“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

— Deacon David Jones

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

Prison Journal: Looking for Lunch in All the Wrong Places

Just as in most Third World countries, the daily quest for food drives life in prison. The most frequently asked question about survival here is about prison food.

Just as in most Third World countries, the daily quest for food drives life in prison. The most frequently asked question about survival here is about prison food.

August 31, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Two of my never-miss television shows in prison are gone now. You might think it strange that the highly civilized British drama, Downton Abbey, was a hit in prison. My other addictive favorite was The Great British Baking Show.” Every now and then I stumble upon a remnant of it on PBS. I gain weight just watching British baking stars Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood judge (and sample) the baked creations of contestants vying for each episode’s designation of “Star Baker.”

I have never been obsessed about food. However, last week I received my semi-annual 20-pound food package that prisoners here are permitted to order from the outside world three times per year. I thank readers who help to make this possible.

About half of my usual food order is coffee. The prison commissary sells generic instant coffee at $2.75 for a 3oz. bag. It is not-so-kindly referred to as gun powder. So I try to order a supply of Folgers Instant Coffee to get me through until my next order. The rest of my order is for protein to supplement the prison’s high-carb-low-protein diet.

One result of having food items that can be obtained only a few times a year is the culinary creations that prisoners make. When Pornchai Moontri was here with me, he was the designated cell chef having had extensive culinary arts training in a vocational program. Pornchai could create things with instant rice that I can now only try to mimic with little success. It helps — helps both of us — that I am still able to talk with him by phone. He still provides tips for cooking in a prison cell.

You might think that my remark in the Meta-Description atop this post about prison being like a “Third World” country is an exaggeration. Most prisoners holding a prison job here earn no more than $10 per week. So saving for these semi-annual food orders is a major expense in the economy of prison. Prisoner families and friends help make up the difference.

Twelve years ago this week, I wrote a post about prison food. I called it “Looking for Lunch in All the Wrong Places.” So if the rest of this post seems vaguely familiar, it’s because it is an updated version of that post. This updated version will replace the original and will be added to the Prison Journal category in our BTSW Public Library. You will note that my friends Pornchai Moontri and Kewei Chen were here with me when I first wrote this. They are both gone now and I miss them dearly, but I thank the Lord every day for their freedom.

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Looking for Lunch in All the Wrong Places

“Hey, try this!” Every so often, some heavily tattooed, muscle bound ex marauding-biker-gang member shows up at my cell door, spoon in hand, to insist that I try his latest culinary creation. If it’s really awful, and I say so, I get an exasperated “ARE you SERIOUS?!” as though I’d just disparaged the Mona Lisa or declared Beethoven’s Fifth to be tedious. I can’t win. If I say it needs something, Bubba will be back in five with another spoon to try again for my approval. If I say it’s terrific, I risk the most dreaded words of all: “Gimme your bowl!”

I may have made a tactical error in prison survival when I wrote a few times about prison food. My tactical error was inviting prisoners to submit their own favorite recipes for their signature cell-cooked cuisine. Since then, some of my fellow prisoners keep showing up at my door with spoons because they want their culinary masterpieces immortalized at Beyond These Stone Walls.

In a past post I wrote of how life in prison revolves around TV. But in this prison’s general population where I’ve spent the last twenty eight years, TV is actually second in importance to everyone’s central concern: the daily quest for food!

In fact, the two are often connected. TV cooking shows are wildly popular here. When the closest thing we have to real meat is an 80% soy burger, it’s a self-inflicted torment to hear Emiril Lagasse yell “Bam!” as he jabs a garlic clove into a pork roast. Still, prisoners watch. Then they try their best to emulate Emiril with mixed results. Just yelling “Bam!” a lot doesn’t make for high cuisine.

Some cooking shows make me a little nervous. A few weeks ago, my friend Pornchai Moontri took copious notes as Andrew Zimmerman cooked up fried scorpions in northern Thailand on his “Bizarre Foods” show.

“Tastes like chicken,” Pornchai said. I’m glad we’re not in an Arizona prison. There are no scorpions in New Hampshire.

This prison serves three meals a day, and most are edible. I’m told that the food budget is under one dollar per person per day. That’s actually a rather stunning fact. Obviously, prisoners are not exactly feasting on a dollar a day, but we’re not fasting either. Sometimes prison food is even pretty good, considering, and it’s rarely as bad as what Clint Eastwood endured in Alcatraz. Nonetheless, complaining about the food is part of the daily grind in every prison. It generally comes in three forms: fat, salt and sugar and other carbohydrates. Protein is a rare commodity and type 2 diabetes is epidemic among those here for the long haul.

Personally, I can’t complain — though I did break a tooth in the chow hall a few months ago. I think the trail mix we had that day was made with real trails. Prison meals are not often a pleasant experience. The infrastructure here was built for about half the prison’s current population, so the dining halls are strained beyond limits. There are often more prisoners than seats, so on a typical day there are prisoners trying to eat their meal standing, balancing a tray in one hand while eating with the other. Sometimes the line out the “chow hall” door is very long. The main meal of the day is served at 4:00 PM so most prisoners are hungry again by 7:00. That’s when cell cuisine becomes most creative.

When I first came to this prison, I was assigned to live in the “special” housing unit. I still remember my first prison meal: a cold hot dog with beans on a paper plate, but with no eating utensils. The next day I was given a peanut butter sandwich along with a plastic fork. I saved the fork since I didn’t know when I would see another one. That night, a tray with spaghetti and sauce was shoved under my door, but not before a guard came in and took the fork away. I tried to see it as an opportunity for weight control, but fortunately I was moved to less “special” housing after a few months.

Every prisoner tries to supplement his food consumption with a few weekly meals of his own. Three times a year, prisoners are allowed to purchase a 20-pound food package from a designated vendor, and part of the profit supplements the prison’s recreation budget which pays for, among other things, cable TV. Prisoners save for this for months, or drop hints to their families and friends. We received our packages a few days ago, so the “in house” meals have been much improved.

The prison commissary sells a non-boiling hot pot for hot water. It’s the sole cooking appliance available, but the creations are astounding in number and variety, and sometimes they’re even a bit scary. The commissary also sells food items to fit various prisoner budgets. I asked around for some of the favorite signature recipes of my fellow prisoners.

The invitation was met with great enthusiasm, though the ex marauding-biker-gang guy wanted four inclusions. I asked him to just give me his favorite. Pornchai also wanted to submit a recipe, so I cautioned him that the ingredients must be bought, not caught!

 

Post-prison, Martha Stewart bakes for Snoop Dogg.

So here, by popular demand, is my second annual collection of Concord’s Culinary Creations in Captivity. Disclaimer: I did not try each of these recipes myself, and a few of them should probably not be attempted at home, at least not with dinner guests you plan on ever seeing again.

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JOEY’S MAFUNGO FOR FOUR

Joey is 23 years old and has been in prison since he was 17. He obtained his high school diploma here, and is doing his best to stay out of trouble “with a little help from you older guys.”  I have not yet tried Joey’s  “Mafungo” recipe, but I watched it in progress, and I have no plans to partake.

Ingredients:

1 sleeve Saltine crackers
3 8-ounce bags potato chips
1 8-ounce bag white corn tortilla chips
4 slices white bread
one-half pound turkey meat sliced thick
1 package smoked baby clams
2 packages sliced pepperoni
2 summer sausages sliced
2 bags instant white rice
2 packages Ramen noodles
squeeze cheese
hot chile sauce
BBQ sauce.

(Joey wrote this recipe himself, and I believe it’s his own creation). With all chips in their unopened bags, smash them into fine crumbs. Then tear up the bread into crumbs as well.  Next take a large plastic trash bag – one that hasn’t had trash in it – and cut the closed end, then also cut along one side. Sprinkle water on a table so the plastic will stick when you lay it down. Dump all the crumbs in  a  pile in the middle of the plastic on the table. Slowly add water while you squish the crumbs until you have a dough-like mass. Then squish some more for awhile until it is stretchy.  Now wrap the dough in the plastic and use a shampoo bottle as a rolling pin. Make sure the shampoo is not open.

Before you start the dough, chop all meats and heat in a hot pot and add seasonings. While that’s cooking, mix rice, Ramen noodles, and baby clams in another trash bag adding hot water. Then fluff up mixture.  Spread dough to a 3 or 4-foot by one-foot rectangle on the plastic on the table.  Spread some hot sauce and BBQ sauce on it. Now mix the meat mixture into the bag with the rice mixture, and toss well. Then let it sit for five minutes. Then pour the food onto the dough in a single line like a huge egg roll. Then you roll it up and cover with the plastic for about five minutes.  Then cut  the roll into four equal sections.

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BUBBA’S BEASTLY WRAPS

1 Package pita pockets ($.61)

2 8 oz packages “Rip-n-Ready” Roast Beef ($2.60 ea)

1 Bag instant pre-cooked white rice ($.95)

City-Cow squeeze cheese – cheddar ($1.82)

Diced peppers if you can get them

Garlic Powder ($.72)

1 removable cover from an 8-inch electric fan

Lenny says you will need two hot pots for this one so invite your roommate so you can use his. Begin by heating water in both hot pots. Remove the cover from your 8-inch fan and rinse the dust off well. Place four pita breads inside the fan cover, put it on one of the heated hot pots, and cover with a towel. Then pour hot water over the package of rice to cook, and finally place the two packages of roast beef into the remaining hot water to heat for an hour or so.

Combine rice, roast beef, garlic powder to taste, and either diced peppers or black pepper into a mixing bowl and mix together. Cut a clean plastic bag into 12-inch squares. Place one steamed pita bread on each square and scoop the rice and roast beef mixture onto the pita breads. Cover each with the desired amount of squeeze cheese, and roll the stuffed pita tightly in the square of plastic. Tape closed, and place the four wraps back into the fan cover. Cover again with a towel and heat for another half hour or so. [This is a lot of prep work, but the wraps are very good and will serve four prisoners — or one Lenny!]

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MIKEY GOGGLES’ “TRASH-BAG CHOP SUEY”

8-oz package of “Rip-n-Ready” Beef Crumbles ($2.10)

“City-Cow” Cheddar processed “squeeze cheese” ($1.82)

Two or three packages of Ramen noodles ($.20 each)

Garlic powder ($.75)

One empty pita-pocket bag saved for just this occasion

Fill hot pot with four cups water and bring to a near boil (as hot as it gets!). Heat the unopened package of beef crumbles in the pot.  While heating, break up two or three packages of Ramen noodles in the pita-pocket bag. (Put the flavor packets aside for another day as they add too much sodium.) Pour just enough hot water into the bag to moisten and heat the Ramen noodles. Squeeze the contents of the crumbled beef into the bag. Add “squeeze cheese” and garlic powder to taste. Shake the bag until the ingredients are well mixed.  [I give this one high marks for easy clean-up.  There isn’t any. But I don’t suggest inviting your in-laws on the night you try this.]

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PORNCHAI’S PAD THAI SEAFOOD FRIED RICE

2 bags of pre-cooked instant white rice ($.95 ea)

2 packets Pad Thai seasoning mix ($1.00 ea)

2 Tbs. honey

2  3 ½ oz. packages of smoked baby clams ($1.83 ea)

Heat one and a half cups water in a hot pot and add both packages of Pad Thai seasoning.  Stir in honey and rice, and simmer until liquid is absorbed.  Add clams or any other seafood available.  [I’m not a big fan of the clams so Pornchai makes mine with a packet of tuna.  The rice is terrific.  He has a way of turning bland instant rice into something that looks and tastes like real Asian fried rice.]

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CHUBBS’ BREAKFAST SPECIAL (Submitted by our friend Kewei Chen)

3 Packets of Instant Quaker Oatmeal Peanut Butter

3 packets Sugar

2 Bagels

Instant Coffee Non-dairy Creamer Hot water

Mix the hot water with all three packets of instant oatmeal.  Add peanut butter to taste.  Spread additional peanut butter on the two bagels.  Mix the instant coffee, creamer, and sugar with hot water.  Eat.  [Not a lot of thought went into this one.  Chubbs told me this is the only thing he knows how to “cook.”  He’ll need a new nickname if he doesn’t learn.]

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MARK PINAULT’S CHICKEN TETRAZINI

2 packages of Bumble Bee chicken breast ($2.76 ea)

1 pound angel hair spaghetti ($1.20)

1 bottle pizza sauce ($1.35)

1 bottle salsa ($1.35)

1 small jar grated Romano/parmesan cheeses ($1.25)

Garlic Powder

Mrs. Dash Italian Seasoning

1 bag nacho chips ($1.25)

1 package pita bread ($.62)

In a hot pot, heat pizza sauce, salsa, spices, and most of the cheese. Let simmer for at least an hour. Shred the chicken breast into the pot. Crush the nacho chips and set aside. Then cook spaghetti in another hot pot. Undercook it a bit so it is al dente. Drain spaghetti and mix with crushed nacho chips. Pour chicken and sauce over spaghetti. While sauce is simmering, heat the pita breads on your spaghetti hot pot, then dust with garlic powder and remaining cheese. [This one is a strain on most prisoners’ budgets].

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MY OWN SPECIALITY: PRISON PIZZA

2 used large mailing envelopes

1 bottle pizza sauce ($1.35)

1 bottle Citi-Cow squeeze cheese ($1.82)

1 small bottle grated Romano/parmesan ($1.25)

1 package of four pita breads ($.63)

1 package sliced pepperoni ($1.86)

Garlic powder

Mrs. Dash Italian seasoning

Heat some water in a hot pot, and put the strainer basket upside down inside. Save some large envelopes when your friends send you mail. Cut them open and spread them out on a counter. Put four pita breads on the paper. Squeeze some cheese on the pita breads and spread it evenly.

Do the same with pizza sauce, then sprinkle grated Romano/Parmesan on the sauce. Add garlic powder to taste, and then seven or eight slices of pepperoni to each pizza. Place one pita bread on the pre-heated hot pot. Make a tent from one of the large envelopes, and cover the pizza until well heated. Using two large mixing spoons, fold one side of the pita bread and then the other into a sort of calzone. Serve hot.

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SKOOTER-WITH-A-K’s SUNDAY BRUNCH

1 cup of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal ($2.45 per bag)

2 Packets of Instant Quaker Oatmeal ($2.15 per box)

1 Packet of Carnation Instant Breakfast ($.75)

1 Scoop peanut butter

Hot water

Crush the cup of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal into a bowl. Add instant oatmeal and instant breakfast packets. Stir in hot water until mixture has the consistency of cookie dough. Then stir in the peanut butter. Skooter says this is the only thing he knows how to make. I haven’t tried it, and have no plans to.

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AND FOR DESERT, DONNY-DONUT’S CHOCOLATE-COVERED COOKIES

2 Hershey Bars ($1.20 each)

1 Package peanut butter sandwich cookies ($1.35)

Heat water to a near boil. Unwrap Hershey bars and save the wrappers. Break up chocolate bars and place pieces in bowl. Stir until melted. Dip cookies one by one in the bowl and set on wrappers to cool. Once completed, use remaining chocolate to drizzle over the covered cookies. Allow to cool completely, then eat until the sugar sends you into a hyperactive frenzy. [I haven’t tried this one either, but I watched Donny-Donuts in action. In a chaotic environment, this one can be pretty messy. Donny wore more chocolate than he ate.]

 
 
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Fr. Gordon J. MacRae Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

The Toll of Decades in Prison on a Mind, Heart, and Soul

Pornchai Moontri was released after almost three decades in prison. A new development could also release Fr. Gordon MacRae, but what does freedom look like for them?

Pornchai Moontri was released after almost three decades in prison. A new development could also release Fr. Gordon MacRae, but what does freedom look like for them?

June 8, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Someone who is an old friend to both Pornchai Moontri and me posted a Facebook rant in 2021 that was printed and sent to me by an angry reader who saw it. Our friend was reacting to a cut in Covid pandemic relief services. Clearly, the last two years have posed challenges for many people. Our friend’s rant protested the budget cut while bemoaning all the “free services” that he believes had been afforded to prisoners: “Free food, free housing, clothing, health care, legal representation, and free education!” I understood his argument. It is one held by many people, but none of it is true.

Prisoners where I have been forced to live against my will for 28 years are required to hold a prison job. However most prisons have become so overcrowded that more than 50-percent of prisoners are in the category of “no job available.” Prison jobs here pay a base rate of $1.15 per day for four hours of daily work. Both Pornchai Moontri and I held relatively privileged positions in specialized jobs that required some skill. These full time positions required working a full day, five days per week. Pornchai was the Safety Trainer for the prison woodworking shop managed by the Recreation Department. I am the sole legal clerk in the prison law library, a position that every prison is required to have by law. Both jobs were salaried positions with a rate of pay at $43 per month.

Prisons are required to provide the most basic level of sustenance including food, housing, clothing, etc. Beyond that, most prisons — this one included — sell food, hygiene items, and clothing items to prisoners either directly or through a prison-approved vendor who manages these sales with a healthy kickback to the prison’s recreation fund budget. A pair of shoes costs about six weeks’ pay.

Because the prison food budget affords lots of carbohydrates but far less protein, most prisoners strive to supplement food intake through purchases from a commissary. Those who cannot afford food, or who do not have families to help them, contrive all sorts of means to assure that they have adequate food. There is a lot of exploitation. Some prisoners will purchase food, and then sell it at inflated rates to the hungry who then rack up debts that they sometimes cannot pay.

The main meal of the day here is between 3:30 and 4:00 PM. By policy, prisoners are allowed 10 minutes to eat. It seldom ever takes that long. Neither Pornchai nor I were ever well off here, but we could not turn away prisoners who asked for a package of ramen noodles to fend off hunger at night. We both bought and stored them just so those around us would not have to owe someone who wanted to exact a profit — or worse.

The same is true with coffee and postage stamps, neither of which are provided to prisoners. A four-ounce bag of generic instant coffee is $5.00. A four-ounce packet of chicken is $3.25. A book of ten postage stamps is more than three days’ pay. Over the years, Pornchai and I have loaned enough coffee — seldom if ever repaid — to keep Juan Valdez on his burro for decades to come because those earning one dollar per day cannot afford coffee.

Many other items are required, but acquired only through purchase at the commissary. This includes soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes, deodorant, cough syrup, Tylenol, bandages, toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and, during the pandemic, face masks. Those who can afford to do so also purchase multivitamins, Omega-3, Vitamin D3, and other essential supplements. There are over 260 food and hygiene items sold to prisoners in the commissary here and in most other prisons.

Some enterprising prisoners develop little side ventures such as a laundry service. The more artistic ones create and sell greeting cards. Several have a sneaker cleaning service. The costs do not end with food, clothing and postage. A visit to daily Sick Call at Health Services has a co-pay that for some is the equivalent of three days’ pay. Telephone calls must be prepaid and are charged by the minute.

 

Money Laundering

Union Supply Direct, a company that markets only to prisoners, has cornered the commissary market here and also has a mail order business for prisoner clothing, electronics, and other needs. The catalog sells just about all clothing items except the actual New Hampshire prisoner uniform which consists of dark green slacks and a matching long sleeve buttoned shirt. Prisoners here may request three sets every two years. However, what we receive is used clothing. Ironed-on patches have the prisoners’s name and number. Prisoners often turn the replacements back in if they are in worse shape than the ones we already had. The last set I received had four prior ironed-on labels under the one with my name. The last set of new clothing I received was in 1998. The last used replacement set that was in good enough condition to keep was in 2012.

Purchased clothing is at risk of being stolen and then resold to other prisoners. This has never happened to me or to Pornchai, but it has happened to some of the people around us. My current roommate does not want to lose the new towels and clothing he purchased so he never puts them in the prison laundry. Instead, he washes them himself in the bucket that I use for Mass. In our small cell, he hangs them on a removable shoestring clothes line and aims a fan at them. Some enterprising prisoners have set up a sideline for private laundry services. They will pick up newer clothing, wash and dry it, and return it folded, all for a bag of coffee or food. Union Supply sells a gray fleece jacket for $42.95, and just about everyone will pay the fee to have it washed because it is a hot item for theft and resale.

The Union Supply Catalog sells about 200 items including clothing, sheets, towels, hygiene items, electronics, televisions, etc. at seemingly inflated prices. A small flat screen Clear Tunes TV is $275. In the latest catalog, a 4-ounce tube of Crest toothpaste is $12.95. A poor quality Swintec typewriter doubled in price this year and is now $375.95.

This could go on and on. Every category that our friend’s Facebook rant described as free for prisoners was falsely stated. When you consider the ratio between a prisoner’s expenses and what he or she can earn, prisoners are typically the most impoverished citizens on the planet. I know that the common argument for seeing this as “okay” is that “prisoners put themselves in prison.” That is indeed true for some, perhaps even most, but I hope that readers know by now that it is by no means true for all.

 

The Seeds We Sow in Prison

Surely the most advanced society on Earth can come up with a better model for the management of criminality than the current prison system, which has a recidivism rate of 50-percent. As a culture, we cave to our worst instincts for instant vengeance by the establishment of laws that make an adequate criminal defense virtually impossible. I am not guilty of the crimes attributed to me and I am by no means the only one now saying that.

When I heard Judge Arthur Brennan intone the jury instructions at my trial, I knew then that I was doomed. This was a case without evidence. None whatsoever. Judge Brennan first instructed the jury to “disregard inconsistencies” in accuser Thomas Grover’s claims. Then he told them that under New Hampshire law, (RSA 632a-6) “no evidence or corroboration is necessary for a conviction” under this category of offense.

After dutifully disregarding all the inconsistencies, the jury convicted me in less that ninety minutes. You already know that after refusing three efforts to convince me to take a plea deal to serve a minimum of one year in prison, Judge Brennan sentenced me to a term of 67 years. Attorney James Higgins, speaking for my bishop and diocese at the time, wrote to me in prison: “To the extent that you are without funds for an appeal, contact the Public Defender’s Office.” I was sent to prison at age 41 in 1994. I will be 70 on my next birthday. I will be 108 when my sentence is completed. I was 29 when the fictitious crimes were claimed to have occurred.

My peers in priesthood and in life are preparing for retirement. In contrast, I have spent the last nearly three decades of my life earning and trying to live on $43 dollars per month. Some readers have helped over time, and both Pornchai and I have survived almost solely because of that. We have profound gratitude. This blog could not exist without such help. One of the tragedies of prison is that people here for decades leave with nothing — with no life built up and no buffer or support system upon which to build one.

For a priest in prison, whether guilty or innocent, survival after would depend on the willingness of his bishop to observe Canon Law and provide some basic infrastructure such as housing, health insurance, etc. In the neighboring Archdiocese of Boston, a 75-year-old priest coming out of prison was told to go find a homeless shelter. Over time in the abuse scandal, fear reigned and the observance of Canon Law has diminished. Some bishops simply discard priests deemed inconvenient, again whether guilty or innocent. My bishop has given no indication whatsoever that he would assist me in any way. He visited me briefly ten years ago, but he would not let me speak of any of this.

Back in January, 2022, a surprising development surfaced. A New Hampshire court ordered the Attorney General to make public a previously secret list of police officers whose investigations or testimony have been tainted and discredited by misconduct. It turns out that former NH Detective James McLaughlin is on that list as revealed in “Predator Po1ice: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell.”

He is on the list for a 1985 incident of “Falsification of Records and/or Evidence” which is exactly what I have claimed of him for three decades. I am now expected to hire legal counsel for a new appeal based on this newly discovered evidence. I have been frozen in place ever since then. Only time will tell whether and how this develops. Saint Paul wrote that three gifts abide, Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is Love (1 Corinthians 13:13). But Hope is the most fragile.

A part of me does not dare to hope or to even move on this. The last such hope in 2013 met a dead end with a prosecutorial judge who refused to review new evidence or hear new witnesses. Justice from men is not always even or just. At almost 70, I feel closer to meeting God’s justice than that of anyone in New Hampshire. Shall I try or shall I simply wait? Stay tuned!

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Important Notes from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please do not understand this post as a plea for help, for many of you have already done just that. I offer profound thanks for your support, encouragement, and prayers for both me and Pornchai Moontri whom God has entrusted to my care.

An important sequel to this post will appear here next week. My heart was broken, as were many, by recent events in Uvalde, Texas. Twice in two weeks, a lost and deeply troubled and broken 18-year-old committed grave acts of terror in Buffalo, New York and then in Uvalde, Texas. My friend, Pornchai, was also 18 and broken when his offense was committed. Something essential has been lost in our culture and must be faced with bold courage. Pornchai and I both have some thoughts of hope about this that will be a part of our post next week. Meanwhile: please share this post, and please consider reading more through these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Ordeal of Father Gordon MacRae by Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest

The Measure By Which You Measure: Prisoners of a Captive Past

 

The New Hampshire State Prison exit gate.

 
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