“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
— Deacon David Jones
The New Hampshire YDC Scandal and the Trial of Father MacRae
A victim of abuse is one among 1,300 plaintiffs in a New Hampshire Youth Detention scandal covered up by State officials even as they investigated Catholic priests.
A victim of abuse is one among 1,300 plaintiffs in a New Hampshire Youth Detention scandal covered up by State officials even as they investigated Catholic priests.
October 4, 2023 by Ryan A. MacDonald and Claire Best
On September 23, 2023, Father Gordon MacRae began a thirtieth year in the New Hampshire State Prison for crimes that never took place. He was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to 67 years in prison after refusing a plea deal offer to serve one to two years. He was sentenced solely for the claims of Thomas Grover, claims that have since been undermined by members of his family and an investigation by former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott. His post-trial affidavit is now posted on this site along with several witness statements that NH judges have declined to hear.
More recently, Claire Best, a Los Angeles-based documentary researcher and astute investigator, took up this matter with a stunning article entitled “New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case.”
That corruption runs deeper than any of us thought. Claire Best has also recently published on another scandalous abuse and cover-up unfolding in New Hampshire just as the eyes of the nation are on its upcoming celebrated First-in-the-Nation Presidential Primary. Her latest on that story has a tentacle that reaches into the MacRae trial. Published at other venues, it is “New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center Scandal.”
When the spotlight was on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester in 2002, the Office of the New Hampshire Attorney General convened a grand jury to investigate. Despite no indictments or charges filed, the State published a report profiling every lurid claim bolstering multi-million dollar settlements with little to no evidence. When the spotlight fell upon the prestigious St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH another grand jury investigation commenced. In the case of the State Youth Detention Center, with its 1,300 open cases and the State’s procurement of a $100 million settlement fund, no grand jury investigation is taking place. This is curious, and is seen by many as an extension of the past cover-up.
Claire Best’s account laying out her case for corruption behind all this should be required reading for New Hampshire politicians and officials of the State’s Department of Justice as well as the US DOJ. One revelation in her most recent account seriously impacts the credibility of Thomas Grover’s accusations against Father MacRae that have kept him in prison for three decades since his 1994 trial.
Claire Best on New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center Scandal
The Youth Detention Center Scandal Gets Bigger: NH Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald and US Attorney Jane Young should be under investigation.
On August 25, 2023, a group of approximately 100 gathered in Concord, New Hampshire to demand a federal investigation into the cover-ups of abuse at the Youth Detention Center. They blamed Attorneys General and others for the cover-ups. They are right. The State of New Hampshire has ignored thousands of complaints over the years about corruption, ignored reports from the Office of Inspector General and carried on with a complete lack of accountability.
Former residents of New Hampshire youth center demand federal investigation into abuse claims
The Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, previously called the Youth Development Center, has been under criminal …
www.nhpr.org
YDC abuse is decades old, as is state cover-up, master lawsuit alleges
Lawmakers, juvenile advocates have long wanted to close the center
www.nhbr.com
The current messaging requesting a much needed federal investigation involves someone with a connection to the case against Father Gordon MacRae. Charles Glenn is one of the plaintiffs alleging abuse and criminal assault by State employees at the New Hampshire Youth Development Center.
Charles Glenn is also the former stepson of Thomas Grover. Thomas Grover was adopted by Patricia Grover of NH-DCYF. He was a drug addict who was offered money (substantiated in statements) to accuse Father Gordon MacRae who was framed by Police Detective James F McLaughlin whose name was hidden on the Laurie List. The Laurie List is a once secret list of New Hampshire police officers whose credibility has been compromised by official misconduct. Keene Detective James F McLaughlin was on that list and likely one of the principal reasons why Attorney General Gordon MacDonald argued to keep the list secret.
Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest - Beyond These Stone Walls
Keene New Hampshire sex crimes detective James McLaughlin developed claims against a Catholic priest while suppressing …
beyondthesestonewalls.com
Reportedly, (and I understand that the AG’s office has been aware of this since 2012) Charles Glenn once approached Father Gordon MacRae in Concord men’s prison library where MacRae was clerk (around 2008 or so). He allegedly said to MacRae “You know the case against you was bogus, right?”. MacRae allegedly told him that he did know this but wanted to know how Charles Glenn knew it. Charles Glenn told him that his mother, Trina Ghedoni, was married to Thomas Grover during the years that Charles Glenn was in the Youth Detention Center. Later, Charles Glenn allegedly approached a friend of Father Gordon MacRae’s — Edward Silva (deceased). Silva relayed that Charles Glenn had information that could undo the case against Father Gordon MacRae but that he wanted money to provide that information. To clarify, the overture of an expectation of money for the information came only from Edward Silva and not Charles Glenn. MacRae told Silva that this would render the information useless and so it went no further.
Jim Abbott — a former FBI special agent — who was investigating the case against Gordon MacRae interviewed Trina Ghedoni (Charles’ mother) five times. She told him that she and Thomas Grover were visiting Charles Glenn at the YDC. The case against Father Gordon MacRae had exploded in the local media by then so Charles Glenn was well aware that Thomas Grover was his primary accuser. During a later visit with Thomas Grover alone at YDC, Grover allegedly told Charles Glenn that Father Gordon MacRae had never actually touched him but that he was about to “get a lot of money for this story”.
Trina Ghedoni told former FBI investigator Jim Abbott that she learned of those conversations between Thomas Grover and her son only after she divorced Thomas Grover. She also told Jim Abbott that Police Detective James F McLaughlin and therapist Pauline Goupil (who motioned for Thomas Grover to cry during his testimony from the back of the court room — observed by witnesses who wrote to the judge about it but were ignored) were Thomas Grover’s primary coaches as he developed this scam.
Trina Ghedoni told Jim Abbott that she would ask her son, Charles Glenn, to cooperate. By that time her son was in the NH State Prison. Apparently Charles Glenn was in constant trouble at the prison and not long after his first conversations with Father Gordon MacRae ended up in punitive segregation. Jim Abbott visited him at least three times and was able to elicit a signed statement that Thomas Grover — his former stepfather — admitted on numerous occasions that his charges against MacRae were “a total fraud for money”.
This became the basis for the “new evidence” that put Father Gordon MacRae’s habeas corpus petition into state and federal courts in 2012. But both New Hampshire State and Federal judges declined any hearing. Charles Glenn’s and Trina Ghedoni’s statements, among others, were attached to the habeas corpus. The documents are here:
https://ncrj.org/cases/father-gordon-macrae/
While Charles Glenn languished in and out of punitive segregation, he allegedly tried to talk to Father Gordon MacRae but the latter stopped him advising him that it could be seen as witness tampering. When he ended up in segregation again he was reportedly angry with his mother for some unknown reason. He wrote a letter to the NH AG (Michael Delaney or Joseph Foster at the time) in which he accused Jim Abbott of having an affair with his mother (baseless, I understand). He wanted to get out of segregation and start over somewhere else. He was later moved to a Connecticut prison after revoking his exculpatory statement in support of Father Gordon MacRae. Charles Glenn is now back in New Hampshire’s state prison and told Father Gordon MacRae recently that he was cooperating in the effort to get a federal investigation of the New Hampshire YDC.
On August 30, 2018, AG Gordon MacDonald was noted in the Concord Monitor to have argued against the release of the Laurie List which had James F McLaughlin’s name added to it in June 2018 for crimes dating back to 1985. These most likely were known of by AG Gordon MacDonald due to his work representing the Diocese of Manchester along with his partner at Nixon Peabody and their partner, disgraced “monsignor” Edward Arsenault.
N.H. AG: List of officers with credibility issues should stay private
The New Hampshire attorney general's office says a list of police officers with potential credibility problems…
www.concordmonitor.com
The investigation into James F McLaughlin is being dragged out. He is currently working in DA Chris McLaughlin’s (no relation) office which raises questions as to why a DA would hire a dishonest police officer at all unless it is to be complicit in going through and deleting more files.
Grafton County Investigation into Laurie List Ex-Cop McLaughlin Ongoing
The investigation into former Keene Police Lt. James McLaughlin's testimony that put a Vermont man in prison for the…
indepthnh.org
Please see the entire article by Claire Best:
New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center Scandal: Gordon MacDonald & Jane Young should be under investigation.
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Statement of Charles Glenn
Introduction:
Charles Glenn’s mother, Trina Ghedoni, was married to Thomas Grover in the time period leading up to, during, and after the 1994 trial of Fr. Gordon MacRae. During some of this time period, from ages 13 to 16, Charles Glenn, was a resident of YDC, the State of New Hampshire’s “Youth Development Center,” a State run juvenile detention facility in Manchester, NH. Charles Glenn signed the forgoing Statement for former FBI investigator James Abbott in 2008, but later withdrew it. Mr. Glenn is one of 1,300 plaintiffs in a civil case alleging sexual and physical abuse by State employees at YDC. He explains that after this experience he was no longer motivated to speak in defense of someone accused of abuse and this caused him to withdraw his statement in 2008. In 2023, after reading reports of fraud in the trial of Father MacRae, Mr. Glenn reinstated his 2008 Statement and asked that it be published.
My name is Charles Glenn and my birth date is July 15, 1981. I am the son of Trina Ghedoni who married Thomas Grover in 1994 in the State of New Hampshire.
I am giving this signed Statement to James Abbott who is a private investigator working on behalf of Gordon MacRae, an ex-priest who was convicted of the sexual abuse of Tom Grover at a 1994 trial. Mr. Abbott has previously interviewed me on April 22, 2008 and this Statement is based on that interview as well as this interview.
From 1993 to 1997 I was assigned to the Youth Development Center in Manchester, New Hampshire. During this period, my mother Trina Ghedoni was dating and later married to Thomas Grover. Almost every week my mother would visit me with Thomas Grover and on numerous weekends I would receive a furlough and be allowed to go to my home at 410 Prescott St. in Manchester where my mother and Thomas Grover lived.
During these visits, and over a number of months and years, Thomas Grover discussed the sex abuse allegations against Gordon MacRae with me. Grover often stated to me that he was going to set MacRae and the church up to gain money for sexual abuse. Grover would laugh and joke about this scheme and after the criminal trial and civil cash award he would again state how he had succeeded in this plot to get cash from the church.
On several occasions Thomas Grover told me that he had never been molested by MacRae. Grover stated to me that there were other allegations made by other people against MacRae and Grover jumped on and piggybacked onto these allegations for the money.
Grover, on several occasions, called his civil case attorneys for money or cash advances on his expected cash award and Grover told me that his attorneys directed him to go for psychiatric and drug therapy to gain jury appeal in his court case. The attorneys would give cash advances to Grover when he asked for them. Grover stated the counseling would help convince the jury that his problems were the result of his molestation by MacRae. Grover told me his attorneys directed him to go to the Manchester Mental Health Unit and act crazy as this would be helpful in the trial.
After the civil award was settled, Grover and my family visited me [at YDC] and showed me $30,000 in cash, and pictures were taken by my family at this time. Grover again was bragging of his putting it over on the church. He then went out and bought a couple of cars.
Grover was never embarrassed about the publicity, but would laugh at it.
Grover’s statements to me were made before, during, and after the criminal trial and never once did he say over this four year period that he was abused by MacRae. Grover never changed his statements that he set up Gordon MacRae and the church.
I have read and understood the above Statement and it is a true and accurate account of statements made to me by Thomas Grover over the period of 1993 to 1997.
Signed: Charles Glenn May 21, 2008
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Excerpts of Investigator Interview with Trina Ghedoni
Introduction:
Trina Ghedoni is the former wife of Thomas Grover. The following are excerpts of statements to former FBI investigator James Abbott collected during his 2008 to 2011 investigation of the case against Fr. Gordon MacRae:
Trina Ghedoni met Thomas Grover a few years before the 1994 trial of Gordon MacRae. They married in 1994. During her marriage to Grover, and as a result of the 1994 trial, she became increasingly aware of issues and problems with his trial testimony and perjury. This became a factor in her ultimate decision to divorce Thomas Grover.
During her four-year marriage to Grover while living in Prescott, Arizona, Ghedoni thought Grover “made up” the whole thing. His attitude and demeanor after the trial and his sexual obsession with pre-teen and teenage girls led Ghedoni to question Grover’s truthfulness. Grover would leave home sometimes for days at a time and go to a motel to view pornography all day. He was caught by Ghedoni on two occasions having sex with his biological sisters on the Arizona Indian reservation where they relocated after Grover received his settlement. She stated that Grover had a hole in a sheetrock wall where he hid pornography. Ghedoni relates that Grover was a sexual addict.
Trina Ghedoni advised that her son, Charles Glenn, moved to Arizona with Trina and Tom in August of 1997. Charles would “pump” Tom about his life. Ghedoni stated that Charles at age 15-16 would not give her specifics but after the trial told her that Tom had “Bs’d” the whole thing “and everyone would be surprised to know what other things Tom did.”
Ghedoni stated that around 1988 Grover was interviewed by Detective McLaughlin but made no allegation that resulted in a charge. In 1989 or 1990, when Grover was 22 or 23 and living in Manchester before accusing MacRae, he met a Dominic Martin and they became close friends and drinking buddies. Martin had a girlfriend whose name Ghedoni could not recall. Martin talked with Grover about setting up priests for money. Of note, Dominic Martin was later convicted for extortion against a priest in neighboring Massachusetts in 2002.
Ghedoni advised that a therapist named Pauline Goupil consulted with Tom Grover every day of MacRae’s 1994 trial. All Tom’s testimony or proposed testimony passed through Pauline Goupil who also tracked Tom’s medications during the trial. Ghedoni advised that, pre-trial, Detective James McLaughlin would converse with Pauline Goupil who in turn would talk to Tom. Ghedoni felt that Ms. Goupil was preparing and directing Tom at all times.
Trina Ghedoni described Thomas Grover as a “compulsive liar,” a “manipulator,” and a “drama queen,” who “molded stories to fit his needs [and] lied to get what he wanted.” He is someone who can also “tell a lie and stick to it ’til its end.”
In 1994, Grover asked Ghedoni to marry him “because it would look better and, more importantly, he needed the security of a wife for the trial.” During the entire time he and Ghedoni were together before this trial, “never once did Grover say he was abused by MacRae.”
Ghedoni stated that Thomas Grover was never abused, and that he stated several times that he was going to “get the church” for money. She stated that Grover lied at trial about the presence of a chess set in MacRae’s office during abuse. Grover reportedly admitted that this was perjury, but said “it was what they wanted.” “They,” according to Ms. Ghedoni, referred to Detective James McLaughlin and Pauline Goupil.
Detective McLaughlin referred Tom Grover to his civil attorney, Robert Upton who provided Grover with multiple cash advances. Grover claimed his lawsuit was necessary to get money for therapy, but once he received his cash in 1996, he never sought therapy again. Ms. Ghedoni described Det. McLaughlin as “gung ho,” “very aggressive,” and compared him to the TV personality John Walsh.
Ghedoni reported that Pauline Goupil’s son had been convicted in 1989 as the notorious “West Side Rapist,” and went to prison but she learned this only after Grover had been in therapy with Ms. Goupil.
Ms. Ghedoni added that Grover could never give a consistent account of his claimed abuse. Before the trial Grover befriended Dean Clay and they smoked “weed” together for long periods. Dean Clay later attempted to testify for the defense but was denied by the judge.
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Related Notes
After Thomas Grover’s initial testimony at MacRae’s 1994 trial, Dean Clay read of it in a local newspaper. The next day, Dean Clay showed up in the courtroom. Before the trial resumed, he told MacRae’s defense counsel that he knew Tom Grover and had been told by Mr. Grover that he was involved in an insurance scheme or scam for which he will get a lot of money. Mr. Clay believed that the scam Grover referred to was this trial. After strenuous objection by prosecutors, Judge Brennan declined to allow the jury to hear testimony from Dean Clay.
Dominic Martin and his wife, Brianna Martin, were arrested in Boston in 2003. They pled guilty and were convicted of the extortion of a priest with false claims of sexual misconduct. Dominic Martin had changed his name. He was formerly Todd Biltcliff, a Keene, New Hampshire resident who in 1992 received an undisclosed settlement after accusing a New Hampshire priest, Fr. Stephen Scruton, of molesting him in a hot tub at the YMCA. Ryan A. MacDonald wrote of that account in “Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Catholic Priest.”
During Former FBI Agent James Abbott’s investigation, Thomas Grover and his brothers refused to be interviewed or answer any questions pertaining to this matter. They received combined settlements in excess of $600,000.
Ms. Pauline Goupil also declined to be interviewed or answer any questions. Pauline Goupil is the subject of a recent article by Ryan A. MacDonald, “Psychotherapists Helped Send an Innocent Priest to Prison.”
In a post-trial Writ of Habeas Corpus petition, New Hampshire State and Federal judges declined to hear or consider any testimony from any of the witnesses who offered the Statements and evidence contained herein.
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The following links have been added to “Investigator Affidavit and Witness Statements” :
Sworn Affidavit of Investigator James Abbott
Excerpts of Investigator Interview with Trina Ghedoni
Statement of Steven Wollschlager
“The truth will set you free,” but to date no State or Federal judge in New Hampshire has allowed any of the above witnesses to testify under oath.
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.”
New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case
A researcher unravels a trail of financial corruption behind the cases of Father Gordon MacRae in the Diocese of Manchester and Owen Labrie at St. Paul’s School.
A researcher unravels a trail of financial corruption behind the cases of Father Gordon MacRae in the Diocese of Manchester and Owen Labrie at St. Paul’s School.
September 6, 2023: An Op-Ed by Claire Best
For the last 29 years, Father Gordon MacRae has been denied justice, relegated to Concord Men’s Prison in New Hampshire. Despite an ex-FBI agent’s 3-year investigation, a Pulitzer prize-winning Wall Street Journalist’s multi-part exposé, even a current investigation into the police officer who framed him, nothing has thus far moved the needle — except perhaps in the court of public opinion.
Finally in 2023, the pieces of this puzzle have come together to explain why this might be: The New Hampshire Department for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), some New Hampshire Police, local attorneys, the “compliance officer” for the Diocese of Manchester, and the Attorney General’s office have been involved in a racket. For Father Gordon MacRae to get justice, they would all risk being exposed in an organized crime to frame him in order to extort the insurance for the Diocese and trigger an expansion of business that spreads to the Catholic Medical Center, schools, nursing homes, day care centers, clinics, addiction recovery centers, banks, insurance companies and media. This is an enterprise worth billions that stretches far beyond the borders of New Hampshire across the US and internationally.
While Father Gordon MacRae has been incarcerated, New Hampshire has covered up horrific child sex abuse by its very own employees at the State’s Youth Detention Center. The NH DCYF has failed multiple audits by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (DHHS OIG). It has downplayed Medicaid fraud. Opioids and fentanyl overdoses have skyrocketed. Children and young adults have died or disappeared, drugs have been trafficked, arms have been trafficked, money has been laundered, billions have been made and a monopoly without accountability has blossomed. That monopoly is tied to the interests of the US Government and its three letter agencies. Framing Father Gordon MacRae to get inside the Diocese of Manchester looks like it was a strategic plan that has had catastrophic consequences not just for MacRae but for anyone who has become a tool for, or victim of, the Government infiltration of Catholic organizations.
Father Gordon MacRae was prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned in 1994, the year the Clinton Crime Bill (authored by Joe Biden) was enacted. It is also the year that the Violence Against Women Act was passed enabling $9 billion in grants from the Department of Justice to police, prosecutors and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). Creating crimes that didn’t exist (while hiding those of state employees or friends of law enforcement and the courts) in order to access grants has undermined the integrity of the justice system in the State of New Hampshire and across the land.
“Justice for the Victim” has been a rallying cry in New Hampshire which has deliberately and consistently failed to ascertain the validity of claims of domestic and sexual assault, while pre-determining victims and predators without doing anything that could remotely be called due process.
Lots of people are denied justice each year and decades later a few of them go free after prosecutorial and police misconduct, or other flaws in the original investigations and trials, are exposed. Some years ago in Pennsylvania, a “Kids for Cash” scheme was unravelled. It involved police, prosecutors, judges and private attorneys. In California, a local journalist came across a series of gatherings in which judges, prosecutors, private attorneys and the media conspired to rig cases in civil, family and criminal courts. What has transpired in New Hampshire bears all the same markings as these. A few breadcrumbs here and there have provided clues to an epic scandal that has been carefully hidden from the public for decades — in large part due to a small “club” who are vested in the profits from it. That club comprises law enforcement, non-profits, local councils, attorneys general, elected representatives, justices, other members of the New Hampshire Bar and certain media outlets. They figured out that by controlling the news, they could control the narrative. And by controlling the narrative they could leverage the outcomes of criminal trials and civil lawsuits. Father Gordon MacRae is a victim of this corruption which even includes local “investigative” reporters who have no critical thinking skills but are determined to reinforce the court corruption in their coverage — presumably due to the sponsorship of their media outlets.
In 1995, a prosecutor in New Hampshire failed to let the defense know that a police officer who arrested a man on trial for murder had a dishonest track record. The state dropped the case. The defendant’s name was Carl Laurie, for whom the “Laurie List” is named. A 1963 US Supreme Court case, Brady v Maryland, requires the prosecution to provide any and all exculpatory evidence to the defense in a timely manner before any criminal trial. Somehow New Hampshire ignored this rule, and for decades judges and prosecutors have been OK with that. This is most likely because there isn’t really a division between police, prosecutors, judges and media in New Hampshire. So a lie that works for one finds its way up the ladder to work for all. Elected DAs who have challenged the ethics of this have been voted out of office (Robin Davis, DA of Merrimack County) or have been undermined by the Attorney General taking over their prosecutions (Michael Conley, DA of Hillsborough County). It is easier in New Hampshire to promote a lie than it is to defend the truth because there is a waterfall of money to be made in the lie — federal grants, civil settlements, contracts, promotions, rewards.
Detective James F. McLaughlin
In June 2018 the police detective who began investigating Father Gordon MacRae in the late 1980s was added to the Attorney General’s secret list of corrupt police officers — the “Laurie List” — also known as the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule for a charge of “Falsification of Records.” James F. McLaughlin, New Hampshire’s top child sex crimes detective, was brought out of retirement in 2017 to work on a Grand Jury Criminal Investigation of St Paul’s School following the framing of scholarship student, 18-year-old Owen Labrie, by Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin. Attorney General Gordon MacDonald brought McLaughlin into the investigation to supervise Detective Julie Curtin and Lieutenant Sean Ford. The report into the school and alleged cover-ups of sex abuse from 2009 to 2017 was completed in August 2018 and a settlement agreement was reached between the Attorney General and the school administration in September 2018. The agreement required a “compliance officer” and a contract with victims advocacy organization the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV).
The agreement mirrored one that had been entered into in 2002 after James F. McLaughlin’s investigation into Father Gordon MacRae triggered the circumstances for a Grand Jury criminal investigation, a “compliance officer” and settlement with the Diocese of Manchester. The NHCADSV had brought on board Brian Harlow of SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) in 2012. Though Harlow had no connection to the MacRae case, he had been one of the original “victims” to come forward for the Diocese of Manchester investigation in 2002. NHCADSV wanted him to help them expand their business and they had a contract with the Department of Defense as well as with the University of New Hampshire which had a strategic agreement with the (Obama) White House 2014 “Not Alone” task force to combat sexual assault on campuses. The Chair of the University System in New Hampshire is Alex Walker. He just so happens to also now be the CEO of Catholic Medical Center in the Diocese of Manchester. As published in a Catholic Medical Center statement:
“Alex has been actively involved in the community for many years. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the University System of New Hampshire and on the New Hampshire Business Committee for the Arts. In 2019 and 2020 he co-chaired the Bishop’s Charitable Assistance Fund with his wife, Lisa. He was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Palace Theatre, and past Chairman of the Board of Directors of Granite United Way. He has also served on the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Board of Governors, the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission, the Board of Directors of City Year New Hampshire, the Board of Directors for the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire, and the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors where he served as Chairman of the Board in 2011.”
Alex Walker provided counsel to the Diocese alongside the Nixon Peabody law firm which was formed in 1999 in Boston and Manchester. Gordon MacDonald, an attorney at Nixon Peabody became Attorney General and is the current New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice. Before he took office as AG, he successfully managed to block an audit of his client Purdue Pharma. New Hampshire’s opioid crisis has been one of the worst in the country. Catholic Medical Center was fined $3.8 million recently for a kick back scheme. The Boston Globe has exposed cover-ups of medical malpractice by CMC’s administrators headed by Alex Walker. Curiously however, the Boston Globe Spotlight team which covered the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in 2002-2003 is only interested in exposing a portion of the story that benefits ambulance chasing civil attorneys. The Globe is guilty of removing comments under articles which smacks of the newspaper’s own compromised position preventing its journalists from seeking the real truth as opposed to the monied subjective “his/her/their truth”.
With the addition of Detective James F. McLaughlin on the police misconduct “Laurie List,” AG Gordon MacDonald was suddenly compromised. He had hired McLaughlin because of his history with the Diocese and now he had to hide the fact that he knew McLaughlin was dishonest in the middle of the investigation into St Paul’s School which he had ordered. Instead of coming clean, Gordon MacDonald kept McLaughlin’s dishonesty secret because he was part of the club that had profiteered from McLaughlin’s misconduct. His success as an attorney is deeply tied to his representation of the Diocese of Manchester.
The “compliance officer” in the Diocese was Father Edward Arsenault who became a Monsignor before being defrocked by the Pope after he pled guilty to defrauding the diocese, a dead priest’s estate, and Catholic Medical Center in 2014. Among the expenses Edward Arsenault had clocked up using church funds were the purchase of cell phones, computer equipment, trips to Boston, meals out and work with journalists as well as travel expenditures for himself and his young adult lover.
Recent articles in the last few weeks have revealed that the FBI had planned to infiltrate and undermine the Catholic Church. Christopher Wray, head of the FBI, has tried to toss this off. But the case of Father Gordon MacRae and those of police officer, James F. McLaughlin and Monsignor Edward Arsenault should force a wider inquiry into the Government’s involvement in Catholic institutions going back to the 1980s when Sylvia Gale made up a false rumor about MacRae and shared it with McLaughlin launching his investigation of MacRae.
I have long suspected that Edward Arsenault was never really a priest but actually an FBI operative who got inside the Diocese of Manchester to increase the business of The National Catholic Risk Retention Group and Catholic Charities in such a way that they would become intertwined with Maximus Inc — a for-profit enterprise acting on behalf of the Government. His background is in accounting and finance and he also seems to be heavily involved in big pharma-adjacent enterprises: health/mental health non-profits.
Around the same time (1975) that the US Senate “Church Committee” Inquiry revealed the CIA’s work with 186 educational institutions and non-profits for MK Ultra experiments, Maximus Inc was founded by David Mastran, a Vietnam vet involved with DARPA. Since then Maximus has grown to become the most enormous outsource company for the Governments of the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Its tentacles have reached into pretty much any Government program you can think of from the IRS to Medicaid, from student loans to Title IV funds, from Department of Defense contracts to Covid vaccination tracking. For all intents and purposes, Maximus has taken over where the CIA and FBI left off when their clandestine and abhorrent human experiments were exposed by the US Senate Church Committee. It would be hard to imagine that the CIA just stopped its experiments in its tracks with so many organizations involved.
In the 1980s in Keene New Hampshire, Sylvia Gale, an employee with State Child Protective Services and DCYF, created a false rumor about Father Gordon MacRae. In an official DCYF letter in 1988, she told Keene Police Detective James F. McLaughlin that MacRae had been involved in a serious crime: the sexual abuse and murder of a child in Florida. Sylvia Gale cited that the source of the fake Florida murder molestation that became McLaughlin’s “probable cause” was Msgr. John Quinn who was at the time Director of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Manchester.
The crime did not exist and Father Gordon MacRae had never even been in Florida. McLaughlin was known in 1985 for dishonesty but for some reason it took until June 2018 for his name to appear on a State list kept in secret by the Attorney General. In December 2021 Detective McLaughlin’s name appeared publicly on the “Laurie List” of corrupt police for just a few hours before it was removed by Attorney General Gordon MacDonald. Whether Sylvia Gale knew of McLaughlin’s dishonesty when she spread her rumor will forever be an unanswered question but since there were rewards being bandied about by McLaughlin, I believe she probably did know and that money was involved as a reward to her as a “witness” for creating the rumor. Sylvia Gale was a DCYF supervisor of Patricia Grover, the mother of Father MacRae’s accuser at his 1994 trial.
In the time frame from 1985-2018, James F. McLaughlin rose to be New Hampshire’s most celebrated child and internet sex crimes investigator who instructed others in his tactics which included making false statements, procuring and coercion of “victims,” deleting exculpatory evidence, working with media to “shape the message,” federal entrapment (sending unsolicited images of minors), working with civil attorneys and non-profits/victims rights advocates in kick-back schemes. He was given a lifetime achievement award in 2016. At the same ceremony, Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin, was given an award for her work in investigating St. Paul’s school, singling out and framing 18-year-old Owen Labrie. She worked with domestic and international agencies to censor social media for the “victim” who had been recruited in June 2014 for the latest sick experiment. She was carrying the McLaughlin torch forward while he was supposed to retire.
James F. McLaughlin’s crooked enterprise yielded millions in grants, increases in police budgets, non-profit budgets and grants for DCYF, the University of New Hampshire and other affiliated agencies. Why did it matter if a few people had to be framed when so much money could be extorted and former federal prosecutors working at Nixon Peabody are on their side? The law firm’s business grew, turning it into a giant in representation for the health care industry. Particularly that tied to Catholic healthcare institutions — where Monsignor Edward Arsenault was tasked with increasing profits — and the opioid industry. Nixon Peabody represented Purdue Pharma when it was sued by the State of New Hampshire. Creating sex offenders, extorting Catholic establishments, creating drug addicts and claiming Medicaid for medical treatments and facilities has been a sustainable business in New Hampshire for over two decades.
James F. McLaughlin’s enterprise is reminiscent of that of Tom Coleman, aka “T.J. Dawson,” a police officer in Tulia, Arizona who built a business, with accolades all along the way, framing members of the black community for drug offenses they did not commit. Drugs would be planted on unsuspecting targets. Instead of drugs, for Keene Detective James F. McLaughlin, it was sex crimes that were planted. He would fabricate whatever story he could pull off to get plea deals and convictions. In New Hampshire it was easy because the statutes for sex crimes require no corroborating witnesses or evidence. Add qualified immunity for police officers to that, and sovereign immunity for prosecutors, judges and non-profits tied to the courts such as CASA, NHCADSV and agencies like DCYF. They had the perfect racket: collect the federal grants, fabricate the crimes, hide the exculpatory evidence, train the witnesses, use media to garner public outrage to leverage civil settlements with attorneys at the ready to profiteer, and non-profits to train victims and write impact statements. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The National Catholic Risk Retention Group
Attorney General Gordon MacDonald went on to become New Hampshire’s Supreme Court Chief Justice without ever having served as a judge in any capacity. He has a lot to thank James McLaughlin for. MacDonald joined the Nixon Peabody law firm to represent the Diocese of Manchester in the early 2000s. Together with his partner David Vicinanzo, a former federal prosecutor for Massachusetts who had spent time working in the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, they settled dozens, if not hundreds, of claims against the Diocese of Manchester. Monsignor Edward Arsenault was the appointed compliance officer — nominally. Actually he was in charge of all financial affairs of the Diocese and increasing its reach. He had a business to run; a business to grow. In Monsignor Arsenault’s once-published resume, since removed from view, he boasted of having personally negotiated multi-million dollars settlements in 250 sexual abuse claims against the Diocese of Manchester with a select few personal injury lawyers.
Meanwhile, James F. McLaughlin’s father had been a member of the Concord City Council for 25 years. The Council approves the budget for police investigations including the payments of witnesses for Grand Juries. Although Concord only has 43,000 residents, it is the capital of New Hampshire and is home to the 2nd largest legislative body in the United States after the US Congress in Washington, DC, and the 4th largest in the world. There are 400 elected representatives in New Hampshire. It is an important first stop for any presidential candidate making it a magnet for dark money and a perfect place for three letter agencies involved in clandestine operations to experiment.
The Concord Police Department is not accredited. The current police chief, Bradley Osgood, stated that his department did not have the time or resources to get accredited. The cost is under $20,000. Bradley Osgood was trained in Virginia by the FBI. His predecessor, Timothy O’Malley, left the job to join Vanguard Securities in the fraud department. Dartmouth College and other institutions have accounts with Vanguard Securities. These institutions also have accounts tied to the “Pandora Papers” as does Maximus.
In 1996 Maximus went public. It was the same year that Father Gordon MacRae was denied his first appeals. Bill Clinton was President. He and Hillary were friends with Jeanne and Bill Shaheen. Attorney General Philip McLaughlin, who ordered the investigation into the Diocese in 2002, had been appointed by Governor Jeanne Shaheen who achieved her position with the help of the Clintons. John Sununu, the father of current Governor Chris Sununu, was close to George Bush senior and worked in his administration as White House Chief of Staff. The State of New Hampshire renamed its “Youth Development Center” the “Sununu Youth Development Center” after Governor John Sununu. It is now exposed that youths in the detention center were subjected to sexual, physical, and mental abuse, a scandal that exploded in secret in the early 2000s while the State was investigating the Catholic Church. There are currently over 1,330 pending lawsuits alleging sexual and physical abuse by State employees. The State has hidden millions of documents pertaining to this abuse. Curiously, unlike in the cases of the Diocese of Manchester and St. Paul’s School, no grand jury has been convened to investigate the State and create a report. Maximus and DCYF are front and center in this, but local news organizations have not scrutinized this relationship or that of Catholic Charities and New Hampshire’s police.
In 1999, Nixon Peabody formed in Boston and Manchester, New Hampshire, bringing together a law firm comprising 450 lawyers across New England. The Diocese of Manchester was their client and Maximus was a generous donor to Catholic Charities while starting to get contracts with Catholic institutions. But Maximus was a for-profit wing of the federal government that was effectively now wheedling its way into the vast array of businesses that fall under Catholic Charities. Disgraced Monsignor Edward Arsenault was Chairman of the Board of the Catholic insurance wing for these, The National Catholic Risk Retention Group. David Vicinanzo had been a federal prosecutor who joined Nixon Peabody. Vicinanzo and Nixon Peabody were thus connected to the FBI and so, by association at least, was Edward Arsenault and the Diocese of Manchester, Catholic Charities and their insurance.
The Diocese today refers children to the Children’s Trust Fund for claims of child sex abuse. Children’s Trust Fund shares the same address (10 Ferry Street) as Maximus and Virtus LLC founded in 1999 by Edward Arsenault. Virtus is owned by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group. Also located at 10 Ferry Street is Policy Studies Inc which Kathleen Kerr (on the board of Maximus) joined after she received a letter from US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) regarding failures of NH DCYF in 1999. She was legal counsel for DCYF and was there 12 years before she segued into Policy Studies Inc and Maximus which bought it after it was taken over by Veritas. She would have been working with DCYF when the MacRae case took place involving staff members of the DCYF and their families.
Coincidentally, Sylvia Gale, who created the first untrue rumor about Father Gordon MacRae back in 1988, successfully appealed a complaint against her for conflicts of interests that arose between her work for the Nashua DCYF and other non-profits. Sylvia Gale died in 2020 and left behind a legacy for her work in children’s advocacy, but judging by reports on New Hampshire’s Youth Detention Center scandal, the State’s Foster Care System, failures of the DCYF, and the drugging of children in State care, I am not sure it is a legacy to be proud of. It was Sylvia Gale’s colleague, Patricia Grover whose son Thomas Grover became a drug addict before he was convinced by James F. McLaughlin that he could make substantial money by being a witness/victim of Father Gordon MacRae. The Diocese of Manchester coughed up $200,000. Years later, Grover admitted to family members that he was bribed and that the case was a fraud. A therapist sat at the back of the courtroom motioning for him to cry during his testimony against the priest, a story exposed in “Psychotherapists Helped Send an Innocent Priest to Prison.”
The Diocese of Manchester and St. Paul’s School
The Catholic links of Maximus go all the way to the Vatican. Disgraced Monsignor Edward Arsenault appears to have been a conduit between the Diocese, the FBI and the Vatican. When Arsenault went to jail for multiple felony counts of embezzlement in 2014, Assistant Attorney General Jane Young (now the US Attorney for New Hampshire) shook his hand. She even allowed him to continue consulting from behind bars. He was sentenced to prison for four to twenty years, but released on home confinement. Ultimately he had the remainder of his sentence vacated and his restitution of nearly $300,000 was paid in full by unknown third parties during his confinement. Then he appeared with a new name: Edward Bolognini. This time, he claimed he was married — to Francesco Bolognini-Arsenault. They own a Sicilian ceramics import shop together, a luxury condo and Edward Bolognini works for ReServe a non-profit with a $10 million contract from the City of New York despite his financial crimes. Edward Bolognini’s current boss does not seem remotely bothered that he had been convicted of defrauding another non-profit before joining ReServe. Is he just FBI infiltrating/controlling another business related to the Government? Does his sales pitch include promises to increase profits and provide access to Catholic Charities databases in return for immunity for his own crimes?
In September 2018, Laura L. Dunn, an advisor to the White House “Not Alone” Task Force which was partnered with the University of New Hampshire and the NHCADSV, tweeted a congratulations on the settlement agreement reached by Attorney General Gordon MacDonald (David Vicinanzo’s ex-partner from Nixon Peabody) with St Paul’s School following a grand jury criminal investigation. She had actually been introduced to the trial of NH v Owen Labrie by James F. McLaughlin’s protegé, Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin sometime between June 2014 and March 2015, five months before the high profile high school sexual assault trial. Laura Dunn had lied about her own case on NHPR in 2010 but the White House, (then) Vice President Joe Biden, the DOJ and DOE do not mind. She was a useful tool. She helped plant the Rolling Stone UVA “A Rape on Campus” fake story by Sabrina Rubin Erdeley who previously wrote a story about a Catholic priest’s sexual abuse — which also turned out to be untrue. Ironically, Father Gordon MacRae exposed that story from prison in an article entitled, “The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy on the Cover of Newsweek.”
The Attorney General’s settlement agreement with St. Paul’s School was identical to the one arranged for the Diocese of Manchester in 2002. In the case of St. Paul’s School, however, Nixon Peabody Attorney David Vicinanzo commended the Judge for keeping the St. Paul’s School Grand Jury Report private. Vicinanzo’s client, the NHCADSV, got a contract out of it and Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, Vicinanzo’s former partner at Nixon Peabody, got to install a “compliance officer” (an ex-police officer) at the school’s expense. News about this arrangement was lauded by the NHCADSV and others. Allowing the Government to get inside a private Episcopal School was praiseworthy and novel. It would set the example for other private schools around the nation. The compliance officer implemented a behavior reporting software called maxient.com which has been criticized by many as being something the Stasi would have approved of. AG Gordon MacDonald knew that James F. McLaughlin was on the dishonest police officer list when he was carrying out the grand jury criminal investigation into the school but he never revealed that knowledge to the public. Instead he released the settlement agreement just hours after Owen Labrie’s first NH Supreme Court appeal was argued and then later denied. In September 2019, the same month Judge Richard McNamara ruled that the St. Paul’s School Grand Jury Report should remain private, the NHCADSV published a report which asserted that Gordon MacDonald wanted to increase the number of prosecutions for sexual assault.
Before becoming Attorney General, Gordon MacDonald also knew about a thriving false accusations industry for lawyers in New Hampshire because, according to Father Gordon MacRae and a 2005 article in The Wall Street Journal, MacDonald asked the priest to admit to the sexual assault of males he had never met nor even heard of just so Nixon Peabody could reach a quick settlement.
In November 2019, I ran into S. Daniel Carter who had been a partner with Laura L. Dunn in her non-profit SurvJustice tied to the White House “Not Alone” Task Force. He admitted to me that the real interest in NH v Owen Labrie was in St. Paul’s School as opposed to the framed scholarship student himself. The real interest was in the Diocese of Manchester, not Father Gordon MacRae. Both cases were about power, money, control and politics. This explains why Father MacRae was originally offered a lenient plea deal to serve one to three years. Because he would not go along with the lie, he was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to up to 67 years.
On reflection, with recent news regarding the FBI’s memo about its plans within the Catholic Church, I believe that the real goal behind NH v Gordon MacRae and NH v Owen Labrie was a Government goal to get inside Catholic and Episcopal institutions to undermine their religious principles and force them to be subjected to corrupt and greedy Government operatives hiding behind NGOs or Maximus, for-profit enterprises. In contrast, police did not bother going after State employees at the Youth Detention Center leaving it covered up even as they went after the Catholic Church. They also did not bother going after sex abusers in local public schools. There was no money in those and they were already under Government control whereas the private institutions were not. But Government-tied extortionists wanted a piece of those pies.
The FBI in Bedford, New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts seem none too bothered by the extortion rackets of these institutions. Why would they be? Their members might even be complicit in them. Robert Mueller was head of the FBI in 2014 when St. Paul’s School was targeted and Owen Labrie framed. He had expanded the definition of rape in 2011. He also happened to be an alum of St Paul’s School in the same class as Senator John Kerry.
Neither the Diocese of Manchester nor St. Paul’s School seem to have benefitted from the fake “independent” compliance officers who are actually spies. Donald Sullivan, the current compliance officer at St. Paul’s School, wrote in a recent report that the information from maxient.com on student conduct is now entering the “analysis phase.” The information is shared with RAINN which has a contract with the Department of Defense as does the NHCADSV. It is also shared with the Attorney General’s office. Data on kids in private religious schools — not exactly what anybody might be interested in except the FBI, the DOD and the DOJ.
Are the Government’s MK Ultra programs still alive and thriving behind Maximus, Virtus, maxient.com and “compliance officer” police state spies? Thomas Grover was offered financial rewards to accuse Father Gordon MacRae. He was a drug addict and he was the son of a DCYF social worker supervisor. Chessy Prout was offered financial rewards to accuse Owen Labrie. She had taken “health” leave for downing nail polish remover in an attempt at self-harm. Like Thomas Grover, she was coached in the courtroom. Useful and malleable tools to frame disposable assets to get at the money and control of Catholic and Episcopal institutions.
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Claire Best is the founder and CEO of Claire Best & Associates — an international film and television agency based in Los Angeles. Her clients include Oscar and Emmy Award winners. Her background is in documentaries.
Suspicious of the over-sensationalism surrounding the high-profile criminal sexual assault trial of St. Paul’s School (Concord, New Hampshire) scholarship student Owen Labrie in August 2015 she started to investigate. In the fall of 2019 she came across Beyond These Stone Walls and Father Gordon’s post comparing the settlement agreement and players involved in the St. Paul’s School and Diocese of Manchester cases. This led her to follow the money to find out what was really going on and why there was such a desire to quash inquiry. Although New Hampshire is the 5th smallest state in the US, it is “First In the Nation” for primary presidential elections. It has a global significance in the financial affairs of Catholic Charities, Maximus and three letter agencies.
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SOURCES
DCYF:
Joe Biden and the Crime Bill
Violence Against Women Act
VAWA $9 billion in grants
Kids for Cash Scandal
California Bench, Bar, Media Scandal
Article mentioning the “club” in New Hampshire’s Bar/judiciary from 1999
Controlling the Narrative: “Pretrial Publicity Friend or Foe: Advice from the Experts Amanda Grady Sexton (NHCADSV, City of Concord Council member) and Steve Kelly Esq (lead attorney in multiple Does v St. Paul’s School suits, and Rappuano and Does v Dartmouth which yielded $14 million of which the NHCADSV was a financial beneficiary to the tune of $2.865 million)
Laurie List
Father Gordon MacRae
Brady v Maryland / Brady Rule
Robin Davis
Michael Conley
James McLaughlin caught in lies
Diocese of Manchester and St. Paul’s School Agreement mirror each other
White House strategic partnership with UNH for “Not Alone” task force
Alex Walker tapped as Chair of New Hampshire University System
Gordon MacDonald defended Purdue Pharma
Catholic Medical Center Kick-back scheme $3.8 million fine
Boston Globe exposes Catholic Medical Center cover-ups for medical malpractice
FBI targeted Catholic Church and Christopher Wray lied about it
Maximus, Inc
Edward Arsenault — defrocked former priest
Senate Church Committee
MKUltra
James F. McLaughlin
Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin receives award
Tulia Drug Bust Revisited
Diocese of Manchester pays for dozens of claims
Dark Money in NH Politics
AG Phil McLaughlin, mentor to Jeanne Shaheen
YDC Abuse Lawsuits survive State’s attempt to dismiss
Attorney who represented church abuse victims (Chuck Douglas) defends State’s YDC settlement plan
10 Ferry Street
Pandora Papers
US DHHS OIG complaint sent in 1999 to Kathleen Kerr at NH DCYF
Maximus links to the Catholic Church
Laura L. Dunn
NH v Owen Labrie
maxient.com Stasi like
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/feb/20/as-colleges-become-more-stasi-like-students-live-i/
Virtus LLC
David Vicinanzo: WASHINGTON (June 5) — Attorney General Janet Reno announced Friday career federal prosecutor David Vicinanzo of New Hampshire will head the Justice Department’s campaign finance task force.
“Who is David Vicinanzo?”
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.”
Psychotherapists Helped Send an Innocent Priest to Prison
Psychotherapists who capitalize on moral panic and enlist junk science to help send innocent people to prison should be held personally and professionally liable.
Psychotherapists who capitalize on moral panic and enlist junk science to help send innocent people to prison should be held personally and professionally liable.
August 23, 2023 by Ryan A. MacDonald
From the Editor: Ryan A. MacDonald is a frequently cited columnist, and an occasional contributor at Beyond These Stone Walls. Among his standout articles is “Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest.”
On September 23, 1994, Rev. Gordon MacRae, a New Hampshire Catholic priest, was convicted of raping a male counseling client more than a decade earlier. At the time of Fr. MacRae’s trial, accuser Thomas Grover was 27 years old. His core testimony was simple. Grover stated that, in 1983, he sought MacRae out for counseling for his drug addiction in the months preceding his 16th birthday. He claimed that during each session he was berated, made to cry, and then forced to submit to oral sex in a Church rectory office. His claim that these events occurred during counseling sessions enhanced the charges to five counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault. When asked by defense counsel why Grover, at almost age 16 — being 5’ 11” and weighing in excess of 180 pounds — would return from week to week after having been raped, Grover answered, “I don’t know — I repressed it.” When the defense pressed for an explanation, Grover said, “I had out of body experiences; I don’t remember how I got there.”
During this remarkable testimony, a woman in the spectator section of the court was taking copious notes. She wasn’t with reporters in the press section. When defense counsel approached her during a break, she identified herself as “a student interested in the trial.”
Following Thomas Grover’s testimony, the prosecution was permitted to call to the stand an expert witness, Leonard Fleischer, Ed.D., whose role was purportedly to “educate” the jury about Child Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and “delayed reporting.” His description of PTSD included a reference to “out of body experiences” even though, as a witness, Leonard Fleischer was not allowed to be present during Thomas Grover’s testimony. During the trial, however, Fleischer was seen in a restaurant with the “student” who had been taking notes during Grover’s testimony. From all appearances, he had planted a surrogate in the courtroom to hear what he was not allowed to hear. Thomas Grover also testified that between ages 15 and 27, he was treated in six drug abuse treatment centers, the first being Beech Hill Hospital in New Hampshire. Leonard Fleischer then testified that he had once been a therapist at Beech Hill Hospital, and “in my experience 70% to 80% of the males who had been treated at Beech Hill Hospital were sexually abused.”
On appeal, the State conceded that this uncorroborated statistical testimony by this “expert” witness should not have been allowed. The state appellate court agreed, but determined that it was “harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt.” In the book, Actual Innocence, Innocence Project founder Attorney Barry Scheck described “harmless error” as “the process by which judges excuse the misconduct of police and prosecutors.” In post-trial interviews with jurors, several stated that their verdict was swayed solely by the expert witness testimony.
One juror said she voted for guilty because she watched the defendant carefully during the trial, “and he did not appear to be remorseful.” The jury never heard that this trial came after MacRae’s rejection of the State’s plea offer of a sentence of one to three years. He rejected this offer twice before trial and again following Thomas Grover’s testimony. After the trial, he was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to a term of up to 67 years — more than 20 times the maximum of the State’s proffered deal.
After receiving $200,000 settlement from the Diocese of Manchester in 1996, Thomas Grover relocated to Arizona. He is pictured here about three years after the MacRae trial.
Now Pauline Goupil, M.A.
Far more troubling was the role played in this trial and its aftermath by psychotherapist Pauline Goupil, M.A. As defense counsel Ron Koch (pronounced “Coke”) stood at the defense table to cross-examine Thomas Grover, Mr. Grover turned in protest to the judge. This 27-year-old, 220 lb. man, no stranger to the criminal justice system, complained that he did not want to look at the defendant during the trial and therefore could not answer Mr. Koch’s questions if he stood in the middle aisle by the defense table. In apparent disregard of the Constitutional right of defendants to confront an accuser at trial, Judge Brennan ordered defense counsel to cross-examine Thomas Grover from a position in the court as far from the defendant as possible.
Later, during a break in the trial, PBS-TV official Leo Demers and his wife Penny approached the defense attorney. The issue, they said, had nothing to do with the lawyer standing near the defendant. They pointed out the presence of a woman seated with spectators on the center aisle. They reported seeing that woman influence Thomas Grover’s testimony using hand signals. They pointed out that defense counsel had been blocking Grover’s view of her when he was standing near Father MacRae during cross examination.
Mr. and Mrs. Demers claimed that when defense counsel asked Mr. Grover to explain to whom he first brought his sexual abuse claims, the police or a contingency lawyer, Thomas Grover looked directly at the woman seated at the center aisle at which point she gestured with her index finger over her eye and down her cheek. Grover then began to sob uncontrollably on the stand, causing the judge to declare a recess. Leo Demers pointed the woman out, and defense counsel approached her.
The woman identified herself as Pauline Goupil, M.A., Thomas Grover’s therapist. The defense approached the bench, the jury was dismissed for the day, and Pauline Goupil was ordered to the stand. Ms. Goupil testified that she had been retained by Thomas Grover at the behest of contingency lawyer, Robert Upton, to counsel Grover throughout the trial and keep him “clean and sober.” Ms. Goupil stated that she had a practice specialization in treating victims of sexual abuse and assault.
For an entire afternoon, Pauline Goupil, M.A. testified about her role, and vehemently protested defense attempts to obtain her file. Pre-trial, the defense moved for copies of all Thomas Grover’s treatment records, but received none of them despite Grover's claim that he had been treated for his drug addiction six times. The defense was never told of Grover’s on-going treatment with Pauline Goupil.
In the end, the judge ruled that he would conduct an in-camera review of Ms. Goupil’s treatment file which she was ordered to produce the next day. She was then barred from the court for the remainder of trial. The presence of Ms. Goupil, and the matter of her giving Grover hand signals during his testimony, was never heard by the jury and the defense counsel did not move for a mistrial.
Pauline Goupil’s file was submitted the next day for in-camera review by Judge Brennan. In it was a letter from Ms. Goupil to Thomas Grover in which she chastised him for not showing up for her sessions, and assured him:
“I have good news. Jim [Keene, NH sex crimes detective James F. McLaughlin] told me that MacRae is being offered a plea deal he will have to accept. So there will be no trial. We can just move on with the settlement phase.”
Neither the letter, nor Pauline Goupil’s coaching of Thomas Grover’s testimony ever became known to the jury.
Several years after this trial, but before his retirement from PBS and WGBH Television in Boston, Leo Demers wrote a personal letter to retired Judge Arthur Brennan:
“My wife and I were present in the courtroom throughout most of the trial of Fr. Gordon MacRae in 1994. For all these years, I have had many questions about this trial and much that I have wanted to clarify for my own peace of mind ... . We saw something in your courtroom during the MacRae trial that I don’t think you ever saw. My wife nudged me and pointed to a woman, Ms. Pauline Goupil, who was engaged in what appeared to be clear witness tampering. During questioning by the defense attorney, Thomas Grover seemed to feel trapped a few times. On some of those occasions, we witnessed Pauline Goupil make a distinct sad expression with a down-turned mouth and gesturing her finger from the corner of her eye down her cheek at which point Mr. Grover would begin to cry and sob on the stand. The lawyer’s questions were never answered.
“I have been troubled about this for all these years. I know what I saw, and what I saw was clearly an attempt to dupe the court and the jury. If the sobbing and crying was not truthful, then I cannot help but wonder what else was not truthful on the part of Mr. Grover. If he was really a victim who wanted to tell the simple truth, then why was it necessary for him and Ms. Goupil to have what clearly appeared to be a set of prearranged signals to alter his testimony?”
Back at the 1994 trial, once Pauline Goupil’s role in the case was known, Thomas Grover was put back on the stand. He testified that Ms. Goupil arranged for him to be drugged before his testimony, and that was why he could not remember specifics. Thomas Grover claimed that part of the residual effect of the abuse he suffered was chronic unemployment due to his emotional state. He was asked by defense counsel how — since he could not hold a job — could he afford weekly therapy with Ms. Goupil. Grover stated, “She worked something out with my lawyer. She’ll be paid after the settlement.” Earlier in his testimony, Grover denied having any awareness of plans to sue the Catholic Church.
The next morning in the court, Judge Brennan cited a local Keene Sentinel news article reporting that Thomas Grover appeared confused and inconsistent on the witness stand. Judge Brennan came up with a shocking remedy for this. When he summoned the jurors back into the Court, he instructed them to “disregard inconsistencies in Mr. Grover's testimony.”
Pauline Goupil had just three years earlier obtained a B.A. in psychology from “The School of Lifelong Learning.” She then received an M.A. in counseling from Antioch College in Keene, NH where the state’s expert witness in this trial, Leonard Fleischer, Ed.D., was a faculty member and Ms. Goupil’s mentor.
Shortly after Father MacRae was sent to prison, some of the witnesses in this trial spotted Ms. Goupil in the prison’s visiting area. She was visiting her son who in 1989 was convicted at age 19 of multiple charges of serial rape for which he is serving a lengthy sentence. Her son’s convictions came just a few years before Pauline Goupil began a practice specialization in treating victims of sexual assault.
Two years after Gordon MacRae’s criminal trial, Pauline Goupil offered extensive testimony in a lawsuit against the Catholic Church brought by Thomas Grover and his brothers. Her testimony was in support of Grover’s attempt to defeat the state’s three-year statute of limitations on tort actions by claiming, successfully, that the statute of limitations should begin to toll only when a victim becomes aware he was injured and makes a causal connection with abuse.
Toward that end, Pauline Goupil testified with a whole lot of information and documentation that was not part of the treatment file that she was ordered by Judge Brennan to hand over in 1994 for in-camera review.
In her renewed testimony for the lawsuit in 1996, she testified that Thomas Grover’s particular version of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused him to “suppress” all emotional awareness of the abuse he suffered, and caused him to forget many crucial details of that abuse until his pre-trial treatment sessions with her. From the 1996 testimony of Pauline Goupil, M.A.:
Q: Now, one of the ways that a person avoids trauma is inability to recall important aspects of the trauma?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: That’s not true in Tom’s case is it?
Ms. Goupil: Yes, it is true.
Q: Didn’t he tell you all about this trauma?
Ms. Goupil: He told me some incidences of trauma, but there were some details that were very relevant that I heard when I was sitting in court that he had never spoken with me about that he could remember. One of the symptoms of [PTSD] is that the person forgets information that is really quite relevant to the trauma.
Q: How do you know that he forgot these things?
Ms. Goupil: The point [is] that a person who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder will forget relevant information, meaning that it’s relevant to the trauma that they experienced, but they will remember irrelevant information.
Q: Tom remembered this trauma, isn’t that right?
Ms. Goupil: Parts of the trauma.
Q: Is it fair to say that, as you understand it...that he did not forget any aspect of what happened to him that he had reported to you?
Ms. Goupil: He did forget some aspects of what happened to him.
Q: No. That he had reported to you.
Ms. Goupil: Your questions are very complicated.
Q: All right. Let me start again... . It was apparent that he had always remembered the things that he told you?
Ms. Goupil: No, that is not apparent.
Q: Okay. Tell me. Did he say, “I just remembered these.”?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: And what did he say that he just remembered?
Ms. Goupil: I can’t tell you any specific memory because all the memories are just sort of there, but he would come into a — I can’t name a particular session — I would have to consult the file — where he would say...you know, something happened and I just remembered it.
Elsewhere in the 1996 lawsuit transcript, Pauline Goupil testified about her diagnosis of Tom Grover:
Q: ... Now did you review your records in the time that you were away about the number of visits that you had with Tom?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: ... And what’s the total number?
Ms. Goupil: Twenty-eight.
Q: And those sessions each lasted about an hour in the usual course?
Ms. Goupil: Fifteen minutes.
Q: And the diagnosis you made was when? At the end of the line? At the beginning
Ms. Goupil: At the beginning. It usually takes two or three sessions to make an assessment.
Q: You said you gave him a dual diagnosis?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: One thing I heard was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Ms. Goupil: Uh-huh.
Q: The other problem?
Ms. Goupil: Substance abuse. In remission.
Q: ... So, now we’re talking about PTSD, and you’re diagnosing it with regard to someone who has had a sexual experience.
Ms. Goupil: That’s correct... . In 1980 PTSD was taken out of the battlefields and brought into the battlefields of persons who have been abused because the symptomatology was very obviously similar to people who were returning from war.
Q: ... Would you say psychotherapy is an art, science, or both?
Ms. Goupil: My degree is a Master of Arts so I guess it’s probably an art.
Author’s note: During an ongoing investigation of this matter by former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott, both Thomas Grover and Pauline Goupil declined to be interviewed or to answer any questions regarding this matter.
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Editor’s Note: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also be interested in these related posts by Ryan A. MacDonald.
The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud
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.”
Faith and Freedom at the Twilight’s Last Gleaming
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch offers a candid view of the state of our civil liberties after three years of forced Covid pandemic restrictions and shutdowns.
Photo by John Sonderman (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch offers a candid view of the state of our civil liberties after three years of forced Covid pandemic restrictions and shutdowns.
June 28, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae
Readers in the United States may recognize the second half of my title this week as a line from the Star Spangled Banner, our National Anthem: “Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.” It was composed during a battle in the War of 1812. Thirty-six years after the American Revolution in 1776, the War of 1812 was called by some the second war for American independence.
In 1814, two years into the war, a British warship bombarded Fort McHenry in the Port of Baltimore. The part of the text of the famous poem that became our National Anthem was composed on the spot by American lawyer and poet, Francis Scott Key. “He was aboard a British frigate under a flag of truce to negotiate the release of a prisoner. While aboard, a fierce battle broke out between British and American warships.
As the smoke of battle cleared at dawn, Francis Scott Key was so inspired by the sight of an American flag still intact aboard a battered U.S. ship that he wrote down what he saw. His “Star Spangled Banner” appeared in a Baltimore newspaper. Then its first stanza was set to music to the tune of a popular pub drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” It became the National Anthem of the United States by an act of Congress on March 3, 1931.
Few people seem to know that the famous poem that inspired the U.S. National Anthem had four stanzas. Only the first was set to music. Nonetheless, at age eight I was one of four fourth grade students required by our teacher, Miss McNeil, to each memorize a stanza for an Independence Day school assembly. I was fortunate enough to draw the first stanza which was the most familiar and easiest to memorize. I remember imagining at the time that Miss McNeil might actually have been present when Francis Scott Key composed the text in 1814:
“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there .
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
“On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposed,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully’ blows, half concealed, half disclosed?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
’Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
“Oh! Thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their beloved home and war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
— Francis Scott Key, 1814
Independence Day 2023: The State of Our Freedom
For Independence Day 2023, I want to look at what the land of the free and the home of the brave has done with the sacrifices that won for us this cherished freedom. Freedom was never free, so justice requires that we honor it. Sadly, we went awry over the last few years when the threat was not so tangible a thing as bombs flying, but rather the tiniest of things: a virus that emerged in China.
Lest someone take umbrage with that last thought, the evidence now seems clearer that Covid originated from a lab, though likely by accident, in Wuhan, China. That said, I must remind myself and all of us that China is the Peoples’ Republic, but Covid was not the peoples’ pandemic. The good people of China live under the hammer of an oppressive communist regime. They had nothing to do with the Covid-19 pandemic.
What I find so ironic, however, is what we did with it. Perhaps the best commentary on the state of our post-pandemic freedom as we emerge from three-plus years of government Covid policy is a statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. It was published on May 18, 2023 in a Supreme Court Order halting a lawsuit filed to continue Title 42. If you have not heard or read this before, it is because the free press suppressed it. The statement is a bold assessment of post-pandemic truth:
“Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of the United States. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on.
“They threatened violators not just with civil penalties, but with criminal sanctions as well. They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct. They divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent .
“Federal executive officials entered the act too, and not just with emergency immigration decrees. They deployed a public health agency to regulate landlord-tenant relations nationwide. They used a workplace safety agency to issue a vaccine mandate for working Americans. They threatened to fire non-compliant employees and warned that service members who refused to vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement. Along the way, it seems federal officials may have pressured social media companies to suppress information about pandemic policies with which they disagreed.
“At the very least, one can hope that the Judiciary will not soon again allow itself to be part of the problem by permitting litigants to manipulate our docket to perpetuate a decree designed for one emergency to address another.”
— Justice Neil Gorsuch, May 18, 2023
Churches, Casinos and Liquor Stores
At a time of intense public anxiety, Churches were deemed non-essential by government officials in many states. Justice Gorsuch pointed out above that state government officials “closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on.” In New Hampshire, churches were forced to remain closed while all the liquor stores remained open — even on Sunday. No one pointed out that in New Hampshire, the State owns all the liquor stores.
But the saddest oppression came later. When constitutional civil rights lawsuits in various states succeeded through the courts in reopening churches with reasonable safeguards, some of our own Catholic bishops instantly replicated the heavy hand of government to keep them closed. On June 10, 2020, I posted “The Faithful Departed: Bishops Who Bar Catholics from Mass.” My own bishop issued a chilling decree.
“As Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester understanding my responsibility to issue liturgical norms by which all are bound (Canon 838:3), I hereby decree the public celebration of Mass remains suspended ... until such time as I deem it prudent to modify [this] decree.”
In a state that led the nation in opioid overdose deaths among young people (and still does) deaths by overdose outpaced deaths by Covid substantially. The closure of churches never took into consideration the hopelessness to which it contributed. The year of the Bishop’s decree saw 250 deaths statewide from Covid. All but 65 of its victims succumbed in nursing homes where government failed to protect the elderly. In contrast, the same period saw 2,500 fatal overdoses from street drugs.
In some areas, Masses were relocated to online only where the reception of Communion was impossible. When court challenges opened up churches, some state governments — and later some bishops — required Catholics who chose to attend Mass to register their name, address, and signature at the church door. Some priests were removed from ministry for openly defying these edicts. In his post, “Coronavirus “Creativity” for Mass”, my friend Fr. George David Byers famously challenged “Just do it in the Parking Lot.” No. And … Hell no.
Easter 2023 mercifully did not look much different from Easter 2019 except perhaps in the size of congregations gathered to observe it. In a Wall Street Journal - NORC poll published in April, 2023, 39-percent of Americans reported that religion was “very important” to them. This was down from 48-percent in 2019 before the pandemic. In 1998, this figure was 62-percent. It seemed that Covid had the effect of accelerating a pre-pandemic trend.
In March, 2023, the Pew Research Center released a study reporting that the percentage of U.S. adult Christians who participated in worship at least once per month was 43-percent, down from a pre-pandemic report of 49% in 2019. However, 22-percent of the respondents in 2023 reported that their “participation” was either online or on television. Of interest, Catholic parishes that kept congregations engaged throughout the pandemic using social media and streaming parish services to their own parishioners have retained more of their communicants than Catholic parishes that just rode the wave and remained closed.
The great downside to streaming Catholic Masses online is that it habituated the practice of many faithful to take part in worship without reception of the Eucharist which is central to the Mass and to the identity of Catholics.
An interesting story developed out of China while American Christians wrangled with our post-pandemic commitment to faith. All 63 members of an Evangelical Chinese Christian congregation escaped communist China, the first parish ever to do so en masse. In response to increasing oppression of the Chinese communist government religious identity and practice, the entire parish community fled China, first to South Korea, then to Thailand, and then to the United States.
Aided by Freedom Seekers International, a Texas non-profit that helps people flee religious persecution, the group submitted applications to the United Nations refugee agency in Bangkok. Having overstayed their Thai travel visas by one year, the group had to be deported, but Thai police worked with the U.S. State Department to deport them not back to China, but to Tyler, Texas.
The Chinese communist government viewed the church as illegal and threatened to shut it and its religious school down. Rather than risk the loss of their faith community, the 63 members of this small congregation decided unanimously to preserve their faith and flee their country. Here in America, we have never faced the forced choice between God and country. What we obtain too cheap we may esteem too lightly.
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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also like these related posts about freedom from Beyond These Stone Walls:
The Faithful Departed: Bishops Who Bar Catholics from Mass
The Chinese Communist Party and the True Origin of Covid-19
Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom
A Year in the Grip of Earthy Powers
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Sound of Freedom
Click or tap image to watch the movie trailer. Get your tickets at: https://www.angel.com/soff.
Celebrated new film starring Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ ) about the precarious state of human freedom. Jim Caviezel is asking Americans to view this movie around its opening on Independence Day.
Having unjustly lost my own freedom, this project is dear to my heart.
With Blessings,
Fr. Gordon MacRae
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.”
Canon Law Conundrum: When Moral Certainty Is Neither Moral Nor Certain
Convoluted moral justification is employed by Jesuits of the USA Central and Southern Province to publish a list of priests with ‘credible’ allegations of abuse.
The Stoning of Saint Stephen by Rembrandt
Convoluted moral justification is employed by Jesuits of the USA Central and Southern Province to publish a list of priests with ‘credible’ allegations of abuse.
May 3, 2023 by Michael J. Mazza, JD, JCD
Introduction by Fr. Gordon MacRae: It is an honor and a privilege to publish this important guest post by Michael J. Mazza, JD, JCD, (pictured below at the Vatican) a highly regarded canon lawyer, civil attorney, and law professor with broad experience in the canonical defense of Catholic priests. His post is a sequel of sorts to my post in these pages last week, “Follow the Money: Another Sinister Grand Jury Report.” His post introduces us to a newly articulated standard for removing priests from ministry adopted by a Jesuit Province in the United States. It is a standard that left me shuddering over the rapid decline of due process rights for priests. Like other such draconian standards, I fear its use will spread like a virus.
Back in August, 2019, Ryan A. MacDonald wrote a featured post for Beyond These Stone Walls entitled “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.” It has been one of our most widely read posts of recent years and continues to be so. Ryan wrote about the injustice of publishing names of accused priests when the basis for deeming a claim to be ‘credible’ is a standard of justice not employed or even recognized in any other legal forum. It essentially means that an allegation of abuse is only “possible,” but not necessarily “probable.” It should be the beginning of a Church investigation, but it has widely become the end.
This is a standard that is now employed by nearly every bishop in every diocese, and it is rapidly spreading throughout the Church. Michael Mazza’s post to follow understandably has a bit more ‘legalese’ than usually comes from my typewriter, but it is a brilliant eye-opener.
There was a smoldering cloud just above my head as I three times read the Jesuits’ confounding justification for censuring and removing priests. In a word, it is mind-boggling.
This post shines a much needed light on the need for canonical justice and advocacy for accused priests. It is highly recommended to us by Fr. Stuart MacDonald, a frequent Beyond These Stone Walls contributor and a candidate for the Doctorate in Canon Law. Please share this post widely, especially among the priests you know.
When Moral Certainty Is Neither Moral Nor Certain
Two months ago the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province released an updated registry of Jesuits with “credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.” As a canonical advocate representing priests accused of misconduct, I was involved in one of the cases referenced. Given the requirements of canon law and my professional duties, I am limited in what I can say about the case. What I can discuss — in fact, what I feel I must rectify — is the grievous error of law contained in the Jesuit Province’s published statement, a mistake that despite my best efforts has gravely damaged the reputation of a good priest and respect for the rule of law in the Church.
The most problematic part of the statement appears in its first paragraph:
“For the purposes of this list, a finding of credibility of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor is based on a belief, with moral certitude, after careful investigation and review by professionals, that an incident of sexual abuse of a minor or vulnerable adult occurred, or probably occurred, with the possibility that it did not occur being highly unlikely. ‘Moral certitude’ in this context means a high degree of probability, but short of absolute certainty. As such, inclusion on this list does not imply the allegations are true and correct or that the accused individual has been found guilty of a crime or liable for civil claims.”
It is difficult to know where to begin with an analysis of this confounding passage. Did the event happen or not? We are told on the one hand that being included on the list “does not imply the allegations are true and correct.” At the same time, however, we are told that “after careful investigation” and “review by professionals,” the allegation has been determined “with moral certitude” to have “occurred or probably occurred.” In fact, the statement says the possibility that the events did not occur “is highly unlikely.”
While such a confusing statement may appear to have been crafted by two opposing camps of a drafting committee, the real world consequences of it were clear, especially because it was accompanied by the usual invitation for victims of abuse to come forward. The news was reported as a “shock” to the students at the university where the priest had been a popular professor, leaving some brokenhearted and in tears. A theology professor said the news had “shaken” him and his colleagues, with one priest colleague concluding thus: “It’s mind-boggling that anyone would do such a thing, period end of story.”
Conclusions like these are not surprising. What is surprising — and what ought to be profoundly disturbing to those who value the rule of law — is that they have no legal basis whatsoever. Like so many of his priestly brethren in the USA accused of canonical crimes these days, the priest at issue was never given the benefit of a trial during which he could have defended his innocence. Instead, the priest was on the receiving end of what is known in canon law as a “preliminary investigation,” a technique under canon 1718 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law that is designed solely to determine whether there is sufficient indicia to warrant the launching of a full-blown canonical process. Only after this formal process, whether judicial or administrative, may a penalty be inflicted or declared. And it is only through this formal process that “moral certainty” — the canonical equivalent of “beyond a reasonable doubt” — may be achieved under the law.
An analogy may prove helpful here. Suppose that Mary, a juror in a domestic abuse trial, learns of allegations that John abused Jane. Mary hears from Jane, the only witness at the trial, about the details of her charge. Mary knows only that John denies the accusation, but does not hear from him because John is not present at the trial. In fact, neither John nor his defense counsel is even invited to the trial. If Mary nevertheless arrives at John’s guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” in spite of the fact that John was not allowed to exercise his natural human right to self-defense, what would we say about Mary’s judgment?
All analogies limp, and several objections could immediately be raised with respect to this one. Just because there were no other witnesses does not mean that there was no abuse, a sin and a crime that is horrible and was often covered up in the past, especially in ecclesial circles. While these statements are certainly true, summarily dismissing valid concerns about violations of the due process rights of accused clerics is not a solution to the sex abuse crisis. On the contrary, it only perpetuates a continuing injustice and creates an atmosphere of fear, mistrust, and division within the ecclesial community. That is not a sustainable path forward.
It needs to be emphasized that a canonical preliminary investigation is typically performed by an individual (most often but not always a former law enforcement official) whose only job is to assemble indicia substantiating an allegation. The investigator then presents these indicia to a review board, generally constituted by lay people (at least some of whom are to have experience in law or psychology), who make a recommendation to the religious superior or bishop about whether a full-blown canonical investigation should be initiated.
In some ways, the work of a review board is similar to that of a grand jury. Grand juries, like review boards, are supposed to act as shields against arbitrary, unfounded, and malicious accusations of wrongdoing by ensuring that serious accusations are brought only upon the considered judgment of a representative body acting according to the rule of law. Grand juries, like review boards, do not decide whether the accused is guilty; they merely decide whether there is probable cause to believe that a crime occurred and probable cause to believe that the person accused committed that crime. In short, grand juries, like review boards, decide only whether there is enough evidence to proceed to the next stage in the judicial process.
This is because of the deliberately one-sided nature of grand jury proceedings. Only the prosecutor — not the defense — gets to address the grand jury. All of the important safeguards of justice are saved for the real trial that comes only after the grand jury has performed its important task. Nevertheless, all this means that in a very real way the life and reputation of a fellow citizen are in the hands of the grand jurors. Indictments, like recommendations from review boards, often receive press coverage in which these legal niceties are overlooked, meaning that the reputation of the person accused is harmed and his life thrown into turmoil.
Many accused priests never get a trial, “period end of story.” Nevertheless, their lives are thrown into turmoil, beyond any doubt. What do we make of subsequent decisions by accused clerics to abandon the fight, or to leave religious life and/or the active priesthood? One could certainly infer guilt from it, and many people do just that. But isn’t it also possible that there are other reasons for such momentous decisions? With no forum to clear their names, and in spite of repeated and consistent denials of the charge — and the lack of any criminal proceedings or any record from a related civil trial — isn’t it at least possible that some clerics simply despair of ever clearing their names and just decide to move on with their lives as best they can?
Catholics should be very wary of making judgments about their fellow human beings. We have been cautioned against it by Our Lord himself (see, e.g., Mt. 7:1-3). In fact, as legal scholar James Q. Whitman has shown in his 2016 book The Origins of Reasonable Doubt, the original basis for the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard was to encourage reluctant jurors to reach guilty verdicts when the evidence pointed strongly in that direction. Why were they reluctant? Because they feared judging their neighbors, both because of the possible vengeance of the guilty person’s relatives in this world and because of their belief in being judged in the next world.
None of what has been stated in this article is unknown to the American bishops — or, even more importantly, to their lawyers. In fact, in November 2000 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued an insightful commentary on the American criminal justice system entitled “Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice.” That statement, as of this writing, is still available on the USCCB website. Issued less than two years before the Dallas Charter, the document criticizes notions such as “zero tolerance” and “simplistic solutions such as ‘three strikes and you’re out,’” with the latter being labelled specifically as a “slogan of the moment.” The paper goes on to quite rightly assert that “crime, corrections, and the search for real community require far more than the policy clichés of conservatives and liberals.”
Notwithstanding such statements, real harm is happening to real men on a daily basis in this country in the name of “transparency.” Perhaps few priests in America know the pain that such sloganeering can inflict as Father Gordon MacRae. Incarcerated for almost three decades after a trial described as “Kafkaesque” by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. Fr. MacRae not only steadfastly maintains his innocence, but from his prison cell faithfully maintains his website “BeyondTheseStoneWalls.com,” dedicated to drawing attention to the plight of his brother priests and the dangers wrought by violations of the right to due process. MacRae’s case stands as an especially stark example of how pre-trial public statements from his diocese prejudiced his cause, defamed him, and likely helped lead to his wrongful conviction.
In summary, it is essential to note that judging cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse is an enormously painful and difficult process for all involved: the accuser, the accused, and all those involved in the case. Decisions one way or the other can be life-altering. They are not made any easier by those who comment upon them without a firm understanding of both the facts and the applicable law. While legal processes do not come with a guarantee of infallibility, they are a time-tested tool used throughout the centuries for the determination of facts. Legal principles such as moral certainty, the presumption of innocence, and the duty to refrain from unfairly violating someone’s right to a good name are, likewise, bedrock principles of any society. We neglect these valuable tools at our peril.
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About the Author: Michael J. Mazza, JD, JCD graduated summa cum laude in 1999 from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee where he was Editor in Chief of the Law Review. He subsequently clerked for the Hon. John L. Coffey on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. After 20 years in civil law practice, Michael began studies in canon law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome from where he graduated magna cum laude in 2021 with a license in canon law (JCL)
In 2022, Michael successfully defended his thesis for the Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD). His topic was also the topic of an excellent article published in the Tulsa Law Review: “Defending a Cleric’s Right to Reputation and the Sexual Abuse Scandal in the Catholic Church.”
Michael is today an adjunct professor of canon law at Marquette University and at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He also represents clients in need of canonical counsel, especially accused priests. If any priest needs canonical assistance Michael can be reached through his website at www.CanonicalAdvocacy.com or by email at mjmazzajdjcd@pm.me.
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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: I am most grateful to Professor Mazza for this alarming but important chapter in the cause of justice and due process for priests. You may also like to read and share these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls :
Follow the Money: Another Sinister Sex Abuse Grand Jury Report by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae
Bishops, Priests and Weapons of Mass Destruction by Fr. Stuart MacDonald, JCL
In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List by Ryan A. MacDonald
Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae
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.”