“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 6/4/25 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 6/4/25

Goodbye, Good Men: How Progressive Bishops Sabotage Vocations

Two studies show that major ideological differences between bishops and their priests and seminarians are destructive of vocations to priesthood and religious life.

Two studies show that major ideological differences between bishops and their priests and seminarians are destructive of vocations to priesthood and religious life.

June 4, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

On June 5, 2025, the day after this is posted, I mark forty-three years of priesthood. Thirty one of those years have been spent in wrongful imprisonment, and the last sixteen of them have been lived out in your presence through this blog. Reflecting on priesthood in these circumstances has always been a challenge. Even as I offered Mass alone in my cell last Sunday night, I was struck by the absolute absence of anything or anyone around me that supports even the idea of priesthood. But yet, here I am. I reached into an older post with elements that may sound a little familiar by their repetition, but it is important that I uphold them. I do not want my life as a priest to go the way of my favorite Willie Nelson song about the things I should have said and done.

Not long ago, I was surprised to be bestowed with the honor of membership in The Catholic Writers Guild. One of my first thoughts as I plugged in my typewriter today is that this might be the post that gets me kicked out. We are in one of the strangest times in the life of the Church and in the ministry of bishops and priests that we have seen in many centuries. There have been times almost as strange, but the difference is that you were kept from knowing about them.

My priesthood ordination took place on June 5, 1982 at St. John the Evangelist Church in Hudson, New Hampshire. It did not start off well. There was another candidate for ordination that year, but he fled just days before. Someone then scrambled to revise and reprint the program for the Mass of Ordination. It was presided over by The Most Reverend Odore Gendron, Bishop of Manchester. That was four bishops ago.

Like most Catholic priests in America, I was ordained on a Saturday afternoon. Unlike most, I was ordained alone. Such a thing became a more prevalent phenomenon, however, as the signs of the times began to reflect the sins of the times. In the 1970s and 1980s, fewer men found the courage for such a counter-cultural commitment as the Catholic priesthood, a response I will be presenting in a special restored post for Pentecost this week. That post will describe the story behind the story of the gathering of the Apostles at Pentecost. The Acts of the Apostles (1:13) reports that the Eleven — Judas had come to ruin — came to Jerusalem in the company of Mary, Mother of the Resurrected Jesus, to mark the Pilgrimage Feast of Weeks fifty days after the spring celebration described in the Book of Leviticus (23:15-16). Among the Greek-speaking Jews of the New Testament, it came to be called Pentecost for “fiftieth day.”

Pentecost had long been a Jewish festival but it became a Christian feast when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles in Jerusalem in the form of a mighty wind and tongues of fire. Immediately after, the newborn Church saw its first scandal as Peter rose to defend the Apostles against a false accusation that they were all intoxicated at 9:00 in the morning (Acts 2:15).

One of my most vivid memories of my ordination is lying prostrate alone on the floor before the altar while a choir intoned for a packed church the Litany of Saints. I had a moment of terror on that floor as I imagined my sister shouting at me from a pew several feet away, “Get up, you fool! Flee!” I later asked my sister if she actually had such a thought. “Yup, that was me.”

Thirty-one years later in 2013 Dorothy Rabinowitz was writing “The Trials of Father MacRae,” her third in a series for The Wall Street Journal. She interviewed my sister who spoke candidly with a comment that never made its way into the articles. “The Catholic Church took my brother,” my sister said, “And now look what they have done to him.”

I have written of this in past Ordination Anniversary posts, but many people have since asked me The Big Question. If I knew then what I know now, would I have joined John, the man who was to be ordained with me, in flight from this fate?

The Signs of the Times

Back in 2012, Anne Hendershott penned a research study for The Catholic World Report entitled, “Called by Name.” There were some interesting statistics analyzed in the study. In 2010 in the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, a region that is 79-percent Catholic, there were no priesthood ordinations.

In the same year in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, a region that is only 17-percent Catholic, there were seven ordinations to the priesthood. In Portland, Oregon, the population of which is only 16-percent Catholic, there were nine ordinations in 2010. Researchers suggested that areas with large Latino populations may have fewer candidates for priesthood.

That turned out to be untrue. In the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas in 2010 there were seven priesthood ordinations and most were Latino. But across the nation in 2010, the number of priesthood ordinations and their ratio to the Catholic population varied greatly. Something less obvious was driving this.

In 1996, then Omaha, Nebraska Archbishop Elden Curtis penned an article entitled “Crisis in Vocations? What Crisis?” He theorized with some compelling data to back it up, that the attitudes and strength of fidelity in Church leadership is the number one causal factor in reduced numbers of viable candidates for priesthood. Archbishop Curtis wrote:

“When dioceses and religious communities are unambiguous about the ordained priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines these calls; when there is strong support for vocations, and a minimum of dissent about the male celibate priesthood and religious life; when there is loyalty to the Magisterium; when the bishops, priests, religious and lay people are united in vocation ministry — then there are documented increases in vocations. Young people do not want to commit themselves to dioceses or communities that permit or simply ignore dissent from Church doctrine”

— Archbishop Elden Curtis

In her article for The Catholic World Report cited above, Anne Hendershott analyzed a study by Andrew Yuengert, a Pepperdine University sociologist, who tried to quantify the observations of Archbishop Curtis about the connection between priesthood vocations and the attitudes and fidelity of Church leaders. He discovered some fascinating corollaries.

Andrew Yuengert found that dioceses with bishops ordained in the 1970s had significantly lower numbers of priesthood vocations than those with bishops ordained before or later. He found that corollary to be most prominent in the ordination statistics of bishops who were characterized as orthodox or progressive. Of interest, he discovered that bishops who regularly published articles in America magazine — considered to be more liberal — fostered fewer vocations than bishops who were more likely to publish articles in The Catholic Answer, considered to be more orthodox.

There was another interesting corollary in the Yuengert study. You may remember the great controversy at the University of Notre Dame in 2009 when then-President Barack Obama was invited to give the Commencement Address and was bestowed with an honorary degree.

At the time, eighty-three U.S. bishops signed a formal statement disapproving of the University administration’s decision to bestow an honorary degree on the openly pro-abortion President Obama who worked to expand access to abortion throughout the U.S. and the world. Yuengert discovered in this another unexpected corollary: Many of the 83 bishops who signed that statement led dioceses with the highest percentages of priesthood ordinations in the country.

The Sins of the Times

I have heard many horror stories from priests ordained in the 1970s and 1980s that the seminaries they were sent to were anything but loyal to the Magisterium and supportive of priestly vocations. I have a horror story of my own that I wrote about a decade ago. It is worth repeating because it was typical of the sins of the times in the 1970s and 1980s, the era in which the decline of priesthood was set in motion.

Following my 1978 graduation from St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, I was making a transition from religious life as a Capuchin to study for diocesan priesthood. I had requested to study at St. John’s Seminary in the Archdiocese of Boston which was where I grew up. I was sent instead to Baltimore. This story took place in the fall of 1979 in my second year of graduate theological studies at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore. St. Mary’s was at the time considered to be the most academically challenging and most theologically liberal of U.S. seminaries. It was called “The Harvard of seminaries,” but it also had a reputation for fostering — even demanding — dissent.

There were about 160 seminarians from some 40 U.S. dioceses studying for priesthood at St. Mary’s then. It had a capacity for more than twice that number, a reality that created an atmosphere of competition between national seminaries (as opposed to local seminaries like St. John’s in Boston). Though St. Mary’s has undergone a complete revision of its direction since then, in the 1970s and 1980s it was known among priests as a birthplace of theological dissent.

The atmosphere reflected that. Seminarians never wore any form of clerical attire, and would have been laughed out the door if they did. The beautiful main chapel was used for Mass only once per week — on Wednesday nights where a weekly seminary-wide liturgy took place, often hosting clown masses, experimental music (“Dust in the Wind” by Kansas was once the Communion hymn).

There were many liturgical abuses, and any refutation earned the commenter a notation of “theologically rigid” in his file. Other weekday masses were held in small groups in faculty quarters. On Sundays, seminarians were on their own, encouraged to attend Mass at one of several Baltimore parishes. Some rarely ever attended Mass at all.

In 1979, a rift of sorts formed between the seminary rector and those planning for a U.S. visit by Pope John Paul II at the end of the first year of his pontificate. In October, 1979, Pope John Paul II spent six eventful days in the United States, visiting Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Iowa, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

One of the highlights of the visit was Pope John Paul’s address to the United Nations General Assembly on October 2, 1979. He stressed the theme of human rights and the dignity of the person, deploring violations of religious freedoms. However, most of the 67 addresses given by Pope John Paul II during his visit were directed to Catholics and stressed their responsibilities as believing members of the Church.

The messages were conservative in tone and contained unqualified condemnations of abortion, artificial birth control, homosexual practice, and premarital and extramarital sex. The Pope reminded priests of the permanency of their ordination vows and also ruled out the possibility of ordination for women, bringing protests from a number of misguided Catholic activists.

Little of Pope John Paul’s vision for the Church in the modern world was received with any enthusiasm by the administration and faculty of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. It was in the weeks before this momentous visit that all hell broke loose at St. Mary’s. The seminary rector, Father Leonard Foisy, now deceased, was a priest of my diocese and a member of the Congregation of St. Sulpice — aka The Sulpicians — which ran the nation’s oldest seminary since its founding some 200 years earlier.

Just weeks before Pope John Paul’s planned visit, it was somehow learned that all seminarians from several major seminaries in the region were invited by the Holy Father to take part in a Mass for seminarians on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Upwards of a thousand seminarians were to have special seating with an expected crowd of 100,000.

Seminarians at St. Mary’s in Baltimore, one hour from Washington, DC, however, were never told of the invitation, nor were we told that the Seminary Rector had declined it on our behalf for reasons that he refused to divulge. The resultant furor was shocking; not only for the majority liberal seminarians, but for the administration and faculty who just assumed that we would disdain the theology and vision of Pope John Paul II just as much as they did. A line had been crossed that threatened to sever our identity as future priests.

A letter of protest was quickly drafted and signed by more than half of the 160 seminarians representing some forty dioceses across the land. I was one of the signatories of that letter, a fact that the Rector took very personally because we represented the same diocese, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. As a result, I was labeled a disobedient rebel.

A seminary-wide meeting was held, and the Rector doubled down on his rejection of the papal invitation. He warned that anyone who attempted to attend the Pope’s Mass one hour away in Washington would not receive permission to do so, and would receive failing grades for any course work assigned for that day. He also said that several crucial exams would be held that day and failing grades would be reported back to the diocese of each seminarian along with a report of disobedience to his legitimate authority.

Needless to say, we went anyway. No one has a vocation to the seminary.

The Priest Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

The graphic above is not a real book, so please don’t try to order it from Amazon. It was created by the BTSW editor in response to a post of mine that stirred an uproar when first posted in November, 2013.

That post publicly refuted another priest who published a letter in Our Sunday Visitor calling for expanded use of the death penalty in the United States. As a prisoner-priest, I wrote in favor of mercy. But it was I, and not he, who kicked the hornet’s nest.

Back to the seminary: One factor that struck me at St. Mary’s in the 1970s was the unwillingness of some bishops to become involved in — or even aware of — the training of their future priests. Formal complaints from seminarians about the blatant disregard for Pope John Paul II by seminary administration were ignored by most of the bishops who received them.

Some of the more traditional seminarians survived only because they were academically brilliant. They became the priests who kicked the hornet’s nest merely for refusing to either bend in their fidelity or be driven out as candidates for priesthood.

In the years since my ordination, I have heard many stories from priests whose priestly spirits were wounded in a kind of spiritual abuse that characterized their seminary years. Perhaps some will comment here.

In January 2023, I wrote and posted “Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study.” It is a most important document that especially needs the Church’s attention at this time of great transition in Rome. A good deal of pressure had been placed by the previous pontificate upon those who have come to express their devotion and find spiritual solace in the Traditional Latin Mass. The Catholic University of American Study examines what has been happening in the breech between more liberal bishops and younger more conservative priests. The absolutism of disdain from upper levels for more conservative and traditional expressions of Catholicism has had the effect of driving people toward Tradition, and not from it. In more recent times some bishops have reacted to this by edict and fiat rather than by leadership. One newly appointed bishop in an East-coast diocese has created a great stir by forcing any observants of the Traditional Latin Mass into the rural hinterlands in his diocese. The previous bishop there had opened a seminary which has attracted a significant number of candidates for priesthood. It remains to be seen what becomes of them, but they should henceforth be treated as a treasure of the Church and not as an experiment. Anything less is to repeat a grave mistake from the 1970s captured in the book, Goodbye, Good Men.

When you think about it rationally, the Traditional Mass, which at one time was the only Mass, seems a very strange place for any bishop to plant his flag on a hill of battle with the People of God. As I pointed out in these pages one week ago, “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Sharing this, along with one or two of the timely posts below, just may be a Corporal Work of Mercy for someone else:

Did Leo XIV Bring a Catholic Awakening Or Was It the Other Way Around?

In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men

Priests in crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam

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.”

Fr. Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD 4/2/25 Fr. Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD 4/2/25

Vatican Bans Publishing Lists of ‘Credibly’ Accused Priests

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts, two other Vatican Dicasteries, and Pope Francis himself have banned publishing lists of priests ‘credibly’ accused.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts, two other Vatican Dicasteries, and Pope Francis himself have banned publishing lists of priests ‘credibly’ accused.

April 2, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: This post may not move hearts, but it should move minds and consciences. It is of utmost importance to me, to the priesthood and to the whole Church. So we should not be silent in the face of injustice. So please share this post.

+ + +

On February 22, 2025, the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, the Vatican office responsible for issuing authoritative legal interpretations and directives for the universal Church, published online a long awaited guidance to bishops impacting the due process rights of “credibly accused” Catholic priests.

The announcement underscores the Dicastery’s decision that bishops considering publication of lists of priests deemed credibly accused of sexual abuse are prohibited under Canon Law from doing so. This guidance is for a multitude of reasons connected to long established civil and canonical rights of due process. I will describe below some examples of how these rights have been impacted.

From the point of view of official Church positions, the problem is, and has always been, the bishops’ collective interpretation and use of the term “credible” in their response to the crisis. It is a standard applied nowhere else in the world of civil or criminal jurisprudence. It means only that a claim of abuse cannot be immediately dismissed on its face. If a claimant alleges abuse in a specific community 30 or 40 years ago, for example, and the named priest had once been assigned there, the claim is “credible” unless and until it is disproven.

There is no court in America that admits such a standard of evidence but it is routinely applied now to accused Catholic priests. Courts have long recognized that older memories are highly malleable, and misidentification of the accused is a frequent risk.

Before delving further into this, I want to present a reaction to the Vatican news from William A. Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who has consistently defended the due process rights of priests.

From Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Vatican Finally Does Right by Accused Priests

Six years after Pope Francis rejected the practice of publishing the names of accused priests, the Vatican has finally codified his plea. Henceforth, dioceses are discouraged from publishing such a list. Among the reasons cited was the inability of deceased accused priests to defend themselves.

This should never have been an issue in the first place. But in the panic that ensued following the 2002 series in The Boston Globe detailing clergy sexual abuse, the bishops convened in Dallas in 2004 to adopt a charter that listed comprehensive reforms, some of which substantially weakened the rights of the accused.

At the time, I was highly critical of the way some bishops allowed a gay subculture to flourish, one that resulted in a massive cover-up of the sexual abuse of minors (homosexual priests — not pedophiles — were responsible for 8 in 10 cases of abuse). But I also said of the Dallas reforms, “There is a problem regarding the rights of the accused. It appears that the charter may short-circuit some due process rights.”

One of the problems was the desire to publish the names of accused priests. Egging the bishops on was Judge Anne Burke, the first person to head the National Review Board commissioned by the bishops to deal with the problem.

She made it clear that priests — and only priests — should be denied their constitutionally prescribed right to due process. “We understand that it is a violation of the priest’s due process rights — you’re innocent until proven guilty — but we’re talking about the most vulnerable people in our society and those are children,” she said. Such thinking allowed the bishops to make public the names of accused priests.

In an interview I had in my office with a female reporter from CNN, she became quite critical of the Church for not posting the names of accused priests on its diocesan websites. I picked up the phone and, holding it in my hand, asked her for the name and phone number of her boss. When she asked why, I said I was going to accuse her of sexual harassment. I added that I wanted to see if CNN would post her name on its website. She said, “I get it.” I put the phone down. (For more on this see my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse).

No organization in the United States, religious or secular, publishes the names of accused employees. That there should be an exception for priests is obscene.

The rights of accused priests need to be safeguarded, and the penalties for those found guilty need to be severe. The Church failed on the latter, which is why the scandal took place, and it failed on the former, which is why Pope Francis, and now the entire Church, had to act.

The sexual abuse of minors in the Church in America has long been checked — almost all the cases in the media are about old cases, and most of the bad guys are dead or out of ministry. Now that the rights of the accused have been given a much needed shot in the arm, we can say with confidence that the problem has been ameliorated.

Now back to Father MacRae............

But My Diocese Employs “Trauma-Informed” Consultants

On July 31, 2019, Bishop Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire proactively published a list of the names and assignment histories of 73 priests in his diocese who had been “credibly” accused of sexual abuse of minors and removed from ministry. Most of the claims deemed “credible” are decades old. The majority of the priests on Bishop Libasci’s list are long deceased. In most cases, the sole condition making the claims “credible” was the fact that money — lots of it — changed hands.

Bishop Libasci’s stated goal for publishing his list was “transparency.” In 2024, long after Pope Francis discouraged bishops from doing so, Bishop Libasci republished the list with the names of additional accused but deceased priests.

Weeks after Bishop Libasci’s original list was publicized in 2019, Ryan A. MacDonald penned and published a contentious objection: “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.” It was contentious because it represented well my disagreement with this action of the bishop of my diocese, something I otherwise hoped to avoid. Plaintiff attorneys and activist groups like SNAP pressured bishops to publish such lists for the purpose of “assuring victims they are not alone and that they are heard.”

The real reason for pushing for published lists, however, was to provide a forum and online database for false “copycat” claims, a lucrative business for contingency lawyers and claimants alike with little or no court oversight. In May 2024, Ryan A. MacDonald published a report on how and why this happens in “To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants.” Here is an excerpt from an official statement of my Diocese:

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

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

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

According to the Center’s website, “The most destructive types of victim-centered investigations are known as “Start by Believing,” and “Trauma-Informed.” The Center exhibits a professional bibliography documenting the “junk science” behind such investigations creating an epidemic of false witness and police and prosecutorial misconduct. Given the well-founded caution about false claims and financial scammers, it was alarming to read the following in a recent news article, “Diocese of Manchester Settles Sexual Abuse Claims from the 1970s.” Here’s an excerpt:

“No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, but the attorney representing the ‘John Doe’ who was involved said it’s important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process, … thus announcing a six-figure settlement outside the Diocese of Manchester office.”

Has it never dawned on anyone in Church leadership that there are those in our midst who would find a “six-figure settlement” an enticement for false accusations? This is especially so when there is no court oversight for such claims. The process has been made very simple. A lawyer writes a letter and a bishop writes a check.

In addition to these trauma-informed consultants retained by the Diocese of Manchester and other dioceses,”it seems that civil lawyers and risk managers, not bishops, are often running the show.” So wrote prominent canon lawyer, Michael Mazza, JD, JCD, in a recent First Things article (February 24, 2025): “Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries?” Mazza concludes:

“ln the wake of the clerical abuse crisis, church leaders may have surrendered too much authority to risk managers focused on eliminating every threat. Seasoned entrepreneurs understand that the moment lawyers run the show, adopting a zero-risk strategy as the business model, the company grinds to a halt. While the surest way for a car company to avoid getting sued is to stop making cars, that strategy is not an option for an institution that has received a divine call to preach the Gospel to all nations. Bishops must recognize this truth and seize the helm with the resolve their office demands.”

The Perspective of a Not-So-Credibly Convicted Priest

My name was on Bishop Libasci’s published list under the unique category, “convicted,” but that was not at all my point of contention with his list. Unlike most of the priests named on that ongoing list, I at least had public charges in a public forum — a 1994 criminal trial — no matter how jaded and unjust it was. The details of those charges and that trial have emerged over time and are also now in public view. They have raised awareness about the absence of truth and the aura of injustice in the forum in which I was condemned and sentenced.

As Ryan A. MacDonald’s article, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List” points out, Bishop Libasci’s predecessor, the late Bishop John B. McCormack, went on record in an unpublished media interview in the aftermath of my trial stating his informed belief that I was falsely accused, wrongly convicted, and should not be in prison. He insisted, however, that this information should never leave his office. These details were exposed in a 2021 post, “Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded.”

Going back even further in this history of neglected due process, Bishop McCormack’s predecessor, the late Bishop Leo O’Neil, chose not to wait for the outcome of a trial. Before my trial commenced, he published an official diocesan press release declaring that I victimized not only my accusers but the entire Catholic Church. After that, a trial seemed just a formality.

The most visible post-trial analysis of due process in the case, however, was that of Dorothy Rabinowitz, awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her courageous exposure of “accusation, false witness, and other terrors of our time.” Her series of articles in The Wall Street Journal culminated in “The Trials of Father MacRae” in 2013, six years before Bishop Libasci published his list.

In a compelling five-minute video interview produced by The Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz saw through all the smoke and mirrors and got to the heart of the matter. It is a brief but bold exposé of unassailable truth that ties the two-decade outbreak of clergy abuse claims to the very unquestioned settlements money promised by my Diocese in its statements above.

I give the last word to “A Video Interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz.”

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon Mac Rae: I thank Catholic League President Bill Donohue for his contribution to this post. His outstanding book on this subject is The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse (2021) published by Ignatius Press.

I also thank Michael J. Mazza, JD, JCD for letting us reprint a segment of an article that I highly recommend: Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries? First Things, February 24, 2025.

During Lent this year I created a list of our Scriptural posts and published them together under the title “From Ashes to Easter.” We shared the list on several Facebook Catholic groups. In response, Facebook dismissed it as “SPAM,” and then froze our account. (Again!) So we cannot share this post on Facebook, but you can. Thank you for doing so.

You may also like these related and eye-opening posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Aﬃdavits Expanded

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/29/25 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/29/25

Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square

Six years after the death of Richard John Neuhaus, a new biography by Randy Boyagoda echoes his bold, timely, vibrant voice on religion in the public square.

Six years after the death of Richard John Neuhaus, a new biography by Randy Boyagoda echoes his bold, timely, vibrant voice on religion in the public square.

January 29, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae

[Editor’s Note: The following post first appeared in 2015 at an earlier version of this blog. It has been heavily updated with new material by Father Gordon MacRae.]

When I was cast into the exile of unjust imprisonment in 1994, a friend concerned for what he imagined was a dearth of intellectual stimulation here gifted me with a subscription to First Things magazine. It was a gift that expanded a mind trapped in a world of concrete and steel, but it also created a serious problem for me. I simply could not part with the monthly issues that piled up on my cell floor drawing frowns from prison guards. “Why would you keep these?” asked one. “There aren’t even any pictures in them!”

I live in a micromanaged world in which every precious square inch of space must be accounted for, leaving little room for a collection of First Things. So I took a job in the prison library, found an empty shelf, and began what is likely the only collection of First Things spanning fifteen years in a prison library. You might be surprised by how often they are checked out, the lack of pictures notwithstanding.

But there is one issue that has never left my cell. I keep it in a safe place, and return to it twice a year in January and May. It is the April 2009 issue, Number 192, bearing the cover, “Richard John Neuhaus In Memoriam.”

I was simply amazed that, just three months after RJN’s untimely death from the ravages of cancer on January 9, 2009, this collection of essays could be gathered from the friends and colleagues for whom he was the hub in the arena of religion and public life in America. I should say, “in the Americas,” for Richard was Canadian by birth and his voice was as influential to our north as it was here in the U.S.

I keep this issue close because when Father Richard left this world, I could partake of none of the usual rituals with which we say goodbye. So I never said goodbye. Through the words of those who loved and cherished his company, he is still very much here, and I am grateful for that.

I have written of this before, so forgive my repetition, but my first inkling that something was amiss with Richard’s health came in a handwritten note from Steve Oslica in October of 2008. He had been in New York and attended a Mass offered by Father Richard. “Keep Father Neuhaus in your prayers,” Steve wrote. “I think he is dealing with some health issues.” Two months later, he was gone. Father Richard John Neuhaus left this world in the Lord’s friendship on January 9, 2009.

He also left dangling the friendship of countless others, including mine, though it was a friendship formed almost entirely through mutual friends, and in a dynamic exchange of letters to and from prison that spanned the last decade of his life. His influence upon me within these prison walls is directly proportional to the void that he left here.

A month after his death, I received the kindest of notes, dated February 17, 2009, from the Honorable Mary Ann Glendon, just returned from her post as United States Ambassador to the Holy See:

“Greetings from Boston — It’s good to be home again. I have just returned from a meeting in NYC to discuss the continuation of First Things and other aspects of Father Neuhaus’ work. I know you must be feeling his loss as keenly as the rest of us who depended on his leadership in so many ways.”

I was so deeply grateful to Ambassador Glendon. The brief letter filled in for me what had been lacking in the absence of ritual and sacrament to acknowledge death. Then, that April when First Things published its truly wonderful “In Memoriam” issue, I stored that letter within it, and marveled at the wit and wisdom and deeply felt love and respect that issue contains.

Of the dozens of profound and moving remembrances paying tribute to RJN, my favorite was, and still is, one entitled “Canadian Summers” by Father Tim Moyle of the Diocese of Pembroke, Ontario, who today reads Beyond These Stone Walls on occasion. Father Tim wrote of a long friendship with Richard and of the impact of one of his lesser known works, Freedom for Ministry (1979):

“Richard offered a powerful vision of pastoral service. Here he spoke of the importance of finding ways to present the awesome challenge of Jesus Christ to those under one’s pastoral care. By accepting the wonderful ‘challenge of orthodoxy’ that is the placing of Christ at the center of their lives, clergy of all stripes would find the inspiration to minister God’s love to all the baptized as they labored to promote the Kingdom of God. His fraternal care and concern for those who took up the pastoral yoke of Jesus Christ was where his compassion, faith, and profound humility in the face of the paschal mystery shone through the brightest for me.”

For me as well, Father Tim. I revisit this and other essays each May because that is the month of Richard’s birth. It is an irony that Father Richard John Neuhaus was born on May 14, the Feast of Saint Matthias, chosen by lot to complete the Twelve Apostles by filling the vacancy left by Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:21-26). The significance of that for me may be more evident below.

The Biography

Now, six years after RJN’s untimely death, biographer Randy Boyagoda has written a stellar biography of this great good friend and his prodigious voice in the arena of religion in American — and, yes Father Tim, Canadian — public life. Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square (Image Books, 2015) is a timely tribute and a most welcomed addition to the national discussion of the role of religion and faith with which we in the Americas now struggle. In 459 pages, Randy Boyagoda captured well the strength of courage and depth of faith, coupled with a most formidable intellect, that produced the prophetic voice of Richard John Neuhaus. I received it and devoured it with that same old familiar sense of feeling both elated and deflated.

Elated first: A biography about a friend must naturally be approached with some trepidation, and I am not the first to express that thought. In a brief review, former First Things interim editor, Russell E. Saltzman wrote,

“I have never read a biography of someone I knew well. It was with apprehension, then, that I read the galleys of Randy Boyagoda’s biography of Neuhaus … I was having trouble figuring out how anyone could capture Neuhaus whole.”

— Russell E. Saltzman, “New Biography Captures Spirit of One of the Great Catholic Intellectuals,” Feb. 18, 2015

Randy Boyagoda did just that, however. He captured well the man I knew and still know through the pens of the many whose esteem for him ran deep. Boyagoda summarized him as “a bold Christian and a bold intellectual and a bold cosmopolitan and a bold operator, all at once, all as one.”

First Things and Last Things

Few people know the extent of that boldness, professed, at times, at great personal cost to himself. I have a first hand account of it, and to this day Neuhaus is subjected, even in death, to the ridicule he expected — but never feared — on account of his own exercise of justice.

Among the many tributes to RJN, published anew as reviews by Mr. Boyagoda’s wondrous biography, was one I admired greatly. It appeared in the The Wall Street Journal (“From Anti-War Pastor to Pro-Life Priest,” March 27, 2015) by University of Oklahoma History Professor and former First Things Editorial Board member, Wilfred M. McClay. I disagree however, with one point emphasized in both the book and Mr. McClay’s review.

“Mr. Boyagoda does not refrain from faulting some of Neuhaus’ more questionable judgments, such as his playing down of the clergy sex-abuse scandal, which led him to undertake a fierce and misguided defense of Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, who would eventually be exposed as a prodigious sexual abuser and disciplined by Pope Benedict XVI.”

— Wilfred M. McClay, “From Anti-War Pastor to Pro-Life priest,” WSJ, March 27, 2015

Some of the comments on that McClay review at WSJ.com dusted off old prejudices about Catholics, charging that Neuhaus “abandoned the word of God” in his transformation from Lutheran pastor to Catholic priest. Others highlighted what Wilfred McClay termed his “fierce and misguided defense of Father Marcial Maciel.” So I posted two comments of my own, and this is one of them:

“It is a distortion and an injustice to characterize Father Richard John Neuhaus’ concerns for justice in the Church as “playing down the sex-abuse scandals.” He did no such thing. His collection of essays under the title, ‘Scandal Time’ comprised the sanest, most just, and most critical analysis of that crisis in print. Father Neuhaus rightly called upon the U.S. Bishops not to simply replace one injustice with another to appease a scandal hungry media, and the ravenous tort bar.”

The “Scandal Time” essays are compiled and posted in pdf format here at Beyond These Stone Walls. Even a cursory read of them will tell you that Boyagoda’s characterization of this great priest as “bold” is immensely understated. In the face of a modern day witch hunt in the secular media, and, sadly, even the Catholic press as clergy sex abuse scandals unfolded in 2002, the voice of Father Neuhaus was more than bold. It was revolutionary. This one man held back the tide of “availability bias” to give accused priests a singular voice calling for justice, due process, and fairness. And this was after his defense of Marcial Maciel was shown to be flawed and misdirected.

I cannot convey in mere words what this meant to me, personally. Even while being bludgeoned for his misjudgment on Maciel, Father Neuhaus published “A Kafkaesque Tale,” demonstrating to the Catholic Christian community the inconsistency of its application of justice in the wake of the U S Bishops’ “Final Solution,” the 2002 Dallas Charter that blatantly equated accusation with guilt. In this, Richard John Neuhaus stood almost entirely alone in Catholic media in the religious public square.

Father Neuhaus refused to use the apparent guilt of Maciel to undermine justice and due process for other accused Catholic priests even when many other writers were doing just that. To fault Father Neuhaus for this today is to add insult to injustice. Even after his defense of Father Maciel was undermined and criticized, Father Neuhaus published “A Kafkaesque Tale” in the January 2008 edition of First Things:

“Among the many sad consequences of the sex abuse crisis are the injustices visited on priests falsely accused. A particularly egregious case is that of Father Gordon MacRae of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. He was sentenced to sixty-seven years and has been imprisoned more than twelve years with no chance of parole because he insists he is innocent. I have followed the case for several years. Lawyer friends have closely examined the case and believe he was railroaded. The Wall Street Journal ’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz published, on April 27 and 28, 2005, an account of the travesty of justice by which he was convicted. Now the friends of Father MacRae have created a website, BeyondTheseStoneWalls.com, which provides a comprehensive narrative of the case, along with pertinent documentation. Bishop John McCormack, a former aide of Boston’s Cardinal Law, and the Diocese of Manchester do not come off as friends of justice or, for that matter, of elementary decency. You may want to visit the website and read this Kafkaesque tale. And then you may want to pray for Father MacRae, and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

Among His Last Things

Beyond These Stone Walls came into being exactly six months after Father Neuhaus left this world. In part, at least, this blog was his idea, an idea shared and generated by his friend of long standing, Cardinal Avery Dulles. As our “About” page describes, they together wrote, “Your article is an important one, and will hopefully be followed by many others. Your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”

In this call for fairness in the face of a witch hunt, Father Neuhaus came full circle. Born on the Feast of Saint Matthias who resolved the first Judas Crisis in the Church, Father Neuhaus sought to also resolve its newest form as the 21st Century commenced. He and Cardinal Dulles were lone voices in the media glare of 2002, but truth and justice accommodating the acceptable media view is an old practice that history always exposes eventually as deeply flawed.

This boldness extended into First Things as Father Neuhaus published several letters of mine including “Crime and Punishment,” (First Things, November 2008), and “Sin and Risk Aversion” (November 1996). In his last letter to me two months before his death, Father Neuhaus asked, “How does one go about arranging to visit with you?” Upon hearing of his illness I quickly wrote back, assuring him that he had been living the Corporal Works of Mercy for the last decade of our fraternal correspondence — an exchange in which I never once felt like the outcast so many other corners of the Church fashioned for me. This adviser to popes and presidents found room to also quietly live the exhortation of Hebrews 13:3.

+ + +

“Zero tolerance, one strike and you’re out, boot them out of ministry. Of course the victim activists are not satisfied and, sadly, may never be satisfied. The bishops have succeeded in scandalizing the faithful anew by adopting [in the Dallas Charter] a thoroughly unbiblical, untraditional, and un-Catholic approach to sin and grace.… They ended up adopting a policy that was sans repentance, sans conversion, sans forbearance, sans prudential judgment, sans forgiveness, sans almost everything one might have hoped for from the bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

— Richard John Neuhaus, “Scandal Time”, 2008, First Things

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post about my great good friend, Father Richard John Neuhaus. You may also like these related posts:

Pell Contra Mundum: Cardinal Truth on the Synod

Canon Law Conundrum: When Moral Certainty Is Neither Moral Nor Certain

Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age

How I Became the Catholic I Was by Richard John Neuhaus

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

From Arizona State University: An Interview with Our Editor

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

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

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

Prelude from the Student:

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

— an Arizona State University student

+ + +

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What articles do you remember most? Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have any comments left an impression on you? Why?

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

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

I think Father Gordon deserves such a testimonial.

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

+ + +

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+ + +

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

A Voice for the Voiceless: Beyond These Stone Walls

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/10/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/10/24

Neither Donald Trump nor I Should Wear That Scarlet Letter!

Convicted felon is a label bestowed like a scarlet letter solely to shame another. The real shame is when it is used selectively as cover for one’s own inadequacies.

Convicted felon is a label bestowed like a scarlet letter solely to shame another. The real shame is when it is used selectively as cover for one’s own inadequacies.

July 10, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

The famous New England author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, published The Scarlet Letter in 1850. In its time, it was a lurid Puritan New England soap opera that became classic American literature. In its pages, which shocked the Puritans of Hawthorne’s time, the young Hester Prynne was found to be with child, but the father was not her husband, a much older and morally ruthless Puritan man. The real father was the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the local Congregational minister. Refusing to reveal that truth, Hester Prynne was placed on display in the market square each day to be publicly shamed and shunned while adorned with a scarlet letter “A” for “adulterer” prominently on her dress. Nathaniel Hawthorne was well versed in the Puritan prejudices that shaped New England. His great grandfather was one of the three judges who presided over the 1692 Salem Witch Trials.

Today, the scarlet letter takes many other forms. We made it almost to the end of the now infamous June 27, 2024 Presidential Debate before President Joe Biden declared to the American people that Donald Trump, his opponent in the upcoming election, is a “convicted felon.” It seemed much more an act of desperation than inspiration. “What was the point of it?” a commentator asked. Everything about it told me that its only point was to lay shame upon the opposing candidate when all other rhetoric was failing.

It told us nothing about Donald Trump that we did not already know. It told us nothing about the New York trial that mysteriously transformed questionable misdemeanor charges into felonies to bestow that dubious title upon him for strictly political purposes. But it spoke volumes about the desperate state of the one who said it. It was the clearest thing said by President Biden that night, and likely the most rehearsed.

I, too, am a convicted felon, and if you are not reading this blog for the first time then you know, or at least suspect, that the term has been unjustly imposed. So I have a legitimate gripe about its use and misuse. Just about every fair-minded person familiar with this blog knows that even a cursory look under the hood of my 1994 trial leaves its outcome in serious doubt. Only those with bias and hidden agendas of their own still point to the “convicted felon” millstone around my neck.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, a longtime columnist and member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her bold series of concience-stirring revelations about some of the most notorious witch-hunts sex abuse trials of modern times. My trial was one of them. In regard to my “convicted felon” status, Ms. Rabinowitz wrote: “Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents.” (“The Trials of Father MacRae,” The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2013).

To those who read and share my posts, I am grateful for your openminded conclusion that justice failed on the day that scarlet letter was imposed on me. And not only on me; the late Cardinal George Pell also refused to wear the “convicted felon” label before he was finally exonerated after 400 days and nights in solitary confinement in prison. Fortunately, the Australian justice system ultimately delivered him from that injustice. American courts differ from Australian courts in this respect. In modern times, American courts have developed a barrier to the pursuit of justice that grants to the justice system itself the last word and a right to finality. Experts described the dynamics behind this in an article, “Why This Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison.”

There have been thousands of proven wrongful convictions in U.S. courts during the 30 years I have spent in prison for refusing to willfully accept the Scarlet Letter label. I could have left prison 28 years ago if I accepted the deal the State of New Hampshire tried to impose upon me. There are an estimated tens of thousands still wrongfully in prison in the United States because they are unable to “prove” their innocence even when no one had to prove their guilt.

Our incarceration nation leads the world in imprisonment with five percent of the world’s population but twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. So it would follow that it also leads the world in conviction errors, forty-percent of which are attributed to police and prosecutor misconduct.

A “Convicted Felon’ in the White House?

On the night before beginning this post, I had a long distance discussion about it with my friend, Pornchai Moontri in Thailand. He is, as most readers know, a real survivor of the very sort of crimes for which I was falsely accused. He is also a survivor of almost 16 years in a prison cell with me. In our recent discussion, Pornchai told me that my only crime was being a Catholic priest and then letting it cost me everything I had. I guess I have to let that sink in. I could have devoted my life in this injustice to building a monument of volcanic bitterness. There is plenty of that to go around where I live. “Thank God you didn’t,” Pornchai said.

So instead of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I write. I do not just write about the state of my own injustice. I also write about injustice that has befallen others. I write about the state of our freedom, and what is at stake when we take it for granted. I write about the state of our character, about our Church, our politics, our descent into evil and our capacity for good. I write about the senseless impact of prison, and about some, like my friend Pornchai, who overcame it, became redeemed from it, and now faces the challenge of avoiding debilitating labels like the one imposed on me and Donald Trump.

Pornchai Moontri added his belief that I would not be in prison today if I were not a Catholic priest. Then he said that Donald Trump would not have faced those charges in New York if he were not a Republican candidate for President. Mr. Moontri is right about this, and he zoomed in on the one thing that I find most disturbing about Trump’s candidacy: the elitist view that a political outsider has no business running for President of the United States. This prejudice has been evident in mainstream news media since his election in 2016. It has been nothing short of an attempt at voter nullification and egregious election interference.

I know that some of our readers do not like Donald Trump. Back in 2021, we lost some readers when I wrote “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul.” It is globally one of our most read posts and it was also recommended by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. But some of our slightly left-leaning readers concluded that any criticism of President Biden is an ipso facto affirmation of Donald Trump. That post is a classic example of the sometimes vague boundaries between politics and morality, and why no priest should be afraid to write or speak about the latter.

I have never promoted Donald Trump, and do not do so now. That said, I have never demoted him either. But as an American, I resent all the one-sided rhetoric denouncing his candidacy based on his character. That is a matter for voters to decide, not the courts, and not the news media, and certainly not the elite holding office in Washington, DC. In 2020, it was insisted to me that the whole Hunter Biden laptop story that emerged and was covered up before the election of 2020 was Russian disinformation. I know that I ruffled feathers when I wrote “Miranda Devine, Cardinal Pell, and the Laptop from Hell.” I was lied to then, and so were you.

The clincher in my decision to write this post about Donald Trump’s legal woes came from reading the June 21, 2024 issue of the National Catholic Reporter. It is a far left-leaning “independent” newspaper that I stopped reading decades ago. Another priest gave me a gift subscription to it, and I have wondered ever since what I did to offend him. The front-page headline in the June 21 issue is “Does the Catholic Vote Still Matter?” It was followed by this highlighted text: “A majority of Catholics are trending toward voting for Donald Trump — even after conviction.” Should that fact alone be evidence that the Catholic vote no longer matters just because it doesn’t fit NCR’s ideology?

… and to the Banana Republic for Which It Stands …

I am much informed by a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Why Republicans Don’t Abandon ‘Felon’ Trump” by Michael W. McConnell (June 20, 2024). The author is a Stanford Law School professor, a retired judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He dissected the various charges lodged against Mr. Trump during this election cycle. His conclusions are an eye-opener. Only one of these cases has gone to trial, and after a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings, it appears that many of the other claims perhaps never will. Of the supposed felonies for which a New York State court declared Trump guilty, Professor McConnell wrote:

“Most Democrats I know persuaded themselves of the righteousness of criminally prosecuting Donald Trump to keep him from becoming President again. How, they ask, can any respectable person defend Mr. Trump now that he is a felon? Many Republicans … believe that Democratic prosecutors are waging lawfare against Mr. Trump [and] now consider the legal crusade against Trump to be as threatening to democracy as what happened on January 6, 2021. The charges against Mr. Trump in New York were bogus.”

The article lays out in compelling terms how New York DA Alvin Bragg’s prosecution was an attempt to influence voters and the electoral process. DA Bragg had also been a donor to the Biden campaign and should have disqualified himself from prosecuting the case. Instead, according to Professor McConnell he “openly campaigned on a vow to hold Mr. Trump and his family accountable.” The attention grabber for me was what followed in Professor McConnell’s article: “Mr. Bragg didn’t pursue particular crimes of concern to the public. He pursued a particular defendant who happened to be the other party’s candidate for President.”

That analysis is so vastly unlike almost all other news coverage of that trial that is shocked me, and for good reason. The “suspect in search of a crime” motif was exactly what happened to me. No one ever went to Keene, NH Detective James F. McLaughlin with a complaint about me. Instead, this sex abuse crusader targeted me for no reason other than my being a Catholic priest. Then, armed with a fraudulent claim that he himself manufactured, he manipulated — sometimes with monetary bribes and threats — dozens of troubled adolescents and young adults in places where I had been assigned. He did this relentlessly for five years until he found some who would accuse me for money. (See the “Statement of Steven Wollschlager.”)

The “ lawfare” pursuit of Donald Trump was political, but it never reflected American justice. Its sole purpose was the imposition of a scarlet letter that would most likely be overturned on appeal. According to the purposes of D.A. Bragg, it need only hold up until the November election. After a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Presidential Immunity, New York State judge Juan Merchan delayed Mr. Trump’s sentencing until September 18, 2024.

Meanwhile, President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, now also a “convicted felon” has been serving in the role of a senior advisor to the President during both family and staff negotiations about his future political life, negotiations in which Hunter Biden has a clear conflict of interest. The hypocrisy is stunning.

In his first term as 45th President of the United States, President Donald Trump sponsored the First Step Act. A major tenet of it was a call for the removal of “the box,” a prejudicial feature of federal job applications that kept thousands of former prisoners from finding meaningful work. Permanent “Convicted Felon” status is unjust, demeaning, useless and sometimes even baseless. Recall the words of Sheriff Beauford Puser in my post, “Walking Tall: The Justice Behind the Eighth Commandment”: “If you let ‘em get away with this, you give ‘em the eternal right to do the same damn thing to anyone of you!”

+ + +

Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this timely post. You may also like these related titles from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Hamas Assault on Israel and the Emperor Who Knew Not God

Miranda Devine, Cardinal Pell, and the Laptop from Hell

Why This Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison

Walking Tall: The Justice Behind the Eighth Commandment

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

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

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

May 29, 2024 by Ryan A. MacDonald

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

+ + +

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A New Hampshire Ponzi Scheme Uncovered?”

+ + +

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/24/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/24/24

Pop Stars and Priests: Michael Jackson and the Credible Standard

The late Michael Jackson settled one abuse claim for $20 million but supporters maintain his innocence. A Catholic priest is ruined for life just for being accused.

The late Michael Jackson settled one abuse claim for $20 million but supporters maintain his innocence. A Catholic priest is ruined for life just for being accused.

April 24, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Daniel Kahneman died last month on March 27, 2024. Just as Beyond These Stone Walls was beginning, I was asked by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, to write an article for the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst. Published in July 2009, my article was “Due Process for Accused Priests.” It began with a revelation about the work of Daniel Kahneman, a noted psychologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in a phenomenon known as “availability bias.”

As a result of availability bias, humans tend to replace their beliefs with the crowd’s beliefs simply because a proposition has been repeated in the media and presented as widely believed. We are subjected to subtle cues of social pressure every day in marketing that convince many people to purchase things they don’t really need. We also face subtle cues and social pressure in the daily bombardment of news stories that cause many people to believe something based solely on its prevalence in the media. It is indeed possible that Michael Jackson and many Catholic priests became the subjects of classic, media-fueled availability bias.

In his 2011 bookThinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman laid out the foundations of what a stream of availability bias might look like:

“An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may lead up to public panic and large-scale government action. On some occasions, a media story about a risk catches the attention of a segment of the public, which becomes aroused and worried. This emotional reaction becomes a story in itself, prompting additional coverage in the media, which in turn produces greater concern and involvement. The cycle is sometimes sped along deliberately by ‘availability entrepreneurs,’ individuals or organizations who seek to ensure a continuous flow of worrying news. The danger is increasingly exaggerated as the media compete for attention-grabbing headlines. Anyone who claims that the danger is overstated is suspected of association with a ‘heinous cover-up’”

— Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, p.142

Does this not sound like exactly what has taken place in the early days of the priesthood crisis? In that arena, the “availability entrepreneurs” were composed largely of contingency lawyers and groups like SNAP, which I once exposed in “David Clohessy Resigned SNAP in Alleged Kickback Scheme.”

One of the conclusions of “availability bias” widely touted in the media is that statutes of limitation for lawsuits should be extended or discarded because it takes victims of sexual abuse many years or decades to come forward. The prison system in which I have spent the last 30 years houses nearly 3,000 prisoners. Estimates of those convicted of sexual offenses account for about 40 percent of them. This translates into a population of approximately 1,200 offenders in this one prison who stand convicted of sexual crimes, most true but some not. In addition to these 1,200 men, thousands more are currently on parole in New Hampshire as “registered” sexual offenders.

Only one among these thousands is a convicted Catholic priest, and if you have been paying attention at all, then you know that his conviction has been widely called into serious doubt. The thousands of other men convicted of sexual abuse are accused parents, grandparents, step-parents, foster parents, uncles, teachers, ministers, scout leaders, and so on, and for them the typical time lapse between abuse and the victim reporting it has been measured in weeks or months, not years — and certainly not decades.

My own diocese, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, in just the last month has provided a six-figure settlement to the accuser of a long deceased priest accused in a claim from 52 years ago. Even the lawyer involved admitted in a press report that “No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, but … it is important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process,” which in this case involves a whole lot of money, forty percent of which goes to that attorney. In their own statement, Church officials said, “The Diocese of Manchester provides financial assistance to those who have been harmed, regardless of when the abuse occurred.” I live in a place with men some of whom have taken lives for far less money than that provided by my diocese to those who falsely took my reputation and freedom.

A simultaneous press release came under the title “Diocese of Manchester Adds to List of Clergy Accused of Sexual Abuse of a Minor.” Accuracy in language is important here. The press release continued, “The Diocese of Manchester added three priests to its list of clergy accused of sexual abuse.” Note that the usual term “credibly accused” is missing from these reports. Even that weakest of standards seems to have been discarded in favor of discarding priests who are merely “accused.” Ryan A. MacDonald wrote of the risks that such published lists pose to priests. His eye-opening article was, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.”

Pop Stars and Priests

I kicked a hornets’ nest some years ago when I wrote an article in response to a quote from actress Marlo Thomas who suggested in some published forum that the best American role model for middle school age boys might be singer Michael Jackson. I scoffed in my own response why the suggestion was ridiculous for many reasons, not least being the taint of sexual abuse claims against him.

Despite being acquitted in a criminal trial, Michael Jackson settled a single claim of sexual abuse for a reported $20 million, and untold millions settled other claims against him. When Michael Jackson died, he was celebrated as a cultural icon of the entertainment industry. In contrast, an American bishop, under pressure from a victims’ group, reportedly ordered the remains of a posthumously accused priest exhumed from a diocesan cemetery and reinterred elsewhere.

My point was not that I thought Michael Jackson was guilty. It was that for many fans the claims and sett1ements did not destroy his name. He was acquitted at trial, so if there was any evidence at all a jury did not find it persuasive. Some people conclude that, despite acquittal in a criminal trial, Michael Jackson’s multi-million dollar settlement of civil lawsuits was itself evidence of guilt. I’ll get back to that point.

Catherine Coy, a fan and advocate of Michael Jackson, sent a shot across my bow back then for suggesting any connection between settlements and credible accusations. I knew I was in for it when Ms. Coy began her message with “You, of all people …!” Actually, when Catherine Coy and I listened to each other, we came to a sort of detente if not agreement. In a 2005 article, “Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud” (Catalyst, Nov. 2005), I detailed the relationship between mediated settlements and claims against Catholic priests. Did Michael Jackson become vulnerable to the same media-generated shroud under which claims against priests were seen as “credible?”

Catherine Coy insisted that in spite of monetary settlements, Jackson had never had a “credible” claim of sexual abuse lodged against him. That statement might evoke a dismissive “Yeah, right!” in some corners, but not in mine.

Why did so many people presume the worst of Mr. Jackson? It certainly wasn’t evidence. It is more of a spontaneous response, and one that is very similar to what happens when priests are accused and maintain their innocence. This is the point predicted by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. The mere news media repetition of sordid stories about Michael Jackson and Catholic priests took on such prevalence in the news media that they became an unconscious bias against both. When the Catholic bishops of the United States refer to a 20-, or 30- or 40-year-old claim against a priest as “credible” they mean only that they have determined that both the priest and the accuser lived in the same community in the time period alleged.

Michael and I in The Wall Street Journal

Catherine Coy was right. I, of all people, should have seen the analogy instantly. Ms. Coy wrote “There isn’t a person alive who could have withstood the onslaught of lies, innuendo and slander that was heaped on Jackson for well over 20 years.” On that score, I beg to differ, but I see her point.

The very association of Michael Jackson’s name with the bizarre proclivity attributed to him may in fact be the result of media-fueled availability bias and not evidence. There is no doubt in my mind that I and many other priests have faced this same phenomenon. With no personal experience of the behaviors attributed to some accused priests, many Catholics simply adopted the point of view given them by the news media.

This does not mean that all the claims of sexual abuse by priests are false. The U.S. Bishops commissioned a formal study of the matter conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. There were really two waves in the scandal. The first was the revelations that priests were accused at the time alleged abuse happened in the 1960’s to the 1980’s, and then were quietly moved around to other parishes to avoid a public scandal. This was scandalous enough, and tragic.

The John Jay Report also revealed that a full seventy percent of the claims faced by bishops and dioceses in 2002 and following also alleged claims from the 1960’s to 1980’s, but those claims were not brought forward until 2002 when it became clear that Church institutions would settle because of the bludgeoning they took in the media. Those claims were propelled by the widely held belief that it takes victims decades to realize they were abused and report it. Lots of people now believe that, and entire states have passed legislation to accommodate that belief. However, as demonstrated in “Due Process for Accused Priests,” the “delayed reporting” principle is classic availability bias.

In June, 2005, just three months after Dorothy Rabinowitz published an explosive two-part analysis of the case against me in The Wall Street Journal, Deputy Editorial Page Editor, Daniel Henninger wrote a most interesting commentary as Michael Jackson’s criminal trial got underway (“Pushing the Envelope – Michael Jackson: A Freaky Culture’s Peter Pan,” June 3, 2005).

It was Daniel Henninger who first put into print what I hoped someone out there might grasp:

“[Prosecutor] Tom Sneddon may lose this case. If so, it will be because Mr. Jackson, like Kobe Bryant [and O.J. Simpson], was able to mount a defense equal to the accusatory powers of the state. Not everyone can do that. If Michael walks, I’ll wonder if any of the many convicted Catholic priests similarly charged were in fact innocent but found guilty because they couldn’t push back against the state’s relentless steamroller.”

I do not at all begrudge Michael Jackson’s having had the means to mount a defense equal to the state’s prosecution of him. Whatever he spent defending himself, it was less than the state spent trying to put him in prison. At the same time, I thought Daniel Henninger’s comment about convicted priests was just and fair, but he missed an important point. I no longer have the letter, but I wrote to Mr. Henninger shortly after his 2005 editorial. This is the gist of what I wrote:

“As a priest without the means to push back in equal measure to Michael Jackson, I must point out some factors you overlooked:

“Imagine how steeply uphill Michael Jackson’s battle would have been if twenty years passed between the alleged crime and the state’s prosecutorial steamroller rumbling into action for a trial. Imagine the state having to prove nothing while Michael Jackson’s defense tried in vain to prove that something alleged to have happened two decades earlier never happened at all.

“Then imagine Michael Jackson struggling to proclaim his innocence while the institution he served denounced him and his attempts to defend himself, seeking only the path of least resistance to settle with his accusers and rid themselves of liability at the expense of due process.

“Imagine all of this, and you will have captured the scene faced by most similarly accused Catholic priests.”

The Wall Street Journal

The aftermath of those articles in April, 2005 was most interesting. The accusers in the case against me — anxious to talk to the news media before receiving settlements — suddenly had nothing to say. one of my prosecutors had nothing to say. The other took his own life. The judge was quoted in a local news article saying, vaguely, “Review is a positive thing.” Then he took early retirement from the bench. The police detective who choreographed the case, reportedly offering bribes to potential accusers, had nothing to say and has since been exposed on a previously secret list of ethically challenged police.

After those WSJ articles about me, I expected an onslaught of defensive rhetoric from victims’ groups, prosecutors, and contingency lawyers, but it never came. The sole protest came from the most unexpected source. Father Edward Arsenault, my Bishop’s delegate and the man most involved in settlement negotiations in these cases, declared that I was found guilty in a court of law by a jury of my peers, and nothing else needed to be said. Father Arsenault denounced The Wall Street Journal and its writer as biased. Incredible!

A few years later, Msgr. Edward Arsenault was convicted of multiple counts of embezzlement, including charges of forgery and fraud, and sentenced to prison. He was subsequently dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis but now inexplicably has a new life and a new name: Edward J. Bolognini.

In 2005 just as the Catholic scandal was building up steam to rumble full speed ahead for a national contingency lawyer windfall, I did not expect that the world’s largest secular newspaper would publish so openly against the tide — or tidal wave — of typical media coverage of claims against priests while most in the Catholic media remained silent. With the exception of Father Richard John Neuhaus in First Things and The Catholic League in Catalyst, and the Catholic World Report, the Catholic media — on both the left and the right — continued to remain silent about false claims against priests brought for money, or, worse, they have used the clergy scandal for some agenda of their own.

And of Michael Jackson, writing in The Nation, (“The Love We Lost”), JoAnn Wypijewski wrote that

“Ordinary rules of judgment have been suspended” in this sound-bite culture of news that shapes most peoples’ views on sex and the accused:

“[I]t cannot matter that Michael Jackson was acquitted of child molestation, since he was frequently remembered in death as a pedophile… just as it cannot matter whether others who plead guilty to a sex charge really did it, or whether evidence to convict was nonsense, or whether the guilty served their time. They can never ‘pay their debt to society.’ Guilt is the presumption, forever.”

JoAnn Wypijewski went on to describe the case of the priest convicted in a trial in which the sole “credible” evidence presented to the jury was the mere fact that he is a priest — that, and a claim of repressed and recovered memory, the legitimacy of which is always questioned when the accused is not a priest. In an all-too familiar twist, that priest’s bishop added his own sound bite by administratively dismissing the priest from the priesthood just before the sham of a trial.

JoAnn Wypijewski also bravely wrote about me just as the fiasco film, “Spotlight” was receiving its Academy Award for Public Service. Her ground-shaking article was “Oscar Hangover Special: Why "Spotlight" Is a Terrible Film.”

After what has now exceeded $4 billion in total mediated settlements nationwide, the matter of false claims is the elephant in the sacristy that no one wants to talk about. At the same time, our beleaguered Catholic bishops present case after case as “credible” despite knowing exactly what that term means and does not mean.

The “credible” standard Catherine Coy applied to Michael Jackson is admirable and hopeful. Ms. Coy’s fair-minded attitude about Michael Jackson is the polar opposite of what is now applied to Catholic priests.

There is no mechanism whatsoever beyond preserved DNA or an admission of guilt that would serve as evidence that a priest accused from decades ago is guilty. There is no investigation technique that could determine the credibility of such claims. What makes most claims against priests “credible” is the fact that someone — not them — has paid money to an accuser. Nothing else. Catholics should take note of the efforts by Michael Jackson fans to revisit credibility despite financial settlements which, in the secular world, are merely designed to make the claim go away with no statement of culpability.

For my part, I can only remember the famous scene early in Michael’s trial during which he danced on the hood of an SUV outside the court to the wild cheers of fans. Michael sure was a strange guy, but the dance gave me pause. Having been through such a trial, I know its oppression. That dance was surely the act of a delusional man …

… or perhaps an innocent one.

Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Your comments are most welcome, but they are moderated, so they may not appear instantly. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls.

Due Process for Accused Priests, Catalyst, July 2009

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

David Clohessy Resigns SNAP in Alleged Kickback Scheme

The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr Gordon MacRae

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/31/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/31/24

Finding Your Peace: Job and the Mystery of Suffering

The problem of evil and the pain of suffering plagued humanity from our beginning. How do we reconcile grace and hope in a loving God in the midst of suffering?

The problem of evil and the pain of suffering plagued humanity from our beginning. How do we reconcile grace and hope in a loving God in the midst of suffering?

January 31, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

On the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, ten days before Ash Wednesday this year, the assigned First Reading at Mass is from the Book of Job. It is Job’s lament against suffering, and the reading ends on a dismal note: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind. I shall not see happiness again.” Job 7:6-7

In the Book of Job, you will have to suffer along with him through a lot more of his lament until you come to God’s response many chapters later. As I read the lament I marveled at how much of it I can relate to. As I wrote in a post just a week ago, my days are often faced without obvious hope. But I also marvel at how much I can relate to God’s response to Job.

I wrote a science post in 2022 entitled “The James Webb Space Telescope and an Encore from Hubble.” Longtime readers of this blog know of my enthusiasm for Astronomy and Cosmology. If I were God — and thank God I am not — I would have framed my answer to Job just as God did:

“Who is this that obscures divine plans with such words of ignorance? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or shown the dawn its place? Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?”

— Job 38: 2,4,12,31

Job got the message. So did I, and it isn’t trite at all. The response of God was twofold: Number 1: I have a plan; Number 2: Trust in Number 1. It’s the trust part that I find difficult. His broader answer is found in all of Sacred Scripture as a whole. The Biblical characters are believers who take upon themselves the plan of God. They all suffer. Many suffer a lot. Their very lives are our evidence that there is a divine plan.

God takes the suffering of humankind seriously and personally. When He took our form, He suffered in every way we do, including the humiliation of rejection to the point of crucifixion and death. Remember His trial before Pontius Pilate when “The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’.”

Like me, many of you have, at one time or another in your life, found yourself upon the dung heap of Job.

The Most Dangerous Thing in Prison

While writing this post, I stumbled upon a scene in a TV drama. I’m not sure which one it was, but the scene was in a prison. A rough looking character had spent 20 years in prison on death row for a crime he did not commit. A younger man was telling him that his friends on the outside want to take up the death row prisoner’s case. “Tell them to stop!” the older man said. “Please don’t give me hope. The most dangerous thing in prison is hope.”

No doubt, that statement was perplexing for most viewers, but I readily understood it. It recalled some dismal feelings from a time when hope emerged in prison only to be cruelly shattered. The shattering of hope often feels worse than no hope at all. That’s the danger the prisoner was talking about.

For me, the shattering of hope began on September 11, 2001. Early that year, Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Wall Street Journal took an interest in my trial and imprisonment, and the evidence of fraud and misconduct behind them. For my part, gathering and photocopying documents from prison is a very difficult task, but over the course of that year, I labored to send reams of requested documentation to Ms. Rabinowitz. Then, just as the story grew into real interest, the forces of evil struck hard.

As you know well, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. Their collapse damaged many of the surrounding buildings including the editorial offices of The Wall Street Journal on Liberty Street just across the World Trade Center Plaza.

Months passed while The Wall Street Journal relocated its offices to 1211 Avenue of the Americas. In early January 2002, a letter came from a member of the WSJ Editorial Board. All was lost. We had to start over. But I believed at the time that I could not start over. It seemed an overwhelming task. Hope was crushed along with the towers themselves.

The loss of thousands of lives added great weight to that sense of hopelessness. I could not possibly confront my personal loss in the face of so much human tragedy caused by so much human evil. I will never forget the nightmare I had after receiving that letter. I was inside World Trade Center Tower One when the first plane struck. It was collapsing all around me. The nightmare was long, real, and horrifying. At the end of the dream I was still alive, but regretfully so. I have never been a person who sees the world in terms of himself. I tried to convey that in a post about the horrors of that day, “The Despair of Towers Falling, The Courage of Men Rising.”

I just had to wait a bit before my own courage would rise again. By the time I recovered the resolve to start over in 2002, the Catholic clergy abuse scandal erupted in Boston just a few months after 9/11 to become another New England witch hunt that swept the nation. This made my hope, and The Wall Street Journal’s effort toward justice a much steeper climb. It has always struck me that the two stories — the hijacking of the planes that attacked Manhattan and the Pentagon on 9/11, and the collapse of the dignity and morale of Catholic priests — both began in my hometown of Boston just weeks apart.

Sorrow Needs a Panoramic View

I cannot tell you how to suffer. I do not even know how myself. I can only tell you that, along with most of you, I do suffer. Perhaps that means something as a starting point. Maybe those who know sorrow feel at some fundamental level that reflection on the experience from someone who also suffers means more than a smug and smiling Gospel of prosperity from some TV evangelist.

I don’t mean to pick on TV evangelists and God help me if I judge them harshly, but I have a hard time reconciling the trenches of suffering with the Gospel of prosperity that some of them proclaim. No one in prison listens to Joel Osteen. His word is for the brokers, not the broken; not the broken-hearted.

A sanitized TV version of grace and glory feels nothing but empty and shallow against the real deep sorrow of the trenches. I found myself in one of those trenches, and, like Job on his dung heap, I was dragged there kicking and screaming at God for its injustice. For a long time, I have wondered what I did to deserve this trashing of my freedom, my name, and worst of all, my priesthood. I do, after all, have a King other than Caesar!

So does Peggy Noonan. She was a White House speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, and now she writes the “Declarations” column for The Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Edition. She is neck deep in the affairs of New York City and Washington, but she also has her finger on the pulse of that vast expanse of America that stretches from there to the Pacific.

Peggy Noonan’s January 27, 2018 column was entitled, “Who’s Afraid of Jordan Peterson?” Formerly associate professor of psychology at Harvard, Jordan Peterson has taught psychology at the University of Toronto for 20 years. Ms. Noonan wrote about a British TV report on his book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

She was intrigued because the interviewer was critical of Professor Peterson for his resistance to adopting the new orthodoxy of political correctness. Ms. Noonan summarized that the interviewer tried to silence his …

“… scholarly respect for the stories and insights into human behavior — into the meaning of things — in the Old and New Testaments. Their stories exist for a reason, he says, and have lasted for a reason: They are powerful indicators of reality, and their great figures point to pathways.”

Those Biblical pathways, it turns out, are always through the dark woods of sorrow. As I have written before, Sacred Scripture — the story of God and us — is filled with irony. The characters that populate the Biblical stories experience transformations born of suffering and sorrow.

Why we suffer is a cosmic mystery, but it is so even for God. As Saint Paul wrote, “He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). With trust, suffering takes on a meaning far greater than itself.

God Sees Facebook Too

If I were Job this is how I could frame my own lament:

“I spent the last 29 years in a dark periphery of my own called unjust imprisonment. Such a plight can cause a man to focus entirely on himself and his own bizarre fate. Those without hope here live in a prison inside a prison.”

I want to tell you about something that happened after I wrote a post entitled “Left Behind: In Prison for the Apocalypse.” It was about my friend, Skooter, who left this prison eleven years ago to face a life alone. Saint Mother Teresa once wrote that poverty does not mean just a lack of money, or food, or housing. The deepest poverty on Earth, she wrote, is to live life with no one who cares about us, no one to walk with us in suffering or sorrow.

I will always remember the day Skooter left us. From a distance, Pornchai Moontri and I watched him walk out the door carrying his life in two trash bags, but with no idea where, or to whom he would go. His life was missing the infrastructure that so many in Joel Osteen’s audience might take for granted.

Skooter was a young prisoner whom I taught to read and write. When he left prison, I never heard from him again except through a cryptic third party “thank you” from another young man who found himself back inside.

I did not know what happened to Skooter, nor did I know what exactly prompted me to write that post about him five years after he fell into silence. The silence was not his choice. When prisoners leave here, they are barred from contacting anyone left behind.

I do not know what prompted me to do this, but months after I wrote that post about him, I decided to try to find Skooter to see if he might like to read it. I called a friend, Charlene Duline in Indiana, a retired State Department official who became Pornchai Moontri’s Godmother in his Divine Mercy conversion. Charlene looked for Skooter on Facebook (using his given name), but the search yielded no result. A few days later, for reasons I do not know, I asked her to try again.

Now obviously, I have no access to Facebook but a past editor started a page for Beyond These Stone Walls. I have never even seen it so I don’t have a clue how Facebook works. I only know that my posts are shared there and that about 4,000 people “follow” them there. So while I was on the telephone with Charlene, she did the search again, but this time it yielded one result. I asked her to send a “connect request” from me. Within seconds, the acceptance came back with this message:

“G, is this really you? Is this possible?”

It seemed so bizarre that we were actually communicating in real time. Charlene sent Skooter a short reply telling him that she was on the telephone with me at that moment. Skooter sent back a number and asked me to call it. All the telephones in this prison are outside. So in the frigid cold, I called that number.

Skooter answered, and what he told me was astonishing. Skooter had been through a terrible dark night. After leaving prison at age 25, he struggled to build the life that he never had. He was alone, but he worked hard. Life was looking just a little promising and hopeful, then a cascade of dominoes began to fall.

Months before my sudden Facebook message reached Skooter, he lost his job. His boss in a small construction company was charged with some sort of corruption that Skooter had nothing to do with, but he was the collateral damage. Losing his job with no ability to plan was catastrophic. Paying rent by the week in substandard housing — a plight faced by so many former prisoners — Skooter then lost his place to live.

Everything he owned, which wasn’t much, ended up in storage. Then, unable to pay his storage bill, he lost even that. Living in a homeless shelter, Skooter went to a Christian food pantry for some help. He was asked for an address and he said he did not have one. He was told that he needs an address before they can give him food. Skooter roamed the streets and despaired.

Early in the morning after a sleepless night in the cold, he walked into the woods feeling totally defeated. He brought a rope. I’m sorry, but there is just no comfortable way to tell this. Skooter hanged himself from a tree. A hunter came upon the scene and cut down Skooter’s unconscious body, but he was still alive.

The hunter left Skooter on the ground and called the police from a highway rest area pay phone. Skooter was taken to a hospital where he had a 48-hour emergency commitment in the psychiatric ward. This is all dismal, but the rest shook me to the core. When Skooter emerged from this nightmare, he went to a city library to keep warm. He learned that he can use a computer there for free.

Feeling alone and discarded, the very poverty that Saint Mother Teresa described above, something compelled him to open a Facebook account. It was at that moment that I was on a phone from prison talking with Charlene when we searched for Skooter for the second time and there he was. Skooter told me that as he sat there wondering what to do next, my “friend request” appeared on his screen.

The photo of Skooter (above) was taken at a friend’s home at Christmas before his dark night brought him into a dark forest. I have been where Skooter was. I wrote of “How Father Benedict Groeschel Entered My Darkest Night.” Now I have entered Skooter’s darkest night, and from inside these prison walls I walk with him through his pathways of suffering and sorrow. No one could today convince Skooter that God has no plan.

So, where were you when God laid the foundations of the Earth? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or showed the dawn its place?

+ + +

Editor’s Note: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You might like these other posts cited herein:

The James Webb Space Telescope and an Encore from Hubble

The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’

The Despair of Towers Falling, The Courage of Men Rising

Left Behind: In Prison for the Apocalypse

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Ryan A. MacDonald 1/17/24 Ryan A. MacDonald 1/17/24

Detective James McLaughlin and the Police Misconduct List

The NH ‘Laurie List’ is a once secret list of police misconduct. Ex-Detective James F McLaughlin, who sent a priest to life in prison, now sues to get off the list.

The NH ‘Laurie List’ is a once secret list of police misconduct. Ex-Detective James F McLaughlin was recently removed from the list in a secret ‘John Doe’ hearing.

Editor’s Note: Ryan A. MacDonald has published numerous articles on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church including, “Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest.” This is a necessary sequel.

+ + +

January 17, 2024 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Are you in favor of destroying the lives of Catholic priests under false pretense? If not, please read on. Catholic priest Gordon J MacRae is now in his thirtieth year of wrongful imprisonment after rejecting a 1994 plea deal offer to serve one to two years. I previously wrote at the link cited above about newly emerging evidence in the case. The Wall Street Journal boldly took up this matter in a series of articles by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz and noted civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate. Their work exposing this wrongful prosecution and police misconduct is collected at “The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr Gordon MacRae.”

Newly emerging evidence came to light with a revelation that the police detective who investigated and testified against Father Mac Rae was added to a previously secret list of officers with dishonesty or police misconduct issues. The list was held in secret by the New Hampshire Attorney General until a court ordered publication of the list in 2022. Detective James McLaughlin was added to the list for “Falsification of Records,” an incident or incidents that occurred in 1985, nine years before the 1994 MacRae trial. Because the behavior was known to state prosecutors at the time of the trial, they were obligated by Supreme Court precedent to report this to Father MacRae’s legal counsel before trial. They failed to do so.

This bombshell was first reported by someone at the New Hampshire Office of the American Civil Liberties Union which had been a plaintiff in a lawsuit that eventually made the “Laurie List” public. Father MacRae himself wrote of this development in “Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell.”

Police officers placed on the Attorney General’s list have the ability to challenge its publication by petitioning the courts to remove their names for cause. Former Detective McLaughlin filed such a petition so, pending a court hearing, his name was blacked out from the public list just hours after it appeared. New Hampshire courts have allowed officers on the list to file their petitions using “John Doe” pseudonyms. A hearing for McLaughlin — though not a public one — is likely to be scheduled early in 2024.

Not everyone is on board with the notion of a judicial system operating in secret. One judge, a former Senior Assistant Attorney General, has objected to the secret forum in which these removal petitions are being heard. (See “Judge: Laurie List Police Lawsuits Are Being Improperly Sealed”). Judge Will Delker’s published objection cites a fundamental precept of democracy that public officials must be accountable to citizens: “Court records are presumptively open to the public absent some overriding consideration or special circumstance. The party seeking to maintain court records under seal must demonstrate a sufficiently compelling interest that outweighs the public’s right to access.”

New Hampshire reporter Damien Fisher has managed to obtain, through Freedom of Information Act requests, some limited, heavily redacted evidence of the matters before the court in former Detective McLaughlin’s petition. He documented them in a December 18, 2023 article, “Laurie List Lawsuit Matches Former Well-Known Keene Cop’s Record.” To force a reporter to such lengths to obtain public information in public records turns the court system into a sham.

Covering Up for Police Corruption

There is a good deal more in the problematic and unconstitutional practices of Detective James F. McLaughlin than what is currently before the Court in his petition to be removed from the public accountability list, but the public is kept in the dark. Citizens should have an opportunity to address concerns about why his name should remain on that published list, but that is circumvented by secrecy. The public cannot learn the identity of the “John Doe” before the Court. Reporter Damien Fisher was only able to discern this from a careful examination of this particular “John Doe’s” petition.

Additionally, the public cannot obtain a Court date or docket number to have their concerns heard. As a result, pertinent evidence is prevented from coming before the Court. The court of public opinion is a different matter, but no citizen should have to appeal to it in order to obtain justice.

Though not a resident and citizen of the State of New Hampshire, I have researched its laws in regard to the conduct of police. The violations alleged against McLaughlin in the case of Father MacRae alone are many and great. No public entity has investigated these and judges hearing MacRae’s two appeals — a direct State appeal in 1996 and a Writ of Habeas Corpus in 2012 — resulted in rejection without hearing from any witnesses privy to said misconduct.

So if we cannot place it before the Court, we place it before you in the form of official excerpts of the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated, the very State laws that Detective McLaughlin has broken and for which he should be censured. Each is followed by signed Statements given to a former FBI official investigating this case, but in each case no judge has allowed the Statements or witnesses thereof to be heard under oath and on the record in any New Hampshire court.

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

For the purposes of this section, ‘misconduct’ means assault, sexual assault, bribery, fraud, theft, tampering with evidence, tampering with a witness, use of a choke hold, or excessive and illegal use of force.

1. STATEMENT OF STEVEN WOLLSCHLAGER (Alleging Attempted Bribery)

Introduction: Steven Wollschlager was a friend of accuser Thomas Grover. During Detective James McLaughlin’s investigations in 1988 and 1994, Mr. Wollschlager was interviewed. It is unknown whether the interviews were recorded. Wollschlager states that the interview reports misrepresented statements attributed to him that he never made. In a 1994 pre-trial interview, McLaughlin is alleged to have attempted to suborn Wollschlager to commit perjury before a grand jury with the suggestion of “a large sum of money.” Wollschlager reported being lured into agreement, but later recanted, refusing to testify before a grand jury:

“My name is Steven Wollschlager, DOB 12-7-1973. I give this signed statement at my own free will to Investigator James Abbott with no promises or bribes. I am willing to testify to the following statement to proceed in a court of law or otherwise under oath that I am giving facts and details to the best of my memory.

“I have had opportunities during several periods of my life to know Gordon McCrea (sic). Never in all our meetings or conversations was there any inappropriate talk of sex, sex for money, favors, or any other thing related to such.

“My first encounters with Gordon came when I was age 15 and using drugs. Gordon counseled me through Monadnock Family Counseling, maybe three sessions. During this time he also introduced me to some persons in the AA program. At this time there was never anything inappropriate going on, nor did I ever feel uncomfortable for any reason around Gordon.

“In 1988 while in rehab (which Gordon helped my parents get me into), I was interviewed by [Keene] Detective McLaughlin about Gordon. This detective did most of the talking — Did he ever do this or that? — asking me many questions as to whether or not anything inappropriate ever happened with Gordon against me. Never during this time did I say anything to any police officer that Gordon had done anything wrong towards me.

“Years passed and in 1994, before Gordon was to go on trial, I was contacted again by Keene police detectives McLaughlin and Collingworth. I was aware at the time of Gordon’s trial, knowing full well that it was bogus and having heard of the lawsuits and money involved, also the reputations of those who were making accusations. I agreed to meet with the above detectives after being told that I would be reimbursed for my time and gas money.

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

“McLaughlin asked me many times if Gordon ever tried to come onto me sexually or offered me money for any sexual favors. He had me believing that all I had to do was make up a story about Gordon and I could receive a large sum of money as others already had. McLaughlin reminded me of the young child and girlfriend I had and referenced that life could be easier for us with a large amount of money.

“I knew the Grovers’ reputation as well as others involved, many of whom I went to school with. It seemed as though it would be easy money if I would also accuse Gordon of wrongdoing. I left that meeting after being given, I believe, $50, easy money like what would come from lawsuits against McCrae (sic). I was at the time using drugs and could have been influenced to say anything they wanted for money .

“A short time later after being subpoenaed to Court, I had a different feeling about the situation. I did not want to lie or make up stories. After speaking with the Clerk of Courts I was approached by another person. After telling this person that I did not want to be there and I stated Gordon had never done anything wrong towards me sexually or otherwise, I was told I could leave. This person seemed visibly upset that I had nothing to say.”

Signed: Steven Wollschlager October 27, 2008

2. STATEMENT OF DEBRA COLLETT (Alleging Witness Tampering and Tampering with Evidence)

Introduction: Ms. Debra Collett was Thomas Grover’s primary counselor in 1987 at Derby Lodge, a residential drug addiction treatment center located in Berlin, NH. In police interviews with Detective McLaughlin pretrial in 1993/94, Grover claimed to have revealed to Debra Collett that Fr. Gordon MacRae molested him in his teen years. Grover had previously been treated for addiction at Beech Hill Hospital in Dublin, NH in 1985, but his treatment was terminated when he was caught smuggling drugs to sell to other patients. Ms.Collett here reveals that Detective McLaughlin recorded his interviews with her, but neither a report nor the recordings were ever turned over to MacRae’s defense as required.

“I am Debra Collett, DOB 6-17-1952. I am making this Statement to James Abbott, Investigator for Gordon MacRae. My involvement leading to speaking with James Abbott was as Clinical Director at Derby’s Lodge in Berlin, NH. I was individual counselor for Tom Grover when he was a client at Derby Lodge.

“Thomas Grover never revealed to me that Gordon MacRae perpetrated against him. Mr Grover spent a great deal of time being confronted in treatment for his dishonesty, misrepresentation, and unwillingness to be honest about his problems. Thomas Grover did reveal that he had been perpetrated against sexually, but named no specific person except to say that his “step father” or “foster father” molested him. When asked if Thomas meant, “Mr. Grover,” Thomas replied, “yes, among others.”

“Thomas Grover presented as unwilling to join a group of other people who like himself experienced similar difficulties. Instead, he became angry, punched walls, flicked things, and slammed doors to evade and not address his issues.

“When it became evident that [the MacRae case] was going to trial, I was contacted by Keene Police Detectives Clarke and McLaughlin. They questioned me and I had several contacts with them.

“My experience was that neither presented as an investigator looking for what information I had to contribute, but rather presented as having made up their minds and sought to substantiate their belief in Gordon MacRae’s guilt. I experienced Detective Clark as the primary questioner. I was uncomfortable with his repeated stopping and starting the tape recorder when he did not agree with my answers to his questions and his repeated statements that he wanted to put this individual where he belonged, behind bars, that a priest of all people should be punished.

“I confronted Det. Clark about his statements and his stopping and starting the recording of my statement, and his attitude and treatment of me which seemed to include coercion, intimidation, veiled and more forward threats as well as being disrespectful. At that point, and in later dealings, I was overtly threatened concerning my reluctance to continue to subject myself to their treatment with threats of arrest. McLaughlin told me he would personally come to my home, drag me out of it bodily if necessary, and force me to appear in court and testify despite my information to him.

“My overall experience in interacting with these detectives was one of being bullied with their attitude of animosity, anger, and preconception of guilt regarding Gordon MacRae. They presented as argumentative, manipulative, and threatening via use of police power in an attempt to get me to say what they wanted to hear.”

Signed: Debra Collett 05-20-2008

3. STATEMENT OF LEO DEMERS IN A LETTER TO JUDGE ARTHUR BRENNAN (Alleging Witness Tampering and Suppression of Evidence)

Letter dated October 24, 2013:

“My wife, Penny, and I were present in the courtroom throughout most of the trial of Fr. Gordon MacRae. For all these years, I have had many questions about this trial and much that I’ve wanted to clarify for my own peace of mind. I learned recently that both a superior court judge here in New Hampshire and the NH Supreme Court declined to hold a hearing on the evidence and merits of a habeas corpus petition in this case. Now that state courts seem no longer to be involved, I feel more inclined to approach you on what has been bothering me, as you were the presiding judge.

“We saw something in your courtroom during the MacRae trial that I don’t think you ever saw. My wife nudged me and pointed to a woman, Ms. Pauline Goupil, who was engaged in what appeared to be clear witness tampering. During questioning by the defense attorney, Thomas Grover seemed to feel trapped a few times. On some of those occasions, we witnessed Pauline Goupil make a distinct sad expression with a downturned mouth and gesturing with her finger from the corner of her eye down her cheek at which point Mr. Grover would begin to cry and sob on the stand. The lawyer’s questions were never answered.

“I have been troubled about this for all these years. I know what I saw, and what I saw was a clear attempt to dupe the court and the jury. If the sobbing and crying were not truthful, then I cannot help but wonder what else was not truthful on the part of Mr. Grover. If he was really a victim who wanted to tell the simple truth, why was it necessary for him and Ms. Goupil to have what clearly appeared to be a set of prearranged signals to alter his testimony? The jury was privy to none of this, to the best of my knowledge.

“Secondly, I was struck by the difference in Thomas Grover’s demeanor on the witness stand in your court and his demeanor just moments before and after outside the courtroom. On the stand, he wept and appeared to be a vulnerable victim. Moments later, during court recess, in the parking lot he was loud, boisterous and aggressive. One time he even confronted me in a threatening attempt to alter my own testimony during sentencing. …

“I simply believe that, like so many others, Mr. Grover and those coaching him have misled you and your court. You also seemed to rely heavily in your sentencing of MacRae on the investigation and findings of Det. McLaughlin. My wife and I had some firsthand experience with him and his tactics during his investigation. He was not at all interested in the facts or the truth. He attempted to use coercion and bullying tactics to get my wife and me to change the facts we presented to him, facts that did not support any of his preconceived ideas.

“We are not the only persons to have had this experience with him. I have read that Debbie Collett, Thomas Grover’s counselor, outlined in detail how she was threatened and coerced into altering her testimony. Another witness alleges that he was overtly bribed by this detective to accuse MacRae during that investigation.”

Signed: Leo Demers, August 24, 2013

+ + +

There is much more alleged of this detective that should come before a Court deciding on his public exposure on the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule or ‘Laurie List.’ As long as the Court allows Mr. James McLaughlin to appear as “John Doe” in any hearing regarding his appearance on the police misconduct list which is meant to be public, citizens are prevented from witnessing to the truth in this regard. None of the people mentioned here have ever been allowed to testify under oath about this detective. Now we know why.

This necessitates a Part 2 of this post, hopefully coming next week.

Meanwhile, please share this article. There is nothing more destructive of the cause of justice and the common good than the noise of too few and the silence of too many.

Pray for justice, and for the integrity of our justice system.

+ + +

Editor’s Note: We thank Ryan A. MacDonald for this newest chapter in a continuing struggle for justice. You may also be interested in these related posts:

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr Gordon MacRae Case

Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Priest

The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr Gordon MacRae

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 11/8/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 11/8/23

From Dorothy Rabinowitz: ‘Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth’

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist inspired poetic justice for a wrongly imprisoned priest with some obscure poetry that left a giant footprint on world history.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist inspired poetic justice for a wrongly imprisoned priest with some obscure poetry that left a giant footprint on world history.

November 8, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Introductory Note: A few years ago I wrote a post to honor Veterans Day, and have reposted a link to it each year near November 11. History is important and if we ignore it we end up repeating it. In the photo above, US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in 1941 to discuss a possible American entry into World War II after the Nazi invasion of Europe cast the entire free world into darkness. Strangely, their final decision was prompted by their trading two obscure poems each delivering to the other a message about vital events in history. Winston Churchill’s message to FDR was a pivotal moment. It was recently sent to me by Wall Street Journal columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz who inspired hope for me in the tyranny of darkness I faced. This is that remarkable story.

+ + +

As most readers know, I work in a library and though it is technically a law library it still gives me access to a world of books. Some of what is available there is not very helpful and not exactly literary but I still try to keep classic literature from being discarded to make room for the junk that too many prisoners want to read, such as graphic novels and comic books. Graphic novels fly off the shelves while Les Miserables collects dust.

The library has a fairly large poetry section, but what most prisoners are looking for is not Robert Frost or T.S. Elliot. They scour the shelves for snippets of love poems to plagiarize for their letters to girlfriends, both real and imagined. Longfellow languishes on the shelf while Cowboy Love Poetry blazes happy trails through the prison mail room.

I had also been scouring the poetry section. After the struggle described in some of our posts — such as “Dying in Prison in the ‘Live Free or Die’ State” — I received one day a surprising message from Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal with the subject, “Thoughts Between Deadlines.” It set me on a course of self-assessment in the face of struggle when she wrote:

“Do you have access to Google for information seeking? This isn’t the kind of information that moves legal proceedings, but it is a great source of empowerment nonetheless. I would ask you to look up just the line, ‘Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth.’ It should bring up the poem, written by the Victorian poet, Arthur Clough, who never wrote anything in the least memorable, except this one whose powers were such that, a hundred years after it was written, Winston Churchill sent it to Franklin Roosevelt.”

With this, Dorothy Rabinowitz certainly had my rapt attention pushing all the buttons — history, literature, and irony — that would draw me into a course of discovery. Between 2005 and 2022, The Wall Street Journal published a series of four major articles about my struggle culminating in the most recent, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae,” by Boston attorney Harvey A. Silverglate.

In all that time, Dorothy maintained a rather stolid interest, more inclined to uncover and report the facts of a difficult and nebulous story than its implications far beyond just me. In all these years, this message from her was the first contact that went to my struggle for justice and not just the discernment of facts.

With no access to Google or the internet, it took a few days for Dorothy’s message to get to me along with the results of the search she recommended. By telephone, I asked a friend to conduct the search that Dorothy recommended. To my surprise it took us to a remarkable but obscure poem, and I will get back to that in a moment. But first, the remainder of Dorothy’s equally remarkable message:

“The year was 1941. The English stood alone. America was not yet at war, but FDR was doing all within his power to get aid to them. The world faced a Europe overrun with triumphant Nazi troops. FDR had just won his fourth term and sent his new personal ally, the very Republican he had defeated — a heroic internationalist, Wendell Wilkie, who had been the standard bearer for an entirely isolationist Republican party — with a personal message of support to Churchill.”

There is more to the message, which I will get back to in a moment, but what made it so fascinating for me was my admiration for both Churchill and FDR. By 1940, Nazi Germany under Hitler occupied Poland, France and much of Europe with terrifying speed while America slept. The Battle of Britain (a very fine historical film) made clear that Hitler could not defeat the British air and naval forces under Churchill. Back to that in a moment as well.

Readers may have heard or read recent articles about newly discovered information about Pope Pius XII and the Vatican during the Nazi terror in Europe in the 1940s. A lot of ink has been spilled suggesting that Pope Pius was “Hitler’s Pope.” It was a slur derived from commentary about his reticence to publicly condemn Hitler and the Nazi Party during the war. The new information recently divulged centered on an archbishop advising Pope Pius who became concerned that Germany was going to win this war and a slaughter would ensue. It could have been the end of the Catholic Church. So with Nazi troops on his doorstep, and the rest of Europe under siege, Pope Pius became extremely cautious. The Catholic bishops of Holland issued a public statement in German condemning the Nazi deportation of Jews who had become Catholics to Auschwitz and other death camps. In retaliation, the Nazis raided convents and monasteries in Holland arresting anyone with Jewish roots. One result was the execution of Edith Stein who is now revered as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. This is a story I told in “Saints and Sacrifices: Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein at Auschwitz.”

Poetic Justice

The origin of the term, “Poetic Justice” has been difficult to nail down. It appears to have been first used in the Sixth Century B.C. in reference to the Greek poet, Ibycus. His works were collected in seven books, of which only fragments survive. The manner of his death created a legend. Dying from an assault by robbers, the legend held, Ibycus called on a passing flock of cranes to avenge him. Near Corinth, one of the robbers saw the flock of cranes and cried out, “Behold the avengers of Ibycus!” His cry betrayed him and the cranes devoured him, a death described as “poetic justice.”

Dorothy Rabinowitz sent me the most stunning example of poetic justice in the modern era. Fears of Nazi domination of the Atlantic made it easier for Franklin Roosevelt to defy the American isolationists by increasing aid to Britain. When the U.K. depleted its financial reserves, FDR replaced them with U.S. funding for arms production. Under the “Lend-Lease” act of 1941, there were no terms for payback. Dorothy continued in her message:

“FDR’s message to Churchill included the Longfellow poem that ended, ‘Sail on, Sail on, O Union strong and great — humanity with all its hopes and fears is resting on thy fate.”

This, of course, sent me on a hunt for its source. I found it in a collection of poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow entitled, “The Building of a Ship” published in 1850. Remember that both FDR and Churchill had come to the realization that England alone held the fragile line against German invasion and global tyranny. Its collapse seemed just a matter of time. This epic poem sent by FDR to Churchill nearly a century after it was written concluded,

“Then too, sail on O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee, are all with thee.”

I can readily see why FDR sent this to Churchill along with his diplomatic message about US funding for arms production. The demonic shroud of darkness that Hitler cast over all of Europe 83 years ago placed the rest of the world in a state of hopeless terror. Dorothy’s message to me continued:

“Churchill had no trouble grasping the importance of the pledge in this American poem, and recited it in a 1941 address to Parliament. As a return message, he sent to FDR the British poem I am writing to you about. You will see why I thought of you when I read it. Read it in the face of all the silences and rejections of appeals to justice that you have seen.”

Dorothy’s message was printed and snail-mailed to me. As soon as I received it, I called a friend to search for the poem she refers to. Its author is the British poet, Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861). Educated at Oxford, he became a tutor there during the Oxford Movement. Also called “Tractarianism,” one of the chief leaders of the Oxford Movement was Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman. Newman and the other adherents of the movement challenged a common view that the English Reformation constituted a complete break between Rome and the Church of England. The movement began in 1833 when the British government abolished ten bishoprics in Ireland. The Oxford Movement’s adherents warned that the Church of England was abandoning the principles of the 16th Century Reformers by allowing the Church of England to be dominated by secular authorities.

The Oxford Movement proposed that the Church of England could be saved from secularism only through a return to its Catholic origins. This became wildly controversial in the Church of England when Cardinal Newman published “Tract 90” in 1841 in which he attempted to prove that the Anglican 39 Articles of Religion were not inconsistent with Roman Catholic teaching. As a consequence of the Oxford Movement being suppressed, several hundred English clergy left the Church of England to become Roman Catholic, including Cardinal Newman himself. It was at this time that Arthur Hugh Clough left Oxford in protest against the Church of England’s 39 Articles of Religion, a struggle that informed his poetry.

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

As Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in her message to me, Arthur Clough wrote little that was memorable except this one poem, “Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth.” A century after its writing, it had an oversized footprint on history. Here is the entire poem sent from Churchill to FDR:

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

Clough’s beautiful poem is a testament to the notion that whatever struggle we must take up and endure in this life, the struggle itself is worthy, even when what we fight against is unjust and impenetrable. This is sometimes difficult to see and accept, but what sort of person would I be if I did not struggle against injustice not only against me, but for all priests falsely accused for financial gain? Margaret Drabble, a poetry critic at Literary Hub wrote of the poem:

“This poem by Arthur Hugh Clough unfailingly brings tears to my eyes. It speaks of hope, and effort, and disappointment, and perseverance... The imagery is profoundly beautiful, and reminds me of the great beaches of my childhood, of Wordsworth’s immortal shore. I can feel those ‘tired waves, vainly breaking,’ and then the flooding fullness of the sea.”

Dorothy also described the poem in her message:

“Clough was unspecific in the references. There are references to military battles, but they are clearly only metaphors. Its imperishable eloquence is exactly the kind that fires resolve to win in the end, which I depend on, which we must all depend on. Read it, and let me know you found it.”

So, Dorothy, as you can see, I found it! “Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth” is now enshrined on my cell wall. As you have suggested, I read it in the face of all the silences and rejections of appeals to justice that I have seen. It is a vivid reminder, as it was for Churchill and FDR, that some struggles are much bigger than their mere protagonists. This struck home for me when a prominent writer — an author and Catholic deacon in Pennsylvania where the priesthood and Church have been much maligned of late — published this review of Beyond These Stone Walls:

— Deacon David Jones

With that, Dorothy, I stopped being a victim of this struggle and became a warrior.

+ + +

Note From Father Gordon MacRae: Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, so, for America, the struggle was availeth after all.

Please share this post. Please watch and listen to Dorothy Rabinowitz in a five-minute WSJ interview on this story.

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

Hitler’s Pope, Nazi Crimes and The New York Times

Catholic Scandal and The Third Reich: The Rise and Fall of a Moral Panic

November 11 is Veterans Day, a day set aside to remember all those who bravely risked much to win and defend our freedoms. Please honor them with me by sharing my post, “Veterans Day: War and Remembrance and the Cost of Freedom.”

May the Lord Bless you and keep you.

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.

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