“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
Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam
Frank X. Panico and Xs in the Sky Films present “Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam,” a film about a Catholic priest falsely accused and imprisoned for life.
Frank X. Panico and Xs in the Sky Films present “Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam,” a film about a Catholic priest falsely accused and imprisoned for life.
June 21, 2023 by Frank X. Panico and Xs in the Sky Films
Editor’s Note: This is our first “video post” at Beyond These Stone Walls. This 44-minute documentary film was created by Frank X. Panico, an award-winning short filmmaker whose work has been featured on EWTN, NewsMax, Salem Now and multiple other venues. Here is Frank X. Panico:
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“Take no part in unfruitful works of darkness, but expose them.”
— Ephesians 5:11
I created this short documentary film because I believe that railroading, convicting and imprisoning a Catholic priest through lies and deceitful tactics is an unfruitful work of darkness. The railroaded Catholic priest I refer to is Father Gordon MacRae. This documentary film is entitled “Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam.” It exposes the plight of a man of God wrongfully imprisoned.
When I learned of this true story, it drew me in. I have known Fr Gordon MacRae for less than a year, but after researching this story I feel that I have known him forever. I have studied every detail, and I have never personally vetted a subject of my films so extensively. There were many credible sources before me: The Wall Street Journal, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, The Media Report, The Catholic World Report, all bravely taking up the case of this wrongfully imprisoned priest against an avaricious tide of Catholic scandal and media coverage.
During production of this film, I often felt as though unseen spiritual warfare was in play. The evil one and his minions would have liked nothing more than for me to abandon this cause. I rejected such thoughts and came to know the truth. Father MacRae is an innocent man and the victim of a sham trial. I felt called to help someone who was absolutely falsely accused through a rogue communist-like legal system.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not the only reason I produced this film. I also found its subject matter to be intriguing and marketable. Not long after Tucker Carlson aired footage from the January 6th affair, an innocent prisoner caught in its net was released from prison just days later. I pray for the same result that this innocent man might be freed.
I am immensely pleased with the documentary, “Convicted for Cash.” Salem Now has picked it up so obviously they were pleased with it as well. As a daily communicant, I continue to pray at Mass for the well being and release of Fr. Gordon MacRae, a brother in Christ. Please view and then share Convicted for Cash by clicking on the link or the image below.
NOTE — NEWLY DISCOVERED EVIDENCE: In 2022, after Father MacRae had served 29 years in prison, compelling exculpatory evidence surfaced. It turns out that former Keene, NH sex-crimes Detective James F. McLaughlin was censured for “falsification of records” in another case nine years before MacRae went to trial. Previous Supreme Court rulings required that this be revealed to defendant MacRae and his legal counsel before trial. Instead, it was kept hidden. Since then, a Court has secretly sealed McLaughlin’s police file from further discovery. Nonetheless, news reports in New Hampshire reveal that the detective had a long history of police misconduct including allegations of falsifying evidence, threatening witnesses, tampering with tape recordings, selective investigation, and lying under oath. He briefly appeared on a list of dishonest police that is now also under judicial seal in New Hampshire.
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Holy Orders in an Unholy Collision with a Disposable Culture
Dealing with the sex abuse crisis has led many bishops to now treat priests as disposable for any infraction resulting in a serious erosion of Catholic theology.
Dealing with the sex abuse crisis has led many bishops to now treat priests as disposable for any infraction resulting in a serious erosion of Catholic theology.
February 1, 2023 by Father Stuart MacDonald, JCL
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: A few weeks ago in these pages I published, “Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study.” Because it was highly recommended to the huge membership of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, it was one of our most read posts of the year. I then invited Father Stuart MacDonald, JCL, a priest and canon lawyer who serves as advisor to this blog to present a guest post analyzing the same topic and its importance to the Church. Father Stuart’s last post here was “Bishops, Priests and Weapons of Mass Destruction.”
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I finally went, reluctantly, to a performance of the musical Hamilton. Neither American history nor rap are my particular interests; however, a friend convinced me to go. I am unqualified to offer any observations on the theatrical performance; however, I was indignant at the final message of the show and the audience reaction to it. In a nutshell, if you haven’t seen it, Hamilton is the story of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the United States of America and the author of a large number of the Federalist Papers. He was perhaps the first American politician to become involved in a public sex scandal involving marital infidelity. The musical suggests that history has been unkind to Hamilton and that his infidelity played a role in this. It concludes with a rousing song about one’s reputation and posterity. In other words, Hamilton was a great guy and how silly of us to judge his whole career by a single moral failing.
I could not agree more. But let’s face it, the hypocrisy of modern, woke, me-too movement aficionados rapturously cheering this message is comical. In less than a decade, North American culture has accepted as unquestionable the notion that it is unacceptable for leaders of any kind to have lapses in judgment or moral failings. When they do, in the current me-too mindset, they deserve to be cancelled, obliterated from history, never to be seen, heard from, or discussed again except, I realize, when it comes to Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, the play, is a huge success being performed in several places throughout the world. Does no one else see the hypocrisy? Do people not think anymore? (No, don’t answer that question yet.)
Most readers are aware of the National Study of Priests conducted by The Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America. Father Gordon MacRae wrote of it with his usual aplomb in the link atop this post. What some of you may not have seen is an equally worthwhile analysis of it in Catholic World Report, entitled, “The National Survey of Priests Suggests a Deep Crisis in Catholic Theology,” by Msgr. Thomas Guarino. Father MacRae and I both highly recommend it and we will link to it again at the end of this post.
The import of the study, and the two articles linked above, is the fact that priests, not just in the United States to which all of the above-noted articles are limited, are suffering from a fear of the modern, woke, me-too movement aficionados who seem to be as prevalent in the Church as they are in the world. I do not need to reiterate the scenario of a priest being accused, removed from ministry and either being dismissed from the clerical state or left in limbo on so-called administrative leave. In cases too many to count, priests are abandoned, having been prohibited from exercising any priestly ministry, save the celebration of Mass in private.
Let me be clear, I am not referring to priests accused of sexual abuse of a minor. While the scourge of the sexual abuse crisis is going to be with us for a long time yet, the unfortunate and concomitant truth is that priests are now sitting ducks for any type of accusation. It is specifically to the other stuff that I am referring. Dealing with the sex abuse crisis, however, has led many bishops and Church leaders to think that priests are now like chattel, pieces of property who can be used or discarded at will. The praxis in the Church these days is that a priest can act as a priest only with the explicit permission of his bishop or superior. To put it another way, it is as if a priest is ordained and receives the sacrament of Holy Orders, but the power of those orders is like a tap is turned on or off by the bishop.
Perhaps Father has fallen into sin with a woman, someone doesn’t like Father’s preaching, or maybe Father is insisting on his right to offer Mass ad orientem, or, Heaven forbid, Father uses vulgar language in a fit of anger or impatience (pace the news reports, if indeed true, of Pope Francis’ recent tirade with seminarians from Barcelona). Any of those things, to name just a few, can lead to a priest’s removal from ministry cast into a form of canonical limbo with no defense and from which he may never emerge. The idea seems to have taken over the collective episcopal mindset that a priest exercises his Sacred Orders at his bishop’s unfettered discretion. As Father Thomas Guarino points out so well in his article at the end of this post, this has serious consequences for the Catholic theology of priesthood.
The Expulsion from Eden by Gustave Doré
Catholic Crime and Punishment
Of course, the Church and bishops need to maintain discipline and authority among clergy and religious. No one questions that. But one does rightly question the overreach of control that has crept into our day to day living. Not every bad behavior, or even sinful behavior of a priest is an ecclesiastical crime for which he can be punished or even destroyed. Clearly, if a priest violates his promise of celibacy by sexual acts with an adult woman who is not his parishioner, he commits a mortal sin for which he must repent and do penance like all other sinners. But the Church does not say he has committed a crime. A crime exists, in these specific circumstances, only if he begins to live with her in a married fashion (it doesn’t mean he literally has to live in the same house with her). That is the sin and crime of concubinage.
The last punishment meted out to a priest guilty of that crime is dismissal from the clerical state. It is not the automatic penalty. Clearly, the mind of the Church is that clerics are capable of very serious sin, and the greater is their fall when that happens; but it is naïve to think that clerics are not going to sin, or that some clerics will never commit sexual sins. There is a reason why the Church has had laws against such behavior from the earliest days of her existence.
So, what is happening today? The public backlash from the sexual abuse crisis has placed bishops and religious superiors on edge. No one likes to be unpopular. In an effort to re-instill confidence that the Church is no longer turning a blind eye to the nefarious actions of some clergy with minors, bishops are just appearing ‘tough on crime’ in general. Therefore, anything that a priest does which might reach the ears of the bishop is now fodder for tough disciplinary action. Notice the change in terminology. It is not crime, which would involve inflicting penalties (like suspension, excommunication) using penal law and processes (like criminal law, trials, and sentencing in the civil sphere). Rather, it is disciplinary action for behavior that is not a crime.
The priest who has grievously sinned with a woman, and who has repented of his sin which remains unknown to the public, is now removed as pastor, has had his faculties for preaching and confessions revoked, is forbidden from celebrating Mass in public, and cannot present himself as a priest. All of that for something that is not a crime. No one would tolerate that in the civil sphere. Let me remind you, as Father MacRae has written elsewhere that Saint Padre Pio was falsely accused of all these things and spent years under the unjust cloud of suspicion.
Analogies always fail in some way, I realize, but imagine that you are a manager of a large store of a famous brand name and your supervisor finds out that you committed perjury in court over a traffic accident. Would the supervisor be justified in terminating your employment over actions which did not directly encompass your work duties? Does the priest deserve reprimand? Yes. Should he be advised that any future fall will constitute a crime for which he will be punished? Certainly. Does he deserve immediate dismissal? I don’t think so, no more than the store manager deserves to be punished by his employer. Does his dishonesty raise a red flag about his integrity? Yes. Should his supervisor monitor dishonesty in the workplace? Yes. But it is difficult to imagine that he should be terminated. When priests are terminated or cancelled in this way, the Sacrament of Holy Orders is much diminished, reduced to mere employment from which a priest can be discarded.
It is precisely this situation that has caused the angst so prevalent among priests as described in the articles by Father MacRae and Msgr. Guarino. It is naïve to think in these cases that a bishop’s first interest is going to be the priest. It really should not surprise us, however, that we are in this state. Just as seminarians are the product of the culture whence they come, and the Church must take pains to purify them of all that is wrong with the culture, so the Church, our bishops, are products of the culture in which the Church lives. We are living in the midst of the me-too movement, of the culture of ridiculous wokeness in which some believe five- and six-year-old children need to be educated about transgender ideology and sexual identity.
This dominant culture seeks rogue justice, not repentance. It seeks conformity, not diversity. We claim rights, not just the fulfillment of duties. We live in an age of wicked hypocrisy. Priests are labelled as dirty child molesters, not men of learning on a mission. Bishops steer the difficult course of confronting all that is evil in culture while trying not to make themselves and the Church irrelevant. But at what cost? With what methods?
Pandering to the mad mob is not the answer. Rather, we need to re-claim and re-publicize that the Gospel message is one of repentance and forgiveness and a call to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. We are bound to fall along the way, which is why the Second Person of the Trinity humbled Himself to be born of our human flesh. When we can regain our equilibrium after the scandals, we will be a much healthier Church, but less so if we simply discard those who have sinned but have embraced the grace of repentance. For now, as with so many other scandals and confusion in the Church, we ought as priests and laity to keep our heads down, say our prayers, and keep our Faith. This, too, shall pass. God knows when, but it will pass. How long, O Lord, how long?
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Fr. Stuart MacDonald, ordained in 1997, is a priest of the Diocese of St. Catharines, Canada. Pastor of a parish, he is currently a canon law doctoral candidate at St. Paul University in Ottawa and assists accused priests with canonical counsel. Previously, Fr. MacDonald studied canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and served as an official for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Most recently, he has been asked by Fr. MacRae to be the Canon Law Advisor for Beyond These Stone Walls.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: I thank Father Stuart for this candid and most important post on the state of priesthood in this troubled time. Both he and I want to urge readers to visit and ponder the posts cited herein by Msgr. Thomas G. Guarino in The Catholic World Report entitled, “The National Survey of Priests Suggests a Deep Crisis in Catholic Theology.”
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Father Stuart MacDonald, JCL at the Vatican
One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanow. The site has a real-time live feed of its Adoration Chapel with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We invite you to spend some time before the Lord in a place that holds great spiritual meaning for us.
Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.
As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Disney’s Disenchanted Kingdom Versus Parental Rights
A Catholic League documentary film exposes the radical Disney descent into woke politics and child indoctrination and a flagrant disregard for parental rights.
Courtesy: the Catholic League
A Catholic League documentary film exposes the radical Disney descent into woke politics and child indoctrination and a flagrant disregard for parental rights.
January 18, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae
Beyond These Stone Walls merited two citations in the “In the News” section of the December 2022 issue of Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Seeing this blog cited as a news source among venues like Catholic News Service, Catholic World Report, and Newsmax did little to bolster my New Year’s resolution to foster humility.
Also in that same issue of Catalyst, President Bill Donohue wrote about a documentary film produced by the Catholic League entitled, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom: How Disney is Losing its Way.” In a brief but important article, “Why We Did the Disney Movie,” Bill Donohue laid out a compelling case for its necessity:
“Over the years, beginning in the 1990s, Disney turned against its family-friendly image, making and distributing fare that sharply broke with its moorings. I know this because one of the first big victories I had was in 1995 when I confronted Disney senior officials, ordering them out of the headquarters of the New York Archdiocese where we were located at that time. The occasion was the movie, “Priest,” a diabolical film that featured totally dysfunctional priests, all of whose problems were a function of their priesthood.”
The Catholic-bashing Disney film was distributed by Miramax, a company owned by Harvey Weinstein, now in prison for a series of sexual offenses. Then, according to Dr. Donohue, “Disney/Miramax did one anti-Catholic film after another.”
In March of 2022, Disney released a statement condemning a Florida bill that barred teaching students about sexual and gender identity issues from kindergarten to grade three. Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law recognizing that parental rights are being disregarded when a media company takes on the parental role of sex education, especially when such content targets children ages five to eight. Who could possibly have objected to such a bill?
The Disney franchise did. At first its then-CEO, Bob Chapek, decided to steer clear of the controversy, but then he caved in under a barrage of pressure from Disney’s “woke” employees who dubbed Florida’s effort to protect parental rights as the “don’t say gay” bill. I wrote a multi-faceted post with a segment about this story that many also found shocking. Here are excerpts:
“Disney world has been in the news lately, but not for anything that contributes anything to the common good. In early 2022, following waves of parental anxiety over “woke” trends in education, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill restricting schools from teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten to the third grade. In a bizarre twist for a corporation counting on Florida for success, Disney CEO Bob Chapek launched a corporate protest of the law.
“Supporters of the law said it was aimed at asserting more parental control over content in the classroom, a trend that swept the nation after a former Governor of Virginia declared last year that parents should have no say in what is taught in schools. The loudest reaction from parents has been revealed at the voting polls. Some of the most liberal school board members in some of the most liberal Democrat-led cities across the nation have since been voted out of office.”
Disney in La La Land
If you think the Florida law squashes legitimate debate about public policy, it does nothing of the kind. It simply limits classroom indoctrination about sexual and gender identity issues from kindergarten to grade three. This should need no defense. The law also requires that curriculum on these topics in subsequent grades must be age-appropriate. Governor DeSantis defended the new law amid an onslaught of “woke” protests:
“You’ve seen a lot of sloganeering and fake narratives by leftist politicians, by activists, and by corporate media. We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare and well-being of their children.”
I wrote in another post that the Disney franchise was not always on board with its current woke agenda. Walt Disney himself went to an opposite extreme. One of my favorite movies as a child was the Disney production of Old Yeller which left an entire generation of children and teens in tears around 1960. Disney star, Tommy Kirk played a frontier teen forced to euthanize his beloved dog. Tommy Kirk went on to play the starring role in another Disney box office blockbuster, The Shaggy Dog, and again in Swiss Family Robinson.
On sets, Walt Disney introduced Tommy as “our moneymaker.” Then, at age 21, Kirk was seen holding hands at poolside with another teen boy. Walt Disney personally had him escorted off the set and his career with Disney came to an end. In his 20s, Kirk tried to revive his career with a few unmemorable productions, and then he read the writing on the wall. After recovering from addiction, he ran a small business in obscurity for most of his life and died in his 70s in 2020.
Walt Disney did not necessarily harbor prejudice. He simply knew that the public face of Disney’s entertainment empire should not also be the face of controversial social issues. So how would Walt Disney respond today to the spectacle that unfolded earlier last year in Florida?
A half century after Tommy Kirk was expelled from Disney, a reader sent me a message in 2022 suggesting that I should watch a made-for-TV Disney Film called “Under Wraps 2.” I did so with reluctance. The plot was both simple and simple-minded. A group of three middle school students discovered a pair of Egyptian mummies in a museum, assisted in bringing them back to life, attended a party with them, and then the movie ended with the kids jubilantly in the front row at a same-sex wedding which had nothing to do with the rest of the ridiculous plot.
It was clearly meant for indoctrination, and its message was also clear. If Corporate Disney could not foster such indoctrination in schools, it would do so on television, the next largest arena where impressionable children gather, often without parental awareness. In Disney’s contemporary films, the kids are portrayed as the only people who know what is going on while adults — especially parents — are portrayed as disconnected and generally clueless.
Tolerance, respect for human rights, and justice for all people are desirable goals for every society, but there is a gaping chasm between such a noble effort and the sweeping woke demands for schools to teach and promote LGBTQ and gender identity issues as a natural, even preferable evolution in human development that contributes to the common good. The “common good” is the most abused and debatable part of this discussion. I once wrote a post on the special handling of presenting this subject as normative. It was an eye-opener for many entitled, “Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix.”
In its public opposition to a common sense law, Corporate Disney descended into La La Land and is out of touch with the currents of parental rights and responsibilities. Disney’s dive into the culture war should raise alarms for stockholders whose concerns for Disney’s bottom line might dwarf its woke agenda. It should also raise alarms for parents whose children are lured from parental influence by sexual indoctrination made enticing to children by mixing it with heavy doses of glitter and fun.
Courtesy: the Catholic League
Waking up the Woke
Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek initiated a public dispute with Governor DeSantis over Florida's common sense measure. Mr. Chapek and Disney World were on the wrong side of public policy and parental rights in this. The Walt Disney franchise can only be harmed by this oblivious descent into suppressing parental rights. I predicted such a development in another post, “The ‘Woke’ Have Commenced Our Totalitarian Re-Education .”
Former long term Disney CEO Bob Iger, frustrated at the lack of response to the new Florida bill, tweeted, “If passed, this bill will put vulnerable young LGBTQ people in jeopardy.” Was Mr. Iger referring to LGBTQ kindergarten students? The absurdity of the statement was left dangling. According to an extended article on the Disney debacle in The Wall Street Journal (Disney Endgame Dec. 17-18, 2022) Mr. Iger had embraced Disney’s drift into progressive politics more than his successor. The tweet caused Mr. Chapek to change course and refute the Florida Bill.
The resultant public controversy took a toll on the Disney bottom line. By September 2021, the company had lost 45% of its stock value, but its corporate responsibility to shareholders became subordinate to what the WSJ described as “the company’s support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender causes.”
In response to all this, Bill Donohue recruited the interest of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Together they sought a meeting with Disney CEO Bob Chapek who ignored them. In the Catholic League documentary, former Disney writers reveal how the modern Disney franchise sexualizes children including “a history of exposing its young actors ... to grooming with gay and transgender messaging.” Disney's latest animated film, “Strange World,” depicts “the first openly gay teen romance in a children's movie.”
Of interest, one of the global moneymakers in the Disney franchise is Disney Shanghai. With close friends in Shanghai, I have photographs of their family outing at this newest and sprawling Disney theme park. Disney is careful not to let the same woke value judgments invade Shanghai because the Chinese Communist Party would not tolerate it. As Bill Donohue points out, Disney will accommodate China while ignoring polls in the U.S. revealing that “seventy-five percent of American voters say that targeting underage minors in a transgender movement has gone too far.”
In recent developments, CEO Bob Chapek has been fired by the Disney Board of Directors while former CEO Bob Iger has returned for another stint as Disney CEO. Disney’s stock valuation had taken a major hit. A recent extended article in The Wall Street Journal explores these developments at Disney but hints that its returning CEO leans even further left than Chapek. This does not bode well for navigating the company out of the quagmire of one-sided progressive politics into which it has descended.
Check the Catholic League website for information on the release of “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” and a trailer. The documentary features prominent cultural and media commentators including Director Jason Meath, Dr. Bill Donohue, Tony Perkins, Mercedes Schlapp, Dr. Ben Carson, Miranda Devine, Brent Bozell, David Horowitz, and Washington Times Film Critic, Christian Toto.
I wonder what the late Tommy Kirk might think today about the Disney drift to the opposite extreme of LGBTQ concerns. One need not travel back more than a few decades to find a parade of young actors used, used up and discarded by Corporate Disney. Remember Bobby Driscoll? He found stardom as Jim Hawkins in the 1950s blockbuster Disney production of Treasure Island. Bobby died from drug addiction in his early thirties after spending much of his youth anonymously discarded on skid row.
“What father among you would hand his son a stone if he asks for a fish?” (Matthew 7:10). What parent among you would take a cue from Disney on the education and raising of your child?
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The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has released its 50-minute documentary film exposing “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom: How Disney Is Losing Its Way.” This film is a must-see for anyone concerned about the erosion of parental rights in the woke indoctrination of children. Watch the Catholic League documentary here.
Editor’s Note: The December 2022 issue of the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst also profiles and recommends a new book by Stephen Krason, a member of the Catholic League Board of advisors who teaches political science at Franciscan University. His book gathers a stellar group of scholars who address, Parental Rights in Peril published by Catholic University Press.
Thank you for reading and sharing this important post. You may also like these related posts from Fr. Gordon MacRae at Beyond These Stone Walls:
The “Woke” Have Commenced Our Totalitarian Re-Education
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix
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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. The site has a real-time live feed of its Adoration Chapel with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We invite you to spend some some time before the Lord in a place that holds great spiritual meaning for us.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
A Few Bold Bishops in Defense of Religious Liberty
There are hopeful signs that some Catholic bishops are speaking boldly about the erosion of religious rights even while facing criticism for it from other bishops.
There are hopeful signs that some Catholic bishops are speaking boldly about the erosion of religious rights even while facing criticism for it from other bishops.
The Catho1ic World Report is a venerable old publication of Ignatius Press that is now only available as an online magazine. The publication recently posted through its Twitter account that Dr. Rachel Levine, President Biden’s nominee for the post of Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services, is (or was) “a biological man who [now] identifies as a transgender woman.”
That mere statement of verifiable fact by a Catholic publication resulted in a charge of “hateful conduct” by Twitter and the suspension of its account. After the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights posted this story, I was one of many thousands who emailed Twitter in protest. My protest message charged that Twitter’s response poses a significant threat not only to religious liberty but to freedom of speech and freedom of the press as well, three of the fundamental rights defined in the First Amendment.
I have no delusion that my message to Twitter made a difference, but Twitter rescinded its suspension of CWR ’s account the next day. It nonetheless struck me after this affair that the tyranny of such suppression of rights and civil liberties is the result of two forces working in tandem with each other:
the noise of a few
and the silence of many.
The suspension of the Catholic World Report ’s Twitter account was the result of a single complaint by an LGBTQ activist. The reconsideration came as a result of a multitude of protests on the side of right. I am proud to have been one of them.
We live in a time in which the measure of our self-worth is not determined by our system of values or our moral fiber in living up to them for the greater good. As a culture, we have been lulled into a quest for social media “likes” and approval from those whose mission it is to discard and replace the truths we have long lived by. Any media source that does not uphold the sensitivities of identity politics and the progressive social agenda will find itself parked far outside the public square.
The Catholic World Report simply did what the news media is supposed to do. The news media has traditionally been dubbed, “The Fourth Estate,” its public role being a much needed checks and balance on government. CWR reported no falsehood, nor did it cast any aspersion on President Biden’s appointee to Health and Human Services. The Catholic publication simply pointed out that the nominee has a lifestyle that by implication may lend itself to bias against traditional moral beliefs and practices.
Then Twitter was allowed to do what the Chinese Communist Party does on a daily basis. It eliminated from public view information, regardless of its truth, that the progressive agenda does not want us lesser folks to see or hear. I hope I am not the only one who resents this. As a Catholic, as a writer — even as a condemned prisoner — I resent it with every fiber of my being.
Les Miserables
One of the most visited posts at Beyond These Stone Walls has had an effect that I never intended. It is “Les Miserables: The Bishop and the Redemption of Jean Valjean.” My post has been visited by countless high school students around the world who have used it as a source of “CliffNotes” when assigned a book report on the novel. I am glad to have been some service, but the novel itself is soaring. So is its musical rendition that has appeared on Broadway and in theaters across the globe. Bear with me. There is a point here and I am getting to it.
My post about Les Miserables above tells the story of Bishop Bienvenue (which means “Welcome” in the novel’s original French). Bishop Bienvenue is one of literature’s most noble characters. He seeks out the poor and downtrodden, sees himself primarily as a servant, and has no interest in amassing political clout or Earthly power in any other form. His encounter with ex-convict Jean Valjean sets the latter on a course toward his own noble future. The two are unforgettable literary characters.
Victor Hugo wrote and published Les Miserables in 1862. In the decades after the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, France entered a period of anti-clericalism. Bishops and priests were widely regarded with disdain. When Victor Hugo’s son read the manuscript for Les Miserables, he pleaded with his father to change the character of Bishop Bienvenue to someone the French might more easily see as noble. It is one of the ironies of French literature that Victor Hugo’s son wanted Bishop Bienvenue recast as a lawyer.
But Hugo defended his choice. He argued that Bishop Bienvenue may not represent a Catholic bishop that France has in real life, but rather he represents the bishop that France wants to have. I find a sort of parallel in this time of our own cultural revolution. Many Catholics struggle to maintain and nurture an identity as Catholics on a moral course against a more vocal majority speeding toward identity politics and a culture of open disregard for the value of human life.
The United States has now elected the second Catholic president in its history. He has described himself as a devout Catholic who carries a rosary in his pocket everyplace he goes. He has also also openly promoted unlimited and unrestricted access to abortion at any point in a pregnancy and has pledged to repeal the Hyde Amendment which for decades has spared taxpayers from being forced to violate their consciences by providing taxpayer funded abortions.
If such a situation existed in 1862, Victor Hugo’s Bishop Bienvenue would have as the least of his concerns the erosion of his social standing or political clout if he presented an apostate nominally Catholic leader with merciful but truthful fraternal correction. I described the problem that the current President brings to Catholics of conscience in a previous post, “Joe Biden, Cardinal McCarrick and the Betrayal of Life."
The mainstream media has played down this conflict while playing up the President’s Catholic identity. So the media never revealed a statement published by Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez at the time of the President’s inauguration. With inherent charity and true moral leadership, Archbishop Gomez commended this President for his thoughtful concern for the plight of immigrants (a concern that I share after some experience with Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
Archbishop Gomez also spoke, and wrote, of this President’s unapologetic promotion of abortion, his threat against the Hyde Amendment — which he publicly supported until he ran for President — and his stated intent to codify into federal law the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade so that it cannot be readdressed by the current or any other future Court. These, according to Archbishop Gomez, are the preeminent Catholic issues of our time.
Accommodations in the Garden of Good and Evil
The Washington Post accused the Archbishop of “assailing” the President over abortion rights. Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter described the statement as “churlish.” I had to look up “churlish” since I hardly ever use the word. It means “surly” or “mean spirited,” the absolute opposite of the Archbishop’s demeanor or intent. NCR ’s Winters also wrote that Archbishop Gomez “threw cold water on the most Catholic Inauguration in history.”
Archbishop Gomez went on to add in his statement his “deep concern for the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.” This latter concern is heightened by some of the nominees our devout Catholic President has put forth. Foremost among these is Xavier Becerra, current Attorney General of California. He is passionate about expanded access to abortion and embyonic stem cell research. Beccera has been awarded One-Hundred percent ratings on reproductive rights by Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
In “Becerra Is a Threat to Life and Liberty” Bill Donohue wrote in the February 2021 issue of Catalyst that “Becerra is one of the cultural warriors” threatening to haul the Little Sisters of the Poor back into court again if they do not comply with a mandate to provide insurance coverage for contraception. In a previous issue of Catalyst, Bill Donohue wrote of the current President, “It is okay for Catholics to bludgeon the Little Sisters of the Poor so long as they carry a rosary.”
Of all the responses to the courageous statement of Archbishop Jose Gomez, however, the one from Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich is the most troubling. As the elected President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Gomez carefully framed his statement in accord with Catholic teaching, inc1uding Catholic social teaching. Using his Twitter account, Cardinal Blase Cupich publicly rebuked the Archbishop describing his statement as “ill considered.” He suggested that the statement should have been vetted before the entire body of bishops for discussion and a vote. I know of no other Catholic bishop who spoke against the statement. I applaud Archbishop Gomez for his fidelity.
And he is not alone. In an equally courageous statement, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone wrote forcefully against state and local government declarations that Catholic Mass is not an essential activity worthy of consideration.
Writing boldly for The Wall Street Journal, Archbishop Cordileone spoke truth to power in “California’s Unscientific Worship Ban.” The Governors of California and New York have been in lockstep with one another on this, a point I made recently in “A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers.” Archbishop Cordileone described his long ordeal against civil authority at both the state and local level. He did not mince his words:
"Whether religious services are ‘essential’ isn’t a matter for government to decide ... In lifting California’s blanket ban on indoor worship (in a 6-3 decision), the high court rightly acknowledged the blatant unfairness of treating religious worship differently from secular activities such as shopping ... Such blatant disregard for the Constitution bodes ill for everyone. These next four years will be a time to coalesce around core ideals or continue to divide along ideological lines.”
Even as the pandemic lessened during the summer and many other activities opened up, the City of San Francisco doubled down on its bans for religious gatherings. All indoor worship was banned while even outdoor services were limited to no more than 12 participans. At the same time, the city government had nothing to say about street protests that were openly allowed to continue, and with some in the city’s government participating.
We who have faced this pandemic with a dismal sense of Les Miserables are empowered by the witness of Archbishops Gomez and Cordileone.
Bishop Bienvenue lives on.
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Les Miserables: The Bishop and the Redemption of Jean Valjean
