Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

While some high-profile priests are maligned from both in and beyond the Church, The Catholic University of America published its National Study of Catholic Priests.

“You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?”

— Matthew 7:16

January 11, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

In 2005, Catholic League President Bill Donohue was interviewed on the NBC Today show about accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests — some sadly true, but some also sadly false. Citing the case against me as an example, he said, “There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.”

Catholic priests in the United States have long been under assault from the news media, from activist groups, and at times even from within the Church. As most readers know, I have been the subject of many published articles, but not because I have been accused. It is because I strenuously refute the accusations as false. Much evidence has amassed in support of that. For some reason, this poses a threat to some nefarious agendas built around the sex abuse crisis in the Church.

When accused priests defend themselves in online media, seeding articles with vile comments using fake screen names had long been a tactic of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an organization that sought not so much to support legitimate victims, but to maximize monetary awards and media condemnation. Its representatives terrorized Church officials with media manipulation whenever any accused priest is defended in the court of public opinion.

Despite all that, some standout news media have bravely produced articles and commentary against the tide of public vitriol about accused priests. The Wall Street Journal recently published its fourth such article about the case against me. The most recent was by Boston Attorney Harvey Silverglate entitled “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.” This generated some excellent analysis by David F. Pierre, Jr. moderator of The Media Report. Those and other articles appear in our featured section, The Wall Street Journal.

I have much gratitude for Dorothy Rabinowitz, Harvey Silverglate, Ryan MacDonald, Bill Donohue, and David F. Pierre, Jr. for their valiant efforts to correct the public record. Without their truthful courage, I was at the mercy of nefarious means driven mostly by progressive political agendas and litigious greed. Most recently, however, even some bold Catholic writers have taken up the subject of Catholic Priests Falsely Accused.

The National Study of Catholic Priests

When I was first accused, my bishop and diocese published a press release declaring, without evidence, that I victimized not only my accusers, but the entire Catholic Church. That bishop’s successor later went on record to state his informed belief that I am innocent and should never have been in prison. Then his successor chose only to shun me, and to release my name on a public list of the “credibly” accused. He did this, he stated, for “transparency,” but that transparency has been highly selective.

My own experience leaves me with no trust at all that my bishop could, or would even try, to discern guilt from false witness in defense of me or any accused priest. Trust and distrust as the fallout from the scandal are now central issues in a recently published survey of 10,000 U.S. priests sponsored by The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. I highly recommend reviewing a report on the study results entitled, “The National Study of Catholic Priests: A Time of Crisis.” It was the largest study on the state of the priesthood in fifty years. Here is an overview of its parameters:

“Over the last two decades, the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has significantly eroded the trust between laity and clergy... Since the earliest days of the Dallas Charter there have been concerns that the bishops’ understandable eagerness to crack down on abusive priests was coming at the expense of due process protections for the accused: a de facto policy of ‘guilty until proven innocent.’ These concerns have been exacerbated by an expansion in the scope of the Church’s anti-abuse policies coupled with a perceived double standard in the way allegations against bishops have been handled in comparison to priests.”

Father Roger Landry, a columnist for the National Catholic Register, has an excellent analysis of The Catholic University of America study entitled, “Repairing the Relationship Between Priests and Bishops.”

The findings of the study are based on the responses of the thousands of U.S. priests who participated and submitted completed surveys. Given the difficult period of the last 20 years since the U.S. Bishops’ Dallas Charter was enacted, some of these responses are surprising, and point to the depth of commitment, spiritual life, optimism and resiliency of most priests. Most priests reported a high level of satisfaction in their ministry. A stunning 77% of priests self-reported that they are flourishing in their vocation.

Among the results, however, are some big red flags: 82% of priests report living with a fear of being falsely accused and left with no defense; 45% of priests report that they experience at least one symptom of ministry burnout, while 9% described their level of burnout as severe, and characterized by high levels of stress and emotional and physical exhaustion. Reports of high stress came particularly from younger priests. (I will get back to this later) .

The biggest concern among priests is related to the toll and fallout of the U.S. Bishops’ collective response to the sex abuse crisis in the Church. The sense of vulnerability among priests and their trust level for their bishops are the two most significant areas of negative fallout from the crisis.

In his NC Register column linked above, Father Roger Landry points to what I have called a disaster in the relationship between bishops and priests: the drafting and enactment of the 2002 “Dallas Charter” which imposed a draconian standard of “zero tolerance” and one-strike-and-you’re-out in response to any “credible” accusation against a priest. For an analysis of this standard of evidence, see my post, “The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests.”

Father Landry reports that the drafting of these policies in 2002 was done “hurriedly and under enormous pressure from the press, lawsuits and furious faithful.” Priests in the current study actually appreciated the efforts to respond to the crisis openly and with transparency. “But the priests surveyed gave stark testimony to the harms that have come from what the bishops in Dallas left out of balance.”

Guilty for Being Accused

The Vatican and Catholic hierarchy were unfairly maligned throughout publicity on “The Scandal.” At one point, SNAP partnered with the far-left, New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights to bring a crimes-against-humanity charge against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Some of the false claims against me were employed to shame Pope Benedict on a global scale. The scheme was nothing more than a publicity stunt to embarrass the Church into maximizing financial settlements. Many of its claims, including those against me were exposed as a fraud. Journalist Joann Wypijewski exposed this story in “Oscar Hangover Special: Why “Spotlight” Is a Terrible Film.”

Only in the Catholic Church is the highest echelon of governance blamed for the lowest level of misbehavior. Even in his later years, Benedict was demonized by German Catholics and others eager for any reason to blame him for the abuses of the past. Of interest, in the State of New Hampshire where I live more than 900 men between the ages of 20 and 50 have open lawsuits alleging systemic sexual abuse by State agents in the State’s juvenile detention facilities. Not one media outlet, not one victim group, not one of the victims themselves has blamed any of this on any present or former governor. This State carried out a witch-hunt in 2002 when the accused were Catholic priests. It is now confirmed that simultaneous to the witch-hunt was an active cover-up of the malfeasance of State agents.

As stated above, 82% of priests now report that they feel vulnerable to false accusations of sexual abuse that under existing policy will summarily end their ministry without due process. Compounding this fear, many report that they would be treated as guilty and left without support unless they could prove their innocence. Sixty-four percent said they would be left without support or resources to mount a defense, and almost half, 49%, think they would not be supported by their bishop. Father Landry added a sobering understanding of the reality:

“In most dioceses, when a priest is accused, he loses his home, his job, his good name — all within hours. He is removed immediately from his rectory and parish assignment, prevented from public ministry for the length of what is often an inexcusably glacial investigation, and required to dress like a layman. A press release is published in which the priest’s reputation is injured, if not ruined. He needs to exhaust his meager savings or beg and borrow money to hire a lawyer. Most excruciatingly, he has to linger for months or years under suspicion of being a sadistic pervert as well as a hypocrite to the faith for which he has given his life.”

Given the reality that most claims against priests are many years or decades old, establishing clear evidence is difficult if not impossible. So the bishops adopted what they called the “credible” standard. It means only that if a priest and an accuser lived in the same parish or community 20, 30, or 40 years ago, the accusation is “credible” on its face. No one in America but a Catholic priest could lose his livelihood, his reputation, sometimes even his freedom, under such a standard. I exposed one such case in “The Exile of Father Dominic Menna and Transparency at The Boston Globe.”

I am most appreciative to Father Roger Landry and the National Catholic Register for their bold and transparent analysis of what actually happens to an accused priest. By taking all the steps a diocese or bishop imposes above, such a priest is effectually silenced and unable to defend himself at all.

Stress along the fault lines between bishops and priests that these policies have caused is also clear in the survey. There is a wide disparity between how bishops view themselves and how they are viewed by their priests. Seventy-three percent of bishops reported viewing priests as their brothers. Only 28% of priests reported that their bishops treat them that way.

The disconnect revealed itself in several other ways as well: 70% of bishops reported that they are spiritual fathers to their priests while only 28% of priests thought the same. Father Landry reported that the biggest disconnect relates to a priest who is struggling. Ninety-percent of bishops reported that they would be present to and supportive of a struggling priest while only 36% of priests thought that this is true.

The Double Standard

Also evident in both the survey and Father Landry’s analysis of it is the double standard created when bishops failed to hold themselves accountable to the same standards imposed on their priests. In 2002, as the Charter was being debated during the U.S. Bishops Conference at Dallas, Cardinal Avery Dulles published a landmark article in America magazine entitled “The Rights of Accused Priests.”

The article was cheered by priests but largely ignored by bishops. Cardinal Dulles cited a 2000 pastoral initiative of the U.S. bishops entitled “Responsibility and Rehabilitation.” It criticized the U.S. justice system for the establishment of one-size-fits-all norms such as “zero tolerance” and “one strike and you’re out.” Then the same bishops, in a media panic, imposed those same standards on their priests.

But none of it ever applied to accusations against bishops, a reality that Father Landry described as “a double standard that profoundly affected their relationship [with priests].” While deliberating adoption of the Dallas Charter, the bishops removed the word “cleric,” which could have included bishops, and replaced it with “priests and deacons.” Now 51% of priests report that they do not have confidence in their bishop while 70% report a lack of confidence in bishops in general.

In a 2019 apostolic letter, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, Pope Francis addressed some of the disparities with mixed results. Father Landry points out that investigations of bishops, even in allegations of past sexual abuse, “seldom involve the draconian measures experienced by priests.”

I have written of a glaring example in my own diocese. Citing a desire for “transparency,” and with no one pressuring him to do so, my bishop proactively published in 2019 a list of the names and status of 73 priests of this diocese who had been “credibly” accused over fifty years. Most are deceased. Weeks later, a New Hampshire Superior Court judge barred publication of information from a grand jury investigation which was the source for most of the Bishop’s list. Ryan MacDonald wrote of the reasons for that in “Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm On the Priesthood.”

Months after publishing his list, my bishop was himself accused in a civil lawsuit in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York. He was unjustly caught up in the political fallout of former New york Governor Andrew Cuomo who generated the claims when he signed into law an exemption window in which old time-barred accusations can be brought forward after the statute of limitations had run. I defended my bishop in a widely read post, “Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo.”

Conservative Priests Face Greater Scrutiny

I mentioned above that I would revisit one finding of this report — that younger priests experience more stress than older priests. A separate research report on Catholic priests by the Austin Institute has documented that younger priests tend to be more conservative and traditional than older priests. That bears out from observations of our readers who find this distinction to be a positive development. Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Vatican Correspondent Francis X. Rocca reported on this in “Catholic Ideological Split Widens” (Dec.19, 2022):

“U.S. Catholic bishops elected conservative leaders last month, continuing to resist a push from Pope Francis to put issues such as climate change and poverty on par with the bishops’ declared priority of opposing abortion.”

The bishops appointed by Pope Francis tend to mirror his priorities. His recent elevation of San Diego Archbishop Robert McElroy, a leading liberal among U.S. bishops, to the College of Cardinals is an example. There is thus a growing disparity in liberal vs. conservative views as newly appointed bishops are more liberal while priests newly emerging from U.S. seminaries are more conservative and traditional.

Since the 1980s, successive annual ordinations have grown more conservative. Each successive 10-year grouping in the ordained priesthood supports Church teaching on moral and theological issues more strongly than the one before it. Those ordained after 2010, as a whole, are most conservative. When seminarians and younger priests do not have their views of the Church and Catholic practice affirmed, stress develops and increases. Younger U.S. priests represent a generation disillusioned with ideas of progress and religious pluralism, and the abandonment of the Church’s prolife charism in favor of topics like climate change.

This leaves a widening chasm between Pope Francis, his Episcopal appointments, and younger priests in the United States. The Catholic Project study also reveals that almost 80% of priests ordained before 1980 approve strongly of Pope Francis while only 20% of those ordained after 2010 share that view. Is their priestly interest in respect for tradition a plague upon the Church?

Or is it the whispering of the Holy Spirit?

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: This brief essay from American Thinker by Attorney Franklin Friday is perhaps the best commentary on the future Church after the death of Pope Benedict XVI, and not only because I am in it. Please read and share this timely article: No Easy Road for Men of God.

You may also be interested in these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Once and Future Catholic Church

Forty Years of Priesthood in the Mighty Wind of Pentecost

The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm On the Priesthood

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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. The site has a real-time live feed of its Adoration Chapel with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We invite you to spend some some time before the Lord in a place that holds great spiritual meaning for us.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Pope Francis, Fr. Frank Pavone and the End of Roe v. Wade

Catholics were shocked by news that Pope Francis signed a decree dismissing Fr. Frank Pavone from the priesthood just months after the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

January 4, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

As most readers of this post already know, I write as a priest in prison where I have spent the last 29 years in unjust confinement. In more recent years, much evidence has surfaced that I was wrongfully convicted, and that evidence has been repeatedly covered by a secular global media venue, The Wall Street Journal. Because I write for a blog with a global readership, others both here in my prison and beyond have come to see that faith is a better path to true freedom than any other. Priesthood, even in confinement, is meant to be lived in a state of sacrificial fatherhood.

Now I wonder how my stubborn clinging to something under such public assault as Catholic priesthood might be seen in the light of recent revelations about Pope Francis and the ever-growing reality of “cancelled priests” to which he seems to have lent the power of his pen. News of the dismissal from the priesthood of Father Frank Pavone, the most respected, outspoken, and visible prolife priest in North America, cast a good part of the Catholic prolife world back into the land of gloom just before Christmas. That drama continues with lots of finger-pointing.

As I ponder this troubling development, my own finger keeps turning like a compass needle to a possible causal connection. Midway through 2022 I wrote, “After Roe v. Wade, Hope for Life and a Nation’s Soul.” The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights sent that post to all its thousands of members asking them to read and share it. The U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade cast much of this nation into political turmoil. It generated on the political left waves of threatened reprisals against Catholic churches, prolife Catholics, and the entire prolife movement. Did reprisals come from within the Church as well?

My internal compass cannot help but notice that only five months later, the most visibly prolife Catholic priest in America was removed from the priesthood ostensibly for behaviors that ordinarily would not have resulted in such a penalty. Fr. Pavone and others with internal knowledge of this bombshell have insinuated that activist progressive bishops brought pressure to bear. If this is true, and evidence surfaces to support this claim, it would be a scandal of immense proportions for the prolife cause and for the Church.

There are some that would readily imagine political payback as the true heart of this decision. Others see it as an unjust punishment imposed for reasons more secular and political than ecclesial. In his homily to priests on his apostolic visit to the United States in Philadelphia in 1979, Pope John Paul II articulated the indelible character of the priestly vocation: “It cannot be that God who gave the impulse to say ‘yes’ now wishes to hear ‘no.’”

We are not owed explanations of the Pope’s deliberations so we may never have an adequate explanation of this. But I cannot forget the last words published by Father Richard John Neuhaus about my own situation. The late Father Neuhaus was one of the premier theologians and observers of Catholic culture in the Church in North America. In “A Kafkaesque Tale” in First Things magazine (August-September 2008) he wrote of my imprisonment:

“You may want to pray for Father MacRae and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

We must now pray as well for Father Frank Pavone and all who were involved in bringing about his separation from priesthood. The Church must not seem indifferent to justice. The timing of this matter could not have been worse for prolife Catholics who sacrificed much over many years working toward a conscience-driven judicial reversal of Roe v. Wade even as many in the Catholic hierarchy set it aside in favor of other moral priorities such as climate change.

Absent any other explanation for Father Pavone’s dismissal, many are left to conclude something nefarious. There is no shortage of demonic attack on the champions of the Catholic prolife movement. I alluded to this in a paragraph in my recent post, “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah”:

“Our culture’s turning away from life is also a turning away from God. The fact that many nominally Catholic politicians lend their voices and votes to that turning away is a betrayal of Biblical proportions. In the Story of God and human beings, we have been here before. Planned Parenthood is our culture’s Temple to Baal.”

Double Standards

I have, in the past, expressed concerns about the fervent witness of high-profile outspoken priests like Fr. Frank Pavone and Fr. James Altman. I have written of my belief that their message might be more effective with some toning down of their rhetoric. Some readers reminded me that Jesus Himself did not seem to think so when he drove the money-changers out of the Temple (Mark 11:15). So, to borrow a phrase from Pope Francis himself, “Who am I to judge?”

Still, I have witnessed Father Pavone react to this latest news with an aura of both written and verbal apparent disrespect for Church authority. His anger is suspect, but the absence of any anger would be much more suspect. Would priesthood mean so little to him that being discarded should be met with calm acquiescence?

I recently received a letter from a priest in which he wrote, “I understand that you have a problem with Pope Francis. Perhaps you just don’t understand him.” I asked the priest what gave him that impression. In response, he referred to a post of mine entitled, “Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy.” It is but one of many posts I have written about Pope Francis. None were disrespectful.

However, the priest who wrote to me had not read anything beyond the title before concluding that I have a problem with Pope Francis and therefore use this blog to rebel. That could not be further from the truth. The “heresy” described in that post was not that of Pope Francis at all. It rather challenged the many self-described traditional and conservative Catholics who openly charged that any question of divorce, remarriage, and Communion cheapens the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and undermines it.

True or not, those same Catholics had little or nothing to say when it was the Sacrament of Holy Orders that came under assault in 2002 and remains so. The “heresy” post ended up holding the record for being shared on social media (over 25,000 times on Facebook alone) only because many who thought it accused Pope Francis of heresy never actually read it.

After news of Father Pavone’s dismissal from priesthood, one of our readers referred to Pope Francis in a comment as “the fake pope.” Like Elon Musk (but with none of his resources) I much prefer to let people speak their minds, but I asked to have the word “fake” removed before posting that comment. Francis is the legitimate successor of the Chair of Peter. As priests, both Father Pavone and I owe allegiance and fidelity to his office. Sometimes exercising that fidelity means also writing and speaking the truth. I am committed to doing so without anger or insult.

However, many readers of this blog have commented that a clear double standard exists in the discipline of priests. It is widely believed that conservative and traditional priests are treated with more oversight and disdain from hierarchy than so-called progressive clerics. Many cite Fr. James Martin who openly challenges and even disregards Catholic moral teaching on sexual and gender issues, and some of the German bishops who defied Pope Francis by the blessing of same-sex unions.

None have received any penalty, much less the nuclear bomb dropped on Father Pavone and Priests for Life. The U.S. Bishops Conference had an opportunity, supported by many bishops, to address with pro-abortion Catholic politicians the dichotomy between what they profess as Catholics and what they practice in regard to the right to life. A few bishops took a courageous stance. Most voted against it, and the matter was left to dangle unaddressed. I wrote of this double standard in “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul.”

Because the subject, and that post, surfaced just months before a presidential election in 2020, the topic was largely suppressed in the media, a trend that now has a familiar ring. Suppressed as well is the fact that Pope Francis has himself made many bold statements in support of the prolife cause while his climate change statements are widely disseminated in the media. Given this, one would hope that he would be conscious of double standards and their effect on clergy and laity alike.

A Bombshell for So Many Catholics

As I was preparing to write this post, a reader sent me a recording from the popular radio show, “Catholic Drive Time with Joe McClane.” The episode was devoted to news of Fr. Frank Pavone’s dismissal, and Pavone himself was a call-in guest of the show. Joe McClane referred to the dismissal as “a bombshell for so many Catholics.”

Father Pavone was asked to respond to the matter, and said with some sarcasm, “What took them so long?” I expect him to be angry and disappointed, but I do not think sarcasm serves his cause. One concerned priest and canon lawyer observed this as well, and told me that Father Pavone may not be entirely innocent in all this. I recall a similar discussion with a reader who defended former police officer Derek Chauvin who brought about the death of George Floyd in 2020. He stated that Floyd tried to pass a fake $20 bill. True or not, no one in America is executed over a fake $20 bill.

Also appearing on the same show was Father Gerald Murray, JCD, a well-known canon lawyer in the Archdiocese of New York who appears frequently as part of “The Papal Posse” on EWTN’s The World Over with Raymond Arroyo. I have much respect for Father Murray and his canonical expertise. He pointed out that the charges against Father Pavone are two-fold: blasphemy in Internet postings and persistent disobedience to his bishop.

The charges were adjudicated by the Vatican Congregation for Clergy at the behest of the Bishop of Amarillo, Texas, Father Pavone’s bishop. Father Pavone was then judged to be guilty of both offenses. However, neither of those offenses, even if found to be true, generally result in a canonical dismissal from the clerical state according to Father Murray who added that punishment for those offenses went beyond what is prescribed in Canon Law. Father Pavone’s bishop may have requested removal. Until a formal decree is issued, no one seems to know how this dismissal came about, according to Father Murray.

To his credit, Father Pavone went on to explain that he has laid out his defense against the charges on his personal website, FrFrankPavone.com. I am told that there is a lot there to read, and I encourage readers with concerns about this matter to peruse that site.

In his Catholic Drive Time radio interview, Father Pavone concluded, “I urge everyone to respect authority in the Church, but I do not respect abuse of authority.” He did not place blame directly with Pope Francis for his dismissal, but with “certain bishops” who “lie, block and obstruct to control the kind of prolife message” the Church will hear.” He cited as an example of the abuse of process that he learned of his dismissal from Catholic News Agency instead of from his own bishop.

Priests for Life

The high-profile case of Father Pavone has now resulted in a high-profile reaction, some of it marked by obvious anger. The Coalition for Canceled Priests issued a statement from Sister Dede Byrne who found national prominence when she was invited to address the Republic National Convention before the 2020 presidential election where she advocated strongly for rights and protections for the unborn. Here is a segment of her public response to the laicization of Father Frank Pavone:

“The most vocal prolife priest has been laicized! What crime has he done to warrant such a harsh punishment? In the wake of this travesty, we still have the most pro-death, anti-nuclear family president in our nation’s history who professes to be a Catholic in good standing ... with no real guidance from our bishops or the Vatican ... What appears to many Catholics who love our Church is selective mercy from the Pope of Mercy. I ask myself, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on Earth?” (Luke 18:7)

Sister Dede Byrne touched upon what should be a grave concern for every priest. What happened to Father Pavone likely would not have happened just a decade ago. Another canon lawyer explained to me that under a 21st-Century papal decree, bishops obtained the authority to seek a priest’s removal from ministry and even formal dismissal from the clerical state without a penal process. Some have come to see this as the Church’s own version of capital punishment. More frequent use of this development should cause concern for every priest and lay Catholic. Such a process invites abuse and the application of bias against what a bishop might perceive as ideologically undesirable clergy.

The message sent by Pope Francis is that he is on board with such a cause. I wonder if he fully knows the deep sadness and disillusionment now thrust upon priests, the faithful, and especially the prolife cause in this dichotomy. The Pope who assumed the Chair of Peter and launched the Year of Mercy in his papacy appears to have abandoned all mercy for priests.

I have not been dismissed from priesthood. I hope and pray that such an injustice never befalls me. Father Frank Pavone and I have only the grace of fortitude. I never knew I had it until recently. It is defined as “Strength of mind that allows one to endure pain or adversity with courage.” We could both simply abandon the Church and be free of all scrutiny and betrayal, but the grace of fortitude stands in the way. I thank God for that.

An appeal of this dismal is not possible because the outcome already bears the signature of the highest authority in the Church. In 2002, however, Saint John Paul II reminded bishops that they should not lose sight of the power of prayer and conversion in the life of a priest. The Pope is also a priest and he can reconsider his own conclusions. Pope Francis and Father Frank Pavone are both priests for life. Please pray for them in these difficult days for the priesthood. Above all, pray for justice. The Church and priesthood are much diminished without it.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Writing for The Catholic Thing, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D, STD, has written perhaps the most pointed analysis in print on this matter: “Fr. Pavone and “The Spirit of Vatican I.”

Thank you for reading and sharing this week’s post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Duty of a Priest: Father Frank Pavone and Priests for Life

Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy

Will Pope Francis Stand Against Catholic Schism?

Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul

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Photo courtesy of Vatican Media

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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. Today the Chapel has a real-time live feed for a most beautiful adoration chapel where people around the world can spend time in Eucharistic Adoration. We invite you to come and spend some quiet time adoring our Lord.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents

After the Birth of the Messiah, a second angelic dream warns Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Christ Child as Herod orders a slaughter of the Innocents.

Feast of the Holy Innocents by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Editor’s Note: The following is the second of a special two-part Biblical Christmas Season post. Part one, which appeared here two weeks ago was “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah.”

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In the proclamation of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (2:13-18) on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the Church recalls in just six verses an account of the Visit of the Magi, Joseph’s second dream of an Angel of the Lord, the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt, and the wrath of Herod as he orders the slaughter of all male children under two years of age in and around Bethlehem. As a priest, I have read this account over forty-two consecutive Christmas seasons, but never before was it overshadowed by such tragic realism.

Our safe, emotional buffer zone from that 2,000 year old account is gone now. The sense of personal distance is lost. A dark cloud still hangs over America since the shocking and senseless deaths of 19 young children in 2022 in a small Texas city called Uvalde. I first wrote of this shortly after this tragedy occurred in “Tragedy at Uvalde, Texas: When God and Men Were Missing.”

A lot of soul searching has gone into a quest for what could have spawned such a horrific event, how it developed, how it might have been prevented, and what should have been done differently by responding police. The tragedy was devastating. I can only imagine the heartache of the parents of Uvalde as they faced that Christmas with broken hearts and shattered dreams.

Then it happened again — this time in Thailand, and this time the killer was not a crazed teenager, but a drug addicted police officer. The story devastated the Kingdom of Thailand. On October 6, 2022 the recently fired police officer brought a 9mm handgun and a knife into a preschool daycare center in the village of Uthai Sawan. It was near where Pornchai Moontri lived as a small child. With no known motive, the former officer murdered 24 children ages two to five. Then he killed his wife and his own child before turning his gun on himself.

I could not bring myself to write that story, but Pornchai Moontri bravely took it up. Several readers told me that they did not read it because they knew it would be terribly painful. It was and still is. But there is much more to it than sorrow. There is hope there as well. “Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand” was Pornchai’s faith-filled gift to his Homeland and to us. It is a most inspired post that I highly recommend. We will link to it again at the end of this one.

The Magi Take the Long Way Home

I am painfully aware that on the day this is posted, the Church honors those first Christian Martyrs, the innocent male children of Bethlehem who were subjected to the selfish wrath of King Herod. They became collateral damage in the first demonic attempt to rid the world of Christ. The explosive account is told with blunt force in the Gospel According to Matthew:

“Now when the Wise Men had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise! Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.’

“And Joseph arose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the Prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’ When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Wise Men, he was in a furious rage. He sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and all that region who were two years old and under according to the time which he had ascertained from the Wise Men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah:

“‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.’”

— Matthew 2:13-20

In the first installment of this two-part post, I described the unique attributes of Joseph’s three dreams in Matthew’s account of the Birth of the Messiah. Dreams are an important element of the story. As I wrote in “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah”:

“There are 126 references to dreams among the characters of Sacred Scripture. Some of the pivotal moments in Salvation History were set in motion through dreams. But the dreams of Joseph are unique in the Biblical literature. In the original Greek of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the term used for Joseph’s three dreams about the birth of Jesus is ‘onar,’ and it is used nowhere else in Sacred Scripture but here.

“‘Onar’ in Greek refers not just to a dream, but to a divine intervention in human affairs. Coupled with the fact that the dream is induced by an “Angel of the Lord,” then the scene takes on a sense of great urgency when compared with a multitude of other angelic messages conveyed through dreams.”

In this second of Joseph’s dreams, the urgent intervention is God’s foresight that Herod is enraged, believing that he was tricked by the Magi. Herod plots to kill the child. He had asked the Magi to return from Bethlehem to reveal the location of this Christ-child with a false promise that he, too, would pay him homage. After a dream premonition not to return to Herod, the Magi left by another route. I wrote about the Magi in a popular Christmas post linked again at the end of this one: “Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear.”

There is an important element of the Magi story that I omitted when I first wrote that post. The Magi were traditionally associated with astrologers and astral religion, a fact seen as scandalous to some early Christians who did not want to accept this aspect of Matthew’s account. In later Christian tradition, they became not Magi, but kings, a likely reflection on Psalm 72:10 — “May the kings of Tarshish and of the Isles bring him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts.”

The Star of Bethlehem is a popular element of the story, but it, too, was a scandal among some in the early Church. Some of the people of the Ancient Near East were drawn to astral religion because it brought a sense of surety in the midst of social chaos. But over time, astrology became oppressive, making people feel hopeless against the tyranny of “fate” when their destinies seemed dictated by the cold movement of the stars.

In contrast, however, the Star of Bethlehem served only God’s purpose. That, and the presence of astrologers who came to worship Christ, broke the power of astral religion and its belief in fate. But history repeats itself. As our culture again becomes socially chaotic, many are once again drawn into nature religions such as astrology, Wicca, and druidism for a false sense of determinism guided by practitioners claiming to interpret and control destiny. I recently saw a TV commercial selling fifteen minute intervals with a California seer. G.K. Chesterton once famously said that people without faith do not believe in nothing. They believe in anything.

Tragedy in Thailand | Photo courtesy of Reuters

Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents

There are four rulers named Herod appearing in New Testament Scripture: Herod the Great reigned in Palestine from 37 B.C. until shortly after the Birth of Jesus. His son, Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, ordered the beheading of John the Baptist (Matthew 14) and sent Jesus to trial before Pilate (Luke 23:7-15). His son, Herod Agrippa, imprisoned the Apostle Peter (Acts 12); and his son, Herod Agrippa II, attended the trial of Saint Paul (Acts 25:13).

Herod the Great was part of a non-Jewish Edomite family from a territory east and south of the Dead Sea. They were descendants of Esau, the elder brother of Jacob (Genesis 25:30). Herod was given the title, “King of the Jews” by the Roman Senate and ruled Palestine from 37 to 4 B.C. as a vassal king appointed by Caesar Augustus. Centuries-old adjustments to the Roman calendar place the birth of Jesus near the end of Herod’s life between six and four B.C.

Herod the Great (“Great” by Roman standards only) appears in Scripture only during the events surrounding the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1:5). He ruled Palestine with brutality and paranoia. It is ironic that Herod took such violent steps to end the life of Jesus just prior to the undocumented end of his own life. He took great umbrage at the Magi’s revelation that the Star of Bethlehem was an omen for one who is born King of the Jews, a title Rome had bestowed upon Herod.

But Herod’s paranoia ran deeper than that. The Star of Bethlehem innocently described by the Magi recalled for Herod and his Hebrew advisors the ancient Fourth Oracle of Balaam in the Book of Numbers. The oracle predicted a future messiah and the end of Edom’s power. From the Oracle of Balaam (Numbers 24:17-19):

“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. It shall crush the borderlands of Moab, and the territory of all the Shethites. Edom will become a possession of its enemies, while Israel thrives valiantly. One out of Jacob shall rule.”

Being a descendant of the Edomites, Herod “was greatly troubled” (Matthew 2:3). So he summoned the Magi to ascertain exactly when the Star appeared. He sent them on to Bethlehem after securing a promise that they would return with the exact location of this newborn Child-King. When the Magi failed to return, Herod flew into a rage. He ordered his forces to find and kill all male children under two years of age in Bethlehem.

This event also has an echo from a much older time in Salvation History. Jesus is presented as the New Moses, one who will lead God’s people out of bondage. The first Moses led Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, but Pharaoh was immovable until the Tenth Plague struck down the firstborn sons of Pharaoh and all of Egypt (Exodus 12:29-31).

The Evangelist, Matthew, captures with a quote from the Prophet Jeremiah the devastation that Herod left behind. In the Eighth Century B.C. the Assyrians devastated Northern Israel when their army swept through the city of Ramah about five miles north of Jerusalem. Ramah became equated with Israel’s great depth of sorrow left behind by the evil of tyranny. So it is of Ramah that is recalled in the face of Herod’s evil:

“A voice heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be consoled because her children were no more.”

— Matthew 2:18 and Jeremiah 3:15

Jesus, the New Moses would lead God’s People from the bondage of sin and death. Herod believed that the murder of the Children of Bethlehem was the last word, but it was not the last word. Then Herod the Great somehow became Herod the Dead. Scripture does not describe how, when, or where. God knows. The narrative of the Birth of the Messiah ends with the third dream of Joseph from an Angel of the Lord:

“Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead. And [Joseph] rose and took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Herod’s son reigned in his place, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.”

— Matthew 2:19-23

Thus concludes Matthew’s account of the Birth of the Messiah. It was not the end of tyranny, but it was the beginning of all hope.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please share this post. You may also like these related posts cited here:

Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah

Tragedy at Uvalde, Texas: When God and Men were Missing

Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand

Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear

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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. Today the Chapel has a real-time live feed for a most beautiful adoration chapel where people around the world can spend time in Eucharistic Adoration. We invite you to come and spend some quiet time this Christmas celebrating the rebirth of the Messiah in your own life.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Lead, Kindly Light: A Christmas Card to Our Readers

Abraham first heard God 21 centuries before the Magi followed a star to Bethlehem. We now live in the 21st century after. At the center of all faith Christ is born.

December 21, 2022

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Dear Readers, Some elements of our Annual BTSW Christmas Card may seem a bit familiar to you. We have used some of these elements in our posts of Christmas past. Since 1949, The Wall Street Journal has published as its top editorial each Christmas Eve an outstanding piece of writing from the late Vermont C. Royster, the WSJ’s former Editorial Page Editor. His yearly repeated Christmas essay is “In Hoc Anno Domini,” (In this year of the Lord). It is one of the finest examples of historical Christian writing I have encountered, and one of the most faith-filled. Mr. Royster was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. So at the expense of sounding a bit pretentious, if The Wall Street Journal can get away with publishing an annual Christmas gem, then so can I.

I begin our Christmas Card this year with Vermont C. Royster and his “In Hoc Anno Domini.”

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression — for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

— Vermont C. Royster, The Wall Street Journal, December 24, 1949

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The liturgies of Christmas set out in the Roman Missal and Lectionary express the spirituality of the entire ecclesial body of the baptized into the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our communal past and hopeful future.

The Mass at Night for the Christmas Vigil begins with a moving recitation of the Roman Martyrology which places the Birth of the Messiah into a real historical context:

The twenty-fifth day of December when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world, when God in the beginning created heaven and earth, and formed man in His own likeness; when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, as a sign of covenant and peace — In the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith, came out of Ur of the Chaldees; in the thirteenth century since the people of Israel were led by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt; in the tenth century since David was anointed King; in the sixty-fifth week of the prophecy of Daniel; in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; in the year seven hundred and fifty-two since the founding of Rome; in the forty-second year in the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus, the whole world being at peace

— Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

desiring to consecrate the world by his most loving presence, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and when nine months had passed since His conception, was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and

was made man.

— The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh

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I am forced by circumstance to live in a place with men who are banished, not just from home and family and freedom, but too often also from hope. Some with even the darkest pasts have come into the light to thrill us with their stories of grace and true repentance and conversion. You have read of several in these pages and there are other stories yet to come. Some of these wounded men become saints, I am not fit to fasten their sandals. We live East of Eden, most justly so, but some not.

The Magi of the Gospel saw a star and heard good news, the very best of news: Freedom can be found in only one place, and the way there is to follow the Star they followed. If you follow Beyond These Stone Walls, never follow me. Follow only Christ.

My Christmas Card to you is this message, a tradition of sorts for Beyond These Stone Walls. My small, barred cell window faces East. It is there that I offer Mass for our readers. So my gaze is always toward the East, a place to which we were all once banished to wander East of Eden.

At the end of these cold and gray December days I step outside to watch toward the West as the sun descends behind towering prison walls. It reminds me of my favorite prayer,

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on;

The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead Thou me on.

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;

I loved to choose and see my path, but now, Lead Thou me on.

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will; Remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on,

O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone.

And with the morn those Angel faces smile,

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

— Saint John Henry Newman

This moving prayer by Saint John Henry Newman has been set to music as a tribute to Saint John Paul II:

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My favorite Christmas hymn, “O Holy Night,” was originally based on a French poem entitled Cantique de Noël by Placide Cappeau in 1843. Composer Adolphe Adam set it to music in 1847. The English version (with small changes to the initial melody) is by John Sullivan Dwight. The hymn reflects on the birth of Jesus as humanity’s redemption.

This wonderful hymn has been performed by many noted vocalists over the last two centuries. Few have performed it with more beauty and heartfelt faith than Celine Dion. Celine today suffers from a neurological disorder that may inhibit her voice. Please offer a prayer for her. Celine Dion’s beautiful voice should be long remembered for her rendition of this most beautiful of Christmas hymns.

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Some of our Readers around the world live in difficult circumstances. There are many who come to this site from Ukraine besieged by war over the last year. Many others have lost loved ones and are now besieged by loneliness. I drafted this Christmas message as a place where perhaps we could all meet for a time in this Christmas Season. One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. Today the Chapel has a real-time live feed for a most beautiful adoration chapel where people around the world can spend time in Eucharistic Adoration. We invite you to come and spend some quiet time this Christmas celebrating the rebirth of the Messiah in your own life.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae:

Blessings to you all during this joyous Christmas Season. We are living in darker times, and this Christmas is like no other, but we are children of the Light and we are promised that the darkness will never overcome it. May God Bless you and keep you safe. Feliz Navidad!

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Please also visit our Special Events page.

Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah

Saint Joseph is silent in the Gospel account of the Birth of the Messiah, but his actions reveal him as a paradigm of spiritual fatherhood and sacrificial love.

At Christmas by Fr. Gordon MacRae

I wrote a post similar to this one during Advent in 2016. At the time I wrote it, I had been living in dire straits with eight prisoners to a cell. Daily life there was chaotic and draconian. The word “draconian” refers to a set of punishing conditions notorious for their severity and heavy-handed oppression. The word was derived from Draco, a Seventh Century B.C. politician who codified the laws of Athens to severely oppress the rights and liberties of its citizens.

Pornchai Moontri was living in that same setting with me, though neither of us had said or done anything to bring it about. It was simply a bureaucratic development that we were told would last for only a few weeks. One year later, we were both still there. Later in 2017 we were finally moved to a saner, safer place, but that Advent and Christmas in 2016 are etched in my mind as a painful trial, with but one bright exception.

Many of our friends were also thrust into that same situation, living eight to a cell in a block of 96 men seemingly always on the verge of rage. I was recently talking with a friend who was there with us then. He said that what he recalls most from the experience was how Pornchai and I went from cell to cell on our first night there to be sure our friends were okay. And what he recalled most about Christmas Eve in that awful setting was Pornchai setting up a makeshift workspace in our cell to make Thai wraps for all the other prisoners on the block.

Over the previous week in visits to the commissary, I stocked up extra tortilla wraps and ingredients. Our friends helped with distribution as Pornchai undertook his first-ever fast food job. The hardcore “lifers” around us were amazed. Nothing like this had ever happened here before. Just weeks earlier, Donald Trump was elected President. He announced a policy that foreign migrants seeking to stay in the United States would first be sent to Mexico to await processing. While the entire cellblock was eating Thai wraps, Pornchai announced to loud cheers that they are henceforth to be called “Thai Burritos.”

It was in that inhumane setting that I first wrote the story of Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah described in the Gospel according to St. Matthew (1:18-24). It was the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent in 2016. When I went back to look at my 2016 post on that Gospel passage about Joseph’s dream, I thought it reflected too much the conditions in which it was written. So instead of restoring it, I decided to write it anew.

The People Who Walked in Darkness

The Gospel of Matthew begins with “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” (Matthew 1:1). Many have pointed out some differences between the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s account and that found in the Gospel of Luke (3:23-38). They are remarkably similar in the generations from Abraham to King David, but from David to Jesus they diverge. This is because Matthew traces the genealogy of Jesus forward from Abraham through King David to Jesus in the line of Joseph who connects to Jesus by adoption, the same manner in which we now call God “Our Father.”

The genealogy in Luke, on the other hand, begins with Mary and runs backward through David to Abraham and then to Adam. It is a fine point that I have made in several reflections on Sacred Scripture that we today find ourselves in a unique time in Salvation History. Abraham first encountered God in the 21st Century before the Birth of Christ. We encounter God in the 21st Century after. At the center of all things stands Jesus whose Cross shattered a barrier to “To the Kingdom of Heaven through a Narrow Gate.”

That both genealogies pass through David is highly significant. This is expressed in the first reading from Isaiah (9:1-6) in the Vigil Mass for the Nativity of the Lord on Christmas Eve:

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom, a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing... For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed as on the day of Midian.... For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They call him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father Forever, Prince of Peace. His dominion is vast and ever peaceful from David’s throne and over his kingdom which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice now and forever.”

— Isaiah 9:1-6

The differences in the genealogy accounts are a testament to their authenticity. Matthew stresses the Davidic kingship of Jesus over Israel by adoption through Joseph mirroring our adoption as heirs to the Kingdom. Luke, by tracing the ancestry of Jesus through Mary all the way back to Adam, stresses a theological rather than historical truth: the Lordship of Jesus over sin and grace and our redemption from the Fall of Man — a Savior born to us through Mary.

The Birth of the Messiah

What initially struck me in Saint Matthew’s account of the Birth of Jesus is its language inferring the sanctity of life. Having just passed though a disappointing national election in America in which the right to life was center stage, we heard a lot of talk about fetal heartbeats, viability, and reproductive rights. Our culture’s turning away from life is also a turning away from God. The fact that many nominally Catholic politicians lend their voices and votes to that turning away is a betrayal of Biblical proportions. In the Story of God and human beings, we have been here before. Planned Parenthood is our culture’s Temple to Baal.

The Gospel passages about the Birth of the Messiah clearly establish a framework for the value Sacred Scripture places on human life. Mary is never described as simply pregnant, or in a pre-natal state, or carrying a fetus. She is, without exception from the moment of the Annunciation, declared to be “with child.” But it was not all without politics, obstacles, and suspicions, and fears of finger-pointing to discredit her fidelity. The story begins with Matthew 1:18-19 and Joseph pondering how best to protect Mary from the scandal that was surely to come.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. Her husband, Joseph, being a just man unwilling to expose her to disgrace, resolved to send her away quietly.”

— Matthew 1:18-19

I am struck by the fact that in the Gospel, Mary never attempted to explain any of this to Joseph. What would she have said? “An angel appeared to me, said some very strange things, and when he left I was with child?” Would Joseph have just accepted that without question? Would you? The story’s authenticity is in its human response: “Joseph being a just man unwilling to expose her to disgrace, resolved to send her away quietly.” (Matthew 1:19)

It is important to understand the nuance here. What made Joseph and any Jewish man, a “just” man in the eyes of the Jews — and in the eyes of the Jewish-Christian Evangelist, Matthew — is his obedience to the Law of Moses which required a quiet divorce. Early Church traditions proposed three theories about why Joseph became resolved to send Mary away quietly.

The first is the “suspicion” theory, the weakest argument of the three but one held by no less than Saint Augustine himself in the early Fourth Century. The theory presents that Joseph, like what most men of his time (or any time) might do, initially suspected Mary of being unfaithful in their betrothal, and thus felt compelled to invoke the law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 to impose a bill of divorce because he had found something objectionable about her.

In that theory, Joseph clings to his decision until an Angel of the Lord sets him straight in a dream. However the theory entirely overlooks the first motive ascribed to Joseph in the Gospel: that of being a just man “unwilling to expose her to disgrace.” (Matthew 1:19)

The second theory is the “perplexity” theory proposed by Saint Jerome also in the early Fourth Century. In this, Joseph could not bring himself to suspect Mary of infidelity so the matter left him in perplexity. He thus decided to quietly send her away to protect her. According to this theory, his dream from the Angel of the Lord redirected his path with confirmation of what he might already have suspected. This theory was widely held in medieval times.

The third is the “reverence” theory. It proposed that Joseph knew all along of the divine origin of the child in Mary’s womb, but considered himself to be unworthy of her and of having any role in the life of this child. He thus decided to send her away to protect the divine secret from any exposure to the letter of the law. This theory was held by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Thirteenth Century.

But I have a fourth theory of my own. It is called Love. Sacrificial Love. But first, back to Joseph’s dream.

The Angel of the Lord

“As [Joseph] considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called, Emmanuel (which means ‘God with us’). When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. He took Mary as his wife, but he knew her not until she had borne a son, and he called his name Jesus.”

— Matthew 1:18-24

There is a lot to be unpacked from this passage. This account represents the first of three dreams experienced by Joseph in which he was instructed by an “Angel of the Lord” to undertake specific action relative to his pivotal role in the lives of Mary and Jesus. The method of delivery for each message is not just some rank and file angel — though that would certainly have sufficed — but rather an “Angel of the Lord.” The title appears only a rare few times in the Hebrew Scriptures and only four times in the New Testament: Once in Acts of the Apostles and three times in the Gospel of Matthew, and only in reference to Joseph’s dreams about the Birth of the Messiah.

There are 126 references to dreams among the characters of Sacred Scripture. Some of the pivotal moments in Salvation History were set in motion through dreams. In the original Greek of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the term used for Joseph’s three dreams about the birth of Jesus is ‘onar,’ and it is used nowhere else in Sacred Scripture but here. It refers not just to a dream, but to a divine intervention in human affairs.

Coupled with the fact that the dream is induced by an “Angel of the Lord,” the scene takes on a sense of great urgency when compared with other angelic messages. The urgency is related to Joseph’s pondering about what is best for Mary, a pondering that could unintentionally thwart God’s redemptive plan for the souls of all humankind.

There are many parallels in this account with events in the life of the Old Testament Joseph. Both had the same name. Both were essential to Salvation History. Both were in the line of King David — one looking forward and the other backward. Both were the sons of a father named Jacob. Both brought their families to safety in a flight to Egypt. God spoke to both through dreams.

The task of the Angel of the Lord is to redirect Joseph’s decision regardless of what motivated it. The divine urgency is to preserve the symbolic value of King David’s lineage being passed on to Jesus by Joseph’s adoption. The symbolism is immensely powerful. This adoption, and the establishment of kingship in the line of David in the human realm, also reflects the establishment of God’s adoption of us in the spiritual realm.

Remember that the title, “King of the Jews” is one of the charges for which Jesus faced the rejection of Israel and the merciless justice of Rome. There is great irony in this. Through the Cross, Jesus ratifies the adoption between God and us. Mocked as “King of the Jews,” He becomes for all eternity Christ the King and we become the adopted heirs of His Kingdom. It is difficult to imagine the Child born in Bethlehem impaled upon the Cross at Golgotha, but He left this world as innocent as when he entered it. His crucified innocence won for us an inheritance beyond measure.

And Saint Joseph won for us an eternal model for the sacrificial love of fatherhood.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: This was Part 1 of a special two-part Christmas post based on Sacred Scripture. Part 2 is:

Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents.

Thank you for reading and sharing this post which is now added to our Library Category, Sacred Scripture.

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