Follow the Money: Another Sinister Sex Abuse Grand Jury Report

OSV News photo/George P. Matysek Jr., Catholic Review

Targeting Holy Week and Easter, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released a grand jury report on unproven decades-old claims of abuse by Catholic priests.

April 26, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

In Baltimore, Maryland, excluding the rest of the state, there were 1,018 victims of gun violence in 2022. Of that number, 338 are classified as homicides in Baltimore City alone. There have been 80 additional homicides in the first three months of 2023. The State of Maryland currently has 74 unsolved cold case homicides. And yet, the Maryland Attorney General invested vast resources in a grand jury report released this year just as Catholics the world over prepared to honor Holy Week and Easter. The Wall Street Journal carried the story on Holy Thursday by journalists Scott Calvert and Jon Kamp headlined: “Baltimore Archdiocese Long Allowed Abuse of Children, AG’s Report Says.” The article opened with a paragraph now painfully familiar to U.S. Catholics:

“BALTIMORE — Scores of priests and other people affiliated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused hundreds of children over more than 60 years, and church officials often protected the perpetrators while keeping their crimes a secret, Maryland’s attorney general said in a new report.”

News coverage of the recent grand jury indictment of former President Donald Trump by New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg has illuminated the grand jury process with lots of commentary by legal minds. You have likely heard it said that “a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich.” It means that a grand jury is an entirely one-sided prosecutorial affair. There is no cross-examination of witnesses, no testimony from the accused, often even no testimony from an accuser, and no defense of any kind. If the legal process stops there, as it did in the Maryland Grand Jury Report, accusations alone are the end of the road. Due process of law and the Bill of Rights are rescinded.

The WSJ article went on to point out that of the 156 alleged priestly perpetrators whose names came before this grand jury with accusations dating back to 1940, no one was indicted. Most of the subjects of the report are either long ago deceased or the statute of limitations has long since expired for any legitimate legal prosecution. Anyone who would dismiss this as “just a legal loophole” does not understand the U.S. justice system at all. These rules of due process were not adopted by the Founders to inhibit justice, but to protect it. Some allegations in the report stretch back more than 70 years with not a single claim that is less than two decades old. The report makes no effort to distinguish between allegation and proven conviction.

The WSJ article eventually got to the real agenda behind this story. On the same day the report was released, the Maryland legislature passed a bill that, if signed into law, will eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims — not for criminal prosecutions, but solely for civil claims to result in deep-pocket lawsuits for monetary settlements. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown has orchestrated a great gift to the state’s tort lawyers each of whom will now stand to amass upwards of forty percent of every settlement or jury award. This is not about real abuse or real victims of abuse.

The legislation caps settlements or damage awards for private institutions at $1.5 million per claim. A lawyer who extorts such settlements could pocket up to $600,000 for each claim filed from hereon. Public institutions — such as public schools which receive a vastly larger number of abuse claims — are typically exempt from such legislation. The bill’s foremost target is the Catholic Church, an unjust reality that I once wrote about in a centerpiece article for Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, entitled, “Due Process for Accused Priests” (July/August 2009).

How an Attorney General Becomes a Governor

The Maryland Grand Jury Report is a mirror image of a similar report published in 2018 by then Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro who, in 2022, was predictably elected Governor. I wrote of that report and its shocking historical precedent in, “Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Joseph Goebbels in ‘The Reckoning.’”

After its initial shock value, and after its political rewards were reaped, the 2019 Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report was widely exposed as a slanted and deeply unjust application of law. I expect the same will follow closer examination of the Maryland report. One journalist who has dismantled the credibility of the former is David F. Pierre, Jr., moderator of The Media Report and the author of four published books on the sexual abuse narrative in the Catholic Church. His most recent, The Greatest Fraud Never Told, is subtitled, False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church. Here is an excerpt:

“No other episode in the Catholic Church sex abuse story has more epitomized the reality of ‘groupthink’ mentality than the Pennsylvania grand jury report.... Attorney General Josh Shapiro stood before an enormous throng of national and international media to make the incredible claim that ‘over 300 priests’ in Pennsylvania had sexually abused ‘over 1,000 children’ in the last several decades while Church officials ‘did nothing’ and ‘covered it all up’.”

— The Greatest Fraud Never Told, p. 34

Dave Pierre went on to describe how ‘every action by Shapiro was a masterful stroke of public relations media exposure to enhance his own public profile’ as he prepared to run for higher office:

“Shapiro called a local poster company to create a new, official-looking seal to be placed behind him as he broadcast his grand jury report to the world. Whereas the official seal of his office displayed ‘Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’ along the top and ‘Office of the Attorney General’ along the bottom, Shapiro not only flipped them, but replaced the words with ‘Attorney General Josh Shapiro’ so everyone across the globe could now easily see his name behind his head as he stood at the podium.”

— The Greatest Fraud Never Told, p. 34

The Democratic Party has since thrown Josh Shapiro’s name out as a potential future White House contender. In just about every jurisdiction where a similar grand jury report was constructed and released to the public slamming the Catholic Church, the exploitation of an upward political trajectory was its unstated goal. David Pierre went on in his book to ask a most important question: “Were the claims from Shapiro’s grand jury report actually true?” “In a nutshell,” he wrote, “No, not at all.” He offers a simple explanation of what a grand jury is and does:

“A ‘grand jury report’ is simply a report written by government attorneys with a predetermined outcome. The folks in the [grand jury] are merely a formality, window dressing to make the entire matter legal. The jury does not actually investigate a case, question witnesses, or scrutinize all sides of a story. It simply listens to one-sided proceedings orchestrated by prosecutors. There is no fact-checking, no cross examination, and no due process.”

— The Greatest Fraud Never Told, p. 35

How Grand Jury Reports Defeat Justice

Multiple states have had grandstanding prosecutors harboring political ambitions propelled forward with sensationalized grand jury reports that singled out the Catholic Church and priesthood as some sort of special arena of historical child sexual abuse. But as my title implies, we should follow the money for an understanding of what drives this.

New Hampshire, the state from which I write, has been no exception. In 2003, a grand jury report here caused much damage to the state of due process for priests accused when the local Catholic bishop waived the rights of all the accused without their knowledge.

But when a New Hampshire attorney general went on to apply the same to a grand jury report on a local prestigious prep school with an alumni list that looks like a Who’s Who of Washington insiders, a local judge blocked publication of that grand jury report. In so doing, the judge acknowledged that a similar grand jury report on my diocese, the Diocese of Manchester, should never have been published regardless of a Bishop’s signature waiving our due process rights.

NH Superior Court Judge Richard B. McNamara explained why in his Order entitled, “Re, Grand Jury, No. 217-2018-CV-00382.” This is a story that I wrote about in a widely read 2019 post, “Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester.”

The following are pertinent excerpts from Judge McNamara’s Order:

• “The grand jury is one of the oldest institutions of Anglo American law, and to some extent, one of the most problematic. The United States Supreme Court recently rejected the traditional view of the grand jury as an arm of the courts, describing it as a separate institution that has not been ‘textually assigned’ to any of the three branches of government described in the federal Constitution.

• “The original purpose of the grand jury was not only to increase the number of criminal prosecutions but to enhance the King’s authority and indirectly to increase revenue for the Crown which received the property forfeited by persons accused of crimes. But by the 17th Century, English grand juries had begun to act as an institution that could shield the innocent from unfounded charges. By the time of the American Revolution, English law characterized the grand jury as one of the principal protections against arbitrary government prosecution.

• “Yet by the middle of the 19th Century there was no longer a consensus regarding the value or appropriate function of the grand jury.... The late 19th Century concern that grand juries were inquisitorial procedures that pose a threat to individual liberty was reflected in language that the Constitution did not require states to institute felony prosecutions by grand jury and suggested that the earliest grand juries were little more than a mob.

• “The prevailing view of the federal courts is that grand juries have no common law authority to make accusations against individuals falling short of an indictment... A grand jury report that does not result in an indictment but references supposed misconduct results in a quasi-official accusation of wrongdoing drawn from secret ex parte proceedings in which there is no opportunity available or presented for a formal defense.

• “The Florida Supreme Court described a grand jury report finding a public official guilty of wrongdoing without affording him a trial as ‘not far removed from, and no less repugnant to traditions of fair play, than lynch law.’ (Report of Grand Jury, 93 So. 2d 99, 102 (Fla. 1957).

• “In the public mind, accusation by report is indistinguishable from accusation by indictment and subjects those against whom it is directed to the same public condemnation ... as if they had been indicted. An indictment charges a violation of a known and certain public law, and is but the first step in a long process in which the accused may seek vindication through exercise of the right to a public trial, to a jury, to counsel, to confrontation of witnesses against him, and, if convicted, to an appeal. … A [grand jury] report, on the contrary, is at once an accusation and a final condemnation. Its potential for harm is incalculable.

• “[This] Court respectfully disagrees with the [2003] decision to approve the [New Hampshire] Diocese-OAG Agreement [which] fulfilled none of the traditional purposes of the common law grand jury. Rather than investigation of crime, the report is a post hoc summary of information the grand jury considered, but did not indict on.

• “Mark Twain famously said that a lie is half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. In an internet age, he might have added that the lie will forever outrun the truth as search engines become ever more efficient. An allegation of wrongdoing or impropriety based upon half-truths, illegally seized evidence or rumor, innuendo or hearsay may blight an individual’s life indefinitely.

• “Accordingly, the Court DENIES the Office of the Attorney General Motion. The Attorney General may not produce any report that contains any material produced to the grand jury through subpoena or testimony or that is characterized as a ‘Grand Jury Report.’”

— Presiding Justice Richard B. McNamara August 12, 2019

Just two weeks before Judge McNamara issued that Order and published it, Bishop Peter A. Libasci of the Diocese of Manchester, of his own accord, published a list of 73 priests who had been accused and condemned in the 2003 Diocese of Manchester Grand Jury Report. Most of the priests on the list were long since deceased. None of them were afforded constitutional due process. Bishop Libasci cited “transparency” as his motive for publishing this list.

The motive of Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown for releasing his one-sided report as Catholics observed Holy Week and Easter seems clear. What is less clear is the legal basis for such a report and especially for widely publishing it. The Maryland Attorney General’s Grand Jury Report should be seen in light of all of the above.

A lot of people, primarily lawyers and claimants, will profit greatly from this latest official state government travesty of justice, but it should not be the basis for whether or how you exercise your faith, or your membership in this Mystical Body that we call a Church. It should also never be the source of your own determination of any priest’s guilt or innocence.

This story is, as David F. Pierre Jr. has described it, The Greatest Fraud Never Told.

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To our readers: Thank you for reading and sharing this important post. Next week at Beyond These Stone Walls it is our privilege to welcome an internationally known expert in Canon Law on due process crisis in the priesthood. It is an excellent sequel to this post.

You may also be interested in these related links that beg to be read and shared:

Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Joseph Goebbels in ‘The Reckoning’

Grand Jury, St Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester

The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy on the Cover of Newsweek

And Follow David F. Pierre, Jr. at TheMediaReport.com

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 the image for live access 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.”

In the Live Free or Die State, Justice Has a Ray of Hope

For this wrongly convicted priest, The Wall Street Journal, the Catholic League and The Media Report have shined new life into a dying pursuit of truth and justice.

March 22, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

The acclaimed Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in 1953, the year I was born. “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” was one of his best-known poems. The death he railed against within it was his father’s and not his own. I, for one, have never feared death. For persons of real faith, death is not the dying of the light, but rather light’s rebirth. I have much more feared the dying of the truth. It is that alone against which I rage.

I turn 70 years old on April 9th this year. Friends in the real world tell me that 70 is the new 50 but my arthritic knee and recently dislocated shoulder do not agree. Prison is a sort of twilight zone of distorted time. I was 29 and a priest for only one year when my fictitious crimes are alleged to have taken place. I was 41 when first accused and placed on trial for them. After I three times refused to plead guilty and serve one year in prison, Judge Arthur Brennan imposed a sentence of 67 years. As it stands, I will be eligible for release at age 108.

I will not, of course, outlive this sentence. That is why my friend, Father George David Byers and I had a recent phone conversation about what happens if and when I die here. It was prompted by my ambulance ride to Concord Hospital last summer with a cardiac event that turned out to be pericarditis — inflammation of the pericardium, the membrane that surrounds the heart. I am told by one physician that it is now a suspected side effect of the mRNA Covid vaccine.

As a child, my mother often reminded me of the necessity of always having clean underwear lest I am run over by a car and my family might be embarrassed. The cardiac event was not really scary so much as inconvenient. What passed through my mind while chained up in the back of that ambulance was how much I had yet to do, how much I had yet to write, and how unprepared I am for death because the truth may die with me. I never even gave a thought to my underwear. Sorry, Mom.

A part of my concern, and that of Father Byers, is one of the other heartaches of life in this prison. I have no access to the Sacraments, and neither does anyone else here. The private Mass in my cell late on Sunday nights is the only Mass offered here for at least the last three years. A Capuchin priest who voluntarily came here for Mass for over 25 years died in 2019. A priest from the Portland, Maine diocese used to come here monthly to visit me and hear my confession. Then all visits were shut down for two years due to Covid. I just learned that he died in 2021. He was my age.

In the annals of both Church and State, this all sounds horrible, I know, but it does have some ironic moments. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu was interviewed on FOX News last month. The rumor is that he might be preparing a run for the White House. He made a big deal about being governor of a State whose motto is “Live Free or Die.” Ironically, my ambulance ride took place just days after Charlene Duline published her feisty article about me titled, “Dying in Prison in the Live Free or Die State.”

But death was not meant to be for me that night in July, 2022. My condition was treatable over the next several months, and I have mostly recovered. I have also once again adjusted to the reality that my release from prison was also not meant to be. At least not then, and at least not that way. So I had to get back to the hard work of seeking justice. It was either that or surrender to its absence.

New Hampshire Politics

That said, I have a plea for our readers. Please do not write to Governor Sununu asking for my pardon. The State cannot pardon someone who is not guilty of the crime in the first place. New Hampshire has not pardoned a prisoner since the Civil War, and will certainly not break that hallowed tradition for an imprisoned Catholic priest as the nation gears up for a presidential election with this state’s Governor as a likely contender. The pardon process brings far more heat than light anyway. In going on 29 years here, I have never seen it succeed for anyone.

The Democratic National Committee just stripped New Hampshire of its “First in the Nation Primary” awarding the first event to South Carolina. Since 1920, New Hampshire has held onto the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Since then, candidates campaigning for votes have attracted tremendous amounts of attention and money to New Hampshire every four years. Critics have charged that this was out of proportion with the state’s numbers, racial diversity, and fundamental political importance.

Now that the Democratic Party has rearranged that schedule, the New Hampshire Governor pledges to buck the edict and hold the State’s primary first anyway. The nation’s eyes will all be on New Hampshire as this dramatic standoff unfolds in 2024. I do not wish to be a part of its background entertainment.

There are many in U.S. prisons who are wrongfully convicted. By Christmas, 2021, after more than 28 years into my imprisonment, I resigned myself to the seemingly impenetrable fate that this State imposed upon me. Then, unexpectedly, I received a message on the first day of 2022 that there is a possible new path to restore justice. I outlined it in one of my first posts of 2022 and will link to it again at the end of this one. The post was, “Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell.”

Defenders of the Truth

Back in 2012, just a few years after I began writing from prison for an earlier version of this blog, Australian priest and writer, Fr. James Valladares, Ph.D., published a book about procedural justice for priests who had been accused. He predicted that the priesthood scandal that spread from the United States poses the greatest threat to the traditional Catholic understanding of priesthood since the Protestant Reformation. That prediction was certainly supported years later by findings described in my recent post, “Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study.”

Father Valladares titled his 2012 book, Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast. Nearly one-third of the book is about this blog and its revelations about the phenomenon of falsely accused priests. There is much within its pages that will be very familiar to long-time readers of this blog. In addition to my own earlier writings, the book strongly profiles the work of Ryan A. MacDonald, David F. Pierre, Jr. at The Media Report, Bill Donohue at the Catholic League, and especially Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal.

Most readers of this blog know that one of the most formidable sources for exposing and resuscitating the truth has been The Wall Street Journal. The nation’s largest, most influential newspaper published two major articles in my regard in 2005, another in 2013, and a fourth in 2022. The first three were written by Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on the WSJ Editorial Board. The fourth, written in 2022, was “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae” by Boston civil rights and criminal defense attorney Harvey A. Silverglate.

One observer noted that The Wall Street Journal has devoted more column space to this story than to that of any Nobel laureate. I do not know how to respond to that except with gratitude. I would not be writing today if not for the courage of Dorothy Rabinowitz and the Journal’s unrelenting pursuit of truth and justice.

Among our newer features on this blog is a page dedicated to the coverage of this story. It begins with a brief but compelling five-minute video interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz that should not be missed along with the full text of each of the WSJ articles on this story collected in one place. The page is entitled, The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr. Gordon MacRae.

While perusing that page, you will note that two of the WSJ articles are followed by commentary from David F. Pierre, Jr., founder and moderator of The Media Report. David is a Catholic layman and a journalist in his own right. He literally took on Goliath when he began writing and publishing against the tide of media narratives claiming without evidence that the Catholic Church has been some sort of special locus of child sexual abuse.

Since then, David has published four books laying out his Herculean accomplishments to expose the whole truth of the story behind the scandal that other media would not cover. David, like the Biblical David, is a man of great courage and integrity. In coming months, we plan to create a BTSW Library page collecting his posts written for this blog, and highlighting each of his books. His most recent post was The Media Report: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused.

Finally, and by no means least among the heroic efforts of media figures, the truth owes a debt to Dr. William Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Under his leadership, this organization dedicated to religious liberty — the largest in the world — has been relentless in its support of the truth. This includes the truth about the case against me. In coming weeks I plan to present a post highlighting the importance of the work of the Catholic League on the frontlines of Religious Liberty, and increasingly endangered rights in our culture.

In the Acknowledgments section of his 2012 book, Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, Father Valladares cited each of the persons I have mentioned in this post:

“Ms. Dorothy Rabinowitz, Mr. Harvey A. Silverglate, Mr. Ryan A. MacDonald, Dr. William Donahue, Mr. David F. Pierre, Jr., all of whom I have never met, but whose candid, forthright, persuasive writings have served as an added impetus in the pursuit of this vital research.”

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Next week in these pages: “A Holy Week Retreat at Beyond These Stone Walls.”

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please share this post, and please visit our newer pages in honor of those who have so honored us by shining new life into my pursuit of truth and justice:

The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr. Gordon MacRae

The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse

David F. Pierre, Jr. at The Media Report

Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

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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.”

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.”

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.

A Reporter’s Bias Taints the Defense of Fr Gordon MacRae

Ignoring exculpatory evidence and more honest media coverage, a writer’s selective reporting undermines the defense of a priest wrongly imprisoned for 28 years.

October 5, 2022 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Editor’s Note: The image above depicts Keene, NH Detective James McLaughlin whose investigation of an early 1980s sexual assault case resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of Fr. Gordon MacRae. The following is a guest article by contributing writer, Ryan A. MacDonald. His most recent post in these pages was “Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest.”

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Writing for InDepthNH, a New Hampshire online news venue, reporter Damien Fisher presented a negligent and entirely biased overview of the case against Fr. Gordon MacRae. On the one hand, it represented well that Keene, NH Detective James McLaughlin, who orchestrated the case against MacRae, is now exposed for falsifying records, tampering with evidence, and other misconduct which contributed to wrongful convictions.

On the other hand, a recent article by Damien Fisher obfuscates any future defense of MacRae with content that has already been debunked by more balanced investigations in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. (See our page on The Wall Street Journal.) Fisher’s article includes only the one-sided claims of a 2003 Grand Jury Report that a New Hampshire judge has already determined to have been published without merit or justice. Here is what Judge Richard McNamara wrote regarding the content of that report:

“[The 2003 Grand Jury Report on the Diocese of Manchester] fulfilled none of the traditional purposes of the common law grand jury. Rather than investigation of crime, the report is a post hoc summary of information the grand jury considered but did not indict on. A grand jury report that does not result in an indictment but references supposed misconduct results in a quasi-official accusation of wrongdoing drawn from secret ex parte proceedings in which there is no opportunity available or presented for a formal defense. ... Such a grand jury report is not far removed from, and no less repugnant to traditions of fair play than lynch law.”

— NH Judge Richard McNamara, August 12, 2019, In re: Grand Jury, No. 217-2017-CV-00382

Much of the content of the 2003 Grand Jury Report was generated in one-sided claims for settlement money and handed over to the State by Diocese of Manchester official Reverend Edward J. Arsenault. While settling without due process some 250 abuse claims against priests of the New Hampshire Diocese dating back 30 to 50 years, Arsenault was later charged and convicted of financial crimes in the amount of nearly $300,000 used to secretly support a relationship with a young gay musician. Now dismissed from the priesthood, he has a new name, Edward J. Bolognini. For some reason, he has been given a pass in Damien Fisher’s account.

The U.S. Department of Justice has recently disclosed an ongoing investigation into over $45 billion in fraudulent claims to reap benefits related to the Covid 19 pandemic. After the massive Gulf oil spill several years ago Exxon Oil Company had to establish a fraud task force to separate valid claims of damages from the billions of dollars in fraudulent ones. What makes anyone think that the Catholic abuse story has been spared such fraud?

This all requires a response. Today and over the next few weeks in these pages, David F. Pierre, Jr. of The Media Report.com, Catholic League President Bill Donohue and I will continue this rebuttal of that one-sided material. I hope readers of this blog will share this information widely to give this truthful side of the MacRae story the attention it deserves. Anything less is to contribute to what Dr. Bill Donohue called “a travesty of justice.”

Conflicts of Interest

In reporting on the MacRae case, however, Damien Fisher also has a conflict of interest. His wife is a columnist for Parable magazine, the official publication of the Diocese of Manchester, Father MacRae’s estranged diocese.

The Parable Managing Editor is Kathryn Marchocki, formerly a reporter for the statewide newspaper, New Hampshire Union Leader. In that capacity, Ms. Marchocki covered the 1994 MacRae trial and the 2003 Grand Jury Report on the Diocese of Manchester.

In early 2003, just before the New Hampshire Grand Jury Report was released to the public, Kathryn Marchocki met with Fr. MacRae at the New Hampshire State Prison. He presented her with a large amount of documentation that challenged the hyped contents and accusations in that one-sided report. Ms. Marchocki reportedly told the priest that his information is compelling, “but New Hampshire news media and my paper in particular are so anti-Catholic my editor will never let me write about this.”

Nonetheless, she asked MacRae — then in his ninth year in prison — to send her everything he had. He did, but never heard from Ms. Marchocki again. Now she is the editor of the Diocese of Manchester news magazine in which Damien Fisher’s wife is a columnist appearing in the monthly publication just opposite the musings of Father MacRae’s bishop, Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci, who himself now stands accused in a sexual abuse civil lawsuit in the State of New York. (See “Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo.”)

Readers are likely aware of developments in the matter of former Keene, NH Detective James McLaughlin and his brief appearance on the Attorney General’s “Laurie List,” also called the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule. When the first rumblings about rampant dishonesty on the part of Detective McLaughlin began to appear in 2021, I personally reached out to Damien Fisher with a concern that the Father MacRae case had not been properly investigated and did not receive a fair trial.

Mr. Fisher shot back immediately with a verbal attack. He declared MacRae to be guilty based solely on untried rumor, innuendo, and uncorroborated claims for monetary settlement, such as those brought without trial in the discredited 2003 Grand Jury Report. He offered nothing that could be interpreted as evidence. I offered to send Mr. Fisher some compelling documentation that challenged his narrative, but I received this final message in reply: “Stop! I do not want to see anything you send. My mind is made up!” So much for journalistic integrity and objectivity.

Father MacRae in 1983, the time of the alleged charges (Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal)

A Pornographic Priest?

Much of Mr. Fisher’s current media coverage of MacRae centers on a claim that the priest produced pornographic photographs and videos of his accusers. The truth about this is in plain sight right at Mr. Fisher’s fingertips, but he omitted it. The accusation of creating pornography was first lodged by Detective McLaughlin himself in 1988. He had no evidence for it beyond a claim that he choreographed and promoted for a civil lawsuit involving an individual named Jon Plankey described in McLaughlin’s report as his “employee in a family-owned business.”

The first accusation elicited by McLaughlin was that MacRae had attempted to verbally solicit the teen. It was only after some evolution that a more substantial — and more lucrative — claim emerged that MacRae took photographs of the youth. McLaughlin actually wrote in his report that these claims will be the basis for a civil lawsuit against the Catholic Church. The lawsuit was settled without question by MacRae’s diocese over his strenuous objections.

The pornography accusation later weighed heavily in Father MacRae’s 1994 trial and sentencing in an unrelated case, that brought by accuser Thomas Grover. When sentencing the priest to life in prison, Judge Arthur Brennan cited MacRae’s “aggressive denials of wrongdoing [and] the evidence of child pornography is clear and compelling.”

But none of it ever happened. In 2005, Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal investigated this entire case for her extensive report, “A Priest’s Story,” which served as a factual refutation of much of the content appearing in the 2003 Grand Jury Report. The accuser in the pornography matter, then in his 20s, declined to answer any questions, but Ms. Rabinowitz questioned Detective McLaughlin about the “clear and compelling” evidence of child pornography. The detective was cornered, and admitted,

“There was never any evidence of pornography.”

— Detective James McLaughlin

This information was available to Damien Fisher, but if he found it he could not continue the pornography victimization narrative, so he apparently never bothered to look.

There is a lot more to that story. In 1988, McLaughlin interviewed MacRae about Plankey’s claims for four hours on tape. McLaughlin, as was his practice, wrote reports claiming several admissions by MacRae that the priest says today were never made. MacRae insists that those claims could not possibly be on the tape. Later, when MacRae faced trial in 1994, the judge ordered all tape recordings turned over to his defense. Neither MacRae nor his lawyer ever received a single one. McLaughlin claimed, under oath in sworn Interrogatories, that the tapes in question were accidentally taped over for another case and the transcripts he cited were never made due to “clerical error.”

Eleven years later in 2005, McLaughlin apparently forgot his earlier perjury and sent that tape to The Wall Street Journal : Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote of how McLaughlin badgered MacRae again and again to plea to a misdemeanor of attempting to endanger a minor, but without legal representation. Here is her 2005 report about the tape:

“Fr. MacRae, summoned to meet with Detective McLaughlin, was informed that there was much more evidence against him, that the police had an affidavit for an arrest, and that it would be in everybody’s best interest for him to sign a confession. On the police tape, an otherwise bewildered-sounding Fr. MacRae is consistently clear about one thing — that he in no way solicited the Plankey boy for sex or anything else. ‘I don’t understand,’ he says more than once, his tone that of a man who feels that there must, indeed, be something for him to understand about these charges that eludes him.

“He listens as the police assure him that he can save all the bad publicity. ‘Our concern is, let’s get it taken care of, let’s not blow it out of proportion... . You know what the media does,’ they warned. He could avoid all the stories, protect the Church, let it all go away quietly.”

— The Wall Street Journal, “A Priest’s Story”

From here on the recording was shut off. MacRae says the badgering went on for another three hours. The priest had never before been in such a situation. When he asked if he should consult a lawyer, the detective reportedly said, and today denies saying it, doing so “will only muddy the waters.” In the end, MacRae signed the paper without legal counsel just to end this. In concluding the matter, McLaughlin wrote a press release: “Though no sexual acts were committed by MacRae,” it noted, “there are often varied levels of victimization.” Indeed there are!

In his police report on this matter, Detective McLaughlin wrote that Plankey worked for him in a family-owned business. Plankey’s mother was also an employee of the Keene Police Department. Before MacRae even knew about the claims, The Wall Street Journal reported, MacRae’s diocese received a call from Mrs. Plankey informing officials there that MacRae was being investigated on solicitation charges and a quick out-of-court settlement would “avoid a lawsuit and lawyers.”

Ah, but there’s more! This was not Detective McLaughlin’s first use of Jon Plankey to bring down a target. Plankey made an identical set of claims against Timothy Smith, a Keene Congregational church choir director with whom he struck up a relationship. That case was prosecuted by McLaughlin and ended in a similar misdemeanor plea deal. And Plankey accused a local Job Corp supervisor of soliciting him. That was another misdemeanor case pursued by McLaughlin. Then he accused a man who picked him up hitchhiking of soliciting him.

It was only after the above interview that the claim of producing photographs was made. The priest was never charged with this because that would require producing some evidence. Instead, McLaughlin capitalized on it for a civil settlement for Plankey despite later revealing to The Wall Street Journal that the story was contrived and there was never any evidence of pornography. The story nonetheless had a long shelf life. It was used by Judge Arthur Brennan to enhance MacRae’s sentence after trial in 1994.

And it was used by David Clohessy at SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, to bolster a Crimes Against Humanity charge against Pope Benedict XVI in the International Criminal Court at The Hague. This aspect of McLaughlin’s handiwork was explored by journalist, Joann Wypijewski in “Spotlight Oscar Hangover: Why ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film.”

The Plankey case was among the files investigated by former FBI Special Agent Supervisor Jim Abbott, a specialist in counter-terrorism. Like most claimants, Jon Plankey took his money from the Diocese and disappeared. When Agent Abbott found him, Plankey refused to answer any questions without a lawyer. I had been writing about this matter and received an email message from Jon Plankey’s brother. Agent Abbott went to interview him and was told that the claims were a scam for settlement money. The brother said there is more to tell, but he, too, wanted money.

The Plea Deal Injustice

Damien Fisher relentlessly referenced Father MacRae’s post-trial acquiescence to a plea deal coerced by circumstances, presenting it as his sole evidence to bolster his implications that MacRae must be guilty. I do not want to belabor this point for I have written about it extensively already. When MacRae was convicted at trial — after Judge Arthur Brennan instructed the jury to “disregard inconsistencies in [accuser] Thomas Grover’s testimony” — he still faced additional “pile-on” charges from Grover’s brothers and two others who had climbed aboard for the inevitable monetary settlements.

When one of the newer accusers learned that MacRae was not likely to take any deal, he left the country to avoid testifying in a trial and he never filed his civil claim. Another accuser groomed by McLaughlin, Keene native Steven Wollschlager, received a summons to appear before a grand jury to indict the priest on a new charge.

Steven later went on to describe that he was solicited by McLaughlin to join other accusers in fabricating claims against MacRae. The enticement was a $50 bill and an assurance that a lot more money could be obtained in a civil lawsuit against the Church. When Steven balked, McLaughlin allegedly pointed out the girlfriend and child Steven had and said that life could be so much easier for them with a lot of money. Steven pondered this, and then agreed. He later described these meetings with McLaughlin:

“It was all about the lawsuits and the money. I was led to believe that all I had to do was make up a story about MacRae like others had done and I could obtain a lot of money. I was using drugs at the time and could have been influenced into saying anything they wanted for money.”

On the way to the court, Steven explained, he found his moral center and could not go through with it. He said that he knew MacRae as a teen and that the priest only tried to help him. He was told by an unnamed court official, “We won’t be needing anything further from you.”

When the trial was over, MacRae was penniless, abandoned by his Bishop and Diocese. He was placed in jail in custody until sentencing and had nowhere to turn. His lawyer resigned, exasperated at the three-ring circus in the trial and the lack of being allowed to put on an adequate defense. McLaughlin and prosecutors then offered MacRae another deal: a concurrent one-year sentence ending all remaining charges to be served simultanously with the sentence yet to be handed down in the Thomas Grover case.

MacRae’s trial lawyer, who left the trial before it was over, told MacRae in a telephone call from jail that he had no choice but to accept the deal. His bishop and Diocese, anxious to provide settlements and be rid of this, had issued a pre-trial press release declaring that the entire Catholic Church was victimized by MacRae. Everyone around him told him he had no choice. He went to the Court men’s room and vomited after entering his negotiated lie. I wrote extensively of this in “The Post-Trial Extortion of Fr. Gordon MacRae.”

All of this — my articles, the extensive coverage by The Wall Street Journal, the investigation by FBI Special Agent Jim Abbott, the polygraph examinations that Fr. MacRae passed conclusively, the findings of the National Center for Reason and Justice now sponsoring MacRae’s defense — has been in plain sight, readily available to Damien Fisher. He opted instead to spread another narrative, and God alone knows why.

There is more still, and it is coming. Perhaps the most egregious “evidence” cited by Damien Fisher came from supposed psychological evaluations of the accused priest. This will be the topic of a follow-up post next week in these pages.

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“In my three-year investigation of this matter, I have found no evidence that Gordon MacRae committed these crimes, or any crimes.”

— Sworn Affidavit of former FBI Special Agent James Abbott

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Editor’s Note: Ryan A. MacDonald has written extensively on the sexual abuse crisis in the American Catholic Church. You may also be interested in these related posts.

Grand Jury, St Paul’s School and the Diocese of Manchester

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