“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

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

Why this Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison

Why are some innocent defendants kept in prison? Attorney Harvey Silverglate unmasks the perversion of justice when judges give finality more weight than justice.

Why are some innocent defendants kept in prison? Attorney Harvey Silverglate unmasks the perversion of justice when judges give finality more weight than justice.

August 30, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Preliminary Note: I first wrote this post in 2018. The entire landscape of my own situation has radically changed since then. On October 9, 2022, famed Boston civil rights Attorney Harvey Silverglate penned an Op-Ed for The Wall Street Journal entitled “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.” He wrote of how any hope for my ongoing defense fell into silence for several years until early 2022. At that time, new evidence emerged that James F. McLaughlin, the Keene, New Hampshire police detective who choreographed the case against me in 1994 had been present on a secret list for police misconduct. The charge against him, which preceded my trial by a few years, was “falsification of records.” Since then a New Hampshire court has sealed his file and has, in a secret hearing, allowed his name to be removed from the public misconduct list. Others who have written of this matter have somehow uncovered other incidents of police misconduct by him including allegations of falsification of evidence, witness intimidation, destruction of tape-recorded evidence, and other examples of official dishonesty, all of which I have been accusing him of for the last 30 years. There are signs of an official coverup going on in New Hampshire, and until someone gets to the bottom of it, progress in my defense had once again fallen into silence.

Until now. Next week in these pages we will host an explosive Op-Ed by a Los Angeles documentary researcher who seems to have arrived, if not at the bottom line of what has actually gone on, then very near to it. She has described her Op-Ed as “the epic of all epic scandals.

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In North Carolina in 1983, half brothers Henry Lee McCollum, 19, and Leon Brown, 15, were arrested and charged with a heinous crime, the rape, and murder of an 11-year-old girl. Public pressure to solve the case was intense. A lot of facts were overlooked because the police felt certain they had the right suspects. The two brothers were interrogated for hours on end, finally confessed, and then were sentenced to death.

But after an initial state appeal, the young men’s confessions were seen as coerced and vacated. They stood trial but were convicted again. Only the sentence changed. This time Henry Lee remained on death row while Leon, being still a minor, was sentenced to life in prison. Further attempts to appeal their case were rejected by judges citing the state’s interest in “finality,” a principle of law that often prevails over justice.

I often receive letters and comments from readers who may not know the history of my own attempts toward justice. The well-meaning comments suggest that I seek out the Innocence Project for assistance, or that I appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, or file a habeas corpus petition in the federal courts.

I know that these readers would have to plow through a lot of past material on this site to get a sense of how strenuously we have tried all of the above. The Innocence Project has saved many lives, but before taking a case it usually requires the existence of irrefutable DNA evidence that would exonerate a prisoner.

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Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence

A conviction like mine is different. Because no crime ever actually took place — a truth that comes down to my word against an accuser’s word — there was no evidence and nothing to review except the accuser’s claims themselves. For reasons you might understand if you keep reading, emerging evidence of innocence, no matter how compelling, has so far been unable to prevail over the court’s interest in finality.

The sheer number of cases overturned with irrefutable DNA evidence do not seem to translate for judges into a concern that wrongful convictions are more common than they want to admit. Mistakes that are made when there is evidence do not compel judges to consider that mistakes are also made when there is none. How finality prevailed over justice in my own attempts at appeal was laid out in an important article by Ryan MacDonald,A Grievous Error in Judge Joseph Laplante’s Court.”

The grievous error notwithstanding, Judge Laplante was not in error in his procedural handling of my habeas corpus appeal. He simply followed existing case law. One of the most egregious principles of law to come out of the United States Supreme Court in modern times was a 1993 decision in Herrera v. Collins.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in his majority opinion that “A claim of Actual Innocence is not itself a constitutional claim” that entitles a convicted defendant to federal habeas corpus relief. This also applies to death penalty cases. Actual innocence is not a bar to lawful execution.

Let that sink in. But first, back to half-brothers Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown in North Carolina: After being sent to prison for the heinous rape-murder charges, the two young men themselves became the victims of sexual and physical assaults.

In a bizarre twist, an older prisoner befriended them, stating his belief in their innocence. That prisoner, Roscoe Artis, had been convicted for a series of sexual assaults against women and was a suspect in at least one “cold case” homicide. It turned out that Mr. Artis believed in the innocence of Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown because he himself actually committed the crime for which they were in prison. He did not tell them this, however.

In 2014 — 31 years after being sentenced to prison — the case of Henry Lee, still not yet executed, was revisited by Sharon Stellato, an investigator for the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. She undertook a dogged pursuit of the actual evidence against them but found none. What she did find, however, was some DNA evidence from the crime scene that had never been tested.

It was enough — just enough — to overcome finality so a judge ordered it to be tested. It excluded Henry Lee and Leon from any involvement in the crime, and it convicted Roscoe Artis, the man who befriended and protected them in prison. It was also revealed that fingerprints found at the 1983 crime scene were not a match for either Henry Lee or Leon, a fact that the police never conveyed to defense attorneys. At ages 50 and 46, more than 30 years after they were sent to prison, Henry Lee and Leon were finally released.

Politics, Prosecutors, and Career Paths

About every other week or so, usually on a Friday afternoon, I am summoned to a prison office to open and sign for an item of legal mail. Anything sent to a prisoner that obviously comes from a court, a lawyer, or a law firm falls into this category. It simply means that unlike all other mail, the item is opened in my presence after I sign a log indicating that I accepted it.

Prisoners shudder when the P.A. system announces their names for legal mail. It is generally an omen of bad news for prisoners. Those who are guilty of their charged offenses — and yes, they are the vast majority — don’t mind so much. They expect little beyond the justice already meted out to them. But those who maintain their innocence brace themselves for a letdown, or another step toward bankruptcy, whenever their names are called.

It is one of the myths of prison that many prisoners claim to be innocent. The reality is just the opposite. Those who do so are taunted as “damn fools” by nearly all others. I spent my first few years here fending off a taunt by both prisoners and guards: ‘You could have been out of here in ONE YEAR if you took a deal? What an idiot!” 

Much of the legal mail that I am summoned to pick up these days is from Harvey A. Silverglate, a well known civil rights and appellate defense lawyer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Silverglate is author of the book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (Encounter Books 2009).

The foreword of the book is by Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor and a colleague and friend of the author. Both Misters Silverglate and Dershowitz appear frequently in the Boston and national media, and I have followed them for years.

In his Foreword, Alan Dershowitz presents with clarity a crucial point that I have made many times. Mr. Dershowitz writes:

“Prosecutors in other countries are civil servants who do not pander to the people’s understandable wish to be safe from crime ... in the United States, prosecutors are not only elected ... but the job is a stepping stone to a higher office as evidenced by the fact that nearly every congressman or senator who ever practiced law once served as a federal or state prosecutor. Winning becomes more important than doing justice.”

Three Felonies a Day, p. xxv

It is also an important fact that prosecutors routinely move on to political appointments as judges. Judge Joseph Laplante, who declined to hear any evidence or testimony in my federal habeas corpus appeal, had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning twenty years before his appointment to the federal bench. Judge Laplante had been prosecutor in the NH Attorney General’s office at the time of my trial and first State appeal, and likely knew of Detective McLaughlin presence on the secret list of dishonest police.

Judge Arthur Brennan, who presided over my 1994 trial, was personal legal counsel to then-Governor Judd Gregg (1989-1992) when he received a political appointment to a judgeship just months before my trial. Judge Larry Smukler, who declined to hear my State habeas corpus appeal, also declined to provide any biographical information about his career trajectory for the official New Hampshire Law Directory.

The Acknowledgements section of Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day is a virtual Who’s Who of many of the advocates for justice who have taken up my case. The names there include Dorothy Rabinowitz whose writings in The Wall Street Journal reopened my story in the important court of public awareness.

Also included there is Bob Chatelle, founder and president of the National Center for Reason and Justice which continues to feature my story and its appellate case files. Mr. Chatelle also hosts the Friends of Justice blog which links to many of my posts and has featured posts about my experience of justice.

 
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Harvey Silverglate’s “Freedom Watch”

Mr. Silverglate, being a Massachusetts attorney, is not able to represent me in New Hampshire, but he generously sends me each installment in his series of articles called “Freedom Watch” published by WGBH News. I am most grateful for these informative glimpses into the inner function, and too often DYSfunction, of the criminal justice system. Mr. Silverglate has also long been a reader and supporter of Beyond These Stone Walls.

A recent article he sent was “When the Criminal Justice System Can’t Admit a Mistake: The James Rodwell Case.” He refers to this murder conviction as “a case that will not go away” because “too many people remain disturbed by the outcome.” Harvey Silverglate is one of them because …

[The] instinct that drives people to persevere when the system misfires is countered by the system’s self-protective reflex that makes it difficult to get judges to take a second, third or fourth look into a case, even when new and powerful evidence of a severe miscarriage of justice surfaces.”

This self-protective reflex, Mr. Silverglate says, has long roiled the justice system, producing “considerable disagreement between the two camps of judges — those who view finality as the ultimate goal, and others who deem justice to be paramount.” The central issue in the James Rodwell case, says Silverglate, is whether Mr. Rodwell actually committed the murder for which he has constantly maintained his innocence throughout 36 years in prison.

The sole evidence against him was the testimony of “two inmate thugs” who were treated favorably by prosecutors and police in exchange for their testimony. One of them claimed that Rodwell confessed to the murder while they occupied neighboring cells in a county jail where they were held pre-trial. Further, the district attorney’s office had since “lost” the entire file of its prosecution of this case.

Mr. Silverglate went on to describe the “remarkable display of clairvoyance” in a Superior Court judge who denied Rodwell’s latest appeal. The judge stated that “it is highly unlikely” that the ‘lost’ files contain evidence of prosecution deals afforded to inmate witnesses in exchange for their testimony.

This judicial clairvoyance struck a familiar note. When my own habeas corpus appeal came up against a wall of finality, Judge Joseph Laplante offered some clairvoyance of his own. While declining to hear from witnesses, including my accuser’s former wife, Judge Laplante attributed a motive for her to lie today about her ex-husband’s perjury: Thomas Grover was charged with felony domestic assault for punching her and breaking her nose before my trial — a charge conveniently dropped on the day my trial ended in a conviction.

Her bravely coming forward with the truth today was explained away by Judge Laplante who asserted that my defense could have called her as a witness at my 1994 trial, and could have tried to elicit the truth then. This assertion completely overlooks the fact that she may have been terrified of the man who had just broken her nose for questioning his truthfulness then. It is fascinating how all the credence afforded to victims of abuse and domestic violence is set aside when their testimony might right a judicial wrong.

Mr. Silverglate’s “Freedom Watch” article went on to describe some of the “far too many infamous cases where the indications are strong that justice misfired, but where the systemic preference for finality and the resistance to the confession of judicial error are strong.” One of these cases he cited is that against the Amirault family and the “witch trial” prosecution of them in the notorious Fells Acres Day Care Center case. 

This story and others convey powerfully both the perversion of finality prevailing over justice and the perversion of justice when politics preside over a courtroom. In their book, Actual Innocence (New American Library, 2003) Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld describe how the doctrine of “finality” is an obstacle to justice:

“Only the criminal justice system exempts itself from self-examination. Wrongful convictions are not seen as catastrophes, but as topics to be avoided... Finality is a doctrine that can be explained in two words when it comes to innocence tests: willful ignorance... The Innocence Project and other advocates have spent hundreds of hours just arguing against ‘finality’ doctrines that are used to block inquiries that no fair person would resist.”

Actual Innocence, p. 320

For Harvey Silverglate, Advocate for Justice, “The key question is whether judges, clothespins firmly attached to noses, will continue to pretend that justice was done.” None of the rest of us are given clothespins.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Please share this post, and please return here next week for the “epic of all epic scandals.” You may also be interested to see some new evidence added to our Important Documents in the Fr Gordon MacRae Case. It is the evidence that appellate judges have declined to hear.

Affidavit of Former FBI Special Agent James Abbott

Statement of Steven Wollschlager

Statement of Debra Collett

Statement of Leo Demers

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

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

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

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

March 22, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

New Hampshire Politics

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

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

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

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

 

Defenders of the Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse

David F. Pierre, Jr. at The Media Report

Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

 
 
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Dionysius the Areopagite Dionysius the Areopagite

Truth Seekers Are the Prophets of Every Troubled Time

In a time of darkness, lies and death cling to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Do not let go. Let Him shine His Light within you and on the world through you.

St. Dionysius the Areopagite | George E. Koronaios

In a time of darkness, lies and death cling to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Do not let go. Let Him shine His Light within you and on the world through you.

By Dionysius the Areopagite

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Dionysius the Areopagite came to believe in the truth of the Resurrection (Acts 17:34) while others only mocked. The author of this post is recently retired from a distinguished career as a scientist in U.S. government service.

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In “The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence,” Ryan A. MacDonald recounts an exchange he had with a prominent Catholic author, whom he does not identify. He had asked the author to take a look at the trial and imprisonment of Father Gordon MacRae. The man told him: “I don’t share your belief in Father MacRae’s innocence. I just don’t believe a judge and jury would sentence a priest to life in prison with anything less than clear and compelling evidence.” This reminds me of the principle Adolf Hitler presented in Mein Kampf

“The great masses of the people ... more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one.”

Adolf Hitler

This author might accept that the justice system sometimes gets it wrong in small ways, that there might be a little corruption. Had Father MacRae been sentenced to a few years in prison, he might have considered looking into the case. But we live in America, the greatest nation in the world, with the best justice system in the world, he surely thinks. There can be no big corruption in the justice system, no horrific corruption. He blindly trusts the system.

Father MacRae lost his freedom because the truth of the case was totally suppressed. Instead of truth there was the fabrication of Detective James F. McLaughlin. There was the testimony of the accuser, Thomas Grover. He testified that on five weekly counseling sessions Father MacRae violently sexually abused him. When asked why he kept going back he replied that he repressed the memory of it all while having a weekly “out-of-body experience.” The accuser cried under much of the cross examination, which the judge quickly deflected protecting the accuser whom he had predetermined was a victim. There was also the dismissal of inconsistencies in the accuser’s testimony. Judge Arthur Brennan told the jury to “disregard inconsistencies in Mr. Grover’s testimony.”

But there was no testimony of the accused, Fr. MacRae. Then there were two appeals, which were summarily dismissed. The last one precluded any further appeal. The publication of the “Laurie List,” a list of police officers with founded credibility problems, included Detective James F. McLaughlin due to “falsification of records” in a case prior to Fr. MacRae’s trial. The required disclosure of this to the defense never happened. At no time in the trial nor in the appeals was there any minimal attempt to search for the truth.

We know about the truth of this case because there were people who cared about the truth and investigated the case following the facts to wherever they led: Dorothy Rabinowitz, Harvey Silverglate, Ryan A. MacDonald, former FBI Special Agent James Abbott, journalist Joann Wypijewski, Catholic League President Bill Donohue, The Media Report’s David F. Pierre, Jr. and others. These Truth Seekers all concluded that the Fr. MacRae case was a gross miscarriage of justice.

I have sketched the case of Fr. MacRae to point out that it was total suppression of the truth, and complete fabrication of the case that led to the preposterous outcome of sentencing an innocent priest to life in prison. It is a big lie. And “the great masses of people more easily fall victim to a big lie” (in this case believing Fr. MacRae is a criminal) “than to a little one,” according to that great master liar of the 20th Century, Adolf Hitler. It is ironic, but no coincidence, that in his closing argument before the jury in the Fr. MacRae trial, prosecutor Bruce Elliot Reynolds compared Fr. MacRae to Adolf Hitler. This is what happens when a case is brought before a court with no supporting evidence. The void must be filled with outrageous rhetoric.

In the 29 years since then Truth Seekers have shined light on the truth and on how evil this case was. Our unnamed writer is among the great masses, not to be counted among the Truth Seekers. Any rational, fair person who reads all the evidence of wrongdoing in suppressing the truth is convinced of the innocence of Fr. MacRae. The unnamed writer’s blindness to the truth probably had no effect on his job, or his health, or his life. (God knows the effect on his soul.) Blindness to the truth in other matters has grave consequences to the blind one.

 

Christ Healing the Blind by El Greco | Metropolitan Museum of Art

I Want to See — Mark 10:51

Big lies perpetrate great evil. The last three years since Covid have been dreadful — loss of life, loss of health, loss of jobs, loss of freedom, confusion, pain, much suffering. We want it to stop. We see evil all around — and we see goodness. But is what we see real or fabricated?

In the case of Father MacRae the fabricated evil is that he is a criminal who deserves to lose his freedom for the rest of his life. Instead, Truth Seekers revealed the total disregard of the justice system for truth and justice. The system criminally railroaded Fr. MacRae, and attacked the freedom of every citizen, of the Church, of Priesthood. This was the real evil in this case. Should we question what we see? Or should we blindly trust some authorities?

Test everything; hold fast what is good.

— 1 Thessalonians 5:21

Before Covid many had chanted, “My body, my choice.” Then came the Covid mandates, and some were chanting, “My body, my choice.” But the earlier chanters did not approve. As Judge Arthur Brennan would say, Disregard the inconsistencies. After the horror of the Holocaust, the Nuremberg Code set principles for the practice of human experimentation. Chief among them is that consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. The so-called vaccines and boosters are experimental; they fall under the Nuremberg code. Yet the mandates completely obliterate this code. Has the door been opened to new atrocities?

When this global pandemic began the logical thing would have been to gather the very best physicians and scientists to work out how to proceed. Instead, they were cancelled. Sacrificing much they have worked feverishly to save lives, and they have seen how all the actions the government has taken contradict fundamental medical principles. They are Truth Seekers at a time when there is an overwhelming effort to suppress truth. [24, 11, 13, 16]

As the Covid pandemic has unfolded more people have realized that there is a real evil that is different from the uncensored, fabricated evil. Jews have often taken great offense when the word Holocaust is used to describe other atrocities. Holocaust survivors, who have faced great evil before, now recognize what is going on as a Holocaust. They are among the Truth Seekers of today. [31, 3, 22, 14]

I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.

— Psalm 34:4

The past three years have been awful. Fear has been used to lock down, to control, to censor, to divide. As we listen to the Truth Seekers we find that the real evil is much worse than we thought. We can become even more fearful. But like never before this is a time to cling to Jesus. Fear is useless, what is needed is trust. Luke 8:50

In the uncensored, fabricated evil, it seems that the worse is almost over. The lockdowns are gone. Most people are not wearing masks anymore. It seems that normalcy may be coming back. Could reality be different? In Nazi times many people were saved. They escaped before being taken to concentration camps. But most of those taken to camps died. Are there concentration camps now?

Violating the Nuremberg code and with much coercion people were injected, outside physical concentration camps. Most people did not die soon after. Some did. Now people are dying in unprecedented numbers — people of all ages, many young healthy people, healthy athletes, many suddenly. And many people are getting very sick. The official story, the corporate story, is that this has nothing to do with the injections. [8, 2, 1, 25, 16]

I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.

— John 14:6

Does truth matter? Consider the case of Father MacRae again. It can be described by two contrasting views: the ‘criminal’ view of the justice system, and the ‘victim’ view of the Truth Seekers. Looking at these two views, the author with whom Ryan A. MacDonald tried to discuss Father MacRae’s case, did not seek the truth. He choose the ‘criminal’ view because he blindly trusts the system promoting this view. Other than his spiritual life, the choice did not affect him.

Does truth matter in this other case? Two views describe the time in which we live. The ‘protection with loss of freedom’ is the view that the authorities are protecting us during a pandemic that started three years ago, and this requires the loss of some freedoms. The contrasting view is the ‘genocide’ view; plans began much earlier than three years ago, and the loss of freedoms is a way of implementing a depopulation plan.

In this case, if after considering the evidence for both views, you decide that the real view is ‘protection with loss of freedom,’ you learn to live with less freedom accepting that it is the only way you can be protected at this time. If, however, you decide that the ‘genocide’ is the real view, you might not want to cooperate with a system that is trying to kill you. You are not a casual observer. Your life and your freedom depend on being able to see which is the real view. [20, 23, 25, 26, 13, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 3, 7, 9]

Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”

Mark 10:51

 

Photo | Wilf’s Wine Press

Without Me You Can Do Nothing — John 15:5

Many of us see much evil around us. Evil is attacking so many things, at so many levels, at different scales. Does it make any difference which evil we confront first? Or is there a more global, more fundamental, more horrifically diabolical evil than the rest? One that if not stopped the others would not matter any more. The references below are a sampler of the work of Truth Seekers who are working tirelessly to save the world, to open the eyes of the rest of us.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness!

Isaiah 5:20

Critically examine the evidence these Truth Seekers present. Ask Jesus to help you see what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil. The sacredness of life has been attacked for a long time. The combination of technology and loss of freedom gives rise to an unprecedented evil in which our resources, our bodies, even our consciousness will be controlled by others. What is at stake is our national sovereignty and our individual sovereignty. [21, 4, 14, 33]

In Nazi times people were saved before being taken to concentration camps. Once in a camp most did not survive. In these times, if we fail to resist this monstrous, evil attack we will all succumb to it. The time is late, but there is still something we can do. If we remain casual observers unwilling to discern the true evil that is encompassing us, we do not have a chance.

The Truth Seekers of our time suggest some actions we may take to protect ourselves, and resist the evil that is upon us.

  • Treatments: The best doctors in America, in collaboration with others around the world, developed treatments to prevent and deal with the aftermath of Covid. If you have taken any injections, do not take any more. There are protocols for Covid (prevention, early treatment, long Covid, hospital treatment, post-vaccine recovery), and RSV and the flu. [12]

  • Cash vs Digital Ids: There is a rush to implement Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). If this succeeds, each of us will have a digital identity, and we will be living in a digital concentration camp. To try to resist this, use cash as much as possible. [4]

  • One World Totalitarian Government / WHO “Treaty:” The World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a global pandemic treaty. The Administration is committed to the accord. Though it would be a treaty Congress will not be consulted. Many have looked at the details and see the end of national and individual autonomy. [6, 5, 21, 19, 27, 28, 29, 33] James Roguski has emerged as the foremost expert on the two proposals being pushed by the WHO, which he discusses in [32]

We are in Lent, a time of prayer and fasting:

“Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking off every yoke?”

Isaiah 58:6

But how can we break any yoke if we do not see it? And how can we see it if we pray not constantly?

Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Three years ago, early in 2020, I wrote a post about the burgeoning pandemic of Covid 19. My post rejected the Chinese Communist Government’s explanation of its origin. The CCG claimed, and still claims, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated by natural means through an animal sold at the Wuhan, China open market. I laid out a case for why this is likely not so, and why it is much more likely that the virus escaped from inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology where gain-of-function research and other experimentation was being conducted since 2013. This week, a classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress concluded, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a Wuhan laboratory.

If the Chinese Communist Government had been transparent from the beginning, the world may have had a better response to this pandemic. But please remember: China is by force the People’s Republic, but Covid is by no means the people’s pandemic. The good people of China had nothing to do with this.

Please revisit my post, which lays out in stark prose all the dangers described by our guest writer in this week’s post when a system of government adopts the protection of itself over the protection of its people. Please read “The Chinese Communist Party and the True Origin of Covid-19.”


Bibliography

  1. Balmakov, Roman, “ ‘Massive’ Blood Clots,”, 12/15/2022, Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov.

  2. Berenson, Alex, “The funeral business is booming. And not because of Covid,” 11/22/2022, Unreported Truths.

  3. Breggin, Peter R., Ginger Ross Breggin, COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey, Ithaca, NY, Lake Edge Press, 2021.

  4. #CashEveryDay,” 07/02/2021, The Solari Report.

  5. Corbett, James, “The Global Pandemic Treaty: What You Need to Know,” 04/27/2022, The Corbett Report.

  6. Corbett, James, “What is the WHO? — Questions for Corbett,” 08/21/2020, The Corbett Report.

  7. Corona Investigative Committee.

  8. Davison, Scott, “Insurance deaths up 40% people 18-64 Davison OneAmerica Indiana,” 01/23/2022.

  9. Doctors for Covid Ethics.

  10. Fitts, Catherine Austin, Carolyn Betts, “I Want to Stop CBDCs — What Can I Do?,” 02/01/2023, The Solari Report.

  11. Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.

  12. FLCCC Alliance, “Treatment Protocols.”

  13. Fleming, Richard, “Exclusive With Dr. Richard Fleming,” 05/14/2022, CHD.TV.

  14. Fuellmich, Reiner, “PCR Tests, AIDS + More,” 05/09/2022, CHD.TV.

  15. Iverson, Kim, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., “How The Powerful Captured The Public During The Pandemic With RFK, Jr.,” 02/06/2023, The Kim Iverson Show, CHD.TV.

  16. Journalism in a Post-Truth World,” EWTN News and Franciscan University.

  17. Kennedy, Jr., Robert F., The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (Children's Health Defense), New York, NY, Skyhorse Publishing, 2021.

  18. Kennedy, Jr., Robert F., Eric Clapton, “Stand and Deliver,” 11/02/2021, CHD.TV.

  19. Knightly, Kit, “WHO moving forward on GLOBAL vaccine passport program,” 03/01/2022, Off Guardian

  20. Latypova, Sasha, “Intent To Harm,” 12/22/2022, Doctors for Covid Ethics Symposium.

  21. Lynn, Corey, “22 Ways to Stop Vaccine ID Passports in 2022 and Why We Must!,” 01/04/2022, The Solari Report.

  22. Malhotra, Aseem, “Exclusive with Aseem Malhotra, M.D.,” 09/28/2022, CHD.TV.

  23. McCullough, Peter, “Dr. McCullough on Real America: Failure of Masks and Vaccines, Epidemic of Sudden Death,” 02/26/2023.

  24. McCullough, Peter, “Del Bigtree Hosts Dr. Peter McCullough: Pandemic Era Sudden Death and Crushing Physician Reprisal,” 11/16/2022.

  25. McCullough, Peter, “Dr. McCullough US Senate Dec 7, 2022 More Pandemic Deaths after Vaccines Rolled Out,” 12/07/2022.

  26. McCullough, Peter, “Bradford Hill Criteria for Causation Met: COVID-19 Vaccines Cause Death by Dr. McCullough,” 12/22.

  27. Mercola, Joseph, “WHO Pandemic Treaty: What It Is, Why It matters and How to Stop It,” 05/10/2022, The Defender.

  28. Nass, Meryl, James Corbett, “WHO Sneak Attack,” 01/15/2023, CHD.TV.

  29. Nevradakis, Michael, “Exclusive: WHO Proposals Could Strip Nations of Their Sovereignty, Create Worldwide Totalitarian State, Expert Warns,” 01/13/2023, The Defender.

  30. Pfizer — Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement in Its History,” 09/02/2009, United States Department of Justice.

  31. Sharav, Vera, “Never Again is Now Global,” 02/03/2023, CHD.TV.

  32. Urgent WHO Discussion w/ Special Guest James Roguski, hosted by Maze Love,” 11/11/23. [audio begins about two minutes into the recording]

  33. Wood, Patrick M., “Exclusive with Patrick M. Wood,” 05/16/2022, CHD.TV.

  34. Yeadon, Michael, “Former Pfizer VP Calls For Accountability From Ex-Big Pharma Colleagues,” 11/03/2022, CHD.TV.

  35. Yeadon, Michael, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., “Former Pfizer Vice President Dr. Mike Yeadon Speaks Out,” 05/25/2021, CHD.TV

From the Editor: After reading this post, a reader sent us a link to a 10-minute video by Law Professor Francis Boyle related to the content of this post: Francis Boyle: The WHO’s Plan to Be a Global Dictator.

 
 

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.”

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

Paths I Crossed with Benedict XVI and Cardinal George Pell

In strange ways, injustices I have known as a prisoner and a priest intersected the lives of Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal George Pell who died just ten days apart.

Paul Haring | CNS

In strange ways, injustices I have known as a prisoner and a priest intersected the lives of Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal George Pell who died just ten days apart.

February 8 , 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Pope Benedict XVI passed from this life at age 95 on the final day of 2022. Ten days later, Cardinal George Pell died of cardiac arrest at age 81 while recovering from routine surgery at a hospital in Rome. Both of these men were giants in the Church as the many tributes to them from around the world make clear. They were also targets for much vitriol and injustice. It was in this targeted injustice that my path crossed with that of both men.

In “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae,” a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by famed Boston criminal defense and civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate, he cited a ground-breaking book by Dorothy Rabinowitz, a member of the Journal’s Editorial Board entitled, No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusations, False Witness, and Other, Terrors of Our Time. Ms. Rabinowitz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her collection of writings about unjust sex abuse prosecutions that generated a spate of wrongful convictions of innocent people in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of her subjects in the book and subsequent writings spent decades in prison. I am one of them.

One of the tragically misguided prosecutions cited in the book is that of Margaret Kelly Michaels, then a 24-year-old nursery school teacher in New Jersey. Charged with multiple counts of child molestation in a witch hunt atmosphere, Kelly was innocent of the heinous crimes, none of which actually took place. The charges were fantastical and false, but the child abuse terror of the time resulted in easy convictions with no valid evidence.

The nature of the evidence in Kelly’s case was chilling. The prosecution’s child psych expert — who had no real expertise at all — fashioned a theory that young children who say that no sexual abuse happened actually mean the opposite. A vigilante jury bought that theory and convicted Kelly Michaels. At age 24, she was sentenced to 47 years in prison.

After failed appeals having nothing whatsoever to do with truth or justice, Kelly’s fate seemed sealed in wrongful imprisonment until Dorothy Rabinowitz began writing about it. Then New York civil rights attorney Morton Stavis came out of retirement to take the case pro bono. In her book, Ms. Rabinowitz revealed that Mr. Stavis sought the aid of a New York-based left-leaning legal think tank, the Center for Constitutional Rights that he himself founded. The CCR wanted nothing to do with this case. As Ms. Rabinowitz explained:

“Arguing for due process on behalf of a person charged with child sex abuse violated the politically progressive views held by many at the center. In the 1980s, as today, there was a school of advanced political opinion of the view that to take up for those falsely accused of sex abuse was to undermine the battle against child abuse. It was to betray children and other victims of sexual predators.”

No Crueler Tyrannies, 17-18

The charges against me stem from the same time period, filtered through the same progressive political opinions, and hyped by the same prosecutorial mindset that to be accused of such things is to be guilty. It is the cruelest of tyrannies that even our Catholic bishops have cowed in fear under that progressive steamroller as priests so accused are discarded without defense. This was articulated in my recent post, “Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study.”

The heroic attorney Morton Stavis was not defeated by the progressive disdain for his effort from his own tribe at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He did not live to see his victory in this case, but he had put together a small team of righteous defenders who eventually prevailed by exposing the truth and winning Kelly’s freedom. One of these defenders was Robert Rosenthal whose prior legal briefs on my behalf are still on display at the National Center for Reason and Justice.

Kelly Michaels went on in life to marry a judge. She eventually recovered — to the extent one can — from the tyranny of wrongful imprisonment. She has corresponded with me in freedom, imparting as much hope for justice as she can by urging me to never give up. I haven’t, but I will be 70 on my next birthday and like Job, I know that my Redeemer lives (Job 19:25).

 

Vincenzo Pinto | AFP

Benedict’s “Crimes against Humanity”

However, reading Dorothy’s book was unfortunately not my final encounter with the Center for Constitutional Rights. Clinging to the progressive view that to be accused of sexual abuse is to be guilty, the Center for Constitutional Rights allowed itself to be duped and used by SNAP, the activist group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. I wrote a post some time ago that seemed to mark the beginning of the end of this organization's campaign to destroy any due process for Catholic priests. The post was, “David Clohessy Resigns SNAP in Alleged Kickback Scheme.”

Prior to writing that post, David Clohessy and SNAP manipulated the Center for Constitutional Rights into bringing a “crimes against humanity” charge against Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican at the International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands. It was a shameless publicity stunt that had no hope of success, but was filed only to shame Pope Benedict and bring attention to SNAP.

Though I was aware of the charge, it was only after the International Criminal Court dismissed it that I learned that I was an unwitting pawn in this debacle. Journalist Joann Wypijewski, a reporter of courage and high integrity, wrote of it in her blistering review of the movie “Spotlight,” a film about The Boston Globe Spotlight Team coverage of the sexual abuse scandal. The following is an excerpt of her bold article, “Spotlight Oscar Hangover: Why ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film”:

“The film’s advertisement for SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, faithfully represents the Globe’s affiliation. It elides SNAP’s belief that wrongful prosecutions are a minor price to pay in pursuit of its larger mission, something [The Boston Globe] did not much concern itself with either as it collected its Pulitzer for service in the public interest; something even the Center for Constitutional Rights disregarded in 2011 when it joined with SNAP to file a grotesque brief to the International Criminal Court demanding ‘investigation and prosecution’ of the Vatican for crimes against humanity.

“Liberals who cheer this sort of thing ought to ponder whether they have any principles at all ... . The CCR brief failed ... but to CCR’s shame, Father MacRae is specifically mentioned in that brief, with respect to allegations of videotape (that is, child porn), which prosecutors threw in at sentencing but for which there is no evidence according to the lead detective in the case cited by [Dorothy] Rabinowitz.”

I was frozen in place by grief upon first learning of this. I knew that the charge had no substance. I also knew that in her WSJ investigation, Dorothy Rabinowitz confronted NH Detective James McLaughlin who first contrived the charge. Cornered, he finally admitted, “There was never any evidence of pornography.”

This did not stop SNAP and CCR from including it in a falsified brief before the International Criminal Court. There was no repercussion for the attempt at fraud upon the court. Even now, as recently as a few months ago, biased NH reporter Damien Fisher— whose wife Catholic blogger Simcha Fisher has ties to my diocese — repeated the pornography allegation without even mentioning that it had been widely discredited, including by the dishonest detective who first raised it.

All the claims that Pope Benedict XVI enabled accused priests and failed to protect victims are of a kind with the above story. In the end, it was never any of this that really made him a target. It was his orthodoxy, his fidelity, his clear-minded exposure of Catholic truths. None of this could ever successfully be assailed, so instead they smeared him with a weapon straight from hell: false witness. Let that sink in.

 

The Exoneration of George Cardinal Pell

In the same manner that Kelly Michaels reached out to me upon her exoneration, it was because I had been so falsely accused that I reached out to Cardinal George Pell during his 400 days of unjust imprisonment. Having come to recognize signposts of dishonesty in such a case, I was certain that Cardinal Pell had been falsely accused. But because of prison rules barring direct contact with other prisoners, I could not contact in prison directly.

A friend, Sheryl Collmer, a Tyler, Texas writer for Crisis Magazine and other venues, was my intermediary. I know that pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but in this case it was perhaps a bit less deadly. There have been few really proud moments during my imprisonment, but my ability to detect and expose the truth in support of Cardinal Pell was one of them.

As a result, I found this excerpt in his published Prison Journal Volume 2 (Ignatius Press 2021). It was written from his prison cell:

“Friday, 2 August 2019: By a coincidence, today I received from Sheryl Collmer, a regular correspondent from Texas, a copy of the 15 May 2019 post on the blog, Beyond These Stone Walls, written by Fr Gordon MacRae. The article was entitled, ‘Was Cardinal George Pell Convicted on Copycat Testimony?’

“Fr MacRae was convicted on 23 September 1994 of paedophilia and sentenced to sixty-seven years in a New Hampshire prison for crimes allegedly committed around fifteen to twenty years previously. The allegations had no supporting evidence and no corroboration.

“It is one thing to be jailed for five months. It would be quite another step up, which I would not relish, to spend another three years if my appeal were unsuccessful. But we enter another world with a life sentence. Australia is not New Hampshire, and I don’t believe all the Australia media would blackball the discussion of a case such as MacRae’s.

“The late Cardinal Avery Dulles, whom I admired personally and as a theologian, encouraged Fr MacRae to continue writing from jail, stating, ‘Someday, your story and that of your fellow sufferers will come to light and be instrumental in a reform.’

“Fr MacRae recounts extraordinary similarities between the accusations I faced and the accusations of Billy Doe in Philadelphia, which were published in Australia in 2011 in the magazine, Rolling Stone. Earlier this year, Keith Windshuttle, editor of the quality journal Quadrant, publicized the seven points of similarity, pointing out that ‘there are far too many similarities in the stories for them to be explained by coincidence.’ (See Keith Windshuttle, ‘The Borrowed Testimony that Convicted George Pell,’ Quadrant, 8 April 2019).

“The author of the 2011 Rolling Stone article was Sabrina Rubin Erdely, no longer a journalist, disgraced and discredited. In 2014 she had written, and provoked a storm which reached Obama's White House, about ‘Jackie’ at the University of Virginia, who claimed she was gang-raped at a fraternity party in 2012 by seven men.

“As Fr MacRae points out, ‘The story was accepted as gospel truth once it appeared in print.’ [Note: Rolling Stone later retracted the article in 2015] . Jackie’s account turned out to be a massive lie. A civil trial for defamation followed; the seven students were awarded $7.5 million in damages by the jury; and Rolling Stone was found guilty of negligence and defamation.

“The allegations behind the 2011 Rolling Stone article, published in Australia, have also been demolished as false by, among others, Ralph Cipriano’s ‘The Legacy of Billy Doe’ published in the Catalyst of the Catholic League in January-February 2019. No one realized in 2015, when the allegations against me were first made to police, that the model for copycat allegations, or the innocent basis for the remarkable similarities, was also a fantasy or a fiction.

“I am grateful to Fr MacRae for taking up my cause, as I am to many others. These include in North America George Weigel and Fr Raymond de Souza and here in Australia Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Gerard Henderson, Fr Frank Brennan, and others behind the scenes.

“I will conclude, not with a prayer, but with Fr MacRae’s opening quotation from Baron de Montesquieu (1742) [from the BTSW About Page], ‘There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice]’

 

Addendum

You may see — from Cardinal Pell’s last citation above — where Dorothy Rabinowitz got the inspiration for the title of her book, No Crueler Tyrannies. Once free from his wrongful prison sentence, Cardinal Pell was restored to his rightful position in Rome. From there, he reached out to me again in ways that I only learned about posthumously. He wrote to a mutual friend that he plans to refer to my situation in talks he is slated to present in Rome and Australia. He never got to present them.

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, “Cardinal George Pell Faced Down a Hostile World” (January 13, 2023), Fr Raymond de Souza wrote that “His faith even during wrongful detention, was the crown of an inspiring Catholic life.” Reading his Prison Journal, I have no doubt been so inspired.

It is my prayer, and perhaps not even a necessary one, that Pope Benedict and Cardinal Pell both now stand in the Presence of God where they behold the fruition of all the graces bestowed upon them, and hopefully now upon us through them. We have not heard the last of them.

+ + +

Note from Fr. Gordon Mac Rae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also wish to visit these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

From Down Under, the Exoneration of George Cardinal Pell

The Path of Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s Rolling Stone

Miranda Devine, Cardinal Pell, and the Laptop from Hell

Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

+ + +

 

Francesco Sforza | Osservatore Romano | AFP

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

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

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

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

— Matthew 7:16

January 11, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

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

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

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

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

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

 

The National Study of Catholic Priests

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Guilty for Being Accused

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Double Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Conservative Priests Face Greater Scrutiny

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

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

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

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

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

Or is it the whispering of the Holy Spirit?

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

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

The Once and Future Catholic Church

Forty Years of Priesthood in the Mighty Wind of Pentecost

The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm On the Priesthood

 
 

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

 

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

 

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

 
 
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