Letter of Chief Thomas Powers in the file of James F. McLaughlin:

“I reviewed your personnel file and several internal affairs investigations. While you have accumulated a number of praises in your career, a disproportionate number of serious accusations and violations have significantly detracted from your record, including a one-week suspension.”

b) Source: Damien Fisher, “Records Show Keene Police’s Famed Ex-Detective Caught in Lies” (September 19, 2022) :

“McLaughlin was suspended for lying about shooting his gun, and another in which he ‘accidentally’ destroyed an audio recording that could have put him in a bad light.” “The records obtained by InDepthnH.org indicate there are more internal affairs reports dealing with McLaughlin which the city has not so far provided. The city has also not provided an explanation for the omission of the other reports.”

c) Source: Damien Fisher, “Famed Keene Cop Called Out for Federal Entrapment” (January 11, 2022) :

“Once it was discovered that McLaughlin had sent [child sex abuse images] to [Defendant Lee] Allaben, United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe censured the police officer in court.”

+ + +

Editor’s Note: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. We thank Ryan A. MacDonald for his careful analysis. Part One, which appeared here recently, is: “Detective James McLaughlin and the Police Misconduct List.” You may also be interested in these related posts published at the site, Wrongful Convictions Report on the case of Fr. Mac Rae:

Sexual Abuse or Justice Abuse?

The back alley of justice

And by Claire Best and Ryan A. MacDonald:

The New Hampshire YDC Scandal and the Trial of Father MacRae

And again by Ryan A. MacDonald:

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Ryan A. MacDonald and Claire Best 10/4/23 Ryan A. MacDonald and Claire Best 10/4/23

The New Hampshire YDC Scandal and the Trial of Father MacRae

A victim of abuse is one among 1,300 plaintiffs in a New Hampshire Youth Detention scandal covered up by State officials even as they investigated Catholic priests.

A victim of abuse is one among 1,300 plaintiffs in a New Hampshire Youth Detention scandal covered up by State officials even as they investigated Catholic priests.

October 4, 2023 by Ryan A. MacDonald and Claire Best

On September 23, 2023, Father Gordon MacRae began a thirtieth year in the New Hampshire State Prison for crimes that never took place. He was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to 67 years in prison after refusing a plea deal offer to serve one to two years. He was sentenced solely for the claims of Thomas Grover, claims that have since been undermined by members of his family and an investigation by former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott. His post-trial affidavit is now posted on this site along with several witness statements that NH judges have declined to hear.

More recently, Claire Best, a Los Angeles-based documentary researcher and astute investigator, took up this matter with a stunning article entitled “New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case.”

That corruption runs deeper than any of us thought. Claire Best has also recently published on another scandalous abuse and cover-up unfolding in New Hampshire just as the eyes of the nation are on its upcoming celebrated First-in-the-Nation Presidential Primary. Her latest on that story has a tentacle that reaches into the MacRae trial. Published at other venues, it is “New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center Scandal.”

When the spotlight was on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester in 2002, the Office of the New Hampshire Attorney General convened a grand jury to investigate. Despite no indictments or charges filed, the State published a report profiling every lurid claim bolstering multi-million dollar settlements with little to no evidence. When the spotlight fell upon the prestigious St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH another grand jury investigation commenced. In the case of the State Youth Detention Center, with its 1,300 open cases and the State’s procurement of a $100 million settlement fund, no grand jury investigation is taking place. This is curious, and is seen by many as an extension of the past cover-up.

Claire Best’s account laying out her case for corruption behind all this should be required reading for New Hampshire politicians and officials of the State’s Department of Justice as well as the US DOJ. One revelation in her most recent account seriously impacts the credibility of Thomas Grover’s accusations against Father MacRae that have kept him in prison for three decades since his 1994 trial.

Claire Best on New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center Scandal

The Youth Detention Center Scandal Gets Bigger: NH Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald and US Attorney Jane Young should be under investigation.

On August 25, 2023, a group of approximately 100 gathered in Concord, New Hampshire to demand a federal investigation into the cover-ups of abuse at the Youth Detention Center. They blamed Attorneys General and others for the cover-ups. They are right. The State of New Hampshire has ignored thousands of complaints over the years about corruption, ignored reports from the Office of Inspector General and carried on with a complete lack of accountability.

Former residents of New Hampshire youth center demand federal investigation into abuse claims
The Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, previously called the Youth Development Center, has been under criminal …
www.nhpr.org

YDC abuse is decades old, as is state cover-up, master lawsuit alleges
Lawmakers, juvenile advocates have long wanted to close the center
www.nhbr.com

The current messaging requesting a much needed federal investigation involves someone with a connection to the case against Father Gordon MacRae. Charles Glenn is one of the plaintiffs alleging abuse and criminal assault by State employees at the New Hampshire Youth Development Center.

Charles Glenn is also the former stepson of Thomas Grover. Thomas Grover was adopted by Patricia Grover of NH-DCYF. He was a drug addict who was offered money (substantiated in statements) to accuse Father Gordon MacRae who was framed by Police Detective James F McLaughlin whose name was hidden on the Laurie List. The Laurie List is a once secret list of New Hampshire police officers whose credibility has been compromised by official misconduct. Keene Detective James F McLaughlin was on that list and likely one of the principal reasons why Attorney General Gordon MacDonald argued to keep the list secret.

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest - Beyond These Stone Walls
Keene New Hampshire sex crimes detective James McLaughlin developed claims against a Catholic priest while suppressing …
beyondthesestonewalls.com

Reportedly, (and I understand that the AG’s office has been aware of this since 2012) Charles Glenn once approached Father Gordon MacRae in Concord men’s prison library where MacRae was clerk (around 2008 or so). He allegedly said to MacRae “You know the case against you was bogus, right?”. MacRae allegedly told him that he did know this but wanted to know how Charles Glenn knew it. Charles Glenn told him that his mother, Trina Ghedoni, was married to Thomas Grover during the years that Charles Glenn was in the Youth Detention Center. Later, Charles Glenn allegedly approached a friend of Father Gordon MacRae’s — Edward Silva (deceased). Silva relayed that Charles Glenn had information that could undo the case against Father Gordon MacRae but that he wanted money to provide that information. To clarify, the overture of an expectation of money for the information came only from Edward Silva and not Charles Glenn. MacRae told Silva that this would render the information useless and so it went no further.

Jim Abbott — a former FBI special agent — who was investigating the case against Gordon MacRae interviewed Trina Ghedoni (Charles’ mother) five times. She told him that she and Thomas Grover were visiting Charles Glenn at the YDC. The case against Father Gordon MacRae had exploded in the local media by then so Charles Glenn was well aware that Thomas Grover was his primary accuser. During a later visit with Thomas Grover alone at YDC, Grover allegedly told Charles Glenn that Father Gordon MacRae had never actually touched him but that he was about to “get a lot of money for this story”.

Trina Ghedoni told former FBI investigator Jim Abbott that she learned of those conversations between Thomas Grover and her son only after she divorced Thomas Grover. She also told Jim Abbott that Police Detective James F McLaughlin and therapist Pauline Goupil (who motioned for Thomas Grover to cry during his testimony from the back of the court room — observed by witnesses who wrote to the judge about it but were ignored) were Thomas Grover’s primary coaches as he developed this scam.

Trina Ghedoni told Jim Abbott that she would ask her son, Charles Glenn, to cooperate. By that time her son was in the NH State Prison. Apparently Charles Glenn was in constant trouble at the prison and not long after his first conversations with Father Gordon MacRae ended up in punitive segregation. Jim Abbott visited him at least three times and was able to elicit a signed statement that Thomas Grover — his former stepfather — admitted on numerous occasions that his charges against MacRae were “a total fraud for money”.

This became the basis for the “new evidence” that put Father Gordon MacRae’s habeas corpus petition into state and federal courts in 2012. But both New Hampshire State and Federal judges declined any hearing. Charles Glenn’s and Trina Ghedoni’s statements, among others, were attached to the habeas corpus. The documents are here:

https://ncrj.org/cases/father-gordon-macrae/

While Charles Glenn languished in and out of punitive segregation, he allegedly tried to talk to Father Gordon MacRae but the latter stopped him advising him that it could be seen as witness tampering. When he ended up in segregation again he was reportedly angry with his mother for some unknown reason. He wrote a letter to the NH AG (Michael Delaney or Joseph Foster at the time) in which he accused Jim Abbott of having an affair with his mother (baseless, I understand). He wanted to get out of segregation and start over somewhere else. He was later moved to a Connecticut prison after revoking his exculpatory statement in support of Father Gordon MacRae. Charles Glenn is now back in New Hampshire’s state prison and told Father Gordon MacRae recently that he was cooperating in the effort to get a federal investigation of the New Hampshire YDC.

On August 30, 2018, AG Gordon MacDonald was noted in the Concord Monitor to have argued against the release of the Laurie List which had James F McLaughlin’s name added to it in June 2018 for crimes dating back to 1985. These most likely were known of by AG Gordon MacDonald due to his work representing the Diocese of Manchester along with his partner at Nixon Peabody and their partner, disgraced “monsignor” Edward Arsenault.

N.H. AG: List of officers with credibility issues should stay private
The New Hampshire attorney general's office says a list of police officers with potential credibility problems…
www.concordmonitor.com

The investigation into James F McLaughlin is being dragged out. He is currently working in DA Chris McLaughlin’s (no relation) office which raises questions as to why a DA would hire a dishonest police officer at all unless it is to be complicit in going through and deleting more files.

Grafton County Investigation into Laurie List Ex-Cop McLaughlin Ongoing
The investigation into former Keene Police Lt. James McLaughlin's testimony that put a Vermont man in prison for the…
indepthnh.org

Please see the entire article by Claire Best:

New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center Scandal: Gordon MacDonald & Jane Young should be under investigation.

+ + +

Statement of Charles Glenn

Introduction:

Charles Glenn’s mother, Trina Ghedoni, was married to Thomas Grover in the time period leading up to, during, and after the 1994 trial of Fr. Gordon MacRae. During some of this time period, from ages 13 to 16, Charles Glenn, was a resident of YDC, the State of New Hampshire’s “Youth Development Center,” a State run juvenile detention facility in Manchester, NH. Charles Glenn signed the forgoing Statement for former FBI investigator James Abbott in 2008, but later withdrew it. Mr. Glenn is one of 1,300 plaintiffs in a civil case alleging sexual and physical abuse by State employees at YDC. He explains that after this experience he was no longer motivated to speak in defense of someone accused of abuse and this caused him to withdraw his statement in 2008. In 2023, after reading reports of fraud in the trial of Father MacRae, Mr. Glenn reinstated his 2008 Statement and asked that it be published.

My name is Charles Glenn and my birth date is July 15, 1981. I am the son of Trina Ghedoni who married Thomas Grover in 1994 in the State of New Hampshire.

I am giving this signed Statement to James Abbott who is a private investigator working on behalf of Gordon MacRae, an ex-priest who was convicted of the sexual abuse of Tom Grover at a 1994 trial. Mr. Abbott has previously interviewed me on April 22, 2008 and this Statement is based on that interview as well as this interview.

From 1993 to 1997 I was assigned to the Youth Development Center in Manchester, New Hampshire. During this period, my mother Trina Ghedoni was dating and later married to Thomas Grover. Almost every week my mother would visit me with Thomas Grover and on numerous weekends I would receive a furlough and be allowed to go to my home at 410 Prescott St. in Manchester where my mother and Thomas Grover lived.

During these visits, and over a number of months and years, Thomas Grover discussed the sex abuse allegations against Gordon MacRae with me. Grover often stated to me that he was going to set MacRae and the church up to gain money for sexual abuse. Grover would laugh and joke about this scheme and after the criminal trial and civil cash award he would again state how he had succeeded in this plot to get cash from the church.

On several occasions Thomas Grover told me that he had never been molested by MacRae. Grover stated to me that there were other allegations made by other people against MacRae and Grover jumped on and piggybacked onto these allegations for the money.

Grover, on several occasions, called his civil case attorneys for money or cash advances on his expected cash award and Grover told me that his attorneys directed him to go for psychiatric and drug therapy to gain jury appeal in his court case. The attorneys would give cash advances to Grover when he asked for them. Grover stated the counseling would help convince the jury that his problems were the result of his molestation by MacRae. Grover told me his attorneys directed him to go to the Manchester Mental Health Unit and act crazy as this would be helpful in the trial.

After the civil award was settled, Grover and my family visited me [at YDC] and showed me $30,000 in cash, and pictures were taken by my family at this time. Grover again was bragging of his putting it over on the church. He then went out and bought a couple of cars.

Grover was never embarrassed about the publicity, but would laugh at it.

Grover’s statements to me were made before, during, and after the criminal trial and never once did he say over this four year period that he was abused by MacRae. Grover never changed his statements that he set up Gordon MacRae and the church.

I have read and understood the above Statement and it is a true and accurate account of statements made to me by Thomas Grover over the period of 1993 to 1997.

Signed: Charles Glenn May 21, 2008

+ + +

Excerpts of Investigator Interview with Trina Ghedoni

Introduction:

Trina Ghedoni is the former wife of Thomas Grover. The following are excerpts of statements to former FBI investigator James Abbott collected during his 2008 to 2011 investigation of the case against Fr. Gordon MacRae:

Trina Ghedoni met Thomas Grover a few years before the 1994 trial of Gordon MacRae. They married in 1994. During her marriage to Grover, and as a result of the 1994 trial, she became increasingly aware of issues and problems with his trial testimony and perjury. This became a factor in her ultimate decision to divorce Thomas Grover.

During her four-year marriage to Grover while living in Prescott, Arizona, Ghedoni thought Grover “made up” the whole thing. His attitude and demeanor after the trial and his sexual obsession with pre-teen and teenage girls led Ghedoni to question Grover’s truthfulness. Grover would leave home sometimes for days at a time and go to a motel to view pornography all day. He was caught by Ghedoni on two occasions having sex with his biological sisters on the Arizona Indian reservation where they relocated after Grover received his settlement. She stated that Grover had a hole in a sheetrock wall where he hid pornography. Ghedoni relates that Grover was a sexual addict.

Trina Ghedoni advised that her son, Charles Glenn, moved to Arizona with Trina and Tom in August of 1997. Charles would “pump” Tom about his life. Ghedoni stated that Charles at age 15-16 would not give her specifics but after the trial told her that Tom had “Bs’d” the whole thing “and everyone would be surprised to know what other things Tom did.”

Ghedoni stated that around 1988 Grover was interviewed by Detective McLaughlin but made no allegation that resulted in a charge. In 1989 or 1990, when Grover was 22 or 23 and living in Manchester before accusing MacRae, he met a Dominic Martin and they became close friends and drinking buddies. Martin had a girlfriend whose name Ghedoni could not recall. Martin talked with Grover about setting up priests for money. Of note, Dominic Martin was later convicted for extortion against a priest in neighboring Massachusetts in 2002.
Ghedoni advised that a therapist named Pauline Goupil consulted with Tom Grover every day of MacRae’s 1994 trial. All Tom’s testimony or proposed testimony passed through Pauline Goupil who also tracked Tom’s medications during the trial. Ghedoni advised that, pre-trial, Detective James McLaughlin would converse with Pauline Goupil who in turn would talk to Tom. Ghedoni felt that Ms. Goupil was preparing and directing Tom at all times.
Trina Ghedoni described Thomas Grover as a “compulsive liar,” a “manipulator,” and a “drama queen,” who “molded stories to fit his needs [and] lied to get what he wanted.” He is someone who can also “tell a lie and stick to it ’til its end.”
In 1994, Grover asked Ghedoni to marry him “because it would look better and, more importantly, he needed the security of a wife for the trial.” During the entire time he and Ghedoni were together before this trial, “never once did Grover say he was abused by MacRae.”
Ghedoni stated that Thomas Grover was never abused, and that he stated several times that he was going to “get the church” for money. She stated that Grover lied at trial about the presence of a chess set in MacRae’s office during abuse. Grover reportedly admitted that this was perjury, but said “it was what they wanted.” “They,” according to Ms. Ghedoni, referred to Detective James McLaughlin and Pauline Goupil.
Detective McLaughlin referred Tom Grover to his civil attorney, Robert Upton who provided Grover with multiple cash advances. Grover claimed his lawsuit was necessary to get money for therapy, but once he received his cash in 1996, he never sought therapy again. Ms. Ghedoni described Det. McLaughlin as “gung ho,” “very aggressive,” and compared him to the TV personality John Walsh.
Ghedoni reported that Pauline Goupil’s son had been convicted in 1989 as the notorious “West Side Rapist,” and went to prison but she learned this only after Grover had been in therapy with Ms. Goupil.
Ms. Ghedoni added that Grover could never give a consistent account of his claimed abuse. Before the trial Grover befriended Dean Clay and they smoked “weed” together for long periods. Dean Clay later attempted to testify for the defense but was denied by the judge.
+ + +

Related Notes

After Thomas Grover’s initial testimony at MacRae’s 1994 trial, Dean Clay read of it in a local newspaper. The next day, Dean Clay showed up in the courtroom. Before the trial resumed, he told MacRae’s defense counsel that he knew Tom Grover and had been told by Mr. Grover that he was involved in an insurance scheme or scam for which he will get a lot of money. Mr. Clay believed that the scam Grover referred to was this trial. After strenuous objection by prosecutors, Judge Brennan declined to allow the jury to hear testimony from Dean Clay.
Dominic Martin and his wife, Brianna Martin, were arrested in Boston in 2003. They pled guilty and were convicted of the extortion of a priest with false claims of sexual misconduct. Dominic Martin had changed his name. He was formerly Todd Biltcliff, a Keene, New Hampshire resident who in 1992 received an undisclosed settlement after accusing a New Hampshire priest, Fr. Stephen Scruton, of molesting him in a hot tub at the YMCA. Ryan A. MacDonald wrote of that account in “Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Catholic Priest.”
During Former FBI Agent James Abbott’s investigation, Thomas Grover and his brothers refused to be interviewed or answer any questions pertaining to this matter. They received combined settlements in excess of $600,000.
Ms. Pauline Goupil also declined to be interviewed or answer any questions. Pauline Goupil is the subject of a recent article by Ryan A. MacDonald, “Psychotherapists Helped Send an Innocent Priest to Prison.”
In a post-trial Writ of Habeas Corpus petition, New Hampshire State and Federal judges declined to hear or consider any testimony from any of the witnesses who offered the Statements and evidence contained herein.

+ + +

The following links have been added to “Investigator Affidavit and Witness Statements” :

Sworn Affidavit of Investigator James Abbott

Statement of Charles Glenn

Excerpts of Investigator Interview with Trina Ghedoni

Related Notes

Statement of Steven Wollschlager

Statement of Debra Collette

Statement of Leo Demers

“The truth will set you free,” but to date no State or Federal judge in New Hampshire has allowed any of the above witnesses to testify under oath.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”