Thanksgiving in the Reign of Christ the King

While American tradition offers thanks in the land of the free and the home of the brave, some still await the promise of freedom with a bravery found in defiant hope.

November 20, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

Before celebrating Thanksgiving in America — even if you’re not in America — I will be asking the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls to ponder my post for next week. It has become a Thanksgiving tradition at this blog so I will post it anew on the day before Thanksgiving in America. Some readers have said that it has become a part of their own Thanksgiving observance. Its point is clear. Not everyone lives a privileged life. Not everyone even lives a life in freedom. But in the land of the free and the home of the brave, everyone can find reason to give thanks in the Reign of Christ the King.

The story next week’s post will tell is a true account of history that most other sources left in the footnotes. It is also a story that has deep meaning for us who have endured painful losses in this odyssey called life, the loss of loved ones, the loss of health, of happiness, of hope, the unjust loss of freedom. For some, the litany of loss can be long and painful, and it could drive us all into an annual major holiday depression.

It has helped me and those around me to consider the story of Squanto. History is too often passed down by victors alone. The story of the Mayflower Pilgrims who fled religious persecution (though they didn’t really) to endure the wilds of a brave new world (though they didn’t endure it without help) is well known. But it has been stripped of a far more accurate and inspiring story under its surface.

It is the story of Tisquantum, known to history as Squanto, the sole survivor of a place the indigenous called “The Dawn Land,” now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. Having been chained up and taken on an odyssey of my own, I found very special meaning in the story of Squanto’s quiet but powerful impact on American history. So will you.

If you have followed our posts, then you know that a spirit of Thanksgiving has been elusive for us behind these stone walls. But with a little time and perspective, my friends here and I find that our list of all for which we give thanks has actually grown in size, scope, and clarity.

From the earliest days of BTSW since its inception in 2009, we have tried to live within a single core principle. I first discovered it in the classic book by Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon Press 1992). It promotes a fundamental truth about coping with life’s litany of loss with a central liberating theme: “The one freedom that can never be taken from us is the freedom to choose the person we will be in any circumstance.”

In Frankl’s own words, his story of survival in Auschwitz, the darkest of prisons, was in part inspired by the same person who inspires us. Saint Maximilian Kolbe was a prisoner, but he was first and foremost a Catholic priest who survived heroically by giving his life to save another. “Survived” might seem a strange word to use. Father Maximilian Kolbe was murdered, his earthly remains reduced to smoke and ash to drift in the skies above Auschwitz.

But he survives still. I am certain of this. The Nazi commandant whose power over others extinguished countless lives is now just a footnote on history. I don’t even know his name. But Saint Maximilian lives forever among the communion of saints. He lives in mysterious communion with us behind these stone walls with the same truth that inspired Victor Frankl to survive Auschwitz and write his own story of survival:

“We must never forget that we also find meaning in life even when confronted by a hopeless situation. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential to turn a personal tragedy into a triumph. When we are no longer able to change a situation … we are challenged to change ourselves.”

— Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 116

A friend recently sent me a revision of the famous “Serenity Prayer.” It struck me as an awesome truth and I reposted it a while back in another post, God, Grant Me Serenity. I’ll be Waiting. I find myself sharing this revised version often now with prisoners who come to me with a litany of grief and sorrow:

“God grant me Serenity to accept
the people I cannot change,
The Courage to change
the only one I can,
And the Wisdom to know
that it’s me.”

The Folly of Living with Resentment

One of the two patron saints who empower this blog is Saint Maximilian Kolbe. I have been very much informed by the course of his life in light of his sacrifices. Today my priesthood feels meaningless unless I don the glasses that Father Maximilian wore in prison. If I cannot see what he saw, then what I suffer is meaningless and empty.

But I have seen it. You may recall our post just a week ago, “Thailand’s Once-Lost Son Was Flag Bearer for the Asian Apostolic Congress.” You may have noticed the top graphic on that post. My friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, was wearing a very special shirt sent to him in Thailand by one of our readers. It says “Without sacrifice there is no love.” The quote is attributed to Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and the shirt is emblazoned with his Auschwitz prison number, 16670. I told Max that if he puts this T-shirt on, he will never see his life and suffering the same way again. So I marvel at the fact that he not only put it on, but he wore it for all the world to see.

Sometimes readers write to ask me how it is that I am still (relatively?) sane after 30 years of unjust imprisonment with continually rising and then falling hope. They ask how it is that I still have faith, and why I do not seem to be bitter or resentful when I write. But I HAVE been bitter and resentful about the losses and sorrows life has tossed at me. It is just that I came to recognize that living in anger and resentment is like mixing a toxic brew for our enemies and then drinking it ourselves. It is to live in a self-imposed prison, a relentless assault upon your very soul.

Once you become ready to let go of bitterness and cease to be governed by resentment, faith and hope are what grow in its place. It is like a plant that springs up from a tiny crack in the urban concrete. You simply cannot hold onto your bitterness and your faith at the same time. One of them always gives way to the other.

I find lots of inspiration for this from the readers of this blog. Consider Fr William Graham of the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota who spent eight years in exile, publicly shamed and his priestly ministry suspended. I wrote of his plight and its most recent development in “After Eight Years in Exile Fr William Graham Is Credibly Innocent.”

He had been falsely accused and cast out in 2016 after his bishop deemed a nearly 40-year-old claim against him to be “credible.” “Credible” is a vague and much abused term used in no other setting but American Catholic priesthood in the age of suspicion. As a legal standard, it means no more than the fact that a priest and an accuser lived in the same geographic area 30, 40, or 50 years ago. If an accusation “could have happened,” then it is seen by our bishops and their lawyers and insurers as “credible.”

After eight years in exile with a dark cloud of accusation hanging over his head, Father Graham was fully exonerated. He returned to ministry in the parish from which he was banished. He returned just in time to file his request for retirement and he moved on to a safer, quieter life with his priesthood intact. In spite of all that befell him, Father Graham believes that he has much to be thankful for. Throughout, Father Graham reported that he found both solace and hope in Beyond These Stone Walls, and it was a lantern during his darker times. Now he is free.

My Thanksgiving for Irony

And I am also thankful for the inspiration of irony. If you have been reading our posts all along, our stories are filled with it. Here’s a very moving example sent to me from a dear reader, the late Kathleen Riney. Kathleen was a retired nurse living in Texas. Her beloved husband, Tom, died from cancer, and Kathleen wrote that she found spiritual refuge in Beyond These Stone Walls.

Before her own death Kathleen wrote to me near the September 23 feast day of Saint Padre Pio, which is also the anniversary of my false imprisonment. I had written a post then that included the “Prayer after Communion” composed by Saint Padre Pio. I sent the post and prayer to Kathleen Riney who was caring for her dying husband at home.

Kathleen wrote that while her husband, Tom, was in the last weeks of his life, she gave him a copy of that prayer printed from that older post. The downloaded page had her name and email address at the top. She had rented a reclining hospital chair to help keep her husband comfortable. Many months after Tom died, Kathleen received this message in her email:

“Kathleen, my name is Kristine. I rented a hospital recliner. I found a paper with the “Stay With Me, Lord” prayer in the chair. I wanted to let you know that the prayer has helped me. I’m scheduled for surgery on November 1st and the surgery is the reason I rented the chair. Somehow that prayer found me and has strengthened me. I wanted to let you know that you touched a stranger in a great way!!! I will read it often. I hope all is well in your life. Thank you, Kristine.”

Accounts such as this are easy to dismiss as mere coincidence, but only if you really struggle to live life only on the surface without ever delving into what I recently called “the deep unseen” in the great Tapestry of God where our lives, through grace, become entangled with the Will of God. Padre Pio had many spiritual gifts in this life that I do not fully comprehend. I wonder if he ever thought that his “Prayer after Communion” would become like a message in a bottle cast into the sea where it would drift into the hands of someone known only to God. Here is that prayer in its entirety:

Padre Pio’s Prayer after Communion

Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You. You know how easily I abandon You.

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without fervor.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much, and always be in Your company.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of love.

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close, and life passes; death, judgment, eternity approaches. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is getting late and death approaches. I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!

Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers. I need You.

Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.

Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by communion, at least by grace and love.

Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation, because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your Presence, oh yes, I ask this of You!

Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.

With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity.

Amen

This coming Sunday, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Church celebrates a most important Solemnity. Our politics consume all the press right now, and it is unavoidable. Only one truth is necessary this Thanksgiving. No matter who we elected president, Christ is our King!

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Whether we face the aftermath of our political struggles with sorrow or joy, our coming Thanksgiving requires a heart open to grace. Here are a few posts that I hope might light that lantern:

Four Hundred Years Since That First Thanksgiving

To Christ the King Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the Gift of Noble Defiance

With Padre Pio When the Worst That Could Happen Happens

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

When God Deployed a Sinner to Save a Nation: The Biblical Precedent

Would God call a known sinner to save a nation? If so, it would not be for the first time if Religious Freedom is at stake. There is a striking Biblical precedent.

Over fifteen years of writing for Beyond These Stone Walls, I have tried to steer clear of politics. It hasn’t been easy because politics by its very nature has tentacles reaching into every aspect of existence in the human community. The word comes from the Latin, politicus which came from Greek, politikos, meaning “citizen of the city.” To be human is to practice politikos.

But as you know from the daily news, practice does not make perfect. I had a little practice of my own in my highly politically sensitive post, “The Unspoken Racist Arena of Roe v. Wade.” For some, just using the current President’s name in a sentence is to lend to him some sort of tacit endorsement or approval.

Listening to the news, some commentators refuse to call him “President” Trump. He is, for them, simply “Trump,” uttered with a hint of audible disdain that would have been widely condemned during previous administrations. At MSNBC, he appears to be the only politician in America.

Recently, I passed by a group of twenty-something young adults in a heated argument about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office. I tried to stay out of it, but as I passed I was asked whether I think he should be elected. I responded politically: “Well,” I said, “that is a matter for all the voters to decide, and not just the pundits from the ruling class.”

Because I qualified my answer, the “Not My President” crowd was horrified. “So, you actually LIKE Trump?!” they shot back incredulously — as though I were wearing a MAGA hat and a red tie of my own. My response was not a matter of like or dislike, but rather one of truth and its various distortions that today pass as journalism and broadcast news.

There is a vast difference in the politics of today and those of decades past. There are few Americans in America. We are now mostly Republicans and Democrats.

Should Christianity Today Trump the President?

I have long admired the work of Eric Metaxas, author of over thirty books including, If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty. In 2020, I was very pleased to see a provocative op-ed from him in The Wall Street Journal entitled, “The Christian Case for Trump” (Jan. 8, 2020).

Before the 2020 election, much of the news media had hyped an editorial in the venerable Evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, founded by the late Billy Graham. On the heels of the impeachment vote in Congress, the editors of Christianity Today endorsed the removal of President Trump from office citing that his behavior has been “profoundly immoral,” his character “grossly” so, and the “facts” of his guilt “unambiguous.”

I also cringed when I first read the response by Eric Metaxas because I knew that I might feel compelled to write about it. That means wading into a national partisan battle of words and attitudes with little connection to truth. I know some readers cannot see the Metaxas article without a WSJ subscription, so I will summarize its major points.

Mr. Metaxas clarified the politics behind the flap. In the 1990s, the editors of Christianity Today publicly endorsed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton citing that his moral failings made him unfit for office. As you may recall, President Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted by the Senate.

Some of Mr. Trump’s detractors cited the Evangelical magazine’s position in the Clinton case while accusing Evangelicals of hypocrisy if they did not apply the same standards to Mr. Trump. As with President Clinton, Mr. Trump was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate. But Mr. Metaxas asks whether the comparison makes sense. “Aren’t the political realities different two decades later?” I will get back to that, but the heart of the point made by Metaxas is theological, and it is a point with which I strongly agree:

“But these subjective pronouncements promote a perversion of Christian doctrine, [a doctrine] which holds that all are depraved and equally in need of God’s grace. For Christianity Today to advance this misunderstanding is shocking. It isn’t what one does that makes one a Christian, but rather faith in what Jesus has done.”

Christianity Today got this embarrassingly wrong. The political reality of the last two decades has seen orchestrated efforts to park Christianity outside the public square. Jesus may be seen as irrelevant by the growing secularism in America, but this must not be so for people of faith. Metaxas described the magazine’s editorial as evidence not of its noble truths, or its roots in the Biblical witness of Reverend Billy Graham, but rather of its “Slough of Despond populated by liberal elites.”

In light of a prior post at this blog — “March for Life: A New Great Awakening” — I am conscious that this self-righteous culture may be seeing a moral splinter in this President’s eye while ignoring the immensity of the moral lumber in its own. I was encouraged and affirmed in the above post by this brilliant but deeply unsettling presentation by Eric Metaxas of the truth about our moral compromises:

“In the 1990s, some Democrats were antiabortion. Neither party could exclusively claim the high ground on this deepest of moral issues. Mr. Clinton spoke of making abortion “safe, legal, and rare.” No longer. Democrats endorse abortion with near unanimity often beyond viability and until birth. If slavery was rightly considered… both a moral and political issue, how can this macabre practice be anything else? How can Christians pretend this isn’t the principal moral issue of our time as slavery was in 1860? Can’t these issues of historic significance outweigh whatever the President’s moral failings might be?”

Prolife Catholics and Evangelicals were also affirmed when President Trump became the first sitting U.S. President to appear in person and address the March for Life. Evangelical Americans formed a wide cross section of President Donald Trump’s support in the 2016 presidential election, though it is widely believed that at least some of their enthusiasm was not so much for Trump as it was against the alternative. That is the same case in play in 2024. Pope Francis, who never injects himself into U.S. politics, has urged American Catholics to vote for the candidate and party that inflicts the least moral harm. He clarified, without names, that one candidate rejects migrants while the other “kills children.”

The choice of president in 2016 also presented one, and perhaps two, opportunities to nominate lifetime appointments to fill likely vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. As you know, it turned out to be three vacancies which led directly to overturning Roe v. Wade and therefore returning the judgment to voters in each state. For many who found themselves weighing the lesser of evils in 2016, consideration of who sits on the Supreme Court for life actually (and morally) outweighed who occupied the White House for the next four years.

Two Decades of Christianity’s Cultural Decline

As I have written elsewhere, the first Great Awakening in America was a religious revival in the Colonies by Presbyterian preachers who inspired a sense of national identity that led to the Revolutionary War of 1776. In the United States today, self-described Wiccans outnumber Presbyterians.

This is not the same country that it was just a decade ago. Topics like religion and Religious Liberty have been under increasing assault. We have every reason to believe the trend toward secularism will continue. The need to protect Religious Liberty has never been more urgent. In 2010, seventy-six percent of Americans identified as Christians. By 2020 that figure had diminished to sixty-five percent.

In 2010, fifty-one percent of Americans identified as Protestant. By 2020, the figure had dropped to forty-three percent. The missing eight percent did not convert to some other religion. They abandoned religion to join the “Nones,” people who profess no faith in anything but secularism. In 2010, seventeen percent of Americans did not identify with any organized religion. In 2020, that figure now exceeds twenty-six percent.

The Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination and a conservative political force, lost 1.5 million members over the last decade. The second and third largest Protestant denominations, Episcopalians and Methodists, had major schisms, dividing over LGBTQ issues along political fault lines.

Among American millennials — identified as those born between 1981 and 1996 — forty percent claim no religious affiliation at all beyond their embrace of secularism. For this age group, this represents an increase of thirteen percentage points in just the last decade.

In the same decade — despite media hype of sex scandals, financial scandals, and battles between Traditionalists and progressives — those calling themselves Catholic declined by only three percent. Lest Catholics take too much pride in that, a WSJ/NBC news poll in 2000 revealed that Americans, including Catholics, who attend religious services at least once per week stood at forty-one percent. By 2020, the figure had declined to twenty-nine percent.

All of these statistics create a snapshot of religion in America before Covid. During the Covid crisis under the Biden Administration, government mandates at the state and federal levels across the land shuttered churches as “nonessential” gathering places. Liquor stores and casinos remained open while most Christians were barred from congregrating in any way but remotely. I wrote of the catastrophic effect this has had on the Catholic Church in American when too many of our bishops placidly went along with these government restrictions. That post was “The Faithful Departed: Bishops Who Bar Catholics from Mass.” Christianity in America has not recovered from Covid.

The decline has merely continued and we have no reason to believe it will stop. If the next president is not someone who is sensitive and supportive of Religious Freedom, regardless of whether he or she practices any religion of their own, then religion in America is doomed.

My Country ’Twas of Thee

History sometimes repeats itself. In “President Donald Trump’s First Step Act for Prison Reform,” I wrote of another possible basis for seeing a flawed character in a more Biblical light.

In 722 B.C., Israel fell to the Assyrians and was sent into exile. In 605 B.C., the Kingdom of Israel divided between north and south. The southern Kingdom of Judah fell into Babylonian captivity. In 587 B.C., Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed. This was the time of the apocalyptic Prophets — Daniel, Ezekiel and Baruch. A century earlier, Isaiah actually prophesied the name of the man who would one day restore Israel to its rightful path and preserve its heritage:

“Thus says the Lord to his anointed: To Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed.”

— Isaiah 45:1

Between 559 and 530 B.C., a man named Cyrus the Great united the Medes and Persians [in present day Iran] to form the great Persian Empire. Fifty years after Israel was invaded, cast into exile, and suffered the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, Cyrus and his armies conquered Babylon.

However no one but Isaiah could have predicted that, for the Jews in exile, Cyrus would turn out to be more of a liberator than a conqueror. He practiced no religious faith that the Jews could recognize. He lived a lifestyle with values deplorable to them. But this disruptor of no faith at all turned out to develop deep respect for theirs.

Cyrus restored the Kingdom of Israel, ordered his armies to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, declared an end to slavery and oppression, and established a charter to protect Religious Liberty. The Book of the Prophet Ezra contains the entire Decree of Cyrus guaranteeing Religious Liberty for the Jews and protecting it throughout the Persian Empire. But Cyrus himself never changed.

The Prophet Isaiah certainly never envisioned anyone like Donald Trump leading an America in rapid religious decline. He is notorious for living in a manner understandably anathema to Evangelical Christians, and yet he has also come to be seen as a Cyrus-like defender of Religious Liberty. No president in modern times has done more to protect and defend Religious Freedom.

So let me repeat myself, please. If the “Not My President” crowd is horrified as though I wrote this post wearing a MAGA hat and a “Not My Impeachment” T-shirt, this is not a matter of like or dislike. It is a matter of truth and its various distortions that today pass as journalism and broadcast news, and I am not willing to hand my Truth over to them.

A little perspective is always a good thing. This candidate’s moral past, his former overused Twitter account, and his novel approach to both foreign policy and the swamp of contemporary politics pale next to the moral decline of a nation that has terminated the lives of sixty-two million future citizens.
Some were appalled, but not nearly appalled enough, when 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, a member of the current White House Cabinet, distorted our Sacred Scripture to defend the mass extermination of human life:

“There’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath… the kind of cosmic question of where life begins. It ought to be up to the woman making the decision.”

We were not nearly appalled enough when former candidate Beto O’Rourke called for an end to Religious Rights and Freedom for any institution that fails to fall in line with same-sex marriage and the LGBTQ political narratives. We were not nearly appalled enough when the remaining Democratic candidates offered no rebuttal, not even an audible gasp.

But to quote Eric Metaxas one more time, “It isn’t what one does that makes one a Christian, but rather faith in what Jesus has done.” That may include faith in the notion that God can choose a sinner like King Cyrus as an instrument of good in the bigger picture of human history, and maybe even one like Donald Trump.

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Editor’s Note: Father MacRae emphasizes that this post is not an endorsement of a political candidate. It is an endorsement of a solid Catholic tradition that redemption is open to all who seek it.

Please share this post and ponder these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls

Donald Trump Has a Prayer by Father Raymond de Souza

Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age

One Nation Under God: The Future of the U.S. Supreme Court

Neither Donald Trump nor I Should Wear That Scarlet Letter!

President Trump and Melania Trump pray at the Shrine of Saint John Paul II in Washington, DC

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

Assassin’s Deed: My Stage Debut as President Donald Trump

Cast as President Donald Trump against a nefarious plot of international intrigue, something scarier than Kim Jong Un lurked backstage: the Trumpian hairpiece!

October 23, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

Disclaimer: The following post was first published at Beyond These Stone Walls in August, 2018. It should not be construed today as an endorsement of any political candidate, real or imagined, nor should it be seen as the promotion of any political party. It is simply about a memorable time in an otherwise strange and uneventful existence in the strangest of places.

Back in 2018, I was invited by a newly formed prison theater group to attend a rehearsal for its first stage production in the hope that I might write about it. I walked into the group an innocent bystander and walked out a cast member — THE cast member. This is that story, first presented midway in President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

The script was not written by me, a fact for which, as you will see, I am eternally grateful. It was rather a team effort from a group of creative prisoners who formed the Theater Group in which I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member. In light of more recent events, I am a bit wary about the play’s title. I do not have the power to change it, but it does serve as a reminder about the potential cost of democracy.

It is now our “BTSW Pre-election Special”. I hope it brings a much needed smile and perhaps even some laughter — though please, not in Kamala Harris style — at this otherwise tense and divisive time. I hope you enjoy this unforgettable plot.

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“With the road to Comicon littered with death, one thing is certain: Mom’s van will never be the same!”

Amanda Foreman had a stand-out column in The Wall Street Journal entitled, “Literature Behind Bars” (“Historically Speaking,” July 14-15, 2018). If you cannot view it without a subscription, here’s the gist. It’s a brief literary survey of the most profound prison writing spanning the centuries. “Prison writings are about suffering and endurance,” Ms. Foreman wrote. “The spirit remains free, even when the body is in bondage.” 

Ms. Foreman presented examples, some of which will be familiar to the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls. She wrote that “modern prison writing came into its own during the Reformation when large numbers of educated people were incarcerated as being enemies of the state.”

Saint Thomas More comes to mind, but Amanda Foreman cited another, the English poet Richard Lovelace. His poem, “To Althea from Prison” was composed in London’s Gatehouse prison in 1642. Today it graces “A Voice for the Voiceless,” a recent review of this blog:

“Stone walls do not a Prison make,
Nor iron bars a Cage.
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such Liberty.”

Prison writers who have endured the tests of both prison and time include Saint Paul whose Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians were written from prison around 62 AD. Others are Russian author and political prisoner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nazi-era Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, American Jesuit priest and Soviet prisoner, Father Walter Ciszek, South African Apartheid resistor, Nelson Mandela, and most recently the great George Cardinal Pell. As Amanda Foreman described,

“The tradition of prison literature as a source of hope and inspiration — for writers and readers alike — continues in our own time.”

Life Imitates Art

Even in the worst Soviet gulags, stories like the one I am about to tell emerged as prisoners discovered their creativity and used it to transcend walls of oppression and despair. I have encountered some amazing creativity in the place where I live. One young man whom I have known for a long time is Jim Parker, age 32. Sent to prison at 17, he is today devoted to atoning for his offense by turning tragedy into triumph.

While so many young prisoners descended into the lure of a prison gang culture, Jim took another path. He has earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in prison without a dime of taxpayer funds. He has mastered several musical instruments and has become an accomplished playwright and producer. His most recent production was a collaborative writing effort and one that was — there’s no other way to put it— either creative genius or bizarre chaos. I’ll let you decide!

Jim gathered six prisoner-writers to compose six short plays. He and the group then melded the six into a single script. While it was still untitled, Jim began to gather potential actors and stage hands to afternoon rehearsals in the prison gymnasium. As this endeavor grew over several months, I asked Jim if I could attend a rehearsal, interview some of the cast, and write about it.

Jim spoke with the cast and they were all in agreement. So he added me to the endeavor as “press agent.” I attended my first stage rehearsal in early March, 2018. While I was watching this amazing creation unfold, Jim said, “We haven’t found someone willing to play a lead character in the script.”

The entire cast stared at me. Jim played me like a fiddle (which is one of the instruments he has mastered). Defying my instinct to get up and flee, I made the fatal mistake of asking Jim the identity of the uncast character. Jim said, “We need an older articulate gentleman to play [are you sitting down?] President Donald Trump.”

Articulate? Gentleman? Putting the irony aside, I was thus drafted to play the Leader of the Free World in a political satire opposite Kim Jong Un of North Korea. This was by no means a partisan affair. All I could say was what President Trump himself might have said:

“This is going to be H-U-G-E! The best play E-V-E-R! We are going to make American drama GREAT again! We are going to transcend a wall, and the best part…? We are going to get North Korea to pay for it!”

“What was I thinking?” I asked myself later that night as I pondered facing two months of daily rehearsals in the prison gym after a full day at work in the prison law library where I studied up on how to defend myself if Donald Trump sued me for a shoddy portrayal. Then I was given a copy of the script — 37 pages of the most incomprehensible and outrageous plot I have ever encountered. “He only has a few lines,” Jim insisted.

Trump appeared twelve times throughout this play, delivered a multitude of speeches in typical Trumpian style and, in the end, saved the world. The photo below is of the entire cast and crew. I am in a dark shirt with Pornchai Moontri in the center and our friend, J.J. Jennings between us. Pornchai and J.J. were part of the construction crew that built the stage and props. After the photo begins a capsule summary of the plot with photos scattered throughout.

The Stage

Before production got underway, Joshua Budgett, an accomplished carpenter who lives with us, designed a magnificent stage. He put his degree in Engineering to work on the design. It was composed of twenty interlocking four-by-four sections that could be dismantled and stored for future productions. Josh Budgett’s stage design is a work of art that will last for decades.

All the wood for the stage was donated, and prisoners also donated their time to build the various components. Several prisoners, including our friend Pornchai Moontri, employed their prodigious woodworking skills to make the stage a reality.

In this scene, Joseph Lascaze, J.J. Jennings, and Darryll Bifano rehearse a scene on one of the stage’s 20 interlocking sections.

The Script

The production settled on a title: “Assassin’s Deed: Six Disks to Comicon.” It opens with Marty McQueen (Brian Taylor) and his friend, Steve, 20-something-year-old slackers and consummate nerds with plans to attend the massive Comicon Convention at the Los Angeles Civic Center. I asked my friend, Joseph Lascaze — who was Managing Director and an actor in the play — to describe Comicon for us:

“Comicon is a ginormous gathering of geeks, nerds, and hardcore comic book fans so they can live out their fantasies and wear tight spandexy costumes, and, for once in their lives, be the cool kids in the house if even for just a day.”

Sorry, Comicon fans. So much for a spirit of inclusivity! You might remember Joseph Lascaze from one of several appearances at Beyond These Stone Walls including, “Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell.” Joseph was entirely out of his urban culture element in this play’s celebration of nerdhood, but he lent his considerable talents for both writing and direction.

Back to Marty and Steve. In the opening scene, Marty — played masterfully by Brian Taylor — is pleading with his Mom to let him and Steve borrow her 1994 Dodge Caravan to go to Comicon. “But Moooom!” Marty pleaded, “We’ve been planning this for mooooonths!”

In the photo below, Nick Sizemore (rear) and Kyle Buffum (front left) actually built a wooden model of a 1994 Dodge Caravan which ended up being a co-star in the play. Nick and Kyle are impressive guys. They were the creative anchors and the behind-the-scenes guys who got things done.

Nick Sizemore was Technical manager for the production while he and Kyle Buffum doubled as “stunt drivers” (They powered the van “Fred Flintstone style” while hidden unseen in its trunk). They also doubled as President Trump’s Secret Service protection detail in a number of scenes. You will easily spot them in suits and dark glasses in the cast photos. [They did a better job than the Secret Service performance in Butler, PA.] Kyle made the ultimate sacrifice. He cut his hair to make the Trumpian hairpiece. It’s not easy to see in the photos under Trump’s MAGA cap, but it’s there.

Credit: KCNA via Reuters

The Super-Hoopinator

The scene switches to North Korea and the home of reclusive dictator, Kim Jong Un. He announces to his generals that he has a nefarious plan for the control of all of Korea. He has developed a secret weapon — “The Super-Hoopinator” — which he plans to unleash upon an unsuspecting world. The Super-Hoopinator will transfer into Kim Jong Un all the skills of anyone who activates it.

Kim Jong’s nefarious plan begins with his challenge to then-South Korean President Moon Jae-Un for a one-on-one, winner-takes-all basketball game for the control of a united Korea. Just before the game, Kim Jong has a plan to invite his good friend, former American basketball star Dennis Rodman, to activate the Super-Hoopinator thus transferring into Kim Jong all Dennis Rodman’s basketball skills.

To hide this plan, Kim Jong embeds his Super-Hoopinator onto six Lord of the Rings DVDs. However, Michael Cootier (played by Donald Levesque) is an American conspiracy theorist and skilled computer hacker. He has hacked into Kim Jong’s security sites to discover and divert the plan.

Assisted by his friend, hacker, rapper, and double agent Freddy McCombes (Joseph Lascaze), Mike and Freddy hacked into the Lord of the Rings DVDs and reprogrammed the Super-Hoopinator device to instead activate in Kim Jong an incessant impulse to dance and wear a wedding dress. [Don’t blame me! I didn’t write this!]

President Trump and the Secret Service

The scene switches to the White House and the Oval Office. President Donald Trump is being briefed on a report from the intelligence communities who had a mole planted in Kim Jong’s house staff. They, too, have learned of Kim Jong’s nefarious plan. To catch Kim Jong in the act, the White House issues an invitation to meet in America.

However, Mike the Hacker has also set out to foil Kim Jong. When he remotely reprogrammed the DVDs containing the Super-Hoopinator, he also programmed a North Korean security site to ship them to six different locations in the United States. The disks end up in the homes of nerds, hackers, and Mike’s fellow conspiracy theorists all of whom are in Mom’s van on their way to the Comicon Convention.

Kim Jong Un and his security staff discover the missing DVDs and decipher Mike’s computer hack. They send out a team of four assassins who leave a cross-country body count in their desperation to find the DVDs. Meanwhile, Kim Jong heads to Los Angeles and Comicon with Dennis Rodman to put the plot back on schedule. Only now, Kim Jong has added a plot to use the Super-Hoopinator on all Americans who will become puppets under his control.

The White House also learns the plans for the DVDs. President Trump and the Secret Service head to Comicon to head off everyone else: Kim Jong, his team of assassins, and Mike and Freddy. In the scene below, President Trump and the Secret Service have the nerds and conspiracy theorist-hackers detained in one room.

Nerd Marty (Brian Taylor) is on the left in his Star Trek Comicon uniform with his phaser on stun. Hacker Mike (Donald Levesque) is on the far right disguised as Star Wars’ bounty hunter Boba Fett to fit in at Comicon. Double-agent Freddy (Joseph Lascaze) is seated to my right along with Kim Jong’s subdued assassins. I remember whispering to Joseph in this scene, “Some of our nerds are not acting!”

The Final Scene

President Trump and the hackers end up being jointly responsible for foiling Kim Jong and saving the world. When the Super-Hoopinator is unleashed, instead of defeating President Moon for control of all Korea, Kim Jong is transformed into a compulsive dancer in a wedding dress.

Trump announces that the world is safe for democracy once again, and in a final scene (below), he kicks off his 2020 presidential campaign with a rousing speech. The President exits the stage to a standing ovation from an exhausted crowd of 500 who spent the previous ninety minutes laughing uncontrollably.

In the real world, as this all played out on stage, President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un came to an historic agreement. However, this time it was President Trump who was thwarted. The cast and crew of Assassins Deed, Six Disks to Comicon now take full credit for settling the Korean crisis.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: If you are in the United States, please plan to cast your vote on November 5. Please do not let any amount of disillusionment cancel your voice in support of democracy. Please also share this post. You may also like these other “prison-based” posts from Father Gordon MacRae:

The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Some Older Songs

Left Behind: In Prison for the Apocalypse

The Music of Eric Genuis Inspired Advent Hope

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

In the Rearview Mirror: Tom Clancy and The Hunt for Red October

Tom Clancy passed from this life on October 1, 2013. A devout Catholic, he was a master of the military techno-thriller and a prophet of the World War III end times.

October 16, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

Hurricane season has prevented a new post at Beyond These Stone Walls in mid-October this year. I have heard from both helpers and readers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and other states greatly impacted by a hurricane season like no other in recent memory. The meteorological storms seems almost to reflect the winds of political discord as we face an uncertain future in the slowly unraveling United States. No matter the election outcome, or the winds of change it brings, “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)

To write and publish a post each week, I am entirely dependent on a small number of kind and generous people who assist me with their time and talent. We have all learned to roll with the punches in these times, but in this stormy October one essential helper lost her phone, and another lost his home. Both are safe, thank God, but the combined impact for us this week is a rerun.

But it is no ordinary rerun. I wrote it eleven years ago this week to honor the life of an author and prophetic figure who taught me much of what I know about the political winds of this world. His first book, The Hunt for Red October, was published by the Naval Institute Press in 1984. I mentioned it in a recent post that a multitude of readers have since urged me to link to again. That post was “September 11, 2001, Freedom, Terrorism and Kamala Harris.” It serves as a diagram about threats posed by the Middle East, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and our current state of global unrest.

Over the course of two decades, Tom Clancy has educated me about how we got to where we are in global politics. In The Cardinal of the Kremlin, I learned of the seedbed of terrorism that was and now is again Afghanistan under Taliban control. Red Storm Rising, gave me a terrifying preview of World War III led by Russia and China, a war that must be prevented at all cost. In Patriot Games Northern Irish terrorism carried out atrocities agains the United Kingdom on both British and American soil.

In The Sum of all Fears, the middle East pursuit of nuclear weapons and nuclear war kept me up at night. In Red Rabbit, the Russian KGB link to an assassination attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II was exposed. Clear and Present Danger took me to the U.S. southern border and its infiltration by drug cartels and other criminal enterprises.

Then Debt of Honor and Executive Orders in a combined 1,600 pages, told the gripping story of Middle East Islamic jihad as a highjacked passenger jet was flying at high speed into the U.S. Capitol Building during a joint session of Congress. That account now hauntingly familiar, was told by Tom Clancy three years before the events of September 11, 2001 were conceived in Afghanistan by Osama bin Laden.

Finally, in 1,028 pages, The Bear and the Dragon in 2000, Clancy told another prescient story about the brink of World Wall III as China faced an economic crisis, while Russia struggled to regain the power and the glory of the former Soviet Empire. I read them all — some of them twice . Clancy wrote these stories with wide acclaim for the accuracy of his research. He wrote them to inform us about the risks and hazards of our engagement in geopolitics.

But the story I want to stand in for my post this week is none of the above. Another personal hero of mine, the late President Ronald Reagan, called this story “unputdownable!” The sun should not set on the month of October without paying respects to “Tom Clancy, Jack Ryan, and the Hunt for Red October.”

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post.

You may also like these related posts

Tom Clancy, Jack Ryan, and The Hunt for Red October

September 11, 2001, Freedom, Terrorism and Kamala Harris

One Nation under God: The Future of the U.S. Supreme Court

The State of Our Freedom, The Content of Our Character

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

Kamala Harris Has a Catholic Problem

Kamala Harris is the first Democrat presidential nominee in 40 years to refuse an invitation to the traditional Al Smith dinner hosted by the Archbishop of New York.

October 9, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae and Bill Donohue, PhD

[In the image above, the 2016 Al Smith Dinner featuring nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making peace with Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Credit: Evan Vucci/AP]

Pope Francis recently described the looming 2024 Presidential Election in the United States as a choice between two morally objectionable major candidates. He has urged U.S. Catholics to vote with a well-informed conscience for the candidate and party that represents “the lesser of evils.” The Holy Father did not indicate which of the major candidates he considers to be the least morally compromised and that is as it should be.

However, he did address the matter with news reporters on a flight to Singapore, and he did give a hint. He said that one nominee has an un-Christian position on illegal immigration. Pope Francis added that “not welcoming the migrant is a sin.” Pope Francis thenbadded bluntly that the other nominee “kills children,” which he characterized as an “assassination.” The Catholic Church regards the latter position to be “intrinsically evil.” He then reiterated his advice that Catholics should use their own conscience as their guide when voting.

I am also informed in this matter by a fellow priest, writer and highly respected theologian, The Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas of the Priestly Society of St. John Henry Newman. Fr Stravinskas is also Publisher of the fine Catholic theological and pastoral quarterly, The Catholic Response which I highly recommend. In the September/October 2024 edition, he addresses the subject of clergy having a voice in political matters. I cite him here:

“A cleric is never to engage in partisan politics. He is, however, to assist his people in bringing Gospel values to bear on the formation of public policy. In fact, failure to do so would be a gross abdication of his priestly office... . For the moment, I shall deal with only the most pressings issues. Although the GOP platform no longer calls for a constitutional ban on abortion, it does proclaim, ‘We proudly stand for families and life. We believe that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without due process, and that the States are free to pass laws protecting those rights.’ ”

The GOP Pro-Life platform continues: “After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose late term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to birth control, and IVF.”

Father Stravinskas states that those last two examples are what he earlier referred to as unfortunate, unnecessary compromises by the GOP, but ... “On the other hand, the [2024] Democrat platform is the most radical in history at every level. Most distressing is its commitment to press for a constitutional amendment to revive Roe v. Wade and enshrine it in perpetuity.” [And] “On a matter promoted by the Church for over a century, the Republican program supports parental freedom of choice in education, as well as religious freedom rights, while the Democrat goal calls for the suppression of both, as has been their consistent policy for decades.”

Father Stravinskas defers to St. John Paul II and his encyclical Evangelium Vitae in which he noted that when neither political party is ideal, one can vote for the one which inflicts the lesser harm. That position is echoed in the U.S. bishops’ 1998 document, Living the Gospel of Life. While no Catholic can support in good conscience the Democrat proposal for abortion on demand at any stage, one could, in good conscience, support the Republican platform which at least opposes late-term abortion and supports the right of a State to legislate in this matter.

The bishops of the United States have been unwavering in their support of the sanctity of life, the dignity of the family, parental rights in education, and the centrality of religious freedom. These are topics we also championed here at Beyond These Stone Walls, most especially in “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul.”

Kamala’s Catholic Conundrum

A few of my recent postings have raised questions about past anti-Catholic remarks and public positions of one of the two nominees for president representing the two major parties. Given that nearly thirty-percent of the U.S. voting public identifies as Catholic, a significant number of voters are potentially disenfranchised from their democracy in such a situation, forced to set aside their morally informed conscience to adhere to the demands of a secular platform. The post in which I raised this matter was “Kamala Harris, Knights of Columbus and Anti-Catholicism.”

There is much more to be said on the subject, but the latest manifestation of Kamala’s Catholic problem is a traditional political event hosted by the Archbishop of New York called, simply, the Al Smith Dinner. Al Smith was a native New Yorker and statesman who was prominent in both New York and national politics as a Democrat in the l920’s.

He served four terms as Governor of New York State from 1919 to 1929, and was noted for his strong advocacy for social reform, for equal pay for men and women in public school positions, and for ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which provided for women’s suffrage.

Al Smith was highly influential in the U.S. Democratic Party when he ran unsuccessfully for President in 1920 and again in 1928, but won the electoral vote in only eight states. Analysts attributed his poor showing in the voting polls to the fact that he was openly committed to both Democratic ideals and his Roman Catholic Faith. It would be another four decades before the United States would elect its first Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy in 1960.

To honor Al Smith’s steadfast dedication to his country, his party, and his faith, the Archdiocese of New York established and hosts an annual event in his honor. The Al Smith Dinner, as it came to be called, has been for decades one of the most prominent and popular political events in this nation. It is a “roast” in the sense that other speakers get to present the two major party nominees in a more positive light than the usual political fare. All enmity is set aside for this one black-tie event hosted by the Archbishop of New York in deference to Al Smith’s faith. Its entire proceeds go to support social welfare programs for women and children under the auspices of Catholic Charities.

The Al Smith dinner has been recently described as the most important and sought out political event of the presidential election cycle. The last nominee to decline its invitation was former Vice President Walter Mondale who became the Democrat nominee in 1984, losing in a landslide vote to Ronald Reagan. The 2024 event is slated to be held in New York City on October 17, and will be the 39th event in this tradition, a tradition that began in 1960 when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon called for unity as Americans despite their political differences.

But without explanation or discussion, Kamala Harris is now the first nominee in forty years to decline to attend the Al Smith Dinner. This has been described by other politicians as a near terminal political mistake. It was described by Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, as “a slap in the face of American Catholics.”

In 2020, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump were present for this event and both observed the tradition of unity of purpose. Despite the intensity of their respective campaigns, neither spoke a negative word about the other. The last Presidential nominee to address the Al Smith Dinner alone was Ronald Reagan in 1984. This year, as it now stands, GOP Nominee Donald Trump will do the same.

Others have made “off the record” remarks connecting Ms. Harris’s refusal to participate in this Al Smith event with her apparent disdain for “on the record” interviews to explain her policy positions. At worst, it was suggested “off the record” that she simply does not want to appear “before a room full of prolife Catholics.”

Credit: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Bill Donohue: Harris Is Blowing It with Catholics

Vice President Kamala Harris wants to be president, but her utter lack of engagement with the media has led even her biggest supporters to criticize her public invisibility. This explains why she went on “60 Minutes.” That was a mistake — she could not answer pointed questions. She is better suited to attending what are really TV parties, which is why she is scheduled to go on “The View” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Today she will do an interview with Howard Stern on his radio show.  This is another mistake.  In doing so, she is granting legitimacy to a foul-mouthed anti-Catholic bigot.

We have been tracking Stern for decades.  He has a long history of mocking Jesus, bashing popes, slandering priests and attacking nuns.  Make no mistake, if the object of Stern’s “comedy” were blacks or Asians (Harris’ ancestry), it’s a sure bet she wouldn’t do his show.

A recent Pew Research Center survey has Harris losing to Trump among Catholics by a margin of 52-47.  Moreover, she blew off an invitation to the Al Smith Dinner, the big Catholic event held weeks before the election.  Now she is going on with the obscene Catholic basher, Howard Stern.

What is really strange about this is that Catholics and Independents are the two swing demographics who will decide the election.

Makes us wonder — does Harris realize what she is doing?  We know her boss has checked out, but now it seems she is doing the same, if only for different reasons.

Catholic League Press Release, October 8, 2024

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Here Kamala Harris single-handedly carved the Right to Life out of the Declaration of Independence.

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Note From Father Gordon MacRae: Beyond These Stone Walls has had an ever-increasing presence in the work of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. In the July/August, 2024, issue of Catalyst the “In the News” feature included two commendations for Bill Donohue and the Catholic League “for standing by Father Gordon MacRae when many others in the Church abandoned him.” In the September 2024 issue of Catalyst, Catholic League President Bill Donohue and the organization itself are cited by numerous media venues. Two of these citations were, surprisingly, for “the Catholic League’s role in helping Pornchai Moontri be released from ICE custody and returned to his home country of Thailand.” Our readers were deeply moved by these citations.

Also in the September issue of Catalyst Bill Donohue published an editorial which I have invited him to repeat here and he was very much in agreement. It is part two of this week’s post and is published at our Voices from Beyond entitled

“Catholic Assessment of Kamala Harris.”

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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