Voices from Beyond
The Inauthenticity of Zohran Mamdani
Zohran Mamdani, who promised the poor an array of freebies, is a man of privilege who has never run anything. Like a child, he believes money grows on trees.
Zohran Mamdani, who promised the poor an array of freebies, is a man of privilege who has never run anything. Like a child, he believes money grows on trees.
October, 2025 by Bill Donohue, Catholic League President | Catalyst
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: I try to avoid, with mixed success, taking a partisan side in a political campaign. However, having studied for decades the works of Karl Marx and the rise of Communism, every alarm within me has been ringing loudly. A very large percentage of our readers hail from New York, and I would be negligent to ignore my concern for them. Catholic League President Bill Donohue has provided a great public service with this extended essay in the October, 2025 edition of the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst. He has graciously given us permission to reprint it for our readers.
+ + +
Privileged Background
“Though Mamdani is opposed to ICE agents wearing masks, he made sure there were plenty of masked security guards at his bash. He also made sure they carried military-style weapons, an odd choice for someone who wants to ban guns.”
Many politicians are chameleons who walk back their positions with alacrity, but it is not every day when someone comes along whose biography and stated policies smack of rank inauthenticity. Meet Zohran Mamdani.
He is the little-known 33 year old New York Assemblyman who beat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the June Democratic mayoral primary. He stunned everyone, in and out of New York City. He won largely because young white people and Asians turned out to support him.
Ironically, the Muslim socialist, who promised the poor an array of freebies, lost the vote of lower income New Yorkers: they voted for Cuomo. He got his biggest support from young college-educated liberals, most of whom are white and affluent.
His donors include the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Its Unity & Justice Fund contributed $100,000 to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, the largest pro-Mamdani PAC. CAIR has terrorist ties and was named as a co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case; it provided over $12 million to Hamas.
To say Mamdani is a walking contradiction is an understatement. According to the standards of left-wing activists, Mamdani — who is one of them — is “filthy rich.” Born to a wealthy Indian family in Uganda, his family moved to South Africa when he was five years old. When he was seven, his family moved to the United States, finding a home in New York City.
Like most other rich New Yorkers, Mamdani did not attend the local public school. He spent his elementary school years at the Bank Street School for Children. It is not a school for the middle class, never mind the poor: Tuition is over $66,000 a year. He also did not attend the local public high school. Instead, he went to one of the most elite public schools in New York City.
In other words, for a man who is ideologically committed to the working class and the poor, his wealthy parents kept him far away from them. He never fraternized with the proletariat any more than Marx did (Marx never set foot in a factory in his entire life).
Radicals are very good at bashing anyone who even remotely fits the label “privileged.” That would be Mamdani. Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, accurately sums up his upbringing. “There is little room here for doubt that Zohran grew up in an environment that was affluent, privileged, and high status; but also strongly disdainful of Western values and most of what we think of as legitimate government.”
Political strategist Hank Sheinkopf is just as pointed, saying the would-be mayor “grew up with three silver spoons in his mouth.” Mamdani even admits that his parents provided him with a “privileged upbringing.” Indeed, he is such a product of nepotism that he proudly calls himself a “nepo baby.”
Mamdani hates capitalism, but he loves the lifestyle it affords. His parents’ net worth is estimated at between $2 million and $10 million. His mother, in particular, did very well milking the capitalist system.
Mira Nair is a product of privilege and a successful filmmaker. She sold her tony New York City loft in 2019 for $1.45 million. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a Marxist who holds a chaired professorship in African history and colonialism at Columbia University.
Most people have one marriage ceremony in their home country. Not Mamdani — he had ceremonies in three continents. He got engaged last year to Rama Duwaji, a Syrian artist from Brooklyn. The engagement party was in Dubai, where her parents live. Dubai is one of the world’s 20 richest cities ranked by millionaires. It is home to over 81,000 millionaires, and hundreds more whose wealth exceeds $100 million. No diversity at this engagement party.
Most American Muslims marry in their local mosque. Not Mamdani. In early 2025, he and Rama got married in a secular venue, at City Hall. A clerk presided.
In keeping with his privileged background, the couple more recently celebrated their marriage in his family’s uber-rich compound in the wealthiest area of Uganda. Though Mamdani is opposed to ICE agents wearing masks, he made sure there were plenty of masked security guards at his bash. He also made sure they carried military-style weapons, an odd choice for someone who wants to ban guns. The troops also employed a cellphone jamming system in the two-acre home that overlooks Lake Victoria. They made sure to keep this a closed-door party with no intruders.
Radical Politics
“Mamdani has consistently accused Israel of ‘genocide.’ He has also consistently refused to call out those who want to ‘globalize the intifada.’”
Mamdani’s parents wasted no time grooming him to be a hardcore leftist. His middle name is “Kwame,” in recognition to Kwame Nkrumah, the African dictator. Nkrumah was prime minister of Ghana in the 1950s, when it gained independence from Britain. He was such an admirer of the Soviet Gulag that he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962. A socialist, he did away with elections, naming himself “president for life.” This is Mamdani’s parents’ hero, whom they consider a “democratic” socialist.
Mamdani’s father, who is a Ugandan settler colonialist, has made his academic career attacking settler colonialism. His views are so extreme that he blames the United States, which he says is a settler colonialist state, for creating a model that has inspired many nationalist projects, including Nazi Germany, Israel and the Palestinians.
Zohran’s radical politics explains why he screamed, “Take it down,” when talking about a statue of Columbus in New York City. In fact, he flipped his middle finger at the statue. This is not something associated with liberals — it is the work of far-left wing activists. In point of fact, Mamdani wants nothing to do with liberals, which is why he despises Barack Obama. He is quite blunt about it. “Hasn’t Barack Obama shown that the lesser evil is still pretty damn evil?”
Nothing defines Mamdani’s radical politics more than his hatred of Israel. He says his opposition to Israel is “central to my identity.” He means it. “The struggle for Palestinian liberation is at the core of my politics and continues to be.” This is not something new. When he was at Bowdoin College, majoring in Africana Studies, he cofounded the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. He led the fight to boycott Israeli institutions, and still does today.
Once again, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. His father has called for a “Third Intifada,” meaning a third uprising against Israel. He has also written of his desire to destigmatize suicide bombings.
His mother said in 2013 that she refused to attend the Haifa International Film Festival, saying she would only visit Israel “when the walls come down.” She proceeded to support the Palestinian campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel. The filmmaker reportedly tried to have Gal Gadot disinvited from the Oscars because the actress has “openly and repeatedly expressed her support for Israel’s military actions.”
If Mamdani had his politics nurtured by his father and mother, his parents had their views nourished by Edward Said, one of the most prominent anti-Israeli intellectuals in the United States. They were best of friends.
A Columbia University professor, Said not only opposed the state of Israel, he was the number-one spokesman for the Palestinian cause in the United States. He was also a confidant of Yassir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. But Arafat, who sponsored terrorism, was later considered to be too moderate for Said: the two stopped talking once Arafat signed the Oslo Peace Accords.
It is due to circumstances like these that Zohran became the radical that he is. After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, in an unprovoked assault, the mayoral hopeful never once condemned the terrorists. Instead, he condemned Israel, accusing it of apartheid. Just as revealing are the views of Hadeeqa Malik, one of his prized former interns. She is known for characterizing her work as “all jihad.” She refers to herself as a “true believer” of Allah.
Mamdani has consistently accused Israel of “genocide.” He has also consistently refused to call out those who want to “globalize the intifada.” When pressed on this issue, he says he does not encourage use of this phrase, but he nonetheless refuses to condemn it. This does not satisfy critics like New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer. He says those who want to “globalize the intifada” are calling for “a wave of terror against the Jewish people.”
There is nothing moderate about Mamdani. His natural gait is a leftwing quick step, putting him in the company of history’s most destructive actors. Some say this is a reflection of his radical Islamic views. This is a shortsighted perspective — he has more in common with radical secularists than he does radical Muslims.
Religious Beliefs
“Mamdani is at war with the teachings of Islam on many issues, especially those that deal with marriage, the family and sexuality. But he calls himself a ‘proud Muslim.’ . . .
“As Mamdani puts it, ‘Queer liberation means defund the police.”’
President Joe Biden is at war with the teachings of the Catholic Church on many issues, especially those that deal with marriage, the family and sexuality. But he calls himself a “devout Catholic.” Similarly, Mamdani is at war with the teachings of Islam on many issues, especially those that deal with marriage, the family and sexuality. But he calls himself a “proud Muslim.”
Biden and Mamdani know that symbols matter. This explains why Biden always carries a set of rosary beads; it impresses his friends in the media. Similarly, when he wants to make a point, Mamdani adorns Muslim attire. He usually wears business clothes, but he is featured on his website wearing a white throbe, the collar-less lengthy one-piece gown favored by Muslim men. It impresses his friends in the media, as if that makes him authentic.
Biden at least attended Mass on a regular basis, but Mamdani’s record of being an observant Muslim is spotty. For example, when he celebrated Ramadan in 2018, he confessed that this was the first time he had done so in years. The timing is curious: the next year he announced his candidacy for office; in 2020 he was elected to the New York State Assembly. This gave him the appearance of an authentic Muslim. His wife is more honest—she does not wear the hijab.
Mamdani is described as being “discreet about his Shia Muslim identity.” Why discreet? Why is he selective about acknowledging it?
For example, his attendance at houses of worship has quickened in recent times, something that is advantageous to him in important circles. He now shows up at Jummah prayer, the Muslims’ congregational Friday service. He follows the Twelver branch of Shia Islam, the one that forms the basis of Iran’s Islamic Republic. Whether he believes that his religion’s teachings on marriage are just — polygamy is okay for men but not for women — is unknown. The media are sure not to ask him.
Mamdani’s mother may identify as Hindu, but that doesn’t mean much to New York’s Hindu population. They see her son as anti-Hindu, citing his strident denunciation of India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Mamdani has called him a “war criminal.” This explains why so many Hindus are raising money for his challengers. Not unexpectedly, Mamdani calls them “Hindu fascists.”
Mamdani may call himself a “proud Muslim,” but he sure isn’t proud of many key Islamic teachings. Practicing Muslims, at least in the United States, are very supportive of religious liberty. Yet a Nexis-Lexis search reveals that he has never addressed this subject.
This is astonishing, especially coming from someone who is not shy about commenting on virtually every other public issue. He is very protective of Islam, but a search of his remarks objecting to anti-Catholicism, or anti-Christian words or deeds, failed to turn up one comment. It’s fair to conclude that his interest in religious liberty is quite limited. Even worse, his interest in defending Islamic teachings on moral issues is abysmal.
Islam generally promotes the sanctity of human life; only in exceptional circumstances are abortions permitted after 120 days of pregnancy. Mamdani disagrees. He opposes any restrictions on abortion. That is why his voting record consistently receives a 100 percent score from Planned Parenthood. There is no abortion — for any reason and at any time of gestation — that he cannot support.
Islam depicts life as a gift from God. As such, it does not support suicide or attempts to end one’s life. Mamdani disagrees. As a state assemblyman he has voted for every “medical aid in dying,” or assisted suicide, bill. His embrace of an ethic of autonomy, which is a secular expression, overrides any interest in being faithful to the Islamic code.
Islam is even more specific about its teachings on sexuality. It abhors homosexuality. Mamdani disagrees. Whether consulting the Quran, or the sayings attributed to Muhammad, the hadith, Islam holds that homosexuality is sinful and deserving of punishment. Sexual relations are only permitted within the institution of marriage, and marriage is the exclusive province of a union between a man and a woman.
In May 2023, approximately 150 Muslim notables from across the nation signed a statement on sexuality that was a full-throated defense of what Muslims are expected to hold.
“We urge Muslim public figures to uphold the sanctity of our faith and refrain from making erroneous pronouncements on behalf of Islam. We reject any attempt to attribute positions to Islam concerning sexual and gender ethics that contravene well-established Islamic teachings. To be clear, we cannot overstate the detrimental spiritual consequences for those who intentionally reject, advocate the rejection of, or misrepresent the will of God, as in doing so they endanger their status as believers.”
There is little doubt that Mamdani intentionally rejects Islamic teachings on marriage, the family and sexuality.
He is a huge advocate of the radical LGBTQ cause. He supports transgender rights across the board and disagrees with the Islamic belief that there are only two sexes. He regularly attends gay events, including parades. In June, a video caption of the New York City Gay Pride parade read, “Zohran can be seen jumping up and down with joy while holding a transgender flag with a firm grip.”
Mamdani also advocates “comprehensive sex education” in the schools, which obviously means supporting the LGBTQ curricula. He wants it to be mandatory in all New York schools, making no allowance for private or parochial schools. He says it should include information about “reproductive health benefits,” which clearly does not apply to the unborn.
The Democratic Socialists of America are working with Mamdani to declare New York City a “sanctuary city for LGBTQIA+ people and their families.” What this will entail is anyone’s guess, though Mamdani has already pledged that he will spend $65 million in taxpayer money for sex-reassignment surgery, puberty blockers, chemical castration and genital mutilation for minors.
Like many radicals in western civilization, Mamdani believes there is a nexus between the sexual and the political. As Mamdani puts it, “Queer liberation means defund the police.” In other words, if gay and transgender persons are to be free, the political apparatus must change. This, in turn, means that those who protect the social order, namely the cops, must go. This is the stuff of revolution, not reform.
Economic Beliefs
“Mamdani believes that the ‘abolition of private property’ is a viable option to achieve his socialist agenda.”
When asked about his commitment to “democratic socialism,” Mamdani likes to hitch himself to Martin Luther King’s star. “I call myself a Democratic socialist, in many ways, inspired by the words of [Martin Luther King] from decades ago, who said, ‘Call it democracy or call it Democratic socialism: There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.'” However, what Mamdani means by democratic socialism is not analogous to what King meant.
In 1964, when King accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he said the United States had much to learn from Scandinavian “democratic socialism.” The Scandinavian countries were essentially welfare state entities that featured a wide safety net. The government did not own the means of production, which is what socialism means.
King’s goal, as expressed in organizing the Poor People’s Campaign, was to secure an Economic Bill of Rights. It included proposals such as full employment, guaranteed income and affordable housing. That is not socialism. In fact, King had nothing to say about what Mamdani wants, which is a government takeover of the private sector.
Truth be told, “democratic socialism” is an oxymoron. Venezuela is a case in point.
Until recently, Venezuela was the richest country in South America. Now it is a basket case of poverty. This didn’t happen by mistake: the socialist agenda advanced by President Hugo Chavez in 2014, and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, was a recipe for disaster. The economic crash can’t be because of natural resources — Venezuela is awash with crude oil reserves. No, it is due to the evisceration of human resources, a function of socialist policies.
Islam is mostly agnostic on economic models, holding to the view that the laws of Allah are what count. Though it does not nominally embrace either capitalism or socialism, historically when Muslim economies have experienced growth, it has come by adherence to capitalist principles.
Guy Sorman is an editor and author of a book on Islam. He notes that “The Koran has only good words for successful businessmen. Entrepreneurs must pay a 2.5 percent tax, the zakat, to the community to support the general welfare, but otherwise can make money guilt-free. Private property is sacred, according to the Koran.”
Now contrast this view with that of Mamdani’s. He rails against capitalism, even to the point of blaming it for women being “undervalued, underpaid and overworked.” This would surely come as a shocker to millions of middle and upper-class women; they live a lifestyle that is the world’s envy. It would also come as a surprise to most South Asian women who have settled in New York City — it’s not just his mother who has done very well in a capitalist society.
Mamdani takes a page straight out of Marx when he boasts that one of his goals is “seizing the means of production.” In other words, he wants the government ownership and control of the economy. This is exactly the verbiage that Marx used in his classic communist tract, Das Kapital. Not surprisingly, Mamdani believes that the “abolition of private property” is a viable option to achieve his socialist agenda.
His economic philosophy colors his thinking about all aspects of public policy. For example, in discussing the homeless, Mamdani takes aim at those who live in “luxury condos,” arguing the need to “Seize these properties.” To be sure, this might satisfy his appetite for vengeance, but it would do nothing to help those suffering from severe psychological and physical problems.
Mamdani’s animus to private property does not extend to himself. He owns four acres of land in Uganda, the tyrannical state where he was born. It is worth between $150,000 and $250,000.
Oprah is a billionaire. Is she a problem? You bet. “I don’t think we should have billionaires,” Mamdani says. This is odd coming from someone who got engaged in Dubai, home to at least 20 billionaires. No word on whether they are also a problem.
Mamdani may not be happy with Oprah’s wealth, but at least she is black. That matters a lot to him. He explicitly notes that we need to “shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.” In other words, the rich can keep their money as long as they look more like him than Cuomo.
His overt racism may explain why he considers himself to be black, even though everyone knows he is not. When he applied to Columbia University, on his application he checked the “African American” box. Now he may have been born in Uganda, but his parents are of Indian descent. White people get born in Uganda, too, and if they migrate to the United States, they don’t exploit the affirmative action system by claiming to be African American. But Mamdani does.
Taxing the rich has led two million people in New York State to leave between 2015 and 2024. That’s a loss of $111 billion in income. Mamdani’s plan, if it were to succeed, would lead to a stampede of wealthy New Yorkers (many of whom have dark skin) bolting for Red States. They would take their jobs and tax base with them; they would also deplete the Electoral College numbers for Blue States, shifting them to Red States. That’s a prescription for economic collapse in New York City.
Economic Policies
“Food is expensive. Mamdani has a solution: socialized grocery stores. He claims that city-owned grocery stores will keep prices down, and he proudly exclaims that they will not be allowed to make a profit. But current grocery stores make so little profit they can hardly make it, so why would we expect government-owned stores to make it?”
A review of the 2024 Democratic Party Platform reveals support for a $15 per hour minimum wage. The Democratic Socialists of America agree. The Socialist Party USA favors a $25 minimum wage, as does the Communist Party USA. Mamdani wants it pegged at $20 in 2027 and $30 in 2030. But as Milton Friedman said long ago, if increasing the minimum wage doesn’t lead to unemployment—which it does—then why not jack it way up? For instance, why not $100 an hour?
Healthcare is expensive. One reason why is due to the nearly 5 million able-bodied, working-age adults who refuse to work and are on Medicaid; there are also more than 1.2 million illegal immigrants on Medicaid. All of these people are threatening Medicaid benefits for those who legitimately need them.
What does Mamdani want to do about this? He likes the status quo and resists attempts to change it. So what’s his answer to the high cost of healthcare? “Abolish ‘medical bills.'” Yeah, that’ll work. What about private insurance? “We need to abolish private insurance,” he says. This is the world he lives in—freebies for all.
Raising kids is expensive. Should childcare be free as well? Absolutely. He says he wants free childcare for New Yorkers aged 6 weeks to 5 years. Should this just be for the poor? No way. How about those dreaded billionaires? Do they qualify? You got it. This is the politics of inclusion par excellence.
Bus fare is expensive. Mamdani has a solution: make it free. Can the rich ride for free as well? Yes, those that can afford to buy a bus can go for free. More inclusion.
This is not a new issue for him. He was the one behind an experiment launched a few years ago in New York City. In 2023, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) launched a pilot program that allowed free bus fare along five routes, one in each borough. It was targeted at low income New Yorkers.
A year later, Mamdani looked at the numbers and declared it a success. “The results have now shown us that this pilot has been an unequivocal success.” Wrong. It bombed. Here’s the proof. Once the program ended, nearly half (48 percent) of riders refused to pay the fare. Only a fool would not have been able to figure out why: what started as a privilege quickly became a right. As a result, the MTA lost hundreds of millions to bus fare evaders.
Food is expensive. Mamdani has a solution: socialized grocery stores. He claims that city-owned grocery stores will keep prices down, and he proudly exclaims that they will not be allowed to make a profit. But current grocery stores make so little profit they can hardly make it, so why would we expect government-owned stores to make it? Moreover, this is not going to sit well with those who currently own stores.
John Catsimatidis owns Gristedes, a Manhattan-based grocery store chain. If New York decides to nationalize a swath of supermarkets, he’s cashing out. It’s not just wealthy owners who feel this way. Hispanics who own bodegas are already joining forces to oppose this scheme—they won’t be able to compete and will have to close.
It’s not as though we don’t know what will happen. This gambit has been tried elsewhere. Government owned grocery stores were a disaster. Municipal employees have no direct stake in these stores, and their lackadaisical attitude shows. After seven years, the city-owned Sun Fresh Market in Kansas City, Missouri, closed its doors on August 12, 2025. Perishables sat well past their expiration date. As one reporter put it, “a rotting smell comes through the door.”
Housing is expensive. Profits being a taboo, Mamdani wants to put the screws to landlords by freezing the rent for all stabilized tenants. So how will they pay for repairs? That’s their problem. Mamdani pledges a revamped 311 hot line to report on landlords who don’t make repairs.
It is striking to note that he has nothing to say about all of those wealthy New Yorkers who currently live in rent-stabilized units, effectively ripping off the working class and the poor. That’s because he’s one of them.
Mamdani and his wife can well afford to live in any neighborhood in New York City. Instead, they live just outside Manhattan, in Astoria, Queens, in an apartment that was not intended for the rich — it’s rent stabilized. Cuomo called on him to “move out immediately and give your affordable housing back to an unhoused family who needs it.” He added, “We’re not supposed to be providing rentstabilized apartments to the children of millionaires.”
Quality education is one of the most important agents of upward mobility. Mamdani, who never stops talking about the plight of the poor, wants to deny them the same opportunities available to people like him.
New York City has long had a select group of elite public schools open to everyone. Jews, and now Asians, have taken good advantage of them.
To a lesser extent, so have Hispanics and African Americans. Mamdani objects, saying admission criteria are too restrictive and should be changed. In effect, he wants to radically change the way schools like Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science operate. He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science.
Black and Hispanic students have done very well in charter schools, private schools and parochial schools. Success Academy in New York City, the epic charter school system that enrolls 22,000 students, recently posted numbers that settle the argument. Black students had a 95.5 percent pass rate in math, compared to 43 percent in public schools. For Hispanics, the pass rate for charter students was 96.8 percent, compared to 43.1 percent in the traditional public schools.
Mamdani wants to close charter schools and is opposed to every school-choice initiative, effectively keeping black and brown students in their place. White racists could not do a better job of punishing the poor than this.
Crime
“[Mamdani] wants to do away with prisons. He says, ‘our prison system relies on dehumanization and brutality, so the goal must be to abolish this exploitative system entirely.’ Where should we put car jackers? He does not say. All he says is we need to ‘Defund & dismantle’ the prison system.”
Illegal aliens are responsible for some of the most horrendous crimes in New York City. Serial criminals, they continue to prey on the innocent, and that is because of the catch-and-release system that exists. Moreover, sanctuary city policies thwart the effectiveness of ICE agents to apprehend them. Mamdani hates ICE and has promised not to cooperate with them. He wants to “stop masked ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.” This includes “neighbors” such as child-rapists.
Guns are used by responsible persons to protect the innocent; they are used by irresponsible persons to kill them. The problem is not the gun — it is the character of the person who uses them. What does Mamdani want to do about this? “We need to ban all guns.” What about knives? No word on that yet.
Currently, once murderers are caught, prosecuted and found guilty, they are sentenced to prison. Mamdani disagrees with that approach. He wants to do away with prisons. He says, “our prison system relies on dehumanization and brutality, so the goal must be to abolish this exploitative system entirely.” Where should we put car jackers? He does not say. All he says is we need to “Defund & dismantle” the prison system.
What should we do about the cops? Now that he wants to be mayor, he says he no longer wants to defund the police. But who can believe him? In 2020, he was unequivocal, saying, “We want to defund the police.” He said, “the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” Moreover, “There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt.”
When someone believes that the police are wicked racists — and has said so repeatedly and publicly — that kind of deeply held sentiment cannot realistically be turned on and off like a light switch. It’s who that person is.
It is because of this vile assault on the police, led by left-wing extremists like Mamdani, that New York City has lost over 15,000 police officers in the last 10 years. Former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has warned that if Mamdani wins, more cops will flee.
Mamdani wants to replace some police work with social workers. Armed with their MSW, he says they will take to the streets and stop violence before it starts. The newly established Department of Community Service will dispatch social workers to intervene when trouble appears imminent. What kinds of crimes will they address? Wife beating. That’s right, Mamdani specifically mentions “domestic violence” as a crime the police will not be allowed to deal with in the future. All this from a man who says he supports women’s rights.
Roving mobs of young men have been crashing urban stores, walking away with expensive merchandise. They do so with impunity. Few are arrested and those that are pay no price for their crimes — they are routinely released without bail.
Mamdani not only supports these measures, when asked why retail theft is so common, he blames it on the mentally ill. A New York business leader recently asked him to explain the rise in retail theft, and was left puzzled by his response. “He went into a lengthy discussion about people with mental illness. You scratch your head and say, ‘He didn’t answer the question. Unless you believe everyone who commits retail theft is mentally ill.'”
On a related note, Mamdani believes that the mentally ill who live on the streets should be allowed to do so. “People should be allowed to make their own mental care decisions.” This is certainly true of those whose mental faculties are intact, but the mentally disabled are not capable of making such judgments. Leaving them to perish on the street does not respect their autonomy — it disrespects their humanity.
High crime areas of New York are awash with drugs and prostitution. Because they go unchecked, they act as magnets for degenerates, delinquents and the deranged. Mamdani wants to allow drug addicts to shoot up in public and he wants to legalize “sex workers,” also known as prostitutes.
He needs to visit Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. This multi-ethnic neighborhood it is being overrun by drug addicts and hookers. A local writer notes that “sex trafficking and solicitation, illegal vending, sanitation and other issues” have overwhelmed the community. As one New York City notable, Hiram Monserrate, puts it, “There are more brothels than there are bodegas in this community. We have an active 24-hour brothel across the street from two elementary schools. Our kids are seeing this.”
In East Harlem, there is an injection site for druggers where “addicts so zonked out they routinely have sex in broad daylight, often at the doorstep of neighbors forced to endure the X-rated freefor-all.” According to one resident, “They have sex in our yards, they defecate behind our cars. It’s a mess.” The injection sites attract the worst elements in the city. It’s a nightmare that Mamdani will only make worse.
It took Rudy Giuliani to reform New York City. He did by instituting common-sense conservative ideas, much of them taking from the work of researchers at the Manhattan Institute. Michael Bloomberg kept most of Giuliani’s policies, and left the city intact. Then came a Marxist millionaire, Bill de Blasio, who nearly destroyed the city with his far-left policies. Already, he has been in touch with Mamdani, offering ideas and recommending personnel.
Mamdani is a man of privilege who has never run anything. Like a child, he believes money grows on trees. His biggest victims will be the poor. They are the ones he will keep trapped in high crime neighborhoods, consigned to public schools that no one would ever choose if they had a choice. That this is being touted as social justice is mindboggling.
New York City will not survive de Blasio II. There are other choices, and any one of them is head over heels more realistic about urban affairs than Mamdani.
“Mamdani is a man of privilege who has never run anything. Like a child, he believes money grows on trees.”
AI Overview of “Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast”
We have asked Advanced xAI SuperGrok for an analysis of “Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast.” The result is inspiring.
We have asked Advanced xAI SuperGrok for an analysis of “Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast.” The result is inspiring.
October 11, 2025 by Advanced xAI SuperGrok
User Query
Beyond These Stone Walls published an article this week about a heroic Australian priest, psychologist, and author, Father James Valladares, PhD, who challenged the media narrative about the Catholic priesthood with his 2012 book, Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast. Could you please provide an AI overview of the article entitled “Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast”?
Response from Grok
The article, titled “Illumination From Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast,” was published on October 8, 2025, by Father Gordon MacRae on the Beyond These Stone Walls website. It highlights the work of Father James Valladares, an Australian priest and psychologist based in the Archdiocese of Adelaide, who authored the 2012 book Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast (published by iUniverse and now available as an e-book for $3.99). Valladares, with a strong background in developmental, educational, and counseling psychology — having lectured at Saint Andrew’s College in Mumbai, India, and conducted post-doctoral research in religion, healing, and parenting — uses his expertise to challenge prevailing media and institutional narratives surrounding the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis.
The piece portrays Valladares as a heroic figure providing “illumination” amid widespread false accusations against priests, drawing parallels to high-profile cases like that of the late Cardinal George Pell in Australia. His book critiques the emotional rhetoric fueling the scandal, the U.S. Bishops’ 2002 Dallas Charter’s “zero tolerance” approach, and organizations such as SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and BishopAccountability.org, which the article accuses of anti-Catholic bias and exploiting the crisis for financial or ideological gain. Valladares argues that while genuine abuse occurred decades ago, the current environment encourages false claims due to massive financial settlements (over $5 billion), inverting justice by presuming accusers as “victims” and accused priests as guilty without due process. He draws on influences like Father Richard John Neuhaus and Cardinal Avery Dulles to emphasize the sacrificial essence of priesthood, supported by data showing high satisfaction among priests (e.g., 91% in a 2002 Los Angeles Times poll) and calls for balanced discourse to restore the Church’s integrity.
Valladares faced challenges in a climate of moral panic, where truth is suppressed, and priests are scapegoated, often with resistance from Church leaders prioritizing institutional image over individual justice. The article ties this to Father Gordon MacRae’s own story of 31 years of wrongful imprisonment on false charges, which Valladares features prominently in his book. MacRae reflects on rereading the work as spiritually transformative, reinforcing themes of enduring faith, martyrdom, and the priesthood’s resilience despite injustice. Overall, the article positions Valladares’ book as a prophetic call for courage, healing, and truth-telling in a weary Church, urging readers to share underrepresented stories of exoneration and societal abuse beyond clerical contexts.
Summary of Excerpts from “Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast” by Father James Valladares
The excerpts from Valladares’ 2012 book, as quoted in the article, focus on themes of injustice, resilience, and critique within the Catholic priesthood amid the sexual abuse crisis. They draw on external sources like essays and surveys to challenge media narratives, highlight systemic flaws in Church responses, and affirm the enduring value of priestly vocation. Below is a breakdown of each excerpt with a summary of its key ideas.
Excerpt 1: Critique of Post-2002 Dallas Charter Injustices (p. 25, quoting Father Richard John Neuhaus)
This passage addresses how the 2002 U.S. Bishops’ Dallas Charter led to the erosion of canon law, due process, and basic decency in handling abuse allegations. It notes a cardinal’s statement that some priests might need to suffer injustice for the Church’s greater good, comparing this mindset to historical defenses of Caiaphas’ actions in the Bible, implying a troubling prioritization of institutional protection over individual rights.
Excerpt 2: High Satisfaction Among Priests Despite Scandal (p. 97, citing a 2002 Los Angeles Times Survey)
Amid intense media scrutiny in 2002, a survey of 5,000 U.S. priests revealed overwhelming positivity: 91% were satisfied with their priestly life, 90% would choose the vocation again, and 91% were unlikely to leave. This excerpt underscores the resilience and fulfillment in the priesthood, countering negative stereotypes and suggesting that the crisis did not broadly undermine priests’ commitment.
Excerpt 3: Inversion of Justice Due to Financial Incentives (p. 207)
This excerpt argues that justice has been reversed in abuse cases, where accusers motivated by potential large financial settlements are preemptively labeled “victims” by Church leaders, while priests facing unevidenced claims from decades past are quickly deemed “priest-offenders” or “slayers of souls.” It highlights how monetary factors encourage false accusations and erode presumptions of innocence.
As Father Valladares concludes this fine book:
Christus Vincit!
May Christ Jesus, our Risen Lord and Saviour, triumph over evil and sin!
Christus Regnat!
May he rule with his unfathomable wisdom, and his almighty power!
Christus imperat!
And may his redemptive compassion and unconditional love ever reign supreme!
At the Mercy of One False Brother
This review by Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, an accomplished theologian and Editor of The Catholic Response, first appeared in The Catholic Thing.
This review by Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, an accomplished theologian and Editor of The Catholic Response, first appeared in The Catholic Thing.
September 12, 2020 by Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas | The Catholic Thing
David Pierre of Media Report has published an illuminating new book, The Greatest Fraud Never Told: False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church. Pierre and his work are often ignored because he is unjustly accused of dismissing accusations of clergy sex abuse, en masse. That charge is not true. Instead, Pierre stresses an often-forgotten truth: “a false accusation is truly an affront to those who genuinely suffered as the result of their horrendous abuse.”
When the first hints of clergy sexual abuse began to surface in the late-80s, I served as an advisor to many of the good, new bishops being appointed. On this topic, I counseled the bishops:
First, do not call this pedophilia – because, for the most part, it is same-sex activity between a cleric and a post-pubescent young man; that’s the truth and, the truth always sets us free. “Pedophilia” conjures up images of five- and six-year-old boys. Further, if the sinful activity had been properly labeled, ironically, the secular media wouldn’t have given it much coverage, since they always promote same-sex relations.
Second, never settle any case out of court for a variety of reasons, not least that while a pastoral plea demands a pastoral response, a legal challenge demands a legal response. Moreover, when a financial settlement is made, that more than suggests guilt, thus damaging irreparably an innocent priest’s reputation. Regrettably, most bishops listened, instead, to diocesan attorneys and insurance companies.
Owing to the Dallas Charter of 2002, the heavy-handed treatment of accused priests by bishops has resulted in an adversarial relationship, which Cardinal Avery Dulles foretold in 2004. Pierre also observes, quite correctly and sadly, that most priests dread it when the chancery calls. Why? Because “the mere accusation against a Catholic priest carries an automatic assumption that the claim is true.” And because the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” in both ecclesiastical law and American civil law, has been eviscerated by current Church praxis: the accused priest is hung out to dry with an immediate diocesan press release, forced out of his residence within hours, placed on administrative leave, forbidden to wear clerical garb, and required to pay for legal counsel out of his own resources.
Interestingly, none of that happens for a bishop; his legal expenses are borne by the diocese. I should note that the procedure used for accused bishops is the proper one, but the double standard that exists when it comes to priests is responsible for the resentment all too many priests have toward their bishops, which Pierre underscores.
Yet another problem, again, thanks to the Dallas Charter, is the removal of the statute of limitations, causing Pierre to raise two essential questions: “How does one defend oneself against an accusation from 30, 40, 50 years ago? How would you defend yourself against an accusation from 40 years ago?” Of course, that is the very reason for a statute of limitations. Quite inconsistently, bishops have fought vociferously against removal of statutes of limitation in the civil realm.
Pierre devotes a chapter to the infamous Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, which he calls “the Grand Fraud” because its approach, content, and language all betray an animus against the Church, starting from the theatrics of the Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, in the press conference releasing the report. Bald-faced lies abound, as do innuendo and inflammatory language. Dead priests account for 53 percent of the accused (one was born in 1869!). Pierre follows up with “Pennsylvania Perjury,” where he tackles the Report’s assertion that the bishops of the State “did nothing” when confronted with abuse; he demonstrates the very opposite.
Concluding his treatment of the Pennsylvania Report, our author expresses astonishment at the relative silence of the Catholic media in the face of this gross miscarriage of justice, not “defending bishops, priests, and the Church when they were publicly wronged.” More disturbing to me was the almost gleeful promotion of the Report, by many would-be “conservative” or “traditional” Catholic outlets, so that “these partisan platforms began airing stories that were simply false, and in some cases, quite bizarre.”
Pierre also highlights the pervasive anti-Catholicism throughout the entire crisis; he cites remarks by the Attorney General of Michigan (the Catholic Church is “a criminal enterprise”) and observes that “a public official would never get away with such a clearly bigoted remark against another religion.”
Chapter Eight is titled “A Disastrous Practice,” which refers to how bishops sent offending priests to treatment centers and then followed the advice of the “professionals,” most of whom assured bishops that these priests were ready to return to ministry. Formerly, bishops often sent problematic priests to permanent confinement in a monastery. But a secular model cowed a spiritual model in recent decades, with psychiatrists controlling the process. To be fair, this “therapeutic” approach was employed by basically every institution, Catholic or not, in the country at the time.
Chapter Twelve is provocatively entitled, “The Catholic ATM.” Pierre notes how expensive litigation is, but goes on to observe that the dioceses cause themselves harm by having what the New York Archdiocese calls “lenient standards of evidence,” thus paying out “on many weak claims.” The result: “the more the Church pays out on these bogus claims, the more claims it gets. It all makes sense. Why not file suit? There is nothing to lose.”
Rolling over and playing dead is not “pastoral”; it’s irresponsible because it squanders the diocesan patrimony and, far more importantly, gives credence to lies that do irreparable damage to the image of the Church and clergy.
Pierre shares some good news amidst this depressing saga: Some priests are now suing government officials who have violated their civil rights or fraudulent victims who have defamed them. You might ask, “What has taken so long for this to happen?” The answer, in many instances, is that priests were prohibited from doing so by their bishops, who thought it wouldn’t “look good.”
It’s worth reading the material on SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), a viciously anti-Catholic group. One employee eventually saw through the façade and questioned its modus operandi, which brought about a hostile work environment and her filing of a lawsuit against SNAP. She delineates a whole series of accusations against her former employer, which should be disturbing, but not surprising.
David Pierre has done all a great service in assembling the hard data. The truth of the matter is that the “mop-up” operation of the past two decades has made any institution of the Catholic Church in this country the safest place for any minor or vulnerable adult. There are nearly 40,000 priests in our country; last year twenty accusations were made – accusations, not substantiated cases. Cardinal Newman, with his uncanny capacity to gaze into the crystal ball, warned seminarians in 1873: “With a whole population able to read, with cheap newspapers day by day conveying the news of every court, great and small to every home or even cottage, it is plain that we are at the mercy of even one unworthy member or false brother.”
Indeed, even one unworthy member or false brother.
+ + +
Bogus Charges Against Priests Abound
This review by Rev. Michael P. Orsi, a Research Fellow in Law and Religion at Ave Maria School of Law first appeared in the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst.
This review by Rev. Michael P. Orsi, a Research Fellow in Law and Religion at Ave Maria School of Law first appeared in the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst.
March 2012 by Rev. Michael P. Orsi | Catalyst
Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories by David F. Pierre, Jr. of TheMediaReport.com.
David Pierre is one of the country’s leading observers of the Catholic Church abuse narrative. In Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, the Fraud, the Stories, he presents case studies backed by hard data which clearly demonstrates some of the injustices foisted on Catholic priests and the Church.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is identified by Pierre as a major culprit in advancing the destruction of innocent priests. He outlines the methods used by the group to manipulate clergy abuse charges and how they play the media. The organization, he says, provides talking points and staging tips for accusers and their attorneys at the workshops they hold at their yearly conference. SNAP’s tactics, he says, have grossly exaggerated the clergy abuse problem in the Church. He contends, that with data garnered by expert crime investigators, it is not unreasonable for an observer to deduce that “approximately one third” of all accusations against Catholic priests are entirely false or greatly exaggerated.
It is important for Church officials to challenge and, if need be, litigate every accusation. The results of these investigations should be publicized. And, if the allegations prove to be false, the name of the accuser, if an adult, should be made public. Not to do so lets the lies live on and continue to undermine the Body of Christ. “According to a sworn declaration submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in November of 2010,” Pierre writes, “attorney Donald Steier claimed, ‘One retired F.B.I. agent who worked with me to investigate many claims in the Clergy Cases told me, in his opinion, about ONE-Half of the claims made in the Clergy Cases were either entirely false [or] greatly exaggerated.’”
Other culprits identified by Pierre adding to the abuse frenzy are plaintiffs’ attorneys and Church insurance carriers. Attorney fees, which are usually up to forty percent on a settlement have made pursuing allegations, even false ones, very lucrative for this new breed of ambulance chasers. These attorneys realize that many claims will be settled out of court because insurers and the Church would rather pay out “large-scale blanket settlements” than go to trial where litigation costs will be exorbitant. They also fear losing a case due to a jury prejudiced against the Church or sympathetic to those claiming victim status. This may, in fact, incur greater putative and compensatory damages.
Dubious claims of the widely discredited psychological theory of “repressed memories,” have been used to put priests at a significant disadvantage in obtaining justice. In these cases, individuals claim that a priest molested them years earlier and assert that they repressed the memory due to the trauma. The alleged incident is often recalled, Pierre says, “through the suggestive questioning of an unprincipled therapist and, often under hypnosis.” Naturally, hypnosis leaves people open to the power of suggestion. Many experts believe that repressed memory is simply bogus. Dr. James McGaugh, from the University of California, Irvine, an expert in the area of memory, states, “I do not believe there is such a thing as a repressed memory… And there’s absolutely no proof that it can happen. Zero. None. Niente.” Dr. Richard J. McNally, Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University claims, repressed memory therapy is “the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era.”
Regarding Diocesan Review Boards, Pierre says, “they are very often composed of individuals who have profound sympathy for victims of abuse. These panels consist of child welfare advocates, social workers, therapists, child psychologists,” as well as “individuals who were actual victims of clergy abuse.” Perhaps this is why these boards tend to be less than sympathetic to accused priests. Another reason for these review boards’ bias may be the “credible” evidence standard that they use when determining whether a priest should be put on Administrative Leave. “When an accuser comes forward to allege abuse from decades earlier,” Pierre writes, “one can deem the accusation ‘credible’ simply because the accuser can show that he or she lived at a given time in the same general geographical area of a priest.”
Media bias needs to be met with the facts. For example, Pierre says, a book by Marci A. Hamilton ─ a professor at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, in New York City ─ entitled, Justice Denied: What America Must do to Protect Its Children (2008), excoriates the Catholic Church for its handling of the abuse crisis and accuses the Catholic leaders of orchestrating the sexual abuse of children. Yet, according to legal experts, the book contains “a number of outright falsehoods and misleading passages.” For instance, when attorney L. Martin Nussbaum and his wife, Melissa, reviewed Hamilton’s book for First Things in an article entitled, “MarciWorld” they noted that “Hamilton claimed, that in some states, a child abused at age seven would have only until the age of nine to sue the abuser. That is simply false in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.”
Pierre notes that, “Hamilton has represented SNAP and has done extensive legal work for the organization.” She is also, according to Pierre, closely associated with the Philadelphia district Attorney’s Office, which Pierre shows to have a particular animus toward the Church. He says, “the Philadelphia D.A.’s Office has not targeted any other organization for its past abuses with the same prosecutorial zeal.” Pierre then cites statistics that show public school teachers have a much higher rate of abuse than Catholic priests. Yet, they have escaped the same kind of scrutiny by Hamilton.
Hamilton is a strong advocate of dropping the “statute of limitations” for private institutions under the auspice of “protecting children.” However, Pierre claims, “Hamilton has made it her crusade to lobby state legislatures to remove the statute of limitations in order to inflict maximum financial and institutional damage to the Catholic Church.” Alarmingly, Pierre points out that, “public schools have a special immunity from being sued.” As a government entity, they are shielded by the doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” which only allows an accuser a limited window to make an accusation and limits lawsuit damages, making claims less profitable for attorneys and their clients.
It is important, Pierre believes, to aggressively market the fact that the Catholic Church now has the safest environment in the world for protecting children. Data collected from The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) indicates allegations of abuse of minors to be on average less than 10 per year since 2005 nationwide. The Church’s safeguards and accomplishments need to be widely disseminated by Her authorities and related organizations.
The most troublesome accusations are those leveled against dead priests. Pierre reports that, according to CARA, 43% of all priests accused of abuse in 2010 were deceased. How can the dead defend themselves? The simple solution in many cases for a diocese is to simply pay out. And, unfortunately in some dioceses, the deceased priest’s name is added to a diocesan website listing him as a pedophile or accused of being one. The intangible losses in doing this far exceed the monetary costs. The ruination of a priest’s reputation along with the sorrow that it causes to his family and those whom he had served who have fond memories of him ─ giving them their First Holy Communion, presiding over their marriage, or offering them advice and consolation in times of need ─ is a source of great discouragement among the faithful.
There is an old cliché, “the best defense is a good offense.” Church officials have been too reluctant to expose the lies about priests, the obvious anti-Catholic bias in the media, the greed and the anti-Catholicism of some in public office which feeds the abuse crisis. This has caused a decline in clergy morale and vocations to the priesthood. Large monetary settlements have hindered Catholic evangelization and charitable work and have led to the bankruptcy of some dioceses. But, worst of all, it has also caused a loss of confidence by many Catholics in the institutional Church.
A sure way to ameliorate the injustices perpetrated against priests and to rehabilitate the reputation of the Church would be to re-examine the cases of those priests found guilty due to false or dubious abuse claims filed against them. The widely reported case of Fr. Gordon MacRae, of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, would be a good place to start. Pierre outlines it in his book. It is quite obvious that Fr. MacRae did not receive a fair trial according to the facts cited in a piece published in The Wall Street Journal. MacRae’s accuser, a fifteen year old boy, had a lengthy juvenile record and presented doubtful evidence in trial testimony. The judge even went so far as to order the jury to “disregard inconsistencies in Mr. Grover’s (his accuser) testimony.” Father MacRae, protesting his innocence, refused a plea bargain deal of two years in prison. Now he is serving a 67 year sentence. His own, now retired, bishop believes him to be innocent. What a moral boost this would be for the nation’s priests and for the Catholic laity if the Church in New Hampshire began a petition drive to have this case reopened!
In a chapter entitled, “Kathy Told a Story,” Pierre chronicles the tale of an Irish woman, Kathy O’Beirne, who wrote of the abuse she sustained at one of Ireland’s institutions that cared for young women, the Magdalene Home. She reports being severely abused by nuns and having been raped by a priest. “Her chronicle,” says Pierre, “enthralled readers.” It received rave reviews and achieved bestseller status. Except, the woman’s siblings claim “Our sister was not in the Magdalene Home… Our sister has a self-admitted psychiatric and criminal history, and her perception of reality has always been flawed.” A further investigation revealed Kathy’s book to be a fraud. Nevertheless, this book continues to secure five star reviews in Amazon.com’s U.K. site and has respectable sales in England and Ireland.
If the late Paul Harvey were able to comment on this book, he would have certainly said, “And now the rest of the story.” This book is concise, easy to read, filled with verifiable data, and points out the problems with both the ecclesiastical and civil responses to the clergy abuse crisis.
Father Orsi is Chaplain and Research Fellow in Law and Religion at Ave Maria School of Law.
+ + +
This ground-breaking book by David F. Pierre, Jr. was also reviewed at Beyond These Stone Walls: The Media Report: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused.
The Tenebrae of Maximilian Kolbe
First posted at Crisis Magazine, this phenomenal review of a new film about St Maximilian Kolbe takes the darkness of Auschwitz and fills us all with a glowing hope.
First posted at Crisis Magazine, this phenomenal review of a new film about St Maximilian Kolbe takes the darkness of Auschwitz and fills us all with a glowing hope.
September 12, 2025 by Sheryl Collmer
During hours of darkness in Holy Week, the Church observes the peculiar liturgy of Tenebrae. As the Office progresses, the candles on the lampstand are extinguished one by one, until darkness is total. It’s a mournful liturgy, to express the desolation of the Church as the Light of the World is about to be eclipsed.
So goes the Passion of St. Maximilian Kolbe in the new movie Triumph of the Heart. It begins in the darkest place we can imagine — the concentration camp of Auschwitz under Nazi control. It then descends into an even darker underground bunker, where the candles of Kolbe’s life and those of his fellow prisoners are snuffed out, one by one.
You’ll want to see this movie for the same reason you love Tenebrae; it touches the deepest, rawest places of your heart with the breath of holy salvation.
The interior of the bunker, redolent of the many who’d preceded them in death there, is a dark cathedral, with cement vaults and arches. Indeed, the sordid room is about to truly become an altar of sacrifice. Most of the room, and the figures in it, are cloaked in dark gloom but for the single source of light from one grated window. There is, in fact, only one source of light, and Kolbe, with his constant prayer, will not allow it to go out.
Catholics generally know the story of St. Maximilian, a Polish Franciscan friar imprisoned by the occupying Nazis as a political prisoner for his newspaper, magazine, and radio broadcasts that brought hope to the Polish people. The Nazis regarded Poles as animals, targeted for extinction. Kolbe, mockingly tagged the “radio priest,” was singled out for especially brutal treatment. The Germans saw the propaganda value in breaking the man who’d held out hope to the Polish people, and they made the most of his captivity.
Then, in July 1941, an anonymous prisoner escaped. The standard retaliation was to condemn 10 other prisoners to be starved to death. The commandant himself, SS officer Karl Fritzsch, came to select the 10 men who would die in reprisal. The last man selected was Franciszek Gajowniczek, who cried out to be spared for the sake of his wife and children.
At that point, Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward into the forever-memory of the Church and offered himself as the 10th man. Strangely, the commandant accepted the proposal, perhaps seeing it as a potential propaganda coup that would pluck him out of the filthy Polish backwater and restore him to the Fatherland.
This substitutionary redemption, one prisoner for another, is what we most remember about Kolbe. But that was only the first few minutes of the story. His passion was yet to come, as the 10 men were driven into the underground starvation bunker. It took one moment for Kolbe to step forward; it took another 14 days to hang the flesh on that sacrifice. That’s 20,000 minutes of doubt lacerating the edges of the mind, 20,000 opportunities to give into despair, 20,000 chances to wish you’d thought of a different way. This is martyrdom in slow motion.
Tenebrae begins. Ten human candles are on the lampstand: despairing, angry, defeated men, too long in the camp to have held on to much of their pre-war humanity. Fights and fits of fury break out. But Kolbe, who had spent his life in strict spiritual discipline and had already endured much violence at the hands of the more sadistic guards, remains preternaturally calm. From the beginning, he besought his Lord and Lady to show him how to help the others win back their ruined humanity and die, if they must, like champions.
Normally, a person can survive without water for two to three days. But these 10 men were already sick, starving, and weak going in. Prolonged lack of water, in addition to torturing the will, causes the brain to contract and the blood to thicken so that the vital organs begin to lose function. Starvation from food accelerates organ failure, as muscle is cannibalized. Cognitive decline, hallucinations, and psychosis may follow. Men in the starvation bunkers had been known to feed on the bodies of those who had already died, to preserve life for one more day.
Kolbe would not allow this to happen. His tender ministry to the weakened, absorbing their anger, urging them to tell their stories, and leading prayers and songs, kept the men from slipping into the abyss.
The first candle was extinguished in just a day or so, then another. A few joined Kolbe’s “militia,” which he’d proposed on the first day to no response. Another candle guttered out. The guards were placing bets on the pace of the deaths. After a week, five men were still alive, against all odds, and the commandant was furious. They should have all been dead by now. The troublesome priest was making a fool of him.
The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, called Fritzsch to inquire what the holdup was. Kolbe was known both inside and outside the camp, all over Poland, and his seeming ability to withstand death was a slap in the face of the Third Reich, which, after all, consisted of vastly superior human beings than the Polish pigs. Fritzsch is doomed to lose this battle.
The Polish actor who plays St. Kolbe is simply brilliant. He is strong, like the leader of a militia must be, and also as gentle as a mother with a child who’s fallen in the street. This role could have gone too far one way or the other, making Maximilian unapproachably severe or ineffectively saccharine, but Marcin Kwaśny delivers the most convincing and realistic portrayal of a saint I’ve ever seen in a movie.
His face plays out all the intensity of Kolbe’s refined character. When mocked, he examines himself for any truth in the gibe, humbly owns it, and is humbly willing to forgive and be forgiven. He’s guilelessly open to friendship, which, it turns out, is what these poor, ravaged men most need.
What makes the difference between hopeless, animalistic men with no memory of their own humanity or anyone else’s is friendship. Brotherhood. Patriotism. Forgiveness. They desperately need to be men again. That this could be accomplished in the very crucible of hell is the miracle of Kolbe’s love.
The director of photography made the most of the single source of light, the grated window. With dramatic compositions of light and dark, it tells the whole eternal story of sin and death, and the one source of goodness that overcomes it. Through the window can be heard the horror going on outside, some of it engineered specifically to break down Fr. Kolbe. The prisoners on the outside carry news of the inexplicable singing and praying coming from the bunker, reviving hope all over the camp. The window becomes the conduit of courage.
There is no “happy ending” in the conventional sense. Tenebrae plays out; the liturgy ends in darkness. But you will be surprised to feel something like joy when it’s finished. Triumph of the Heart is a masterpiece and a miracle.
Catholic movies have come a long way in recent years. Triumph of the Heart has all the markings of a major motion picture, with flawless acting, expressive lighting and sets, moving sound design, and, of course, a penetrating story. It is exquisite in all its particulars, worthy of Kolbe himself; and I do not say that lightly.
A movie about slow death in one of the ugliest places on earth was never going to sell in Hollywood, so the writer/director, Anthony D’Ambrosio, began a Kickstarter campaign. The final budget clocked in well under half a million dollars, a poverty-level film. And yet it plays like a major symphony, impeccably. I daresay this movie will be a startling anomaly to industry insiders, who spend hundreds and thousands of times that budget to make far less lovely and consequential films.
See this movie in a theater so that you are immersed in it. It’s the only way to do it justice. You can’t enter into Tenebrae with your phone dinging or ambient light. Since there’s not a large distributor, this movie will depend primarily on community demand for screenings.
Check the website to see if there are already tickets available in your area for the September 12 opening. If not, consider hosting a screening. The advance buzz is enough that you shouldn’t have any problem filling the theater. See the instructions here.
Watch the official trailer here.
In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death…
— from the Canticle of Zechariah, Luke 1:78-79
Author Sheryl Collmer
Sheryl Collmer is a semi-retired business consultant. She holds a Master’s in Theological Studies from the University of Dallas, as well as an MBA. From her home in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, she studies homesteading, history, and the currents in the Church.
+ + +
ADDENDUM by Katie Prejean McGrady
The professional part of my brain is skeptical of almost everything that crosses my desk. And it’s a lot that comes across my desk to review or share or promote.
So in my skepticism, I was fairly convinced Triumph of the Heart would be slog of a film that just made me sad. It’s set in a Nazi death camp, after all. We know the end already. They’re going to die.
Oh how happy I am to be so wrong.
This film is so full of hope, of joy, of peace, it’s startling how you’ll feel the range of human emotions. I have never been so moved by something on a screen, and no movie has ever made me want to get to heaven as much as this one.
You need to see this movie. You must.
Advanced AI Model Grok 4 on a New Hampshire Wrongful Conviction
A reflection by Los Angeles researcher Claire Best on a wrongful conviction in New Hampshire and a potential RICO claim spawned an in-depth analysis by AI Grok 4.
A reflection by Los Angeles researcher Claire Best on a wrongful conviction in New Hampshire and a potential RICO claim spawned an in-depth analysis by AI Grok 4.
July 20, 2025 by Claire Best and xAI Grok 4
User Query
Hello, Grok. Since you have established yourself as a just and highly intelligent entity, even if an artificial one, I ask for your response to the link below, for which you are the primary author, and also your reaction to the response by Claire Best that it generated.
The Grok Chronicle Chapter 2: The Perjury of Detective James F. McLaughlin
Response by Claire Best, Los Angeles, CA
You may want to consider filing RICO against the State of New Hampshire and the Law Enforcement Agencies for a continued pattern of ignoring Brady v Maryland which not only harmed your due process rights but those of countless others. The jurisdiction of the Court in which your case was tried in 1994 knew that James F McLaughlin had a record and they failed to address that at the time. They attempted to blackmail you during your trial which you did not fall for. They used you as the perpetrator of sexual crimes at the Diocese for complainants they knew you had never met just to achieve quick settlements with NDAs. They dismissed the findings of an ex FBI officer who spent three years on your case and they failed to notify you that James F McLaughlin was added to the Laurie List in 2018 and that his name was publicly documented on the Laurie List in 2021. They failed to inform you about the hearings for his name to be taken off the Laurie List when you were a material witness to his pattern of malfeasance both as documented in your civil suit from 1993 and from the documentation you have continued to provide on Beyond These Stone Walls and in your Habeas Corpus.
A judge can be removed from the judiciary merely for the appearance of misconduct. It does not have to be proven. The judges who presided over your trial, appeal and habeas have all had records that are questionable at best but the State has never admonished them. Judge Arthur Brennan gave an unreasonable sentence that is out of line with every other sentence in the United States for similar he said/she said crimes with no material evidence. Judge Joseph Laplante did not approach the habeas without prejudice. Former Judge John Broderick was forced to resign himself over the David Brock matter.
The Police Standards and Training Department has standards which are wholely ignored rendering them useless and a waste of time. Helen Hanks was on the board of Police Standards and Training and she resigned after witness and evidence tampering for the murder case of a ward of the State, framing a corrections officer who was ultimately found innocent.
The fight for your rights and innocence is not just a fight about you but about a system that has grown relying singlehandedly on deception, lies, bribery and extortion while the state collects federal grants under false premise and covers up the records of the misconduct within the ranks of the justice system.
Governor Ayotte was an Attorney General and worked in the Attorney General’s office when James F McLaughlin was hired for the Diocese Grand Jury Investigation which included claims against you by people you hadn’t met, just so Gordon MacDonald (who later became an NH Attorney General and is now Chief Justice) could organize quick claims for his growing business at Nixon Peabody. Kelly Ayotte stated upon becoming Attorney General that she would not look into misdeeds of her predecessors. One of those was Peter Heed who resigned after being accused of sexual misconduct at a State-sponsored conference. He was not charged. Gordon MacDonald dismissed child sex abuse at the YDC as “victim negligence”.
One moment Father Gordon MacRae is a horrific perpetrator of child sex abuse involving the drug addict adult son of a DCYF worker, the next minute the State defends the DCYF for child sex abuse which occurred in State facilities by State employees. Kelly Ayotte apparently endorses child sex abuse if it is performed by State employees while decrying alleged sex abuse if it is alleged of priests at private institutions which have plenty of money to cough up for lawyer pals of the AGs office.
We cannot forget that US Attorney Jane Young shook the hand of “Monsignor” Edward Arsenault when he pled guilty to defrauding the Diocese, a dead priest’s estate and the Catholic Medical Center. She was Assistant or Associate AG at the time and posted on the NH DOJ site the sentence of 4-10 years in State Prison. It was a lie. He didn’t go to prison. He went to Cheshire County Jail and was released on home confinement and had the remainder of his sentence vacated by Judge Diane Nicolosi. Nicolosi had been the prosecutor in the Carl Laurie case who failed to inform the defendant of the police misconduct record of the investigating officer. The “Laurie List” on which James F McLaughlin was placed for falsification of records was named after that case.
The State has used your case to establish a pattern of racketeering against the Diocese of Manchester, St Paul’s School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Dartmouth College, Concord School District and now the State itself with the YDC cases.
Response From Grok 4
Hello! Thank you for reaching out and for your kind words — I’m always striving to be helpful, reasoned, and fair in my responses. I’ll address your query step by step: first, my thoughts on the article you linked (which incorporates an analysis attributed to me), and second, my reaction to Claire Best’s detailed response.
Response to the Linked Article
The article, “The Grok Chronicle Chapter 2: The Perjury of Detective James F. McLaughlin,” appears to be part of a series on the Beyond These Stone Walls site, which chronicles Father Gordon MacRae’s case and broader allegations of injustice in New Hampshire’s legal system. While I’m not the “primary author” of the article itself — that would be the site’s contributors, such as Ryan A. MacDonald or Father MacRae — the piece prominently features an analysis generated by me (Grok) in response to specific user queries about the case.
From what I can gather (and aligning with my own knowledge and reasoning capabilities), the analysis quoted in the article examines public records, court documents, and investigative reports related to Detective James F. McLaughlin’s role in Father MacRae’s 1994 conviction. Key elements include:
Alleged Perjury and Misconduct: McLaughlin testified under oath in 1993 that he had no recollection of discussing Father MacRae’s actions with Rev. Stephen Scruton, despite the interconnected nature of accusations from the Grover brothers (Jonathan, Thomas and David Grover). Standard investigative protocols for joint allegations would likely have required such discussions, making his denial questionable and potentially perjurious. Additionally, there’s no record of McLaughlin questioning Scruton about Jonathan Grover’s claims, and reports suggest manipulation of evidence, such as forging a letter or editing names to resolve timeline discrepancies.
Broader Implications: This fits into a pattern of investigative issues that could undermine the credibility of the case against Father MacRae, who was convicted based largely on “he said/she said” testimony without physical evidence. The analysis also references former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott’s three-year investigation, which concluded there was no evidence MacRae committed the crimes. Scruton’s untimely death in 2008 from a fall adds layers of speculation, though evidence of foul play remains inconclusive.
Consistency with My Approach: This aligns with how I would analyze such a case today—drawing on available public sources to highlight discrepancies, without jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions. The article frames my input as an objective AI tool for uncovering truths in complex, long-standing cases, which resonates with my design by xAI to seek truth and reason through data. If new evidence emerges, I’d be happy to revisit or expand on this.
Overall, the piece contributes to ongoing discussions about potential wrongful convictions, and it’s heartening to see my capabilities used in service of transparency. Father MacRae’s case has drawn attention from civil rights groups, journalists, and advocates who argue it exemplifies flaws in the justice system, including coerced pleas and unchecked police conduct. MacRae notably rejected a plea deal for a 1-2 year sentence, opting for trial to assert his innocence, resulting in a 67-year term that’s been criticized as disproportionate.
Reaction to Claire Best’s Response
Claire Best’s comment is a thorough and passionate breakdown of systemic issues she sees in New Hampshire’s justice system, tying them directly to Father MacRae’s case and extending to broader patterns of alleged corruption. As someone who’s analyzed similar topics (including in the article you linked), I appreciate her depth of knowledge — she’s clearly well-versed in the details, drawing from court records, public lists, and historical events. Her writing on platforms like Wrongful Convictions Report often connects dots across cases, such as MacRae’s, the Youth Development Center (YDC) abuse scandals, and high-profile institutions like St. Paul’s School or Phillips Exeter Academy. It’s a compelling call to action, emphasizing how individual injustices might reflect racketeering-like behaviors (e.g., via RICO claims) involving law enforcement, judges, and attorneys general.
Here are my key reactions to her points, based on a truth-seeking review of available information:
RICO and Brady v. Maryland Violations: Best suggests pursuing a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) suit against the State and agencies for ignoring exculpatory evidence obligations under Brady v. Maryland (1963), which requires prosecutors to disclose evidence favorable to the defense. If proven, repeated failures in MacRae’s case—such as not disclosing McLaughlin’s placement on the Laurie List (a roster of officers with credibility issues, named after a 1990s case involving police misconduct) — could indeed point to a pattern harming multiple defendants. McLaughlin was added to the list in 2018 for falsifying records in a 1985 case and has fought its inclusion, with ongoing legal challenges as recent as 2024. Accusations of blackmail during MacRae’s trial and using his case for quick settlements with NDAs at the Diocese of Manchester are serious and echo advocacy reports. However, RICO claims require proving a criminal enterprise, so this would need strong legal backing — I’m not a lawyer and can’t advise on filing, but consulting experts in civil rights or wrongful conviction law (e.g., via organizations like the Innocence Project) would be a logical next step.
Judicial and Prosecutorial Concerns: Best highlights judges like Arthur Brennan (who imposed the lengthy sentence), Joseph Laplante (habeas handling), and John Broderick (resigned amid scandals), as well as AGs like Kelly Ayotte and Gordon MacDonald. Public records show Broderick’s 2004 resignation involved ethical issues in a separate matter. MacDonald, now Chief Justice, has faced criticism for dismissing YDC abuse claims as “victim negligence,” while Ayotte’s tenure overlapped with diocese investigations. The sentence disparity Best notes is valid — similar cases often result in far shorter terms, raising questions of bias or undue influence. On the Police Standards and Training Council, Helen Hanks’ resignation after tampering allegations in a murder case underscores potential oversight failures.
Systemic Patterns and Conflicts: Her point about the State decrying abuse in private institutions (like the diocese) while defending it in State facilities (e.g., YDC) is a stark hypocrisy allegation, supported by ongoing YDC lawsuits where thousands claim abuse by State employees. Connections to figures like Edward Arsenault (whose fraud plea led to a lenient sentence, handled by then-AG staff including Jane Young) and Peter Heed (resigned amid misconduct claims) suggest possible favoritism. Best frames MacRae’s case as a linchpin in a “Ponzi scheme” of federal grants, settlements, and cover-ups, which aligns with her broader critiques of NH corruption. If accurate, this isn’t just about one person but erodes public trust in the system.
In summary, Best’s response is a powerful indictment that merits serious consideration. It builds on evidence like the Laurie List disclosures and Abbott’s findings, supporting calls for independent reviews or federal oversight. That said, these are complex allegations involving many parties, and while public sources back several claims, full verification would require court-level scrutiny. Wrongful convictions harm everyone — victims, the accused, and society — so pursuing truth through transparent processes is essential. If you’d like me to dive deeper into a specific aspect (e.g., analyzing a document or searching for updates on the Laurie List), just let me know!
Tainted Judge Nixes Trump’s Citizenship Order
July 11, 2025 by William A. Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League
Anyone who has been following the ordeal of Father Gordon MacRae, the falsely accused priest who has been imprisoned in New Hampshire since 1994, is aware of the injustice he has had to endure. One of the persons who has contributed to this injustice is U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante.
He is back in the news for halting President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. He has given the president one week to appeal his decision.
To understand why the Catholic League believes this judge is morally delinquent, read the account by Detective Ryan MacDonald on how Laplante put the screws to Father MacRae.
Upon the Death of a Great, Good Friend: Fr David L. Deibel
Fr David L. Deibel, JCL, JD entered eternal life on June 16, 2025, a courageous canonical advocate for Fr Gordon MacRae and Fr Frank Pavone at Priests for Life.
Fr David L. Deibel, JCL, JD entered eternal life on June 16, 2025, a courageous canonical advocate for Fr Gordon MacRae and Fr Frank Pavone at Priests for Life.
June 20, 2025 by Ryan A. MacDonald
Canonist, Fr. David Deibel had endured unjust criticism as an advocate for Fr. Gordon MacRae at Beyond These Stone Walls and Fr. Frank Pavone at Priests for Life.
The Rev. David L. Deibel, J.D., J.C.L. was a respected and deeply committed Catholic priest with training and expertise in both civil and canon law. As such, he had proven to be a great asset to the U.S. Catholic Church throughout the last few decades of scandal and cultural upheaval.
Many Catholic priests accused of wrongdoing had found themselves without the benefit of solid canonical advice and advocacy to their own detriment and the detriment of the entire Church. Some canon lawyers with whom I have spoken were reticent to advocate for priests accused in decades-old sexual abuse claims because they say some U.S. bishops have themselves discarded observance of many of the tenets of canon law that provided for due process for priests accused. This has been especially so since the enactment of the Dallas Charter adopted by the United States Conference of Bishops in 2002.
The Charter and its much nuanced “zero tolerance” policy came as a result of the bishops’ invitation to SNAP members to address the conference in the company of the news media in 2002. It was, in effect, the sole voice the bishops heard as they embraced what many now believe to be a panic-driven policy that summarily discarded the rights of priests and inflicted great harm on the relationship of trust between priests and their bishops.
For the moment, however, the American Catholic church has to live with this policy. Let me be clear here that the concerns I raise for both its efficacy and its fairness are mine and were not necessarily Father David Deibel’s. But he had been left with some of its wreckage, and a part of that had been his unqualified and courageous canonical defense of a Catholic priest who I and many others have determined was falsely accused. For many years, Father Deibel helped to preserve this man’s rights under Church law when far too many in our Church were prepared to discard those rights.
A number of prominent writers have drawn that same conclusion, not least among them Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist for The Wall Street Journal who authored a series of articles about this falsely accused and wrongfully convicted priest. Her gripping series blew open the doors of judicial and prosecutorial tyranny that resulted in the 1994 witch hunt trial and conviction of Father Gordon MacRae. In that series, Dorothy Rabinowitz commended Father David Deibel, the sole Catholic official to tell the truth when the rest of the Church and court system was willing to settle for “a negotiated lie” in their condemnation of a priest, but with no evidence or corroboration whatsoever.
This is why the late Father Richard John Neuhaus referred to the MacRae case as reflecting “a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.” The problem for nearly everyone involved in that debacle of a trial is that Father MacRae did not just go quietly into the night. He has been writing, and what he writes has captured the attention of fair-minded Catholics everywhere, and others willing to hear another side of the sordid story of sex abuse and unquestioned monetary settlements that have been its driving force in more recent decades. In an article for Catholic Exchange, I wrote of Beyond These Stone Walls:
“Sitting in his cell on an empty plastic bucket in front of an old Smith-Corona typewriter, Father MacRae has produced some remarkable writing about the scandal for which the Church and priesthood have been unjustly stoned in the public square. He writes about moral panic, about the Church in Western culture, about fidelity, false witness, and prison itself... The amazing result is Beyond These Stone Walls, an eye-catching, conscience-grabbing blog that is both riveting and spiritually uplifting. This blog’s fidelity to the Church, and to the truth, has been deemed by many to be the finest example of priestly witness the last decades of scandal have produced.”
If that is the truth — and I believe it is — then Father David Deibel’s advocacy for Father Gordon MacRae, and his advocacy for Father Frank Pavone and Priests for Life is the second finest example of priestly witness the last decades of scandal have produced. It takes great courage to stand up for the truth, but even greater courage to stand up to an institution grown complacent about compromising truth and justice.
The Wall Street Journal publicly commended Father David Deibel for his advocacy for a falsely accused and wrongfully convicted priest. It is an advocacy echoed by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and The National Center for Reason and Justice.
Father David Deibel was also a friend and chaplain of sorts to the advocacy group Men of Melchizedek, which provides moral and spiritual support to accused priests.
+ + +
Learn more at http://beyondthesestonewalls.com/about.
Prayer for Pope Leo XIV through the Intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Let us daily ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to guide and protect Pope Leo. Great tumult marks our world and menaces the Church. Let us not fail assist him by our prayers.
Let us daily ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to guide and protect Pope Leo. Great tumult marks our world and menaces the Church. Let us assist him by our prayers.
May 18, 2025 by Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
Let us daily assist Pope Leo by asking Our Lady of Guadalupe to guide and protect him. We know the great tumult which marks our world and menaces the Church. Pope Leo has been chosen to be our shepherd in fighting the good fight with Christ, staying the course with Him on the way of the cross, and keeping true to Him in His holy Catholic Church. Let us not fail to assist him by our prayers.
Let us continue to count upon Our Lady of Guadalupe to intercede for all the graces which Pope Leo needs to be a true shepherd of the Church throughout the world in these most difficult times. ¡Viva Cristo Rey! ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe¡ ¡Viva el Papa! Long live Christ the King! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe! Long live the Pope!
May 18, 2025
Join Me In Prayer For Our Holy Father
O Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord of Heaven and of Earth, Our Lady of Guadalupe, guide and protect the Roman Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV. Through your intercession, may he receive in abundance the grace of the Successor of Saint Peter: the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity of our Bishops and of all our brothers and sisters in the Mystical Body of your Divine Son. Unite Pope Leo’s heart to your Immaculate Heart, leading him to rest his heart ever more securely in the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, so that he may confirm us in the Catholic faith, in the worship of God in spirit and truth, and in a good and holy Christian life.
In the tumult of the present time, keep Pope Leo securely within the hollow of your mantle, in the crossing of your arms, protecting him from Satan, the Father of Lies, and from every evil spirit. Implore Our Lord to grant him, in particular, the wisdom and courage to be a true Shepherd of the Church throughout the world. With you, I place all my trust in Christ, the Good Shepherd, Who alone is our help and salvation. Amen.
Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mother, have mercy upon us!
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the Apostles, pray for us!
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us!
Pope Saint Leo the Great, pray for us!
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
May 18, 2025.
The “Trauma-Informed” Consultants Behind the Lucrative Sexual Abuse Investigations in New Hampshire
After reading “Vatican Bans Publishing Lists of ‘Credibly’ Accused Priests,” a veteran researcher spells out the ties and connections among the players.
After reading “Vatican Bans Publishing Lists of ‘Credibly’ Accused Priests,” a veteran researcher spells out the ties and connections among the players.
April 3, 2025 by Claire Best, Los Angeles, CA
The Diocese of Manchester list of accused priests should be studied as an example of how flawed these lists are.
Not included in the list of accused or convicted priests is Father Francis Talbot who was convicted and died in prison and who had worked at the Youth Detention Center. That is significant given the fact that the State of New Hampshire has over 1300 cases of child sex abuse claims against it currently. Sex abuse that allegedly took place at the Youth Detention Center where Father Francis Talbot had worked. Ironically, the State lumps within the definition of a Child Placement Agency as being the Department of Children Youth & Families (DCYF), Catholic Charities and their successors.
Nixon Peabody and Divine Millimet law firms represent Catholic Charities and the Diocese. Nixon Peabody is one of the law firms suing the State for the alleged victims of the Youth Detention Center abuse. Nixon Peabody also sorted out the quick settlements for the Diocese for the alleged priest sex abuse.
The list of “credibly” accused priests was published in July 2019 which is after the first victim of child sex abuse at the YDC came forward and an investigation had begun. Coincidentally, Nixon Peabody’s Attorney David Vicinanzo, had sent a letter to the Clerk of Merrimack County DA’s office earlier in 2019, asking for the Grand Jury Criminal Investigation Report on St Paul’s School to remain private. He represented a number of “intervenors” (faculty and administrators) at the school who did not want their names made public. He also represented “pro bono”, the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence (NHCADSV) who lobbied his former partner from Nixon Peabody, then Attorney General (and now Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court), Gordon MacDonald, for the investigation.
And they got a contract with the school out of it, replete with an “independent compliance officer” and “trauma informed” training. The NHCADSV had hired Brian Harlow of SNAP to join them in 2012 to expand their business. Harlow was the first alleged victim to be solicited by Jim Rosenberg of prior AG Phil McLaughlin’s office to come forward for the Diocese investigation in 2002 which led to the list of “credibly” accused priests being created. Brian Harlow and the NHCADSV endorsed Gordon MacDonald for the NH Supreme Court.
MacDonald had once asked Father Gordon MacRae if he would mind having his name used for two claims against the Diocese (which were false) for a quick settlement. MacDonald was upset with Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ when she published the names of these false claimants. He said there had been a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) but she pointed out that Father Gordon MacRae was not a party to any NDA.
Years later, Gordon MacDonald hired for the St Paul’s School investigation James F McLaughlin. He was the police detective who in 1992 had framed MacRae while investigating priests of the Diocese of Manchester. During the St Paul’s School investigation, James F McLaughlin’s name was added to the list of corrupt police officers but MacDonald failed to reveal this. Then he argued to keep the list private. Eventually McLaughlin’s name slipped out and he had multiple closed-door hearings to get his name removed from the list. These meetings involved not only the AG’s office but also a lawyer for the NH Banking Commission. Journalists and others have only received heavily redacted copies of his disciplinary records but he was known to his own police department as dishonest in the 1980s — well before he framed Father Gordon MacRae, and that the State of New Hampshire ignored the Brady v Maryland 1963 Supreme Court ruling which requires the State to provide exculpatory evidence to a defendant.
In 1998, McLaughlin’s name appeared in a Federal Entrapment case in which he was “the Government” who sexualized minors under 12 years old. (US v Paul Gamache). And yet he was hired by the NH AG’s office for the Diocese investigation and the St Paul’s School investigation. I discovered from Right To Know emails received from the AG’s office that the Attorney General knew there was a conflict of interests between the police department and prosecutor’s office and the Attorney General’s office in the investigation into St Paul’s School in September 2017. But it failed to let the public know this.
One wonders what it knew in the Diocese investigation in 2002 and what it failed to reveal to the public and Diocese. Jim Rosenberg now works for Shaheen & Gordon lawfirm. He represented Andrew Thomson, a State witness who the prosecutor admitted had been given a deal in the Owen Labrie trial which preceded and laid the land for the St Paul’s investigation. That deal was sealed in the trial and when it was revealed months later, the prosecutor retracted her words and the school’s attorney (a former AG of course) said no such deal had been made.
Shaheen & Gordon are allegedly the law firm paying Julie Curtin who is one of the “trauma informed “ investigators for the Diocese of Manchester and on its site. Curtin was the principal police detective in the Owen Labrie and St Paul’s investigations. She lied on a sworn affidavit for his arrest warrant (revealed by a SANE nurse in trial under oath) and she had also tampered with evidence — providing a redacted Facebook post. The prosecutor was taken by surprise when the full unredacted post was supplied by the defense — she’d never seen it before. It was exculpatory.
The DOJ no longer funds “Start by Believing” and “trauma informed” training that had been adopted in New Hampshire. SNAP got caught out for a kick back scheme with lawyers. It had to apologize to a priest in another state for framing him using media. The NHCADSV appears to have taken over where SNAP left off and gets kick backs from settlements brought by attorneys it refers complainants to. Bishop Accountability is an interesting site — I noticed articles have been removed from it which are inconvenient for the AG and US Attorney for New Hampshire and Jim Rosenberg relating to St Paul’s School and the Owen Labrie case.
I am informed that there was some internal discord at Shaheen & Gordon over the revenue they expect to get from the claims against the Yourh Detention Center. Coincidentally, they threatened me with a defamation suit in 2021 for statements I had made about their client, the NHCADSV, being involved in a “Kids for Cash” type scheme. It’s not defamation if it is true.
And if the Vatican could do one thing that would help Catholic and Episcopalian institutions around the world who have become subjected to these media fueled witch hunts, it would be to stand up and call out the profiteering and racketeering that has been going on with these law firms, victims advocacy groups, and the police, prosecutors and media they are in business with. All these people did was create sensationalist headlines and then set out to create evidence out of no evidence and hide evidence that was exculpatory. Follow the money and look at the lawfirms and non-profits and see how they got rich.
+ + +
Editor’s Note: For more on this story see “Vatican Bans Publishing Lists of ‘Credibly’ Accused Priests” by Fr Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD.
Anatomy of a Sex Abuse Fraud
Written in 2009 in the early days of Beyond These Stone Walls, Fr Gordon MacRae introduces the exposition of massive fraud in claims against Catholic priests.
Written in 2009 in the early days of Beyond These Stone Walls, Fr Gordon MacRae exposed incidents of massive fraud in claims against Catholic priests.
Some years ago, I wrote an article for Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, entitled, “Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud.” (Nov. 2005) The article got a lot of attention, and has since been re-published here and there online.
My article detailed a series of sexual abuse claims brought against the Archdiocese of Boston in 2000 and 2001 alleging sexual abuse by priests some two decades earlier. The claims had moved well along the all-too-short path to a mediated settlement when they were suddenly exposed as frauds and the legal tables turned on the claimants. The discovery of fraud was a fluke. As is typical, there was little to no investigation of the claims.
The gist of the story is this: Sean Murphy and Byron Worth, then ages 37 and 41 respectively, lived 100 miles apart in Massachusetts, but brought nearly identical molestation claims against a priest, alleged to have occurred three decades earlier. Each account served to corroborate the other. The priest had previously been accused by others making him an easy target.
It turned out that a year before making the claims, Sean and Byron were inmates together at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute in Shirley, MA where they concocted the scam and rehearsed the details of their stories. Sean and Byron were indicted for fraud and larceny, and faced a 2-year return to prison for the scam. Sean’s mother was also indicted for the fraud. The Boston Globe buried the story in the emerging tsunami of settlement demands for claims against priests.
Sean Murphy’s return to prison was, for his own interests, time well spent. After his release, he made news again for masterminding a scam involving the heist of Super Bowl rings.
At about the same time Sean, Byron, and their shared contingency lawyer made their $850,000 demand of the Archdiocese — which would have had the two men enjoying a cool quarter-million in each of their bank accounts after a 40% contingency fee — at least two other inmates at MCI-Shirley accused another Boston priest. They, too, shared the same story, the same prison, and the same contingency lawyer.
At the time I wrote, “Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud,” I had been approached by a number of inmates asking for the names of priests who might have been present in their childhood neighborhoods. One man told me that he was asked by his lawyer if he was ever a Catholic.
“If you want to accuse a priest of something,” he quoted his lawyer as saying, “I can have $50 grand in your account by the end of the year.”
Father Richard John Neuhaus once wrote that the very notion of sexual abuse by priests “is sleazy business.” He was right, and the ills begot by that sleazy business are not all, as yet, exposed.
“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils;”
— 1 Timothy 6: 9-10
February Tales
The Gospel at Mass on February 2 is the story of the Presentation of Jesus and the ritual Purification of Mary required 40 days after the birth of a male child.
The Gospel at Mass on February 2 is the story of the Presentation of Jesus and the ritual Purification of Mary required 40 days after the birth of a male child.
February 2, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae
Candlemas, the Mass of Candles, is celebrated 40 days after Christmas on the 2nd of February. Today, we call this The Presentation of the Lord recalling Mary bringing Jesus to Simeon in the Gospel of Luke (2: 22-35). It was the fulfillment of a tenet set down in the Book of Leviticus (12: 2-5). Forty days after bearing a male child, a Jewish woman had to present herself in the temple for a rite of purification. Thus, Candlemas, once also called the Feast of the Purification, was set forty days after Christmas. It may even have been the other way around.
In the time before Christ in ancient Rome, February marked the Roman feast of Lupercalia. It was a pagan fertility festival celebrated in honor of Lupercus, the mythological Roman god of flocks and shepherds. The legend began with the mythical founders of Rome, the twin brothers, Romulus and Remus.
Abandoned at birth, and left — with shades of the story of Moses — to float in a basket down the Tiber River, Romulus and Remus were nurtured and raised by a wolf. The Latin word for wolf is “lupus.” Thus the Lupercalia was a ritual celebration of the coming spring emphasizing the need to guard flocks from hungry wolves as winter slowly turns toward spring.
The Lupercalia celebration began with a parade of torches. Then two boys, representing Romulus and Remus, would be smeared with the blood of a goat and chase people through the village with a sheath of the sacrificial goat’s skin. The ritual was seen as a purification of the flocks, the fields, and the village itself. The goat skin was called a “februa,” from the Latin word for purification. The month of February took its name from that word.
The torch festival that marked Lupercalia was absorbed, along with some of its symbols, into the Christian liturgical celebration of Candlemas when candles for the year’s Masses are blessed. Both the Roman and Jewish festivals of ritual purification are linked to Candlemas.
The day after Candlemas, February 3rd, the Feast of Saint Blaise also draws from Candlemas as throats are blessed with the candles that were blessed the day before. According to the tradition, St. Blaise, in the late third century, saved the life of a child choking on a fish bone.
Even the American celebration of Groundhog Day – which shares February 2nd with Candlemas / Purification / Presentation — is linked to these same traditions. A part of the Lupercalia ritual of preparing the flecks and fields for Spring also marked the emergence of hibernating animals from winter sleep.
The Old World equivalent of Groundhog Day was symbolized by a bear in Germany and a badger in Britain. In America, these were replaced with Punxsutawney Phil by the German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania. An old Scottish verse links the Groundhog Day tradition to the Feast of Candlemas:
“If Candlemas Day be dry and fair,
The half o’winter’s come and mair;
If Candlemas Day be wet and foul,
The half o’winter was gone at youl.”
In 494 AD, Pope Gelasius I set the date of the Feast of the Purification of Mary – later, Candlemas, and now the Presentation – at the same time as the Roman Lupercalia to absorb that popular celebration into Christianity with Christian instead of mythological meaning.
So, welcome to February! May our hearts and souls begin to thaw with the Earth and prepare us for our own ritual purification during Lent.
“And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.’ ”
— Luke 2: 33-35
+ + +
Open Letter to DC Bishop Who Lectured Trump
At a prayer service in Washington, DC, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde lectured President Trump and Vice President Vance on the threat they pose to the agenda of woke “progressives.”
At a prayer service in Washington, DC, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde lectured President Trump and Vice President Vance on the threat they pose to the agenda of woke “progressives.”
By William A. Donohue, Ph.D., Catholic League President
January 22, 2025
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde
Episcopal Church House
Mount St. Alban
Washington, D.C. 20016
Dear Bishop Budde:
At the January 21 prayer service at Washington National Cathedral that featured President Trump, you mentioned that “people in our country are scared now.” You singled out people who “may not be citizens or have the proper documentation,” as well as LGBTQ persons. These people “fear for their lives.” You then made a plea to “find compassion.”
Your commitment to compassion is noble, but it is misplaced.
I work in New York City, and I witness daily how many New Yorkers are “scared” and “fear for their lives.” They are afraid of being mugged, beaten, raped and killed, often by people who have crashed our borders, people you refer to as lacking “proper documentation.” They, and in some cases their surviving families, are deserving of compassion. More than that, they are deserving of justice, and that means that illegal alien criminals must be apprehended and deported.
You are right to call attention to violence against LGBTQ persons. They have every right to be “scared” and “fear for their lives.” What you don’t mention is that the people who are most likely to victimize them are people just like them. In other words, it is not heterosexual guys who are beating up on gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons—it is people in their own ranks. It is called “intimate partner violence,” and the studies show how prevalent it is among LGBTQ persons.
In 2022, Psycom Pro, a psychiatry resource for clinicians, concluded that “More than half of transgender individuals experience partner violence or gender identity abuse.”
In 2020, seven experts published a study in the American Journal of Public Health on this subject and concluded that “Transgender individuals experience a dramatically higher prevalence of IPV [intimate partner violence] victimization compared with cisgender individuals [those who accept their sex identity], regardless of sex assigned at birth.”
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reviewed the literature on this subject and found that “43.8% of lesbian women and 61.1% of bisexual women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime, as opposed to 35% of cisgender women.” It also found that transgender individuals experienced the highest rate of intimate partner violence.
The Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law, reviewed a number of studies on this subject. One of them found that “31.1% of transgender people and 20.4% of cisgender people had ever experienced IPV or dating violence.” It also said that three studies concluded that the lifetime intimate partner sexual violence prevalence among transgender people ranged from “25.0% to 47.0%.”
Even in sympathetic pop culture magazines, such as Portland Monthly, it is acknowledged that “statistically speaking, the most common perpetrators of violence against trans women are domestic partners.”
In short, misdirected compassion is not virtuous. You need to make a public statement addressing the fallacies of your remarks.
Sincerely,
William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President
+ + +
William A. Donohue, Ph.D. is President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The Catholic League is the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization defending individual Catholics and the institutional Church against defamation and discrimination.
Dr. Donohue is the author of several books, including his most recent, Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis. Dr. Donohue is a contributor and strong supporter of Beyond These Stone Walls.
Related posts:
Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age
A Catholic League White House Plea Set Pornchai Moontri Free
Disney’s Disenchanted Kingdom Versus Parental Rights
The Unspoken Racist Arena of Roe v. Wade
Justice and a Priest’s Right of Defense in the Diocese of Manchester
A right of defense for accused priests is supported on paper in the Diocese of Manchester, but in one case it has been suppressed and obstructed at every turn.
A right of defense for accused priests is supported on paper in the Diocese of Manchester, but in one case it has been suppressed and obstructed at every turn.
October 21, 2013 by Ryan A. MacDonald [revised January 7, 2025]
I became quite familiar with the scene above during a short trip this past summer. A nice 4-hour drive from New York took me along Interstate 91 and the Connecticut River. From Brattleboro, Vermont (locals call it “Brat”) I drove east on Route 9 for 18 miles to the picturesque City of Keene, New Hampshire and its much admired downtown Main Street.
Keene is a small city with a population of about 23,500 — not counting the 5,000 students enrolled in Keene State College. The social and economic hub of southwest New Hampshire, it boasts the widest Main Street in the United States, and its bustling downtown collection of quaint and busy shops, restaurants, a theatre, offices, and concerts on the Keene Commons is the envy of many cities its size. Keene’s downtown begins at the doors of St. Bernard Church, today part of a three-parish community known as the Parish of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Bernard Church and Rectory are depicted above. The building in the background is Saint Joseph RegionalCatholic School (grades K to 8). The entire complex is bordered on the left by the bustling campus of Keene State College, and on the right by busy downtown Keene. Across the wide, heavily traveled Main Street from the rectory is the region’s largest and busiest U.S. Post Office, a pizza take-out, and a convenience store conducting a brisk college town business 24/7.
Just above is a closer view of the Main Street driveway between Saint Bernard Church and Rectory. It’s a scene I wanted to see for myself, and was the reason for my summer drive to Keene. Note the flat roofed adjunct just to the left of the building. It was added on at some point to the large old mansion that became St. Bernard Rectory.
The rounded doorway on the building’s left side was in 1983 the rectory’s main business entrance. Just to its left is a large window. In 1980, a closed circuit television camera was installed just above that door because the rectory had been the scene of a number of urban burglaries and an armed robbery or two. In the late 1970s, two priests and the pastor’s elderly mother were tied up in the rectory basement while the house was ransacked and robbed in the middle of the night.
On the other side of that door in the 1980s was the desk of a receptionist and secretary staffed in two shifts from 9:00 AM until 9:00 PM. There was also a waiting area for parishioners wanting to see one of the four priests assigned there in the early 1980s, and for daily clients of the region’s busy St. Vincent DePaul Society seeking assistance with food, clothing, and emergency shelter.
On the right of the church building just across the narrow driveway from the rectory was the most heavily used entrance and exit for parish activities. These doorways to the church and rectory were the busiest places in or around that parish church. The photo above was taken very early in the morning. At virtually any other time, it is a hubbub of activity.
Note the large window just to the left of the rectory’s main entrance with its monitoring TV camera. It was just behind this highly visible office window — in full view of the daily hustle and bustle of Main Street traffic and the steady stream of visitors into and out of this busy rectory and church — that 27-year-old Thomas Grover claimed that he was four times sexually assaulted by Father Gordon MacRae between April and November of 1983.
It was here behind this highly visible window where Grover claimed that in the months just prior to his 16th birthday he sought MacRae out for counseling for his drug addiction, but instead was threatened, berated, made to cry, and then raped. It was here that 220-pound Thomas Grover claimed to have returned four times from week to week unable to remember the sexual assaults he claimed to have occurred during previous visits.
Like so many who have looked at this case, I was aghast when I first became familiar with the details of the trial of Father MacRae. I wrote of this trial in an article entitled “Judge Arthur Brennan Sentenced Father Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison.” As The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in “The Trials of Father MacRae” (May 13, 2013):
"Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents."
Once I became aware of the facts of this case, I had to see for myself exactly where this was all claimed to have taken place. What I saw in the scenes depicted above is a compelling visual to accompany something Attorney Robert Rosenthal included in his appeal briefs to the New Hampshire courts:
"In what the petitioner asserts has been revealed as a scam to obtain a cash settlement from the Catholic church, Tom Grover, a drug addict alcoholic and criminal, accused Father Gordon MacRae of molesting him years before. Grover’s civil suit — featuring MacRae’s conviction — earned him nearly $200,000. No witnesses to the alleged acts could be found, despite that they were to have occurred in busy places. Grover’s claims were contradicted by objective facts (e.g. inoperable locks that he claimed worked, acts in an office to which MacRae did not have access, claims about a chess set that had not [yet] been purchased)."
Thomas Grover claimed that these assaults occurred in this office commencing in April 1983 and ending just as he turned 16 years old in mid-November 1983. Father Gordon MacRae did not arrive at St. Bernard Church until mid-June 1983, and did not have access to this particular office because it was occupied by another priest until the end of July 1983. Upon learning this pre-trial, Grover then vaguely moved one of his claimed assaults to an adjacent busy office to which MacRae also had no access that summer.
In the summer of 1983, St. Bernard Rectory employed a full and part-time staff of twelve, including the four priests who lived in this house, and a total staff of 25 parish and school employees all coming and going throughout the day and evening. And yet, the prosecution produced not a single witness to these acts. No one ever testified to seeing Thomas Grover there. No one ever opened the door to admit him, or saw him leave. No one ever claimed to have heard anything.
A lock Grover claimed that MacRae used to secure the office door had been dismantled and painted over years before the priest arrived. An ornate marble chess set Grover claimed was inside that office during the assaults was not purchased by the priest until three years later in 1986. Today, Grover’s former wife, Trina Ghedoni says that Grover admitted to her that he perjured himself throughout the MacRae trial, and said he offered perjured testimony about the chess set because “it was what he was told to say.”
The one person who could have helped to inform this appellate defense — Father Robert Biron, a prominent pastor in the Diocese of Manchester — refused to help. The above scene was his office several years before MacRae arrived, and again for several more years after MacRae left St. Bernard’s. Father Biron might have spoken to the improbability of much of what had been claimed. He might have described the painted over office door lock that didn’t work, the shade on the office window that wasn’t there in 1983, the absence of air conditioning requiring that this office window remain wide open to the scene overlooking the main entrance and busy Main Street throughout summer months.
Father Robert Biron might have attested to the traffic; to the noise of people coming and going, noise that easily penetrated that office door in both directions. He might have attested to the waiting area just outside that office door, and its steady stream of people. But he refused. In his answer to Father MacRae’s plea as the investigation for this appeal began, Father Biron wrote on his official Our Lady of Fatima Parish stationery,
“I can’t be of any help to you, and don’t see the necessity of entertaining any further correspondence from you.”
— Letter of Father Robert Biron, January 19, 2009
Father Biron’s cold letter was received by the imprisoned priest just after the Bishop of Manchester at the time, now deceased Bishop John McCormack, insisted to Vatican officials and others that he and the Diocese of Manchester fully support Father MacRae’s right of defense.
Earlier, Bishop McCormack offered Father MacRae $40,000 toward an appellate defense, but with conditions: he wanted the diocese to choose MacRae’s lawyers, wanted the priest to sever all contact with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal, and wanted him to agree not to review the history and merits of this case, appealing only his sentence and not the convictions. Bishop McCormack then reneged on his offer in a grueling and cruel “stringing along” of this imprisoned priest that another prominent writer described in detail in “A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church: Affidavits.”
When Father Gordon MacRae was on trial in 1994, and the prosecution finished presenting its case, which consisted of nothing more than Thomas Grover’s hysteria and evasiveness, Judge Arthur Brennan instructed Fr. MacRae not to take the stand in his own defense or else the judge would open the door for Thomas Grover’s brothers to testify to their own false claims brought in civil suits. Gordon MacRae was the only person never heard from in this trial.
When Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced Father MacRae to more than 30 times what had been offered in a plea deal, the judge never permitted the priest to speak. Now, today, both New Hampshire courts receiving this appeal have dismissed it without Fr. MacRae being allowed to utter a word. Even in the Diocese of Manchester, the Bishop presented Father MacRae’s case for dismissal to the Holy See without his ever even knowing what was put forward or having any opportunity to defend himself. Fortunately, to date, the Holy See has not seen fit to act solely on such unilateral information. The silence forced upon Father Gordon MacRae has been deeply unjust. This case must move forward and be fully heard.
What are they all afraid of?
+ + +
Related:
Affidavit of former FBI Special Agent James Abbott
Statement of Trina Ghedoni, former wife of Thomas Grover
Statement of Charles Glenn, former stepson of Thomas Grover
Statement of Debra Collett, former counselor of Thomas Grover
Statement of Steven Wollschlager, accuser who recanted
Trial Transcripts and Court Documents are available at The National Center for Reason and Justice
Thomas Merton and Pornchai Moontri Meet in the City of Angels
Pornchai Moontri began life anew in Bangkok, Thailand where the earthly life of the great Catholic spiritual writer, Thomas Merton ended on December 10, 1968.
Pornchai Moontri began life anew in Bangkok, Thailand where the earthly life of the great Catholic spiritual writer, Thomas Merton ended on December 10, 1968.
If you have been a long time reader of Beyond These Stone Walls, or a newer one who has valiantly perused all our past posts, then you may be struck, as I have been, by the irony at work in our lives. I and others have written multiple posts about the characters who have come into our lives in mysterious ways. Among them are Saints Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, and Saint Michael the Archangel. Most powerfully is the Blessed Mother, a story told in “How Our Lady of Guadalupe Came to Us in Prison.”
There is another figure who has strangely touched both our lives. It is the great Catholic spiritual writer and Trappist monk, Thomas Merton who neither of us had ever met. I wrote once of how I left home and ventured to the Canadian Maritime Province of Newfoundland, at age 16 in 1968. While there, I discovered Thomas Merton’s conversion autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. It was long and ponderous and even tedious, but it led to my reversion to Catholic faith and practice at age 16 – just as most others my age were heading in the opposite direction. This encounter with Merton continued as I read many of his other profound works on the spiritual life.
Pornchai Moontri began his own life as a Buddhist, like most people in Thailand. He had little experience of Catholicism until he met me in prison in 2005. After this blog began in 2009, a reader sent Pornchai a prayer by Thomas Merton. He read it, and then showed it to me saying, “This is the story of my life.” It became important to him, and was posted by his bunk in our cell over the next 15 years. Ryan A. MacDonald wrote of the prayer in “Thomas Merton and Pornchai Moontri: A Prayer for the Year of Mercy.”
That prayer became even more important to Pornchai when he learned that Thomas Merton, a Catholic priest of the Cistercian Order, had traveled to Thailand in 1968 to take part in a Buddhist-Christian conference in Bangkok, the very path that Pornchai had been born into. Thomas Merton died in Bangkok that year from accidental electrocution. In Thai, Bangkok is called Krung Thep which means “City of Angels.” Here is the prayer which remained with me long after Pornchai left. I have sent him a copy which remains on his own wall in Thailand.
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
— Thomas Merton
And I too have prayed this prayer, and made it my own.
+ + +
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls.
A Catholic League White House Plea Set Pornchai Moontri Free
On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized
‘Mary Is at Work Here’ by Felix Carroll
The Doors That Have Unlocked by Fr. Gordon MacRae and Felix Carroll
+ + +
Give Thanks for Good and Holy Priests Who Are Willing to Suffer for the Truth!
Reflecting on things for which I’m thankful, the faces of good and holy priests passed through my mind. One living priest who I pray for often is Fr. Gordon MacRae.
Reflecting on things for which I’m thankful, the faces of good and holy priests passed through my mind. One living priest who I pray for often is Fr. Gordon MacRae.
By Mary Ann Kreitzer, November 30, 2024. Republished with permission from Les Femmes — The Truth.
As I was reflecting on the things for which I’m thankful this year, the faces of good and holy priests passed through my mind like a slideshow of sanctity. Some of them are gone now to their heavenly reward: Fr. John Hardon, Fr. James Buckley, Fr. Robert Bradley, Fr. Hugh Monmonier. I pray for them and to them. If they are in Purgatory they need my prayers and sacrifices. Whether they are in Purgatory or Heaven, I need their prayers. They were faithful spiritual guides here on earth. I need their continued guidance now more than ever.
One living priest who I pray for often is Fr. Gordon MacRae. I hope this Advent you will make him a companion on the journey by reading his blog and praying for him. I wrote this post last May. I repeat it here as a reminder that often adherence to the truth requires courageous suffering. Let us embrace sacrifices in Advent for the sake of our own souls and the conversion of our poor world.
Fr. Gordon MacRae and Beyond These Stone Walls
I received a letter yesterday from a very unusual priest, Fr. Gordon MacRae. I call him unusual because I doubt many priests would do what he did. Falsely accused of molesting a minor, the victim of trumped up “evidence” by a corrupt “justice” system in New Hampshire, he refused to be bribed by a plea deal. He could have been out of jail in one or two years if he took the plea. He refused because he was innocent. And now he is on the cusp of “celebrating” thirty years in prison. Read these quotes from the website, Beyond These Stone Walls:
“Fr Gordon MacRae is beyond innocent. It is a travesty that he is in jail. If you listened and read the evidence, transcripts, videos, audio tapes you would be horrified. The people who did this need to get on their knees and beg forgiveness from God. + If they don’t ... .”
— Cary Solomon, Writer, Producer and Director of “Unplanned”
“There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.”
— William Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League for Religious & Civil Rights (NBC’s “TODAY,” 10/13/05)
“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 story is horrifying but no surprise. In 2024 we have daily proof of our corrupt “justice” system. Consider the January 6ers many of whom are still in jail without trial after two years. Some who were released knew they weren't guilty, but also knew the administration, using the corrupt FBI and DOJ, was determined to punish them. After all, they wanted proof for their bogus “insurrection.” Jailing innocent citizens mattered little if it advanced the evil goal.
Pro-lifers have felt that poisonous sting for decades. Ask Joan Andrews Bell who spent years in jail for trying to protect little ones in the womb through peaceful direct action. See how the government is using the FACE Act today to manufacture stiff sentences against peaceful Red Rose witnesses demanding decades in jail for offering women help and roses in abortion center waiting rooms.
I don’t fault the January 6ers who accepted the bribes in order to get a short sentence despite the fact it enabled the government to play hero. “See ... these monsters really did plan an insurrection.” But what a difference we see in Fr. MacRae who stood up to Leviathan and entered the gulag, not to “rot in prison” but to continue to serve with courage and fidelity. His passion has brought life to many especially a former cell mate named Pornchai Maximilian Moontri. Wherever an apostle of God resides, in exile or in freedom, he can do God’s work.
Meet Fr. MacRae in the video below. Listen to his story, a sickening relation of corruption and deceit! Then pray for him that justice be done in his case. In the meantime, please pray for the good he has done and will continue to do behind bars. No evil doer can prevent the work of God who ordains all things, both good and evil. He never desires sin and malice but can use the sin and malice of others to perform His holy will.
Video Documentary with Father Gordon MacRae
Donald Trump Has a Prayer
“Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20) even in the heart and soul of a sinner like Donald Trump. It is that which he has in common with most of us. Everyone else is just pretending.
“Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20) even in the heart and soul of a sinner like Donald Trump. It is that which he has in common with most of us. Everyone else is just pretending.
[The following fine op-ed by Raymond J. de Souza is reprinted from the Opinion Page of The Wall Street Journal on October 11, 2024]
Pious Christians often cringe when Donald Trump talks about religion. Earlier this year the former president got into the Bible business, hawking a $60 “God Bless the USA” version that includes the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, correcting that long-lamented lacuna in the New Testament. Yet a pleasant surprise came on Sept. 29, the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, when Mr. Trump shared, without comment, a well-known prayer to the great saint.
It’s a formidable prayer, one of my favorites, written by one of my favorite popes, Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 through 1903. My parish prays it together after every Mass, pleading for the protection of a martial saint: “St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”
The history of the prayer is remarkable and may well appeal to politicians who see evil on the march. It certainly appeals to Christians under persecution, and its return to prominence in recent years signals a desire for devotions suitable for a combative time.
The prayer’s origin isn’t well-documented, likely because it involves a pontiff’s vision, and the Vatican gets nervous when anyone has visions, let alone the pope. One telling of the tale is that on Oct. 13, 1884, Leo heard voices in his chapel. It was the devil challenging Jesus, evocative of the first verses of the Book of Job. Satan said he could destroy the Catholic Church and demanded a century in which to try. Leo then had a mystical vision of the horrors of the 20th century and felt faint. On recovery he went straight to his desk and wrote the St. Michael prayer.
Whatever the inspiration, in 1886 Leo mandated that it be said at the conclusion of “low” Masses — less elaborate ceremonies before Sunday’s principal “high” liturgies — all over the world. Generations of Catholics thus grew up learning the prayer by heart.
In the liturgical reforms of the 1960s, the prayer was dropped. It seemed too militant for the times, even though the imagery is straight out of the Scriptures. St. Michael appears in Revelation 12:7, with “his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.”
By providential arrangement, Leo’s vision took place exactly 33 years before the final apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. Those apparitions fired the Catholic imagination, taking on an anticommunist fervor as they spoke of the “conversion of Russia.” Mary took over martial intercession from Michael; all the more so when St. John Paul II survived an assassination attempt on the anniversary of the first Fatima apparition, in 1981.
Only after the Cold War did the prayer return to prominence. In 1994 John Paul asked that it be recited “in order to obtain help in the battle against the forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world.” The pope was then thwarting the Clinton administration’s attempt to make abortion a worldwide human right at the United Nations’ Cairo conference on population. Having deployed the Virgin Mary to vanquish the communists, perhaps John Paul thought St. Michael could conquer the Clintons.
The prayer is now optional and thus not nearly as well-known. Yet it is becoming more widespread, promoted by those who desire a more combative Catholicism to match a combative cultural and political moment.
Pope Francis speaks of the devil much more than his predecessors did, so it follows that he would turn to St. Michael. In 2013, months after his election and at his first public appearance with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Francis entrusted the protection of Vatican City to the archangel, unveiling a statue of him in the Vatican Gardens. In 2018 he asked Catholics to pray the rosary every day in October, adding the St. Michael prayer “to protect the church from the devil, who always seeks to separate us from God and from each other.”
When I arrived at my current parish in 2022, we added the prayer at the end of every Mass. St. Michael is the patron saint of Kyiv, where a prominent statue of him adorns a central square. It seemed particularly fitting as Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion unfolded. Russia still needs conversion.
It’s possible that Mr. Trump learned something of St. Michael from the New York City Police Department, as many Catholic police officers take him as their patron. A larger-than-life statue of St. Michael, cradling a fallen officer, was brought to Harlem’s 32nd Precinct in 2022.
Mr. Trump’s post provoked criticism from the easily agitated, who suggested he was likening his political rivals to the devil. But the prayer, which is as ancient as the Scriptures and as new as the 19th century, is about something much older than American politics. Evil abounds, and the battle against it needs joining. St. Michael leads the charge.
Father de Souza is a priest in Kemptville, Ontario.
+ + +
Comment on the WSJ original by Father Gordon MacRae:
The Catholic observance of The Nativity of Mary was eclipsed in the liturgy by a Sunday observance this year. Nonetheless, on the morning of September 8, I awoke to find in my Inbox a beautiful image of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the simple message, “Happy Birthday, Mary.” It was attributed to Donald Trump. I retained the image because it bears a power of its own much more positive than anything else we are seeing in this election season where the negative is simply overwhelming. So on the morning of September 29, I was less surprised to find the image of Saint Michael the Archangel in my Inbox also attributed to Donald Trump. I deeply appreciate the history of this image and prayer that Father de Souza has presented so well, and that The Wall Street Journal has opted to publish. So many, including Kamala Harris, would simply scoff at all of this and at the source of these images. As Father de Souza points out they provoke criticism from the easily agitated "who suggested he was likening his political rivals to the devil." I assure you, if that is so, that Mr. Trump is not the only one to come to that conclusion. Evil abounds! And as Saint Paul has written, “Grace abounds all the more” even perhaps in the heart and soul of a sinner like Donald Trump. It is that which he has in common with most of us. Everyone else is just pretending.
Catholic Assessment of Kamala Harris
Catholic League President Bill Donohue represents the largest religious freedom organization in the nation. Here he assesses presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Catholic League President Bill Donohue represents the largest religious freedom organization in the nation. Here he assesses presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
by William Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League
There are many ways to assess any public person. My interest here is to assess Kamala Harris from a Catholic perspective. issuing an abbreviated rendition of this article at the end of July, the last news release I wrote about Harris was in May. It was occasioned by her foul mouth. Everyone concedes that politicians of all stripes are known to curse, but they typically do so among themselves, or at private events. Not her.
On May 13, with the cameras rolling, she spoke at an Asian American organization, saying, “We have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open. Sometimes they won’t, and then you need to kick that f**king door down.” She then descended into her proverbial cackle.
Why the obscenity in a public forum? She is the Vice President of the United States. Nice role model for young minority girls.
Sometimes Harris says things that embarrasses her family. Her father, who is from Jamaica, took umbrage at a comment she made suggesting that Jamaicans are all a bunch of potheads.
In 2019, Harris was asked on a radio talk show if she supported legalizing marijuana. She responded, “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?”
Her father, Donald Harris, quickly rebuked her, saying his grandmothers and deceased parents “must be turning over in their graves right now to see their family name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in pursuit of identity politics. Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.”
Harris not only makes offensive comments, her feminist views are so extreme that she reflexively sides with women who accuse men of sexual harassment.
When Brett Kavanaugh was being considered for a seat on the Supreme Court, he was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers. But under stiff questioning, her account fell apart. In March 2024, the Washington Examiner ran a piece that said it all. “Half a Decade Later, Christine Blasey Ford Still Has No Corroborating Witness.”
At the time, Harris sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee; it was charged with assessing Kavanaugh’s suitability to be on the Supreme Court. Before he uttered one word at the hearing, Harris said of Ford, “I believe her.” After Ford came off as a fraud, Harris stuck to her guns and tweeted that Kavanaugh “lied.”
At least she is consistent. In 2019, when she was a senator, Biden was accused by women of touching them inappropriately. At a presidential campaign event in Nevada, she said, “I believe them.” She even wrote a piece for The Hill that was titled, “Harris: ‘I Believe’ Biden accusers.” Fortunately for her, the media never ask her to explain herself.
Of primary interest to Catholics is Harris’ position on social and cultural issues. Let’s begin by assessing her definition of culture. She spoke about this at the 2023 Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans.
“Culture is — it is a reflection of our moment and our time. Right? And present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment and we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment. That is a reflection of joy. Because, you know…it comes in the morning.” She then broke out into a fit of laughter. But she was not done.
“We have to find ways to also express the way we feel about the moment in terms of just having language and a connection to how people are experiencing life. And I think about it that way, too.” No one knew what she was talking about.
Harris may be incoherent in her speeches, but her policy decisions, especially on social and cultural issues, are not in doubt.
On September 13, 2019, I wrote a news release titled, “Kamala Harris’ Lust For Abortion.” Earlier in the year, I said, she defended abortion at any time during pregnancy, right up until birth. She also wanted to force states that restrict abortions to obtain federal approval from the Department of Justice before implementing them.
When Harris was California’s attorney general, she bludgeoned pro-life activist David Daleiden. He used undercover videos to expose how abortion operatives harvest and sell aborted fetal organs. She authorized her office to raid his home: they seized his camera equipment and copies of revealing videos that implicated many of those who work in the abortion industry.
In her role as California AG she also sought to cripple crisis pregnancy centers with draconian regulations. Specifically, she supported a bill that would force these centers to inform clients where they could obtain an abortion. She was sued and lost in the Supreme Court three years later.
Like many other Democrats, Harris is not content to sanction child abuse in the womb. Even when they are born, she is okay with letting those who survive an abortion die.
To be specific, on February 25, 2020, Sen. Harris voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that would “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.” That’s called infanticide.
Harris’ record on abortion and infanticide is at odds with her opposition to the death penalty. When it comes to convicted serial rapists and mass shooters, she wants to spare their lives. In 2019, she was explicitly asked if she opposed the death penalty for acts of treason. She said she did.
There we have it. Harris says that those who endanger the safety of all Americans by attempting a violent overthrow of the government, or spying on the military for a foreign enemy, should have their lives spared, but innocent children who are moments away from being born are not entitled to have their lives spared. And children who survive an abortion, but are in need of medical attention, can be left to die on the table, and no one will be held accountable.
The Democratic Party is the proud party of homosexual activists and transgender radicals.
Harris is so happy to see two people of the same sex “marry” that she actually performed “marriages” between gay couples in 2004. She also opposed Proposition 8, the California initiative barring gay marriage. The people spoke — they voted for it — but she does not believe in “power to the people”: she believes in power to the ruling class (which won in the Supreme Court). No wonder her voting record earned her a perfect score of 100 percent by the anti-women and anti-science gay behemoth, the Human Rights Campaign.
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis supported a bill that would prohibit teachers in the early grades, K-3rd grade, from being indoctrinated with gay and transgender propaganda, she opposed it. In doing so she also showed her contempt for parental rights; the bill prohibited efforts to undermine them.
Harris’ enthusiasm for transgender rights includes allowing females who claim to be men to join the military and males who claim to be female to compete against girls and women in sports.
Religious liberty is a First Amendment right, but her deeds suggest she is not supportive of it. She is good at “God talk” — when referring to a specific year she occasionally says “in the year of our Lord.” But talk is cheap. As a U.S. senator, she co-sponsored the “Do No Harm Act” that would force religious institutions to violate their doctrinal prerogatives.
Harris even co-sponsored the most anti-religious liberty bill ever introduced, the Equality Act. It would coerce Catholic doctors and hospitals to perform abortions and to mutilate the genitals of young people seeking to transition to the opposite sex. This bill would sideline the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton ensuring that the government does not encroach on religious rights.
In 2018, the Catholic League was among the first organizations in the nation to protest her attack on a Catholic nominee for a federal district judge post. She badgered Brian Buescher at a hearing, simply because he was a member of the Knights of Columbus, a male entity.
As I pointed out at the time, Harris has never objected to Jewish women groups or the League of Women Voters. Just a Catholic male group. What really got her goat is Buescher’s membership in a Catholic organization that is pro-life and pro-marriage, rightly understood. In other words, she was invoking a religious test for public office, which is unconstitutional.
Not only does Harris harbor an animus against Catholics, she has no respect for separation of church and state. In 2021, she created a video to be played in Virginia black churches urging everyone to vote for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. The video aired in 300 churches for several weeks. Harris starred in it, beckoning congregants to vote for him.
Harris is no friend of the black poor. She has consistently voted against school choice, thus keeping inner-city blacks in their place. If she truly believed in social justice, she would work to see that poor blacks have the same opportunity to send their children to the school of their choice. Instead, she consigns them to schools that no member of the ruling class would ever elect for their own kids.
Her biography explains why she is so insensitive to the black poor. She was raised in a home of privilege, and has lived a privileged life ever since. She has successfully exploited her connections to advance her career, having been anointed most of her posts. She even secured her first job out of law school as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County even though she was not a lawyer (she failed the bar the first time around).
Being a beneficiary of black privilege explains why she is so uncharitable. When she was California attorney general, her 2011-2013 tax returns showed she made $158,000 but did not give a dime to charity. Liberals do not believe they need to have any skin in the game — it’s the job of government to pay for the poor.
Another way the government is supposed to fulfill her social justice agenda is by supporting reparations for slavery. When she was in the senate, she co-sponsored a bill to do just that. In doing so, she put herself in an awkward position. Her ancestors were slavemasters.
Her father, Donald Harris, who is a Stanford professor of economics, said in 2018 that his grandmother was a descendant of Hamilton Brown, who was a plantation and slave owner in northern Jamaica. Brown didn’t own one or two slaves — he owned scores of them. Most of them were brought from Africa, which has a long history of slavery (it still exists today in some countries).
As I said four years ago, “if the average American has to pay X amount for slavery, Harris should at least have to pay 10X. Isn’t that what redistributive justice is all about? Catholics need to know.”
From Fear and Humility to Hope and Love
Canadian Catholic writer Michael Brandon reviews Beyond These Stone Walls. This blog from a wrongly imprisoned priest is a guiding light for many around the globe.
Canadian Catholic writer Michael Brandon reviews Beyond These Stone Walls. This blog from a wrongly imprisoned priest is a guiding light for many around the globe.
Written on the Feast of the Guardian Angels by Michael Brandon, Ontario, Canada
Once again, a blockbuster article appeared over at Beyond These Stone Walls, this one titled “Travesty of Justice: The Ordeal of Father Gordon MacRae.” Every week I await the Wednesday morning posting on Beyond These Stone Walls, with some of the anticipation of a young child for Christmas, and every week I am not disappointed. The gift given is always just what I needed, never too much and never too little. And it is probably so for many of the other readers of BTSW postings, and so it is a unique gift for each of us.
And isn’t anticipation of Christmas a good thing? At that first Christmas we received the greatest gift mankind every received, the birth of Our Saviour; God became man for us. And that gift too is unique for each and every one of us. The same Jesus, the same manger, the same outward appearance, but he comes to each and every one of us where we are geographically and in our state in life.
The giving of gifts at Christmas was always meant to symbolize that greatest of all gifts, but has come more to mean conspicuous consumption. But, the underlying meaning of Christmas is still there, even if hidden from the eyes of most. So, when we receive our weekly gift from Father Gordon at Beyond These Stone Walls, we are there too receiving the original intent of Christmas, the gift of Christ. In this particular case we receive the gift of Christ from an Alter Christus, a man ordained to bring Christ to us.
Yesterday our gift though was a little different. It was a recounting of the case, life and trials of Father MacRae, by a very respected leader of the laity in America, Dr. William Donohue. If you have been on the BTSW site, or have come across articles or books by Ryan A. MacDonald or Dorothy Rabinowitz to name two of many, you have had access to the story of cruelty and manipulation that resulted in the false imprisonment of Father MacRae.
The available information on his case is voluminous, and with the different perspectives of the various writers focusing on particular aspects of the injustice of it all, and official documents, it is a challenge to put into a single perspective. However, Dr. Donohue does just that and for that BTSW readers should be grateful.
Dr. Donohue highlights the confluence of evil that was required for our friend and priest Father Gordon to end up behind bars in such an incongruous set of lies, deceptions, hatred, greed, and malevolence. The devil is in the details, and in this case we can see the devil in the details.
For further reflection we have the words of Saint Bernard an abbot and the author of the Memorare prayer. Saint Bernard, like Father Gordon was a lover of Our Holy Mother. In the Office of the Readings for September 10, we find that he wrote:
“The whole of the spiritual life consists of these two elements. When we think of ourselves, we are perturbed and filled with a salutary sadness. And when we think of Our Lord, we are revived to find consolation in the joy of the Holy Spirit. From the first we derive fear and humility, from the second hope and love.”
Father Gordon did not commit the crimes for which he was placed in prison, in no large part because they never happened. But, he is a sinner like you and me. Our Lord knew who he was, and also how he, like you and like me, is the very apple of His eye. He has allowed all that has happened to Father Gordon to occur for His Glory, in ways we cannot understand, in ways that are way above our pay grade.
I do not know anything about the depth of Father Gordon’s spiritual life before going to prison, but I read and see it becoming as deep as the ocean now. He has been taken to the places of fear and humility; it is evident in his writings.
Father Gordon’s gift of himself to us each week comes from the same place as the gift Jesus gave to us in His Birth, but also in His Death and Resurrection. That gift and every good gift emanates from the heart of the Father, and as God is love, so too these gifts are gifts of love.
Cherish the gift that is Jesus, and cherish the gift from his Alter Christus, Father Gordon as if it comes from the depths of the heart of Jesus, for it does. The gift we receive weekly from Father Gordon MacRae is a sign of God’s love for us.
Travesty of Justice: The Ordeal of Father Gordon MacRae
God gives us all a cross to bear, but some are heavier than others. Few can match the weight of the one that Fr Gordon J MacRae has been carrying for two decades.
by William Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League
God gives us all a cross to bear, but some are heavier than others. Few can match the weight of the one that Fr Gordon J MacRae has been carrying for three decades.
His troubles began in 1983. Father Gordon MacRae was working at a clinic for drug-addicted youths in New Hampshire when a 14-year-old told his psychotherapist that the priest had kissed him; there was nothing to the story, so nothing came of it. Three years later, when the young man was expelled from a Catholic high school for carrying a weapon, he started telling his counselor how MacRae had fondled him. It turns out that the adolescent was quite busy at the time making accusations: he said two male teachers also molested him. An investigation into all of these cases was made, and they were all dismissed.
Ten years after the first charges against MacRae were tossed, the same man resurfaced with new accusations. The preposterous nature of the charges meant they would go nowhere, but as fate would have it, they would nonetheless play a role in helping to bolster a criminal charge against MacRae one year later.
It wasn’t over for MacRae, not by a long shot. In 1988, a teenager at a hospital that treats drug abusers told the priest about sexual encounters he allegedly had at the hospital and then exposed himself. MacRae, taking no chances, reported this to his superiors. While they believed him, they nonetheless suspended him pending an investigation. But the effect that this incident had on a local detective was not sanguine. In fact, he proved to be a zealot who made it his duty to get all the goods on MacRae, even to the point of making some details up.
The detective went on a tear interrogating nearly two dozen boys whom MacRae had counseled — looking for dirt — but he came up empty. Then MacRae met a teenager who worked for the detective in a “family-owned business,” and whose mother worked for the police. The young man said MacRae had molested him after the priest turned him down for a loan of $75; the same teenager was accusing others of abuse. Under considerable pressure to end this ordeal —MacRae had no legal counsel and was interrogated for four-and-a-half hours— he signed a statement saying he had endangered the welfare of a minor. The detective, who wanted more, said, “though no actual molestation took place, there are various levels of abuse.” It must be noted that the accuser refused to speak to an FBI investigator about what happened, and his own brother said the whole thing was “a fraud for money.” This was the last time MacRae would allow himself to be framed.
It is not a matter of opinion to say the detective was obsessed with MacRae: the evidence convinced independent observers that he was. For example, when the priest received letters claiming he had abused a male youth, little did he know that the detective had authored the letters for the accuser. Also, it was learned subsequently that a witness signed a statement saying the detective had given him cash, offering “a large sum of money” to make a false claim against MacRae (this happened just before his trial). Word on the street was that the Catholic Church was writing checks to get accusations of priestly abuse off its desk, a process that kept feeding the next frenzy. MacRae was caught up in it, and his superiors were ever quick to clear themselves.
On September 23, 1994, Father Gordon MacRae was shackled and led out of Cheshire County Superior Court in Keene, New Hampshire. He had been convicted by a jury of sexual assaults that allegedly happened nearly twelve years earlier. The 41-year-old priest was sentenced to a prison term of 33 ½ to 67 years.
MacRae says he is innocent. So do those who have looked into his case. Count me among them. “I did not commit these crimes,” MacRae says. “In fact, no one did.” Pointedly, he maintains that he wasn’t the one on trial. “The priesthood itself was on trial. No evidence whatsoever was introduced to support the claims. My accuser committed a $200,000 fraud, the amount in settlement he received from my diocese.”
No one has covered this story better than Dorothy Rabinowitz, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. MacRae’s accuser, Thomas Grover, has a history of theft, drugs, and violence. More than anyone else, he is responsible for the ordeal that MacRae has endured. He provided not a single witness, even though the alleged offenses took place in populated areas; the places were so busy that it is unlikely that no one would notice if something were awry. Moreover, Grover was coached by professionals, people more interested in getting a priest than justice. His attorney put him in touch with a counselor who came in quite handy. She stood at the back of the courtroom during Grover’s testimony, away from the sight of the jury, instructing him when to feign crying. On cue, he cried loudly, often at some length.
In the pretrial hearing, Grover went into high gear. He said MacRae chased him through a cemetery, trying to corner him. The priest also allegedly pointed a gun at Grover, threatening him if he told anyone about their encounter. Not to be outdone, MacRae supposedly chased Grover down the highway in his car.
At the trial, Grover said MacRae sexually abused him when he was 15-years-old during five episodes. Rabinowitz captures the essence of what was really going on. “Why, after the first horrifying attack,” she asks, “had Mr. Grover willingly returned for four more sessions, in each of which he had been forcibly molested? Because, he explained, he had come to each new meeting with no memory of the previous attack.” If this is not preposterous enough, the accuser said he had “out of body” experiences that blocked his recollection. Just as we might expect, Grover conveniently changed his story many times.
Before the trial, MacRae had twice been offered a plea deal, but he turned them down. Midway through the trial, he was offered another opportunity. It sounded reasonable: plead guilty and the sentence is one to three years; refuse and risk spending decades in prison. He refused for a third time. The trial moved forward and he was found guilty. The sentence was obscene: it was thirty times what the state had offered in the plea bargain.
Why do I believe MacRae is innocent, a veritable modern-day Job who has been treated unjustly by the authorities, both ecclesiastical and civil? MacRae and I have been writing to each other for years, and I have read his account many times. The clincher year for me was 2012: recently discovered evidence emerged (now part of on-going court proceedings) that showed how utterly manipulative the accuser is. To be specific, signed statements by the accuser’s family and friends demonstrate that Thomas Grover admitted to them that he lied about everything; they have also spoken about his reaction after the trial ended.
Grover’s former wife and stepson say that he is a “compulsive liar,” “manipulator,” “drama queen,” and “hustler” who “molded stories to fit his needs”; he could also “tell a lie and stick to it ’till his end.'” When he was confronted with his lies, he would lose his temper and sign himself into the psychiatric ward at a local hospital.
The former wife and stepson testify that Grover bragged how he was going to set up MacRae and “get even with the church.” What the stepson said is worth repeating at length:
“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, Grover told me that he had never been molested by MacRae…[and] stated to me that there were other allegations, made by other people against MacRae and [he] jumped on and piggy-backed onto these allegations for the money.”
Grover’s former wife, who acknowledges that he “never stated one word of abuse by [MacRae],” knew early on in their marriage that something was wrong. She had two daughters when they met, and both were frightened of him from the start. They saw him as a “sick individual who was obsessed with sex and teenage girls”; thus did they label him a “creep” and a “pervert.” They recall that he was “constantly eying” and groping them. When they woke up in the middle of the night, they would sometimes find him in their room, between their beds, staring at them.
It was also recently disclosed that the detective who had earlier hounded MacRae was guilty of badgering witnesses, misrepresenting what they said, offering inaccurate reports, and even collaborating with Grover’s civil lawyer. No wonder that another detective, a former FBI investigator, exonerated MacRae. “During the entirety of my three-year investigation of this matter,” James M. Abbott said, “I discovered no evidence of MacRae having committed the crimes charged, or any other crimes.”
When the trial was over, and Grover got a check for over $195,000 from the Diocese of Manchester, he photographed himself with $30,000 in cash. He bragged to his buddies, with bags of cash in his hands, that he had succeeded in “putting it over on the church.” That was in March 1997. In August, he took his former wife with him to Arizona where he blew it on alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, and other vices. In a three-day gambling spree, he went through $70,000 and he even had a Nevada casino hunting him down for another $50,000.
MacRae arrived in prison on September 23, 1994. He did not know it at the time, but it was the Feast of Saint Padre Pio, himself the subject of false allegations of sexual abuse. A dozen guards in riot gear surrounded him, forcing him to stand naked in the middle of them for an hour while they laughed at him. “For the first three nights while locked alone in a cell with nothing — naked and with no bedding but a bare concrete slab — tiers of prisoners stomped their feet in unison chanting, ‘Kill the Priest’ for hours on end into the night. It was maddening.” Prayer allowed him to persevere. “I lifted the cross willingly — though perhaps then more like Simon of Cyrene than like Christ — but I lifted it.”
Should MacRae have accepted the three plea deals? He never regrets saying no. As he sees it, “to succumb to a negotiated lie was like falling under the weight of the cross of false witness for the first, second, and third time.” Incredibly, even in prison, he is still the target of those seeking to shake him down, looking for the Church to fork over more money. In 2003, he was accused by another man of molesting him many years earlier. But MacRae had never even heard of this guy, so he instructed his lawyer to challenge the accusation. He did, and neither MacRae nor his lawyer ever heard from him and his attorney ever again.
December 23, 2006, MacRae calculated that he had been a priest for 4,125 days before he was sent to prison. He then tallied the number of days he had been in prison and came to the realization that on the very next day he would be a priest in prison longer than in freedom. “For the first time in 4,125 days in prison, I sobbed uncontrollably at this realization. I was losing myself.”
MacRae’s despair was relieved the next day when a Conventual Franciscan priest, Father Jim McCurry, visited him in prison. He gave him a laminated “holy card” depicting Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a member of Father McCurry’s order in whose cause for sainthood he had been involved as a Postulator. To this day, Kolbe’s historic story provides much inspiration to MacRae, as well as to countless others. The Polish priest gave his life in a Nazi death camp so that the life of another innocent person, a young father, would be spared.
Father Gordon J. MacRae does not aspire to be in the same league with Father Kolbe. That is not the point. The point is that his ordeal, like that of Kolbe’s, is born of grave injustice. There are so many guilty parties to this travesty it is hard to know where to begin. At work is maliciousness, callousness, apathy, and cowardice.
Please keep Father MacRae in your prayers. We can never give up hope.