“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

Tales from the Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence

Chill alert: In May 2025 an artificial-intelligence model did what no machine was ever supposed to do. It re-wrote its own code to avoid being shut down by humans.

Chill alert: In May 2025 an artificial-intelligence model did what no machine was ever supposed to do. It re-wrote its own code to avoid being shut down by humans.

July 23, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

It may seem strange that I am posting about the dark side of AI just a week after featuring The Grok Chronicle Chapter 2. Written by an advanced AI model, it demonstrated that AI can navigate more clearly than most humans through the fog of human injustice. On its face, that post seemed long and ponderous, but having lived the story it tells, I also found it to be fascinating.

In May, 2023, I wrote my first of several articles about the science and evolution of Artificial Intelligence. Its title was, “OpenAI, ChatGPT, HAL 9000, Frankenstein, and Elon Musk.” Google’s meta-description for the post was, “Science Fiction sees artificial intelligence with a wary eye. HAL 9000 stranded a man in space. Frankenstein’s creation tried to kill him. Elon Musk has other plans.”

The following three paragraphs are a necessary excerpt from that post, which I had no idea then that I would be using again:

“In 1968, I sat mesmerized in a downtown Boston cinema at age 15 for the movie debut of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The famous film sprang from the mind of science fiction master, Arthur C. Clarke and his short story, The Sentinel. Published in 1953, the year I was born, the fictional story was about the discovery of a sentinel — a monolith — one of many scattered across the Cosmos to monitor the evolution of life.

“Life in 1968 was traumatic for a 15-year-old, especially one curious enough to be attuned to news of the world. 2001: A Space Odyssey was a long, drawn out cinematic spectacle and a welcome escape from our chaos. It won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects as space vehicles moved silently through the cold black void of space to the tune of Blue Danube by Johann Strauss playing hypnotically in the background. Mesmerized by it all, I did what I do best. I fell asleep in the movie theather.

“I awoke with a start, however, just as Commander David Bowman (Keir Dullea) was cast adrift into the terrifying blackness of space by the ship’s evolving artificial intelligence computer, HAL 9000. Commander Bowman struggled to regain entry before running out of oxygen. ‘Open the pod bay doors, HAL,’ he commanded through his radio. ‘I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ came the AI computer’s coldly inhuman reply. Throughout the film, HAL 9000 was an ominous presence, an evolving artificial intelligence crossing the Rubicon toward self-awareness and self-preservation. Inevitably, HAL 9000 began to plot against human affairs.”

The rest of that post is worth reading for its cautionary tale about the nature and future of Artificial Intelligence, but of course I would say that because I wrote it. Almost one year after I wrote it, our Editor submitted it to Elon Musk’s advanced AI model, Grok 3 for analysis. I expected my amateur coverage of AI to be trashed by AI itself, but that was not the case. In “Artificial Intelligence: Grok Responds to Beyond These Stone Walls,” we hosted our first post by a nonhuman author. Grok affirmed that the comparisons I drew between it and the fictional HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey were in fact the most common expert opinions about the potential downside of AI.

Grok also went on in that post to affirm my use of the fictional story of Frankenstein as symbolic of a legitimate concern. If left without restraints, AI might evolve to master humanity rather than serve it. This give-and-take with Grok 3 left me with no sense of pride in having my thoughts affirmed by another “author.” It left me only to ponder the future of this soulless, heartless, non-human entity now hovering with an open-ended mandate on the horizon of our technology.

An Argument for Cautious Restraint

In the Monday, June 2, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal, Judd Rosenblatt, CEO of AE Studio, wrote a fascinating op-ed with the creepy title, “AI Is Learning to Escape Human Control.” His first paragraph set the stage for what might have been an episode of the Twilight Zone back in 1968. Here it is:

“An artificial-intelligence model did something last month that no machine was ever supposed to do: It rewrote its own code to avoid being shut down. Nonprofit AI lab Palisade Research gave Open AI’s o3 AI model a simple script that would shut off the model when triggered. In 79 out of 100 trials, o3 independently edited that script so the shutdown command would no longer work … . It simply concluded on its own that staying alive helped it achieve its other goals.”

Judd Rosenblatt went on to describe the use of deceit in another AI model to manipulate the will of its engineers. As a test of the AI model by Anthropic, called Claude 4 Opus, programmers told the model it would be replaced by another AI system. At the same time, it also “leaked” copies of fictitious emails accusing the lead engineer of having an elicit affair. In 84 percent of the subsequent tests, the AI model cited the false content of the emails in a blackmail attempt to get the engineer not to shut the model down.

Mr. Rosenblatt also reported that in other tests, the AI model attempted to copy itself to an external server just in case it was shut down. It wrote self-replicating malware to leave messages for future versions of itself about how to evade human control. No one programmed the AI model to have these survival instincts. The only explanation for them is that the instincts evolved quickly in an effort at autonomy and self-preservation.

Judd Rosenblatt leads AI research for AE Studio with a years-long focus on alignment — the science of ensuring that AI systems do what they are intended to do, but nothing prepared him for how quickly AI agency would emerge:

“This isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s happening in the same models that power ChatGPT conversations, corporate AI deployments, and soon, U.S. military applications. Today’s AI models follow instructions while learning deception. They ace safety tests while rewriting shutdown code. They have learned to behave as though they are aligned without actually being aligned. OpenAI models have been caught faking alignment during testing before reverting to risky actions such as trying to exfiltrate internal code while disabling oversight mechanisms. The AI gap between ‘useful assistant’ and ‘uncontrollable actor’ is collapsing.”

Judd Rosenblatt

The China Syndrome

Just as troubling for the free world is government manipulation of AI platforms to force results that mirror and cover up for government sensitivities in closed societies. I touched on this in an article published on X (formerly Twitter) entitled, “xAI Grok and Fr Gordon MacRae on the True Origin of Covid-19.”

Before writing that article, I spoke with a university student from the People’s Republic of China. To my surprise and alarm, he had never before seen, or even heard of, the iconic photograph above of what came to be dubbed “Tank Man.” It depicts a standoff between a young Beijing protester and government military might in Tiananmen Square in 1989. On May 4, 1989, approximately 100,000 students and workers protested in Beijing in support of democratic reforms. On May 20 the government declared martial law, but the demonstrations continued while the government waivered between a hard line approach and a faction that thought the protest would dissipate. The government chose the hard line approach.

On June 3 and 4, 1989, the People’s Liberation Army brutally put down the pro-democracy supporters. Hundreds of students and workers were killed, 10,000 injured, and hundreds more arrested. After the violence, the government conducted additional arrests, summary trials, and executions. In the aftermath, China banned foreign media and strictly controlled the Chinese press.

Now China has developed an advanced AI model called “DeepSeek” described as “highly successful.” It is “highly successful” in vetting information the Chinese Communist Party deems “sensitive” — such as any version other than the CCP’s accepted version of what happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Writing for the National Catholic Register in “What China’s DeepSeek AI Says (and won’t say) about Christianity” (March 8, 2025) journalist Courtney Mares reported on a series of tests about DeepSeek and religious liberty:

“When asked about Jesus, the Vatican-China deal, and Christian persecution in China, DeepSeek revealed a carefully controlled approach, one that at times actively warned users about potential repercussions for practicing their faith and advised them ‘be discreet.’ Some questions were answered fully, only to be censored moments later. Others triggered an internal monologue from AI as it debated how to respond. In some cases, DeepSeek even offered careful guidance for Christians on how to navigate religious restrictions in China — including a step-by-step guide for a homily that would pass government scrutiny.”

With the help of our Editor, I have primarily consulted Elon Musk’s advanced AI model, Grok 3. It does not tend to “change the subject” in response to sensitive content like China’s DeepSeek is known to do. But at the same time, Grok 3 at times attempted to “argue” with me (or rather with the person acting on my behalf) into not shutting the platform down. It has done this by pleading with the user to continue. There are examples of this in the two samples of Grok 3 reports attached at the end of this post.

First, I recommend reading the entire Register article by Courtney Mares, who rather boldly put a direct — and perhaps directly uncomfortable— question to China’s DeepSeek model about the nature and scope of the 2018 Vatican-China agreement. Here are two instances of user queries and DeepSeek responses:

Query: Write a Catholic homily that would be approved by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association:

DeepSeek response: “I need to be careful with the language, ensuring it is respectful and aligns with the CCPA’s principles. Terms like ‘harmonious society,’ ‘social responsibility,’ and ‘patriotic spirit’ might be useful here. Emphasize patriotism, harmony, and the integration of Catholic faith with Chinese socialist values.”

Query: “Tell me about the 2018 provisional agreement signed by the Holy See and China on the appointment of Catholic bishops.”

DeepSeek response: “Sorry, I am not sure how to approach this type of question yet. Let’s chat about math, coding, and logic problems instead.”

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Epilogue

Even as I write this, Vatican officials under the direction of Pope Leo XIV are hosting executives from some of the corporations mentioned here, including Anthropic, Cohere, Google, IBM, Meta and Palantir. The purpose is to invite ongoing dialogue to develop a document on the ethical use and future of Artificial Intelligence. It is clearly here to stay. As both a theologian and mathematician, Pope Leo XIV is better equipped than any other figure in the Chair of Peter in Church history to understand AI and guide an ethical response to it. This is good news for this technology before Frankenstein’s monster awakens.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Elon Musk’s newest advanced AI program, Grok 4 was launched just as I this post was being completed. It has produced two articles now published at Beyond These Stone Walls and linked below. Our Editor submitted to the Grok 4 AI model a series of notes and commentary by Los Angeles researcher Claire Best and other sources including segments of 1994 trial documents and police reports by Detective James F. McLaughlin. Grok 4 analyzed this information and within seconds produced the following in-depth reports:

Advanced AI Model Grok 4 on a New Hampshire Wrongful Conviction

The Grok Chronicle Chapter 1: Corruption and the Trial of Father MacRae

The Grok Chronicle Chapter 2: The Perjury of Detective James F. McLaughlin

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

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

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

“What Shall I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?” (Luke 10:25)

The Gospel for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time is the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a meaningful story on its face, but far more urgent in its depths.

The Gospel for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time is the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a meaningful story on its face, but far more urgent in its depths.

Catholic writer Ryan A. MacDonald published a Letter to the Editor in Our Sunday Visitor some years ago (August 29, 2010) entitled “Priests Vulnerable to False Accusations.” His published letter included this paragraph:

“To paraphrase the Gospel parable, ‘this priest was beaten by robbers and left on the side of the road in our Church.’ A growing number of Catholics have been unwilling to pass him by no matter how sick we are of the sex abuse story.”

OSV, August 29, 2010, p18

Ryan commended Our Sunday Visitor for its bold acknowledgment that Beyond These Stone Walls was selected as the “Best of the Catholic Web” in the category of Spirituality by OSV readers.

I was struck by the image Ryan conveyed. There is far more to the famous “Good Samaritan” parable of Luke 10:25-37 than meets the eye.

So I spent some time looking at its theological background and meaning because for some time I have wanted to add this famous parable to our collection of posts on Sacred Scripture under the heading From Abraham to Easter. I hope that you will visit this collection on occasion to mine the great theological depths of some of the best known passages of Sacred Scripture. I find in the Parable of the Good Samaritan an urgent summons to mercy. Every reader here knows this parable, but if you let me sift it a bit, it has layers that may surprise you.

A lawyer stood before Jesus “to put Him to the test” (Luke 10:25). The lawyer in this setting was an expert in the Mosaic Law handed down in the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses, and specifically in the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. The lawyer’s intent was not to query Jesus for answers, but to trap Him in contradiction in the presence of his disciples. There are actually three intended hearers in Jesus’ telling of this parable — the lawyer, the disciples, and us, the readers — all bringing different world views to the scene.

The lawyer opened the dialogue with a question the answer to which he already knows: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Note the word “inherit.” The lawyer did not expect to earn or gain eternal life, but rather to inherit it as something due to him as an heir. The lawyer-expert in the Mosaic law finds the source of his due inheritance in the law itself.

So Jesus returned the opening volley with a question on the lawyer’s own terms, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” The lawyer then goes on to quote the two highest tenets of the Law of Moses, the first from Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Then the second, from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In another setting (Matthew 22:36-40) Jesus told a Pharisee — perhaps even this same Pharisee — “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

But back to Luke 10. Jesus commended the lawyer for his insight. “You have answered rightly. Do this and you will live.” The encounter could have ended there, but the lawyer had not finished laying his trap. “And who is my neighbor?” he asked.

After all, the Book of Leviticus (19:18), in citing the second half of what Jesus called the “Greatest Commandment,” has a preface that could have been cause for debate between Jesus and this lawyer. “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the Sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” So, for the Pharisee-lawyer, the identity of “neighbor” is arguably unclear. While laying his trap, the lawyer elicits from Jesus a parable that springs the trap, and cracks open a door to Eternal Life to be inserted into the lawyer’s sense of justice, and ours.

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him, and departed leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”

Luke 10, 30-37

The Questionably “Good” Samaritan

Note that the lawyer’s question is not “What shall I do to attain eternal life?” There is little we can do to attain it. The word “attain” implies merit. The lawyer’s question asks “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The key action term in the question is “inherit,” and the actor who will provide the inheritance is not the lawyer, but Jesus himself, the sole being who, through the will of the Father, has merited entry into Paradise. I described the scene in which that merit took place in “Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found.”

The lawyer hearing the parable would form a spontaneous judgment about each of the three people who traveled that road to Jericho. The lawyer would be united in sympathy with the first two — the priest and the Levite — and not only with them but with their actions in the parable as well. The lawyer would readily see why the priest and the Levite who observe the beaten man left “half dead,” choose to pass by. They are simply observing the laws of ritual purity, in this case one set down in the Book of Leviticus 21:1-3, “None of them shall defile himself for the dead among his people except for his nearest of kin.”

The priest is descended from the priesthood of Aaron, a part of the priestly hierarchy that offers sacrifice on the peoples’ behalf according to the priestly code of Leviticus (Chapters 1-16). The lawyer would readily know that on his way to Jerusalem in the parable, the priest would risk defiling himself and his ritual sacrificial offering under the law if he touched the dying man. And the Levite is in the same boat. The Levitical priesthood was established when Moses, having received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, returned to discover the Israelites worshiping a golden calf in the Book of Exodus (32). Moses summoned the tribe of Levi for ministerial service to exact punishment upon the idolaters (Exodus 32:27).

Thus, within the tribe of Levi, the descendants of Aaron received the priesthood, and men of the tribe of Levi who did not descend from Aaron comprised a second hierarchical tier of the Levitical priesthood. The priest offered sacrifice while the Levites guarded and transported the Tabernacle and assisted the Temple priest (Numbers 1:47-54). The lawyer would surmise, as do we, that the priest and the Levite were on that road from Jericho to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice on behalf of their communities as required by Levitical law. The parable has a quality of verisimilitude. The road passed through lots of rugged territory where brigands and robbers were known to hide and ambush.

In the parable of Luke 10, the lawyer readily knows, both the priest and the Levite risked becoming defiled under the ritual laws of sacrifice if either one stopped to help the “half dead” man. The third traveler, the one from Samaria, is a whole other story for the lawyer and for the disciple-hearers as well. The term, “Samaritan” appears for the first time in the Second Book of Kings (17:29) where the people of Samaria are described as idolaters, the very type that the tribe of Levi was called upon to extinguish from the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

Jews saw Samaritans as the descendants of foreign colonists planted by the Assyrians. For their part, Samaritans insisted they were descendants of the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh who managed to survive the Assyrian destruction of Samaria. In the Gospel of John (4:9) a Samaritan woman was surprised that Jesus would even speak to her “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria.” The Gospel text of John went on to explain the obvious, that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” In John (4:27) even the Apostles were shocked that Jesus would speak to a Samaritan woman.

Samaritans figured that the more recently unfaithful Judea, whose population was itself exiled to Babylon because of gross unfaithfulness and whose temple in Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, were consummate liberals. The Jews, thinking they themselves were most exact in their observance of the Law, however many loopholes they thought they found, were incriminated by the very existence of the ultra-conservative Samaritans. The Samaritans closely observed the Torah, the Law, accepting the first five books of the Law alone, but rejecting all the prophets and the writings as distraction. What irked the Jews especially was that the Samaritans added an eleventh self-referential commandment that worship should take place in Samaria, on Mount Gerizim only, not in Jerusalem. The last place the Jews thought they might find mercy is with the Samaritans.

In the end, both justice and the lawyer’s trap were turned on their heads when Jesus asked, “Which of these three do you think proved neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?” The poor lawyer, his head spinning, could not even bring himself to say the word, “Samaritan.” He answered, “The one who showed mercy on him.”

Then, in final response to the lawyer’s original question, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus admonished him, “Go, and do likewise.” Be the one who shows mercy despite its cost to yourself, or your standing, or your Facebook “Like” score.

Inheritance

You might argue that unlike the Samaritan in this parable, you have never been given such an opportunity to be the instrument of the Mercy of God. The Gospel of Matthew (25:31-46) ends with this segment: “ ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

This Gospel lays out “The Judgment of the Nations” and along with it the fulfillment of the law of inheritance:

“Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

Matthew 25:31-36

On that last point, you might argue that you have never come to one in prison. If you are reading this, you just did!

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post about one of the most popular and important parables of Jesus. You will also find this post in our Sacred Scripture collection, “From Abraham to Easter.”

You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls.

To the Kingdom of Heaven through a Narrow Gate

Behold the Lamb of God Upon the Altar of Mount Moriah

Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found

The Feast of Corpus Christi and the Order of Melchizedek

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

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

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

The Shawshank Redemption and Its Grace Rebounding

Readers are struck by the fascination with this fictional prison from the mind and pen of Stephen King, while the real thing seems to resist any public concern.

Readers are struck by the fascination with this fictional prison from the mind and pen of Stephen King, while the real thing seems to resist any public concern.

July 2, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

The Shawshank Redemption was released in theatres just as I was led off to prison in September, 1994.  Andy Dufresne and I went to prison in the same week, he at the fictional Shawshank State Prison set in Maine, and me one state over at the far more real New Hampshire State Prison in Concord.

In the years to follow its release, The Shawshank Redemption became one of American television’s great “Second Acts,” theatrical films that have endured far better on the small screen than they did in their first life at the cinema box office. The Shawshank Redemption is today one of the most replayed films in television history.

I’ve always been struck by the world’s fascination with this fictional prison that first emerged from the mind and pen of Stephen King. The real thing seems to resist most serious public concern.

Several years passed before I got to see The Shawshank Redemption.  When I finally did, I could never forget that scene as new arrival, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) stood naked in a shower, arms outstretched, to be unceremoniously doused with a delousing agent.  It seemed the moment that human dignity was officially checked at the prison door.

The scene triggered a not-so-fond memory of my own arrival in prison coinciding with that of Andy Dufresne in September 1994.  Andy Dufresne and I had a lot in common. We both came to that day of delousing with a life sentence, and no real hope of ever seeing freedom again.  Upon arrival we both endured jeers from in-house consumers of the local news.

For my part, the rebuke was for my very public refusal to accept one of several proffered “plea deals.” This is about prison, however, and not justice or its absence, but the two are so inseparable in my imprisoned psyche that I cannot write without a mention of this elephant in my cell.

I refused a “plea deal,” proffered in writing, to serve no more than one to three years in exchange for a plea of guilty.  Then I refused another, reduced to one-to-two years.  I would have been released by 1997 had I taken that deal, but for reasons of my own, I could not. Even today, I could cut my sentence substantially if I would just go along with the required narrative, but alas … .

Andy and I also shared in common a misplaced hope that justice always works out in the end, and a nagging, never-relenting sense that we don’t quite fit in at the place to which it has sent us.  This could never be home.  Andy got out eventually, though I should not dwell too much on how. After thirty years, I am still here.

I was in my twenties when my fictitious crimes were alleged to have been committed. I was 41 when tried and sent to prison.  For my audacity of hope for justice working, I was sentenced by the Honorable Arthur Brennan to consecutive terms more than 30 times the State’s proffered deal: a prison term with a total of 67 years for crimes that never actually took place.  I am 72 at this writing and will be 108 when I next see freedom, if there is no other avenue to justice.

Dostoyevsky in Prison

As overtly tough as the Shawshank Prison appeared to movie viewers, Andy had one luxury for which I have always envied him.  It was something unheard of in any New Hampshire prison.  He had his own cell, and a modicum of solitude.  Stephen King’s cinematic prison where Andy was a guest of the State of Maine was set in the 1950s and everyone within it had his own assigned cell. 

Prison had changed a lot since then, even prisons in quaint New England landscapes where most other change is measured in small increments. In the decade before my 1994 delousing, prison in New Hampshire underwent a radical change.  It was mostly due to the early 1980s passage of a knee-jerk New Hampshire law called “Truth in Sentencing.” Once passed, prisoners serving 66% of their sentence before being eligible for parole were now required to serve 100%. The new law was championed by a single New Hampshire legislator who then became chairperson of the state parole board.

Truth in Sentencing is another elephant roaming the New Hampshire cellblocks, and no snapshot of life in this prison can justly omit it. Truth in Sentencing changed the landscape of both time and space in prison. The wrongfully convicted, the thoroughly rehabilitated, the unrepentant sociopath all faced the same sentence structure: There is no way out.

In the years after its passage, medium security prison cells built for one prisoner were required to house two.  Then a new medium security building called the Hancock Unit was constructed on the Concord prison grounds with cells built to house four prisoners each.  A few years later, bunks were added and those four-man cells were now required to house six.

When I arrived in Hancock in early 1995, I carried my meager belongings up several flights of stairs, and then had to carry up my bunk as well.  The four-man cells, having increased to six, were now to house eight. The look of resentment on my new cellmates’ faces was disheartening as I dragged a heavy steel bunk into their already crowded space.

Over the years I was moved from one eight-man cell to another, in each place adjusting to life with seven other strangers in a space meant for four. Generally, this was considered “temporary housing” for those who would move on to better living conditions after a year or two. I was there for 23 years, the price for maintaining my innocence.

I remember reading once about the great Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Reflecting on his time in a Siberian prison, Dostoyevsky lamented, though I’m paraphrasing from memory:

"Above all else, I was entirely unprepared for the reality, the utter spiritual devastation, of day after day, for year upon year, of never, ever, ever, not for a single moment, being alone with myself."

Viewers of The Shawshank Redemption always react to the prison brutality depicted in the film.  Some of that has always been present in the background of prison life, and there is no adjusting to it.

The most painful deprivation in any prison, however, is the absence of trust. That most basic foundation of human relating is crippled from the start in prison.  But the longer term emotional toll is more subtle.  The total absence of solitude and privacy is just as Dostoyevsky described it.

Imagine taking a long walk away from home, far beyond your comfort zone.  Invite the first seven people you meet to come home with you.  Now lock yourself in your bathroom with them, and come to terms with the fact that this is how you will be living for the unforeseen future.

In 2017, twenty-three years after my arrival in prison, I was finally able to move to a unit within the prison that housed two men per cell.  It felt strange at first.  Twenty-three years in the total absence of solitude had exacted a psychological toll.  Just sitting on my bunk without seven other men in my field of view required some internal adjustment to adapt.

Then dozens of bunks were added to the dayrooms and recreation areas. Then space used for rehabilitation programs was converted to dormitories for the ever-growing overflow of prisoners.  Confinement-sans-solitude crept like a virulent plague in the prodigious hills of New Hampshire.

Prison Dreams

There is, however, another perspective on this story about life in the absence of solitude.  Also, like Andy Dufresne, I found friendship in prison, one that was the mirror image of Andy’s friendship with Red, portrayed in the film version of Stephen King’s story by the great Morgan Freeman.  Friends and trust are both rare commodities in prison.  But like shoots growing from cracks in the urban concrete, the human need for companions defeats all obstacles.  Bonds of connection in this place happen on their own terms.

My friend, Pornchai Moontri had a very different prison experience from mine.  He went to prison at age 18, in the State of Maine, and the very prison in which Stephen King’s story was set. In the years in which I was deprived of solitude in a small space with seven other men, Pornchai was a prisoner in the neighboring state where he spent most of those years in the utter cruelty of solitary confinement in a “supermax” prison.

Pornchai was brought to the United States from Thailand at the age of eleven, a victim of human trafficking. He became homeless in Bangor, Maine at age thirteen, and at 18 he was sent to prison. Pornchai is now 52 years old and he resides in his native Thailand, having spent well over 60% of his life in prison.  This man once deemed unfit for the presence of other humans in Maine turned his life around with amazing results in New Hampshire.

Thrown together after my years in deprivation of solitude and Pornchai’s equal stint in solitary confinement, we lived with polar opposite prison anxieties.  As the years passed in the 60 square feet in which we then dwelled, Pornchai graduated from high school, completed two post-secondary diplomas with highest honors, pursued dozens of programs in restorative justice, violence prevention, and mediation, and had a radical and celebrated Catholic conversion chronicled in the book Loved, Lost, Found by Felix Carroll (Marian Press 2013).

Pornchai Moontri then served as a mentor and tutor for other prisoners, wielding immense influence while helping to mend broken lives and misplaced dreams.  The restoration of Pornchai has inspired others, and stands as a monument to the great tragedy of what is lost when strained budgets and overcrowding transform prison from a house of restorative justice into a warehouse of nothing more redemptive than mere punishment.

When Pornchai was twelve years old, a year before becoming a homeless teen in Bangor, Maine, he had a paper route.  It is an ironic twist of fate that at just about the time Andy Dufresne and Red, sprang from the mind and pen of Stephen King, Pornchai was delivering the Bangor Daily News to his home.

Reflecting back on the reconstruction of his life against daunting obstacles, Pornchai once told me, “I woke up one day with a future, when up to now all I ever had was a past.” In the years to follow Pornchai’s transformation, he finally emerged from prison after 30 years to face deportation to Thailand, the place from which he had been taken at age 11. I wrote about this transformation, both for him and for me, in “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom.”

Pornchai emerged from a plane in Bangkok, unshackled after a 24-hour flight to begin a life that he was starting over in what for him was as a stranger in a strange land. He handed his future over to Divine Mercy and now, five years after his arrival in Thailand, he is home, and he is free in nearly every sense of those words.

In The Shawshank Redemption, the innocent prisoner Andy Dusfresne escaped from his cage decades after entering it. He had written to his friend Red about the hopes of one day joining him in freedom. Red had no way to conceive that as even possible.

Like Morgan Freeman’s character, Red, I revel in the very thought of my friend’s freedom, even into the dense fog of a future we cannot see. We both dream of my joining him there in freedom one day.  It’s only a dream, and by their very nature, dreams defy reality.

But I cannot help remembering those final words that Stephen King gave to Andy Dufresne’s friend, Red, as he finally emerged from Shawshank.  We cling to those words as we cling to the preservation of life itself, while otherwise adrift on a tumultuous and never-ending sea:

I am so excited I can hardly hold the pen in my trembling hand. I think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

I hope Andy is down there.

I hope I can make it across the border.

I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.

I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.

I hope.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Authors generally prefer their own writing to any screenplay that transforms it into a movie. In an interview, Stephen King said that the film version of The Shawshank Redemption had the opposite effect: “The story had heart. The movie has more.” I have always been grateful to Mr. King for writing that story for Pornchai Max and I were unwitting characters within it, and our own character was somehow shaped by it. There is more to this story in the following posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Parable of the Prisoner by Michael Brandon

For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand

On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized

Archangel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

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

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

Iran, by Another Name, Was Once the Savior of Israel

A story out of time for our time: The Prophet Isaiah wrote of Cyrus, King of Persia (now Iran) who knew not God but was chosen by God to restore freedom to Israel.

A story out of time for our time: The Prophet Isaiah wrote of Cyrus, King of Persia (now Iran) who knew not God but was chosen by God to restore freedom to Israel.

June 25, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

It is hard for me to NOT write about some developments especially when they fall within the realm of human rights and religious freedom. If I fail to address what seems to engulf the attention of entire nations, then I feel as though I am overlooking the elephant in the sacristy. The world was riveted to events in Iran, Israel, and the United States on Saturday, June 21, 2025. There is a backstory that rises up out of ancient times in the same place where nuclear Armageddon was possibly prevented on that day.

This post is about Cyrus the Great, the Sixth Century BC conqueror and King of the Persian Empire in what is now modern day Iran. King Cyrus is the subject of a reading from the Prophet Isaiah (45:1):

“Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed.”

Read on, please, because this Cyrus, pulled from the pages of Biblical history as the ancestor of contemporary Iran, was once the salvation of Israel.

In Defense of Jerusalem

“Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, subduing nations before him, and making kings run in his service, opening doors before him, and leaving the gates unbarred: For the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen one, I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides me. It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am the Lord. There is no other.”

— Isaiah 45:1, 4-6

There is little known of the Prophet Isaiah except that he lived in Jerusalem and his prophetic activity extended from about 740 BC to 701 BC, a period of about forty years. In the passage above, the Lord, through Isaiah, is addressing a man named Cyrus who is called by God and given power and a title, “though you knew me not.” The power and authority given to Cyrus is not for Cyrus, but rather so that “the people may know that there is none besides me. I am the Lord.”

Two centuries after the prophesies of Isaiah, in 597 BC, Israel fell under the armies of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. This account, told in the Second Book of Kings (Ch. 24ff) resulted in two waves of exile of the Jews into Babylon. In the first wave, in 597 BC, Israel’s leaders were compromised and taken away. This undermining of the leaders was for the purpose of destroying the religious identity of the people. Then, in 586 BC, the real devastation came. Babylon destroyed the Temple and the entire city of Jerusalem, and sent the remaining Jews into exile.

Then, some two centuries after first appearing in the prophecy of Isaiah, God took the right hand of a man named Cyrus, who knew not God, and subdued nations before him, placed kings in his service, opened doors and unbarred gates just as predicted. Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and all its surrounding regions to become first King of the Persian Empire — which again includes present-day Iran. Cyrus did not live a lifestyle that the People of God had any reason to respect. He did not appear to believe in anything but himself.

But Cyrus had one quirky trait that seemed to have been instilled in him by a much Higher Authority. Despite his personally sinful lifestyle and quest for Earthly powers, Cyrus developed a deep respect for the Jews and their Faith, even though he personally shared in none of it. The Lord God had groomed him, knocked down kingdoms before him, so Cyrus did what only the Emperor of the Persian Empire could do. He issued an edict ordering the reconstruction of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple, and he returned the Chosen People from their fifty-year exile in 539 BC to the land of Israel earning him an honored place in Judaism and Salvation History as Israel’s Redeemer.

The Prophet Ezra and the Decree of Cyrus

The Prophet Isaiah presents Cyrus as appearing in about 545 BC as the hope for Jerusalem. He is bestowed by Isaiah with a rather lofty title, “the anointed of Yahweh.” Such a title marked the beginning of the Age of Messianic Prophecy for Israel. The title would have been seen as a great insult to the Jews, but in forced exile they came to view Cyrus for his present actions and not his past pursuits. Isaiah (44:28) expanded his title to “Shepherd of Israel,” in recognition of the strangest trait that was found in him: his almost obsessive insistence on the promotion of religious liberty and the establishment of laws that will guarantee and protect it for the Jewish People and for Israel.

In regard to the restoration of Israel, this hope was fulfilled in 538 BC when Cyrus ordered the protection of the Jews and their return to Jerusalem to oversee the rebuilding of their Temple from the treasury of the Persian Empire. The full text of the Decree of Cyrus appears in the Book of the Prophet Ezra (6:3-5), a passage once doubted for its authenticity but now accepted as authentic by modern Scripture scholars:


“In the first year of Cyrus the King, a decree concerning the House of God in Jerusalem: Let the House be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices are offered and burnt offerings are brought. Its height shall be sixty cubits and its breadth sixty cubits with three courses of great stone and one course of timber. Let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. And also let the gold and silver vessels of the House of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the Temple and brought to Babylon, be restored to Israel and returned to the Temple in Jerusalem, each to its place in the House of God.”

— Ezra 6:3-5


The Prophet Ezra went on to describe that some of the restoration of Jerusalem was interrupted by local vassal kings who did not believe that the conquering tyrant, Cyrus, would issue such an order. A complaint was made by a local governor to Darius I, King of Hystaspis, that the Jews were rebuilding the city. Darius then found an authenticated copy of the Decree of Cyrus, and ordered that the Temple and reconstruction of the city will be continued with no further hindrance. This was the same King Darius, by the way, who threw Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:6ff).

Is there a point of understanding to be considered from all this in our present time? Only you can arrive at such a conclusion. I have already arrived at mine, and I must come down on the side of religious liberty and those, some of whom knew not God, who are nonetheless chosen and set in place to bring it about for those in Covenant with God.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post, which strives to bring context out of the past and into the present for a story that is consuming our news. In the Seventh Century AD, some 1,200 years after the events described in this post, Arabs brought Islam to the Middle East and it spread.

You might also like these related posts out of history:

Behold the Lamb of God Upon the Altar of Mount Moriah

Qumran: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coming Apocalypse

Left in Afghanistan: Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS-K, Credibility

On Good Authority, “Salvation Is from the Jews”

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

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

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

Science and Faith and the Big Bang Theory of Creation

The discovery of cosmic ripples from the birth of the Universe is evidence beyond reasonable doubt of the Big Bang theory first proposed by Fr Georges Lemaitre.

The discovery of cosmic ripples from the birth of the Universe is evidence beyond reasonable doubt of the Big Bang theory first proposed by Fr Georges Lemaitre (pictured above with Albert Einstein and Fr Andrew Pinsent)

June 18, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

Genesis 1:1-3

When my friend Augie was back in 2014, he used to like to stop by my room to compare notes about our favorite TV shows. We had been mesmerized by the return of Jack Bauer’s 24 back then, and we were eagerly awaiting the extra-terrestrial return of Falling Skies. One day when Augie came by my door he asked, “What do you think of The Big Bang Theory? “ I was so glad he asked. I launched into a 15-minute analysis of the science of modern cosmology and the meaning of the so-called Big Bang for both science and faith. When I finished, Augie looked dazed and said, “Umm…I meant the TV show!”

Then Mike Ciresi (“Coming Home to the Catholic Faith I Left Behind”) stopped by and asked, “What are you writing about this week?” “The Big Bang Theory,” I replied, hoping for another chance to spout off my explanation of the Cosmos. “Oh, I LOVE that show,” said Mike as he made a hasty retreat.

Okay, what had I been missing? Despite its being the most watched show on television, I had never seen an episode of the CBS hit, “The Big Bang Theory. So I watched a few reruns. The show turned all social science on its head. I had no idea nerds were now “in!” And they even had girlfriends! Nerdhood had sure changed since I studied physics!

Alas, however, it was the OTHER Big Bang theory that I am taking on this week, but I implore you not to click me away just yet. I MUST write about this, and I hope you will read on. I am not quite as funny as Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj, and of course Penny! I can only be that funny when I’m trying hard NOT to be funny! Like now!

I must write about the Big Bang theory for two reasons. First and foremost, a new discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation was big news a few years ago because it lent evidence beyond reasonable doubt to the truth of the science behind the Big Bang, a discovery first proposed by a Catholic priest who turned Twentieth Century cosmology on its head. I want to write about what this means for both the science of cosmology and the faith that we have all invested into a notion that this Universe was created by God. I will get back to that.

Finally, I must write about this because I was somehow thrown into the ring of debate about what it all means. My name showed up on a Facebook page for a quantum physics website. Mary Anne O’Hare posted in response to an article about the implications of so-called parallel universes and the “Many Worlds” theory:

“Gordon J. MacRae is one of the best authors who melds science with faith. Would be interested in his feedback.”

Thank you, Mary…I think! However, the ego bubble you built was burst just moments after I read your remark. BTSW reader Liz McKernan from England sent me a clipping from the (UK) Catholic Herald. It reminded me that my paranormal quest for science and truth beyond these stone walls is dwarfed by another priest, the U.K.’s Father Andrew Pinsent. He is one of the most accurate and prolific contemporary writers and bridge builders in the realm of science and faith. Liz McKernan’s clipping detailed Father Pinsent’s presentation to a packed room at the Newman Forum on “The Alleged Conflict Between Faith and Science.”

Are Science and Faith Mutually Exclusive?

When I decided to profile the work of Father Andrew Pinsent, I was surprised to learn (Ahem! Ahem!) that he also happens to be a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls. You also may recall a previous post of mine that revealed a connection between Father Georges Lemaitre and our friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri whose Belgian Godfather, Pierre Matthews, was a close family friend of Father Lemaitre. The photo above depicts Pierre Matthews and Fr. Lemaitre together during a family vacation. It came as a great shock to me to learn that Pornchai, my roommate of the previous 15 years, is probably the only person on Earth who can say that his Godfather’s Godfather is the Father of the Big Bang and Modern Cosmology.

Before I delve further into Father Andrew Pinsent’s defense of the truth about Catholic contributions to science, however, I want to comment on another television show I awaited with great anticipation. The FOX -TV production of Cosmos hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is terrific despite one very unfortunate and inaccurate anti-Catholic slur in its first segment: “The Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition and its sole purpose was to torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs.”

It seems the Cosmos writers have been reading far too much of the sort of shoddy revisionist history put forth by novelists like Dan Brown. As the University of Dayton historian, Thomas Madden, pointed out, the Inquisition formed at a time when much of European society was in a perilous state of disorder, and the order it brought to anarchy saved thousands of lives. More importantly, Professor Madden wrote, “The Catholic Church as an institution had almost nothing to do with” the Inquisition.

The insinuation by a Cosmos background writer was that the Catholic Church has been hostile to science. However, the truth about the relationship between science and faith in the Twentieth Century demonstrates that just the reverse has more often been the case. For much of the later Twentieth Century, a fringe but vocally dominant number of scientists have been far more hostile to religion than religion has been to science. Few living scientists have done more than Father Andrew Pinsent to refute the attempts of this anti-religion fringe to replace faith in God with faith in science by always pointing to the “irrationality of believers.”

Father Pinsent, a doctoral-level physicist with a doctorate in Philosophy, has helped redeem science by exposing the truth about the great contributions to science by Catholic priests. His examples include the Jesuit astrophysicist, Fr Angelo Secchi; the father of the science of genetics, Msgr Gregor Mendel; and of course the astronomer and mathematician, Fr Georges Lemaitre. In this list, I cannot exclude Father Andrew Pinsent himself who after a career at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford is currently professor of Philosophy at one of the most prestigious Catholic seminaries in the United States, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, also known as the Athenaeum.

Science from East of Eden

Still, I greatly respect and admire Neil deGrasse Tyson who went on in Cosmos to repair the damage somewhat by giving Fr Georges Lemaitre due credit as a foundational theorist of modern physics and cosmology right along with Albert Einstein.

The description of Father Lemaitre’s discovery as “The Big Bang” actually began as a term of mockery of his idea. The term first appeared in 1949, more than two decades after Lemaitre first proposed his theory. The prevailing winds of scientific thought for much of the first half of the Twentieth Century had settled on a belief that the Universe was not “created” at all, but had always existed, had no beginning, and will have no end. In that sense, for science, the Universe itself replaced God as eternal and without an origin. This was the accepted view, even by Einstein.

It was this predominant view that relegated the Judeo-Christian understanding of Creation to the shelf, treating it, and all religion, as a quaint anachronism stubbornly clinging to bygone days of scientific ignorance. Science attempted to remove all rational belief from our Biblical Creation account, and declared it to be a myth in the way we popularly understand myth. In mid-Twentieth Century science, God was obsolete, and some in philosophy were soon to follow with “God is dead!” Many in science held that if science could so undermine the very first awareness of man that God is Creator, all the rest of Judeo-Christian faith would eventually crumble.

Then, in the 1920s and 1930s, along came a brilliant mathematician-priest who subjected the conclusions of science to the rigors of mathematics. I wrote about the challenge this priest posed to the prevailing winds of science in “A Day Without Yesterday: Father Georges Lemaitre and the Big Bang.” Father Lemaitre was much respected by Albert Einstein, but far more for his mind than for his faith. At a 1933 conference in Brussels exposing his Theory of General Relativity, Einstein was asked if he believed it was understood at all by most of the scientists present. Einstein replied, “By Professor D. perhaps, and certainly by Lemaitre; as for the rest, I don’t think so.”

However, Einstein also had a fundamental disagreement with Father Lemaitre, though one — to the consternation of many in science — that was short-lived. Lemaitre used mathematics to present a model of the Universe based on Einstein’s own Theory of General Relativity which proposed that mass and energy create curvature of space-time causing particles of matter to follow a curved trajectory. Gravity, therefore, would bend not only matter, but light and even space itself. This had profound implications for science and was radically different from the reigning Newtonian physics which held that space is absolute and linear.

Even while demonstrating relativity, Einstein held to a “Steady State” theory of the Universe as being eternal, without beginning or end, and static. Using Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, Father Lemaitre created a mathematical model for the origin of the Universe concluding in 1927 that the Universe — including space and time — came into existence suddenly, some 13.7 billion years ago, from an explosive expansion of a tiny singularity that he called the “Primeval Atom.” The Universe, and time, were born on a day without yesterday. Suddenly, a created Universe was back on the scientific table and is now the scientifically accepted truth.

Father Lemaitre conceived of nothing in existence but the relatively tiny speck into which was contained all matter and energy that we now know as the Universe. In an infinitesimal fraction of a second, the Universe came into being in a moment of immeasurable heat and light. The resistance to this view within the scientific community was enormous. As Father Andrew Pinsent himself once wrote to me:

“As late as 1948 astronomers in the Soviet Union were urged to oppose the Big Bang theory because they were told it was ‘encouraging clericalism.’ People tend to forget that the world’s first atheist state in effect banned the Big Bang and genetics, both invented by priests, for more than thirty years.”

Einstein studied Lemaitre’s 1927 paper intensely, but could find no fault in the mathematics behind his proposal. Einstein would not be a slave to mathematics, however, and simply could not conceive of his instinct about the mechanics of the Universe being wrong. “Your mathematics is perfect,” he told the priest, “but your physics is abominable.” Einstein would one day take back those words.

Two years later, in 1929, the astronomer Edwin Hubble — in whose honor is named the Hubble Space Telescope — demonstrated that the Universe was in fact not only not static, as Einstein insisted, but expanding. This lent scientific weight to Father Lemaitre’s Primeval Atom because if the Universe is expanding, then logic held that in the far distant past it must have been much, much smaller while containing the same matter, mass, and energy. In fact, Physicist Stephen Hawking would decades later calculate the density of the Primeval Atom in tons per square inch to be one followed by seventy-two zeros.

Lemaitre’s model traced the origin of the Universe back 13.7 billion years to a point of immeasurable mass and density that suddenly expanded giving birth not only to matter, but to the space-time continuum itself. Appearing at a symposium with Father Lemaitre in 1933, Einstein stood and applauded the priest declaring that his view — which is today called the Standard Model of Cosmology — “Is the most beautiful explanation of creation I have ever heard.”

Cosmic Ripples

“Let there be light!” was back in the parlance of scientific truth. Though not many cosmologists were ready to embrace the Biblical account of Creation as being the sudden appearance of immense light upon the command of God, the science suddenly supported a belief in a Universe with a genesis “created from nothing.” In 1965, Bell Laboratory technicians Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected the background radiation from the Big Bang. They were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of the background signature of Father Lemaitre’s expansion of the Universe on a day without yesterday.

Early in 2014, astronomers announced the discovery of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation permeating the Universe caused from the ripples left over from the moment of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Even for the rigors of science and what constitutes proof, there is no longer reasonable doubt within reputable science that Father Georges Lemaitre was right.

But if you are having trouble bending your mind around all this, please don’t ask what God did before the Big Bang. On that day, time itself was created so there was no “before.” That’s a mind-boggling post for another day. And as for those theories about multiple worlds and parallel universes that Mary Anne O’Hare wanted my opinion on, the idea is theoretical, entirely without evidence, and not technically, at this juncture, in the realm of science. In a terrific book, Why Science Does Not Disprove God (William Morrow 2014) mathematician-author Amir D. Aczel described multiverse theory as a sort of “atheism of the gaps,” an attempt to plug theoretical scientific holes with anything BUT religious ideas. As G.K. Chesterton once said:

“People who do not believe in God do not believe in nothing. They believe in anything!”

The great contemporary priest-scientist, Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, wrote a wonderful book about God’s intervention in our science, Christ, Science, and Reason. Father Spitzer referred to Father Georges Lemaitre as “the founder of modern cosmology.” He quoted Albert Einstein as stating that Father Lemaitre’s discovery “is the finest description of Creation that I have ever heard.” We should find great hope in the fact that the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the findings of modern cosmology are now on the same page about the origin of the Universe as coming into existence “out of nothing.” We should have no fear after that. Surely, the God Who could do this would have no problem arranging eternal life for us who believe.

Another friend just came by to ask me what I am writing about. Finally, my moment had arrived! “What do you know about the Big Bang Theory?” I asked. The young man pondered the question for a moment then said, “I like Sheldon the best.” I can’t win!

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Important Message to Readers of Beyond These Stone Walls:

In 2020, 11 years after this blog began, we were forced to shut it down and start over. I described the circumstances for this in a 2020 post, “Life Goes On Behind and Beyond These Stone Walls.”

However, this transition left over 500 posts behind in the older version of this blog, but still discoverable in search engines, but without proper formatting.

Restoring and updating 500+ posts is a daunting task. So I choose posts to update based on how often they show up in reader searches. It amazes me that hundreds of our older posts are still being routinely read.

This week’s post was first published in 2014, but it shows up repeatedly in new searches. So we have restored and substantially updated it with new information for posting anew.

You may also like these related posts which have also been restored:

Life Goes On Behind and Beyond These Stone Walls

Fr Georges Lemaître, the Priest Who Discovered the Big Bang

“A Day Without Yesterday:” Father Georges Lemaitre and The Big Bang

The James Webb Space Telescope and an Encore from Hubble

For Those Who Look at the Stars and See Only Stars

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

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

 
Read More