“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
From Arizona State University: An Interview with Our Editor
Having pondered the project questions from a student at Arizona State University, the Editor of Beyond These Stone Walls tells the story of this prison journal.
Having pondered the project questions from a student at Arizona State University, the Editor of Beyond These Stone Walls tells the story of this prison journal.
September 4, 2024 by Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD, Editor
Prelude from the Student:
“Truth in its simplicity, revealed by suffering, carries a quality in writing. I believe this is what has drawn me to Beyond These Stone Walls and retained my readership over the years when there is not a single other blog or newspaper that I read consistently. I believe it is also a mercy of God that I have been able to read authentic Catholic voices here regarding the tumultuous current events in our world because it has helped keep my Faith alive despite much darkness. I chose this topic because I love God and wish to glorify him.”
— an Arizona State University student
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How did you discover Beyond These Stone Walls, and how did you become the Editor?
I had never heard of Father Gordon MacRae or this blog. On the Feast of Saint Joseph in 2019, I searched “Pope Benedict XVI on St. Joseph,” and the fourth or fifth result was one of Father MacRae’s articles. I read several others, and I read his story at the About Page. Deeply saddened, I wanted to help with my prayers and in any other way I could. On the Feast of the Annunciation, I sent him a letter introducing myself and offering to be a Simon of Cyrene to him.
A priest friend of Father MacRae in North Carolina had been volunteering as acting editor for the previous few years while also having been given additional parish assignments. I was close to the end of my career as a civilian scientist for the United States Air Force. I had been pondering retirement for some time and this volunteer work for Beyond These Stone Walls seemed a perfect fit for me as I now manage all the nuts and bolts of a widely-read popular Catholic blog written under the most unusual conditions.
What is the process for you to receive posts from Father MacRae, post them, and then send the comments to him?
From inside a small prison cell, Father MacRae types each post on his old typewriter and mails it to me. I scan it using optical character recognition software. With the typewritten post he includes a description of the suggested images he would like to include above each section of the post, as well as at the top. Beyond These Stone Walls was built using Squarespace, which also hosts it. Using its services I compose text, images and links to create the post on the blog. We publish every Wednesday morning, and send out an email alert to our 2,000 or so direct subscribers. But the readership of this blog is much larger. Many people go directly to the posts without subscribing. We also publish the posts on some social media such as Gloria.TV where Father MacRae has been given a page. His Christmas post about shepherds had about 50 thousand readers, many in some of the poorest parts of the world such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Father Gordon has never actually seen his published posts. As a prisoner he has no access to the online world and has never seen any social media where his posts are published.
Prisoners cannot receive calls. So when Father Gordon calls me I read him the comments that have been posted on BTSW and some of the ones that have been posted on social media.
Do you believe your Faith life has changed since taking on this position? Why or Why not?
Beyond These Stone Walls shines a light on how Father Gordon MacRae is sharing in the Cross of Jesus. It nourishes me with his example and meditations. It reports on what is happening in society and in the Church, which corporate media and many Catholic media do not. Without Beyond These Stone Walls and the witness of Father MacRae I would miss much of what is going on in the world and in the Church, in which Jesus wants me to be His instrument. I pray that I may hear His voice and do whatever He tells me.
Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” In my youth I had an agnostic period in which I agonized in search of Truth. Jesus, Truth, attracted me to Him. Father Gordon MacRae has most beautifully and faithfully answered Jesus’ ardent prayer to the Father, “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) When the corrupt and perverse “justice” system wanted him to lie about having committed crimes that never happened, he did not lie. As punishment Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced him to life in prison. Almost everyone abandoned him. But he clung to Truth, to Jesus. He is a model and a challenge to me and many, a light in the darkness.
This is a time in which astoundingly many are “those who call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). I ask myself what does Jesus want me to do. He says, “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Mt 10: 16)
In the midst of so much evil in our time, the Catholic sexual abuse scandal is most significant. Many outside and within the Church seek to confuse what is evil and what is good concerning this scandal. There are two wrongs: the abuse of young people by priests, and the false accusations of abuse of young people by priests. The latter wrong remains hidden from most, deceptively presented as the first wrong by an industry of lawyers, “victims’ advocates,” attorneys general, and anti-Catholic bigots; and very sadly and scandalously, by a bishops’ policy that encourages and promotes this evil industry. Father MacRae wrote of how this has evolved in his own diocese in To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants.”
Had I not crossed paths with Beyond These Stone Walls and Father Gordon MacRae, I would not know about the false-accusation industry. I have come to believe that as ugly and depraved as the secular world has become, and as the Church is beset by multiple problems, it is the explosion of false accusations of priests that is the worst ever attack on the Church, the most diabolical attack on the Body of Christ, and therefore the world.
The immediate victims are the falsely accused priests. Their reputations are destroyed. The search for the truth of the accusation is nonexistent. The reputation of all priests is tarnished. The laity are also victims of this attack on the Church. Billions of dollars have been handed out to those who claimed to have been abused. No billionaire donated these funds. Dioceses have been bankrupted. Parish life has been affected.
And incredibly the worst members of this false-accusation industry are (most of) the bishops. In 2002, the Dallas Charter was adopted over the objections of Cardinal Avery Dulles, Father Richard John Neuhaus and a few others. The bishops adopted the “credible” standard, a fig-leaf term to convey a sense that accusations are investigated. They are not. I remember a couple of readers commenting that in their dioceses their bishops investigated the accusations, proved they were false, and the false accusations ceased.
Knowing that it is Jesus Who calls a man to be a priest, it is unimaginable that a bishop would discard a priest without a most thorough investigation. But it is a policy that has been enforced for over two decades. It masquerades as compassionate. It is an evil being called a good. The cruelty and the attack on priesthood it represents is astounding.
Shamelessly, quite a few years after the Dallas Charter was adopted, when there was talk of extending the “credible” standard to accusations against bishops, the USCCB got lawyers to begin defining the term [The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests]. This year the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire dropped altogether the fig-leaf term. Any priest accused of sexual abuse of a young person will be added to the list that publicly shames, and discards priests. The “credible” standard, as weak as it is, has been discarded. The accuser will be monetarily rewarded. Apparently, it should cross no one’s mind that handing out large sums of money would ever entice false accusations. Again, evil gets presented as good. Twenty-two years after the Dallas Charter was adopted a new generation of bishops upholds it.
How can this be anything but a diabolical, concerted effort to destroy priesthood, to destroy the Church?
How does this affect my Faith? This is not a superficial, little problem that for the most part I can forget while I go on with my life. With “fear and trembling” I ask, “What do You want me to do? Open my ears that I may hear. Without You I can do nothing,”
Certainly, it is a privilege for me to use my time and talent to help project the voice of Father Gordon MacRae outside that prison in New Hampshire as he tries to open minds and hearts to the truth of what is happening in the world and in the Church, to Truth Himself.
As to my treasure, I micromanage my donations. I have stopped donating to the lukewarm and to those who wittingly or unwittingly collaborate with the Father of Lies in trying to destroy priesthood, and I support some of the courageous people and entities that unceasingly defend and proclaim truth.
I pray that my righteousness may surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees. I am sickened when I hear priests, bishops or the Pope consider every accusation of a priest to be true, as well as the media and lay people. May Jesus teach me to love them as He loves them.
What are your favorite things about editing BTSW? What are your least favorite?
It is a privilege and a joy to work with Father Gordon and watch his creativity as he directs me to edit an article on the fly. I want what we post to be beautiful and enjoy creating images to make it so. I want as beautiful images as I can get, and that usually takes me quite a bit of time. What I like least is not finding good images, or finding them but not being able to use them because they are copyrighted.
One of my other least favorite things, though it has come to some good, is the ocassional post that gets lost or delayed in the U.S. mail. Our choices in those weeks are to either skip a post entirely or for Father MacRae to slowly dictate a 2,000-word article to me by telephone.
What articles do you remember most? Why?
It is amazing the breadth of topics that Father MacRae tackles, from Scripture to history, to science, to current events. And he writes about his life. Pure evil placed him where he is, and he is sharing in the Cross of Jesus, but he shows how in magnificent ways God is ever present to him.
His Scripture articles are full of facts and striking insights. The collection of Holy Week posts is a gift. Another example is, “Casting the First Stone: What Did Jesus Write On the Ground?” Father MacRae brings out in fascinating detail the interplay between the law of Moses and the Roman law, and how Jesus’ response is a trap of the Pharisees. It seems to me that this and other Scripture articles need a second or third reading to fully grasp and appreciate the depth of what he is presenting.
Father Gordon loves science, especially cosmology. Many think or accuse the Church of being anti-science, but that has never been true. Not only have there been scientists in the Church, but some of the most significant advances in science were introduced by priests. For example, the father of modern genetics was a monk, Gregor Mendel. And a hero of Father Gordon discovered the Big Bang, Father Georges Lemaitre. He had known about Lemaitre for years, and was most flattered when in response to a letter he sent to Carl Sagan about his novel Contact, Sagan replied to Father MacRae, “You write in the spirit of Georges Lemaitre!” But God was not pleased to leave it just at that, He decided to make the most extraordinary connections between Father MacRae and Father Lemaitre.
Though Father Gordon has written several times about Father Lemaitre, maybe the most significant post on this subject is “Fr Georges Lemaître, the Priest Who Discovered the Big Bang.” It is an article about the great scientist Father Georges Lemaitre, co-written with noted physicist Father Andrew Pinsent, a research scientist at the University of Oxford. The article had two postscripts by Father Gordon MacRae. In the article Father Pinsent writes, “Among Catholics with some kind of popular outreach, Fr Gordon MacRae through his widely-read blog has done more than almost anyone I know in recent years to draw attention to Fr Lemaître.” For his part, Father Gordon recounts that after reading one of his posts on Belgian priest-scientist Lemaitre, Belgian BTSW reader Pierre Matthews, who is Pornchai Moontri’s Godfather, wrote to tell him that Fr. Lemaitre was his Godfather.
What makes the breadth of articles so surprising is that in prison, Father MacRae has no online access at all and no resources for research.
Initially, I was struck by how many posts are about or mention Pornchai Moontri. After a while I came to think that their profound bond was like that of friends who endure the horrors of war together and survive. Now I think that it is much more profound than that.
God has inspired many truth seekers to investigate the case of Father MacRae: Dorothy Rabinowitz, Harvey A. Silverglate, Ryan A. MacDonald, Dr. William Donohue, David F. Pierre, Jr., Father James Valladares, former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott, and investigative reporter Claire Best. Any fair-minded person who studies their work is convinced that a corrupt system put him in prison and Father Gordon MacRae is innocent.
But God wanted to reveal this with more than facts. He would reveal it with the powerful transformation of lives and souls. Pornchai had been viciously sexually and physically abused for years by a man who trafficked him from Thailand at the age of 11 and murdered his mother. Pornchai escaped and lived on the streets for all of his teen years. Then at age 18 he killed a man who tackled him and pinned him to the ground. After years of enduring violent sexual abuse this sent Pornchai into a rage. He spent the next 13 years in solitary confinement. He was then sent to the prison that houses Father Gordon. Having learned that he had been convicted of sexual abuse, Pornchai should have wanted to stay as far away as possible from Father Gordon. Yet, they became friends and then Pornchai asked Father Gordon if he could be his cellmate.
On the other hand, the corrupt and evil people who railroaded Father Gordon derailed his priesthood, took his freedom and viciously defamed him. It should be noted here that to their great credit, Vatican officials have not dismissed Father MacRae from the clerical state.
Most in the Church who should have stood by him instead abandoned him, or even worse denounced him. If this is how people in the Church treated Father Gordon, how much more understandable it would have been had Pornchai looked at him with suspicion and distrust. Yet, Pornchai has said that Father Gordon is the person in the whole world whom he most trusts. That must be a precious balm that heals Father Gordon’s heart. Many posts describe this most extraordinary friendship. Most important among them is Pornchai’s own words in, “On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized.”
Though the suffering of Father Gordon MacRae’s cross has not abated in 30 years, God has not abandoned him. He has sent Father Gordon two special friends who let him know that he is not alone: the prisoner-priest Saint Maximilian Kolbe; and the stigmatist and mystic, who was accused of sexual abuse and attacked from within the Church, Saint (Padre) Pio of Pietrelcina. Two of my favorite posts describing their presence in Father Gordon’s life are “St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Man in the Mirror,” his first encounter with Saint Maximilian Kolbe; and “Saints Alive! When Padre Pio and the Stigmata Were on Trial,” a very interesting post, which among other things describes a most special blessing that connected Father Gordon, Pornchai Moontri and Saint Padre Pio through time and space.
Have any comments left an impression on you? Why?
One of the early comments on BTSW was that of Deacon David Jones:
“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.”
I think Father Gordon deserves such a testimonial.
In 2010 Father MacRae’s blog was selected by readers of Our Sunday Visitor as The Best of the Catholic Web in the area of Catholic spirituality. About.com selected it as the second-place finalist for the Best Catholic Blog Award. Readers at the Fishers Net Award selected it as The Best Catholic Social Justice Site.
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Beyond These Stone Walls is a prison journal. Evil people did much to destroy the lives of Father Gordon J. MacRae and Pornchai Maximilian Moontri. But as this blog documents, their story is one of priesthood, sacrifice and conversion writ large. They met in the New Hampshire Prison for Men in Concord, New Hampshire, but as we have seen in some posts God had much earlier connected their lives in some intriguing ways. Into these lives weighed by deep suffering Divine Mercy entered at first in hidden ways, and then it overwhelmed them.
Shortly before the nightmare of arrest, trial and wrongful imprisonment, Father MacRae was invited to write an intention to be placed on the altar for the Mass of Beatification of Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska. He wrote:
“I ask Blessed Faustina’s intercession that I may have the strength and courage to be the priest God wants me to be.”
His strength and courage would be sorely tested. After six long years in prison he celebrated his first Mass on April 30, 2000, which unbeknownst to him was the day Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Faustina and the first official Divine Mercy Sunday.
Six years later at a most dark period in Father MacRae’s life and priesthood, Franciscan Father James McCurry, who had been a vice-postulator for the cause of sainthood of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, visited him and asked him, “What do you know about Saint Maximilian Kolbe?” Thereupon began a most special friendship between these prisoner-priests.
At just this time Pornchai Moontri was transferred from solitary confinement in Maine to the New Hampshire prison. When he first entered Father MacRae’s cell and saw Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s image on a card, half in the garb of a prisoner and half in the garb of a priest, he asked, “Is this you?” Father MacRae writes, “From that moment on, we were caught up in the light of Divine Mercy.” Pornchai’s conversion was set in motion by Father Gordon’s example and writings. Pornchai Maximilian Moontri was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2010.
When they both learned that at the end of Pornchai’s prison term he would be deported to Thailand, the prospect seemed dismal. He had been taken from there decades earlier, he did not speak the language, and no one would be waiting for him. But Father Gordon said, “We will just have to build a bridge to Thailand.” And so it happened. Today Pornchai Maximilian Moontri lives in Pak Chong, Thailand and continues to be active in this blog.
Pornchai has recently been selected to represent Father Gordon MacRae and the group, Divine Mercy Thailand, at the Fifth Asian Conference on Divine Mercy in the Philippines this year. For Father Gordon, this is the best evidence that Mary is still at work here.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. We are simultaneously publishing the article by the Arizona State University student at the Voices from Beyond page:
A Voice for the Voiceless: Beyond These Stone Walls
You may also like these related posts:
A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece by Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD
Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam by Frank X. Panico
Betrayed by Victims’ Advocates by Anonymous
Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross by Fr Gordon MacRae
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap 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, Knights of Columbus and Anti-Catholicism
Absent probing and honest media interviews, no one knows whether Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris still stands by her anti-Catholic rhetoric of 2020.
Absent probing and honest media interviews, no one knows whether Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris still stands by her anti-Catholic rhetoric of 2020.
August 28, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae
When I was 18 years old and a newly returned Catholic in 1971, I was invited by my friend, Father Anthony Nuccio, to membership in the Knights of Columbus where Father Tony served as chaplain. Along with the Civil Rights movement, the Knights were largely responsible for fostering in me a sense of Catholic community, service, and a vocation to priesthood. I was, and remain, a member of Valladolid Council #70 on the North Shore of Massachussetts. At the time I entered religious life and seminary in 1974, the Knights of Columbus bestowed on me an honorary lifetime membership. Time and distance diminished my active presence somewhat, but today I consider the Knights of Columbus to be a powerful influence on my life and vocation.
For those unfamiliar, the Knights of Columbus is an international fraternal organization of more than 2 million Roman Catholic laymen. The organization was founded in 1882 by Father Michael J. McGivney to promote ideals of charity, community, fraternity, and patriotism among first and second generation Catholic immigrants. Father McGivney’s cause for canonization was opened in 1997. Pope Benedict XVI declared him Venerable in 2008 and Pope Francis beatified him on May 31, 2020.
More than 10,000 local councils of the Knights of Columbus are presently active throughout the United States, Canada, the Philippines and the Caribbean where the Knights conduct and sponsor volunteer programs for Roman Catholics in service to the communities in which they live. The organization also conducts extensive Catholic education and scholarship programs, promotes Catholic identity, and assists in the support of seminarians and Catholic schools. Our friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri cites Knights of Columbus-sponsored free correspondence courses in Catholic and Biblical Studies as pivotal factors in his 2010 Divine Mercy Catholic conversion.
So, as you can imagine, Pornchai and I both reacted with umbrage to the misinformed and slanderous remarks of Kamala Harris and other Democratic politicians while interviewing a judicial nominee in 2020 who happened to be a faithful Catholic and a member of the Knights of Columbus. There are over 73 million Catholics in the United States. That is 73 million potential votes that Ms. Harris does not deserve unless she recants or explains her views on Catholicism and those who practice it.
For the first time in my adult life, I am afraid for America. And not only for America. I fear for all of Western Culture as well. I feel little beyond dismal foreboding for the slide toward democratic socialism into which our democracy is in rapid descent. We cannot escape the truth of it. What was, in 2020, considered the “radical Left” in politics is now merely the Left. There is no irony or subtlety at all in what I am about to write. Our only hope is to halt this course and reclaim it.
This may seem a peculiar point of view from someone for whom democracy and its assurance of justice remains a dismal failure. The imprisoned place from where I write enjoys no distractions of the world in which you read these pages. I cannot escape into Netflix or some local bar to medicate my anxiety. I cannot escape at all. Just using that word in a sentence is risky.
My view of the outside world is limited to raw and sometimes hopeless coverage presented in the 24-hour news cycles. There is no place else to go. You may have heard similar words back in 2020 from Maximo Alvarez, a Cuban-American who fled to the United States forty-four years ago. He fled socialist Cuba for America because his father convinced him that there was no place else to go.
I may be the only person I know who sat through news coverage of both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this year. I did so for the same reason that Maximo Alvarez articulated with such courage and clarity at the RNC in 2020 — because we are both afraid for America. We both know that there is no place else to go. I have not been so afraid for my country and culture since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when I was nine years old at the brink of nuclear war. Those of a certain age may remember the drills as grade school children across America were told to hide under their classroom desks with all the shades drawn. The anxiety and fear of a possible nuclear attack from the Cuban Missile Crisis left an impact on the psyche of every child.
When Russia embraced socialism following a cultural revolution, it became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It malignantly spread its tentacles in a quest for global dominance. That included the establishment of a socialist state in Cuba followed in 1962 by the construction of a battery of nuclear missiles aimed at the United States. For anyone who listened to Maximo Alvarez at the RNC in 2020, his revulsion and fear of the growing socialism in America was gripping.
Imagine how he felt when Senator Bernie Sanders referred to Fidel Castro as a humanitarian. Imagine the chill in his spine when Senator Tim Scott warned of the forces in America seeking an American cultural revolution and the establishment of the United Socialist States of America. Senator Scott was not referring to anarchists on the margins of American culture. He was referring to the presidential and vice presidential nominees on the Democratic ballot at that time. Now, history repeats.
Are Faithful Catholics a Threat to Democracy?
Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights heads this nation’s largest advocacy group in defense of Religious Liberty. His work was the subject of our post, “Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age.” Most recently, Dr. Donohue and the Catholic League have demanded from the U.S. Department of Justice an investigation and explanation for recent documents launched by the FBI to investigate Traditioned-minded Catholics who are merely attempting to exercise their Faith.
Believe it or not, I am not writing a political post. As a lifelong Democrat, now an Independent, I do not oppose any political party. But my conscience requires me to oppose an ideology that is not only a threat to democracy, but a threat to Religious Freedom and my fundamental right to practice and adhere to my Faith.
In late 2018, as then-Senator Kamala Harris was preparing a presidential run, she sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee where she screened federal judicial nominees put forward by then-President Donald Trump. Senator Harris asked a nominee about his Catholic faith, noting that he had been a member of the Knights of Columbus for over two decades. Her questions alluded to the K of C being some sort of politically suspect group. She demanded to know if his membership in such an “all male anti-choice organization” would cloud his judicial decisions. She referred to the Knights as an “extremist” group.
“Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?,” Senator Harris asked. The judicial nominee, Brian Buescher, was blindsided. It only got worse. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii picked up on the line of questioning. “Do you intend to end your membership in this organization to avoid any appearance of bias?” The appearance of bias was already front and center, but it wasn’t on the part of the judicial nominee who was eventually confirmed. On January 5, 2019, I wrote this response to the story posted at The Wall Street Journal:
“The big question here is not what judicial nominee Brian Buescher believes, but whether Senators Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono believe in anything at all that is worthy of belief. And the bigger question is whether such overt anti-Catholic suspicions render them unfit for public office. At best, they both need a refresher course in remedial Constitutional law. Their disregard for the Constitutional provision against any religious test for judicial confirmation is a serious flaw in their readiness to represent their constituents…”
What made this biased grilling of a Catholic nominee by Kamala Harris far more reprehensible was its déjà vu factor. Just six months earlier, the Judiciary Chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein, became the subject of public ridicule for openly applying the same unconstitutional religious test to President Trump’s nominee, Notre Dame Law Professor Amy Coney Barrett. Looking over her work as a law professor at a Catholic university, Senator Feinstein referred to her faith as a “cult” and said, “the dogma speaks loudly in you.” There was hell to pay.
But not so when Senators Harris and Hirona repeated the tactic just six months later. With the exception of Bill Donohue’s vigilant voice at the Catholic League, little was said to call attention to the newest anti-Catholic bias of Kamala Harris. When this bias was unmasked, Kamala Harris had defenders who argued that she could not be anti-Catholic because she was teamed up with Joe Biden “who carries a rosary everyplace he goes.” True. He carried it while promoting abortion without restrictions at every stage of development. He carried it while withdrawing his forty years of support for the Hyde Amendment that restricted taxpayer funds for the coverage of abortions.
He carried it when he vowed from his campaign headquarters to roll back religious exemptions in contraception coverage extended by the Supreme Court to the Little Sisters of the Poor. Mr. Biden responded to the Supreme Court decisions in favor of protecting Religious Liberty for the nuns and other conscientious objectors by restoring the mandate that both the nuns and the Supreme Court objected to. This would hit the Sisters with ruinous fines and a deeply felt conflict of conscience. The rosary in his pocket notwithstanding, Joe Biden’s threats to Religious Liberty were evidence of how much he was led and misled by the Left wing of his party, a position for which Kamala Harris has taken the reins and has now made it the mainstream of that party.
In just the six months between the anti-Catholic questioning of Notre Dame’s Amy Coney Barrett and that of judicial nominee Brian Buescher, a lot had changed. One distinctive change was the Senate Democrats’ assault on the character of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a devout Catholic.
Senator Kamala Harris reprised her role as a career prosecutor by grilling Brett Kavanaugh mercilessly on entirely uncorroborated rumors of drunkenness and sexual escapades in his high school years — rumors that not a single person could confirm.
It has also been lost in most of the news media coverage that before becoming the nominee for vice president on the Democratic ticket, Kamala Harris went on record to state that she also believes the sexual allegations against Joe Biden brought forward by Tara Reade in 2020. This is among the tough questions that most in our now-partisan news media will not ask.
Credits: Left, Addie Mena/Catholic News Agency; Right, Associated Press
Anesthesia for the Catholic Conscience
After publication of a controversial post, “Joe Biden, Cardinal McCarrick and the Betrayal of Life,” a priest whom I have known for some years “unsubscribed” from this blog in 2020. His reasoning was that any criticism of Joe Biden on moral grounds amounted to a tacit endorsement of President Trump. I do not endorse President Trump. What I endorse — and so should we all — is the lawful election that put him in office in 2016. I am among the many Americans who resent the notion that this “Basket of Deplorables” who cast their votes were too ignorant to be entrusted with the finer points of democracy.
From the moment the election results were announced in November, 2016, a relentless campaign was launched to nullify this lawful election by discrediting the elected President through any means possible. Most shameful of all for democracy, much of the news media abandoned its mission to report honestly on that partisan cause. One result of that betrayal was evident at The New York Times when young, progressive reporters in the news room revolted and brought about the resignation of a respected editor because he allowed “the opposition” to write an op-ed. “The opposition” in that case was the highly regarded Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
When New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan praised President Trump’s emphasis on Religious Liberty in a FOX News interview, two liberal groups of Catholic nuns sent letters of protest to the Cardinal asking him to retract his remarks. They cited Mr. Trump’s positions on climate change and capital punishment as evidence that he cannot be considered “pro-life.” The National Catholic Reporter published an editorial using the same reasoning.
In the Catholic conscience, some real moral gymnastics are required to measure a candidate’s concept of the value of life solely by a position on the death penalty. It entirely overlooks the moral apocalypse that resulted in the execution of 73 million human lives terminated in the womb at every level of development right up to birth. The awakening of the Catholic conscience to this is evident in my post, “The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Civil Rights and the Right to Life”
I am in sympathy with “Black Lives Matter” but there is much hypocrisy. African Americans constitute 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, but 30 percent of U.S. abortions. That is by design and not merely a quirk of sociology. Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger for the purpose of controlling the growth of the African American population. That fact is finally exposed in the public square. As monuments to historical figures are toppled across the land, no one has yet suggested that Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi surrender their Margaret Sanger awards for their support of “reproductive rights.”
Whatever Kamala Harris believes about the morality of unlimited abortion on demand, she is falling lockstep in line with the platform of her party. In 2020, Kristin Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, reported that a third of Democrats considered themselves to be pro-life, but “top Democrats have gone out of their way to make it clear that we are no longer welcome in the party.” The DNC ignored the group’s request to testify before its platform committee. A major percentage of these pro-life Democrats are people of faith, Ms Day said, “but the much-hyped group, ‘Believers for Biden’ is a flop. It had only 26 followers on Facebook a week after being created” in 2020. One year later, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the platform stating, “The Declaration of Independence guarantees to every American the right to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” By single-handedly eliminating the most basic of all human rights, the right to life, Kamala Harris set the Democrat Party on a road to hedonism.
As Joe Biden vowed to bankrupt the Little Sisters of the Poor with never-ending legislation and litigation, Kamala Harris did the same during her tenure as California Attorney General. In 2014, the Catholic Daughters of Charity Health System had six hospitals that were operating at an annual loss that could not be sustained. Prime Healthcare made a bid to assume their $300 million liability for worker pensions, but the United Healthcare Workers’ union opposed the deal.
Kamala Harris attached dozens of previously unheard of conditions to the deal such as requiring the Catholic hospitals to provide 24-hour nursing, surgery, anesthesia, radiology and pharmaceutical services for five years. This crippled the deal.
Prime Health sued Kamala Harris for violating its due process rights. The Catholic Daughters executives said that Ms. Harris blocked the deal at the behest of the union with “financially crippling conditions.” The lawsuit alleged that in return the union pledged $25 million in political financial support for Ms. Harris. The lawsuit ended in 2017 when a federal judge ruled that as Attorney General, Ms. Harris had “qualified immunity” from lawsuits. It is ironic that in 2020, Kamala Harris introduced a resolution in the Senate to abolish qualified immunity for police officers while retaining it for herself.
What are American Catholics left with? Back before the election of 2020, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris was more likely than any nominee in history to assume the Office of President of the United States at some future point due to the age of Joe Biden at that time. And yet she dropped out of the Democratic process with only a pitiful percentage of votes in the primaries. She has declared the 2 million members of the Knights of Columbus to be a subversive organization and has joined the new Democrat Party in its march toward socialism and its inevitable suppression of religious liberty.
But another voice, that of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, caught onto all this duplicity early on during the presidential debates of 2020. Before ending her own bid for the White House, Ms. Gabbard courageously unloaded her views on the suitability of Kamala Harris for the highest public office in the land. Kamala Harris dropped out of the primaries after receiving only two percent of the Democrats’ votes in Iowa in 2020. I’m giving the last word to Tulsi Gabbard:
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Editor’s note: Please share this post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
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.”
The Assumption of Mary and the Assent of Saint Maximilian Kolbe
In one of history’s darkest times and places, Saint Maximilian Kolbe continued his life’s greatest quest: to know, honor, and echo the assent of Mary to the Lord.
In one of history’s darkest times and places, Saint Maximilian Kolbe continued his life’s greatest quest: to know, honor, and echo the assent of Mary to the Lord.
August 14, 2024 by Fr. Gordon MacRae
On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII solemnly defined as a dogma of faith the bodily Assumption into Heaven of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The precise words of Pope Pius are found in the Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, “The Most Bountiful God,” defining what much of the Church already believed, and now holds as a matter of truth:
“We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed truth that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
It was not without controversy. Pius XII thus became the first pope in a century to define a new dogma of faith. Five papacies earlier, in 1869, Pope Pius IX sought, cajoled, and in the end imposed, the doctrine of papal infallibility. In his book, Making Saints, former Newsweek editor Kenneth Woodward described the doctrine of infallibility as a “sheathed sword” (Making Saints, p. 314). He described it that way because, from the time of the doctrine’s inception in 1869, a declaration of papal infallibility has only been invoked once: a century later in 1950 when Pius XII declared the Assumption of Mary to be an infallible tenet of faith.
This was not just a unilateral pronouncement from on high. Before defining the dogma in 1950, Pius XII sought and received an amazing response of affirmation from the “sensus fidelium,” the assent of the faithful from throughout the world. The Our Sunday Visitor Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine describes this beautifully:
“Infallibility in belief pertains to the whole Church. ‘The whole body of the faithful … cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation of the faith (the ‘sensus fidei’) of the whole people when, from the bishops to the last of the faithful, they manifest a universal consent to matters of faith and morals.” (Lumen Gentium)
“To understand properly how the whole people of God is infallible in its sense of the faith (sensus fidei, sensus fidelium) it must be born in mind that the body of the faithful goes beyond limits both of place and, especially, of time. The People of God always includes those of past generations as well as those in the present moment. The former are in fact the vast majority, and it is easier to ascertain what they believed. It is that belief that marks the sensus fidelium and points infallibly to the truth." (p. 334)
To help in understanding this concept of the Universal Church that includes the faith of all generations past, see my post, “The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead” (linked again at the end of
this post). It is evidence of the ongoing connectedness of the faithful departed to the life of the Church.
I found this concept to be a stunning affirmation, not only of what we believe, but of why we believe it. The idea that infallibility includes the unwavering faith of the vast majority of the People of God taken as a whole over the span of millennia is mind-boggling truth.
The faith of the entire Church, from its birth at Pentecost to the present, points to a belief in Mary as Theotokos, the Bearer of God and the New Ark of the Covenant. Pope Pius XII strongly considered this before defining as infallible the Dogma of the Assumption in 1950. From the Chair of Peter, Pius XII sought the assent of the faithful in the present through his encyclical, Deiperae Virginis Mariae, to inquire whether Mary’s bodily Assumption should be defined.
As a result, an amazing number of petitions reached Rome from every corner of the Church. The petitions included those of 8,000,000 laity, 50,000 religious women, 32,000 priests, 2,505 archbishops and bishops, 311 cardinals, and 81 patriarchs of the Eastern Church. If this demonstration of assent had been able to span the entire life of the Church the result would have been immeasurable.
From the earliest days of the Church many considered the Assumption of Mary — centuries before it was defined as a tenet of faith — to be, in the words of Pius XII, “the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve” — original sin. In the Eastern Church, a “Memorial of Mary” was already being celebrated on August 15 in the Fifth Century. It spread from the East and came ot be known as the koimesis in Greek and the dormitio in Latin, both of which mean the “falling asleep.” By the Eighth Century, belief in the bodily Assumption of Mary was widely accepted in both the East and West.
In the 19th Century, John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote that both the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary are implicit in her identification as the “New Eve,” a title given to Mary since the Second Century. Just as the Resurrection of Jesus was the essential element of His victory over sin and death, Mary shares that victory in her designation as the New Eve, and in the words of Jesus at the foot of the Cross as the spiritual Mother of all. Seeing His Mother at the foot of the Cross, Jesus said ot her, “Woman, behold your son.” And then to the Disciple John, “Behold your Mother.” It was an adoption arrangement (John 19:26-27).
Among the earliest titles of Mary is Theotokos, Greek for “The Bearer of God.” For the Scriptural foundation of this belief and its implications, see my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
“What Will Become of You?”
In the Gospel account of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2), Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus at Mount Tabor. Both Moses and Elijah, according to Scripture, entered heaven in both body and soul. The appearances of Mary at Fatima, Lourdes, Tepeyac Hill in Mexico, and others all point to an understanding of Mary as existing still in that same form. I wrote of the details of one of these visits in “A Subtle Encore from Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
There is no saint of modern times with a stronger and more dedicated devotion ot Mary than Saint Maximilian Kolbe who seemed to live with a perpetual presence of the Immaculata in his field of view. Long before he was the Saint of Auschwitz and Founder of the Militia Immaculata, Saint Maximilian Kolbe was simply “Raymond,” a highly intelligent and gifted boy born into poverty in a rural farming community in Poland.
Like me, Raymond Kolbe was fascinated by the sciences of astronomy and cosmology and actually once built a working rocket as a boy. Also like me, he exasperated his mother at times. One day his frustrated mother scolded him, “Raymond! Whatever will become of you?” Filled with grief, young Kolbe went immediately to a local church and turned to the Mother of God with the same question. According to Kolbe’s own words as reported by my friend, Father Michael Gaitley, MIC in his wonderful book, 33 Days to Morning Glory,
“Then the virgin appeared to me holding in her hands two crowns, one white and one red. She looked at me with love and she asked me if I would like to have them. The white meant that I would remain pure, and the red meant that I would be a martyr. I answered, ‘yes, I want them.’ Then she looked at me tenderly and disappeared.”
Father Gaitley went on to describe that what was meant by “pure” in this sense was that Kolbe would never allow evil or dishonesty to take root in his heart. And it never did. On August 14, the date this is posted, the Church honors Saint Maximilian Kolbe. He also happens to be my own Patron Saint as well as that of my friend, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, and the Patron Saint of this blog. To the best of our ability, we follow in his spiritual footsteps, but his footsteps took him to an ultimate sacrifice. The nature of that sacrifice, along with Maximilian’s Auschwitz prison number 16670, now a badge of honor, is expressed on Pornchai’s T-shirt atop this section of our post. Our friend, Father Michael Gaitley, MIC, described the footsteps of Saint Maximilian in brief but familiar prose in 33 Days to Morning Glory :
“In 1941, after decades of incredibly fruitful apostolic labors in Poland and Japan, Kolbe was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Before his arrest, his brother Franciscans had pleaded with him to go into hiding. He said he was grateful for their loving hearts but couldn’t follow their advice.
“He later explained why: ‘I have a mission to fulfill.’ That mission was fulfilled on the eve of the Feast of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven when, after he volunteered to take the place of another prisoner condemned to starvation, the impatient Nazis finished Kolbe off with a lethal injection. Thus, St. Maximilian died a martyr of charity and received the red crown from his Immaculata.”
Two hours before his arrest, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe penned what Father Gaitley called “the single most important theological reflection of his life. It was nothing less than the answer to a question that eluded him for many years, the question he had pondered over and over throughout his life was: “Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?”
In the document, according to Father Gaitley, Kolbe raised a key point. In the appearances of Mary at Lourdes, Mary did not say to St. Bernadette, “I am immaculately conceived,” but rather she said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” It was thus clarified for Maximilian that through a special grace from God, Mary was in fact immaculately conceived in the womb of her own mother with no stain of original sin and that grace became her very identity by the as yet unseen merits of her Son. Understanding this means stepping out of conventional time and space for a moment into the mystery of the “nunc stans” the "Eternal Now" in which God dwells and in which He envisions all time and space as one. It is a difficult concept for our linear existence to ponder, but I have pondered it for my entire life.
Father Gaitley asks (p. 52): “Why does Mary make the grace she received at her conception her very name?” Clearly, Mary is not a divine being. Kolbe wrestled with this divinity problem for decades, and it ultimately led to a solution.
There are two Immaculate Conceptions, one created (Mary) and the other uncreated (the Holy Spirit). Before Mary, there was the uncreated Immaculate Conception, “the One Who for all eternity springs from God the Father and God the Son as an uncreated conception of love, the prototype of all conceptions that multiply life throughout the universe. The Father begets, the Son is begotten, the Spirit is the 'conception' that springs from their love. The Holy Spirit is the “Immaculate Conception” b e c a u s e, being God, He is without sin.
Is Mary then a personification of the Holy Spirit? The truth of this union between the Holy Spirit and Mary is found in a somewhat difficult passage in Maximilian’s own writings as reported by Father Gaitley:
"What type of union is this? It is above all an interior union, a union of her essence with the ‘essence’ of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her, lives in her. This was true from the first instant of her existence. It was always true; it will always be true.” ( Gaitley, p. 53)
“In what does this life of the Spirit in Mary consist? He himself is uncreated Love in her; the Love of the Father and of the Son, the Love by which God loves Himself, the very Love of the Most Holy Trinity ... . In a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the Immaculata, in the depths of her very being” (Gaitley, p. 53-54)
"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, henceforth all generations shall call me
blessed.”
— From the Magnificat of Mary, Luke 1:46-48
In “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God,” I explored a similar Marian theology, and from it I think I can finally make sense of what Saint Maximilian has proposed. Mary, Theotokos , the Bearer of God, is an eternal repository of the Holy Spirit. Both my friend Pornchai Maximilian Moontri and I owe her a great debt — not for saving us from Earthly Powers of destruction, because they actually mean little, but for preserving us in faith despite them.
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“Remember that those who ask for Heaven of the Immaculata will surely achieve it because she is unable to deny us anything nor is the Lord God able to deny her anything. We shall shortly know exactly what it will be like in Heaven. Surely in a hundred years none of us will be walking on this Earth. But what are a hundred years in the face of what we have been through? Soon, therefore, provided we are well prepared under the protection of the Immaculata.”
— St. Maximilian Kolbe, 1941
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Please spend some time in prayer and thanksgiving at the live feed of Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s own Adoration Chapel featured below after all our posts at Beyond These Stone Walls.
You may also like these related posts:
The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead
The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God
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.”
Claire Dion Has Fallen into the Hands of the Living God
Our great friend, Claire Dion, succumbed to cancer early on April 26, 2024. She passed peacefully in the presence of her family into the hands of the Living God.
Our great friend, Claire Dion, succumbed to cancer early on April 24, 2024. She passed peacefully in the presence of her family into the hands of the Living God.
April 29, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae
“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
— Colossians 3:3
It is rare that I publish more than one post a week. However, I could not let this opportunity pass to acknowledge Mrs. Claire Dion for her undaunted efforts over many years to help bring our posts to you every week. I wrote a tribute to Claire posted on April 3, 2024 entitled, “In a Mirror Dimly: Divine Mercy in Our Darker Days.” Claire played many roles in my life and in the life of our friend Pornchai Max Moontri in ways both innovative and heroic. I have spent much time pondering, in the past few days, how we could ever continue on without her.
But we must, and Claire would be the first to insist that we must. She was and is one of the most selfless souls ever to cross my path. A Mass of Christian Burial is to be offered for Claire on the day this is posted, April 29, 2024. The Mass will be at Saint Pius V Catholic Church in Lynn, Massachusetts in the very neighborhood in which I grew up. You may read all about Claire, and our hopes and fears for her in the winter of her life, in the post linked above.
But the memory I most want to cling to, and convey to all of you, is perhaps the most innovative thing she had done for us. It was late September of 2020 at the height of a global pandemic. After 16 years here as my friend, my roommate, and my family, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri was taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to begin the long and painful ordeal of deportation to his native Thailand. Prison life was beset by a panicked and draconian response to Covid, and it seemed much of the world had come to a screeching halt. Here is how I presented this story a few weeks ago:
The Divine Mercy Phone Calls
In 2020, Pornchai was held for five months in ICE detention at an overcrowded, for-profit facility in Louisiana. It was the height of the global Covid pandemic, and we were completely cut off from contact with each other. But Claire could receive calls from either of us. I guess raising five daughters made her critically aware of the urgent necessity of telephones and the importance of perceiving in advance every attempt to circumvent the rules.
Claire devised an ingenious plan using two cell phones placed facing each other with their speakers in opposite positions. On a daily basis during the pandemic of 2020, I could talk with Pornchai in ICE detention in Louisiana and he could talk with me in Concord, New Hampshire. These brief daily phone calls were like a life preserver for Pornchai and became crucial for us both. Through them, I was able to convey information to Pornchai that gave him daily hope in a long, seemingly hopeless situation.
Each step of the way, Claire conveyed to me the growing depth of her devotion to Divine Mercy and the characters who propagated it, characters who became our Patron Saints and upon whom we were modeling our lives. Saints John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Faustina Kowalska, Therese of Lisieux, all became household names for us. They were, and are, our spiritual guides, and became Claire’s as well by sheer osmosis.
Neither Pornchai Max nor I will ever forget Claire, but what we will both most remember with gratitude in our hearts and thanksgiving to the Lord for the graces bestowed to us through Claire is the clever and innovative story described above. It was unorthodox, but she saved the day for us both.
If you would like to post a prayer or thought about Claire, or condolence to her family, you are invited to do so at this site.
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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Please pray for Claire and her family. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls.
In a Mirror Dimly: Divine Mercy in Our Darker Days
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 a Mirror Dimly: Divine Mercy in Our Darker Days
Your friends behind and Beyond These Stone Walls have endured many trials. Divine Mercy has been for them like a lighthouse guiding them through their darkest days.
Your friends behind and Beyond These Stone Walls have endured many trials. Divine Mercy has been for them like a lighthouse guiding them through their darkest days.
April 3, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae
Editor’s Note: In 2018, Mrs. Claire Dion visited Pornchai Moontri in prison and wrote a special post about the experience which we will link to at the end of this one. In the years leading up to that visit, the grace of Divine Mercy became for them both like a shining star illuminating a journey upon a turbulent sea. Divine Mercy is now their guiding light.
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I had clear plans for the day I began writing this post, one of many at this blog about Divine Mercy. But, as often happens here, my best laid plans fall easily apart. The prison Library where I have been the Legal Clerk for the last dozen years has been open only one day per week for several months due to staff shortages. During down times in the Law Library, I am able to use a typewriter that is in better condition than my own. So this day was to be a work day, and I had lots to catch up on, including writing this post.
I kept myself awake during the night before, mapping out in my mind all that I had to accomplish when morning came and how I would approach this post. Divine Mercy is, after all, central to my life and to the lives of many who visit this blog. But such plans are often disrupted here because control over the course of my day in prison is but an illusion.
Awake in my cell at 6:00 AM, I had just finished stirring a cup of instant coffee. Before I could even take a sip, I heard my name echoing off these stone walls as it was blasted on the prison P.A. system. It is always a jarring experience, especially upon awakening. I was being summoned to report immediately to a holding tank to await transport to God knows where. I knew that I might sit for hours for whatever ordeal awaited me. My first dismayed thought was that I could not bring my coffee.
It turned out that my summons was for transportation to a local hospital for an “urgent care” eye exam with an ophthalmologist. For strict security reasons I was not to know the date, time, or destination. Months ago, I developed a massive migraine headache and double vision. The double vision was alarming because I must climb and descend hundreds of stairs here each day. Descending long flights of stairs was tricky because I could not tell which were real and which would send me plummeting down a steel and concrete chasm.
So I submitted a request for a vision exam. My double vision lasted about six weeks, then in mid-February it disappeared as suddenly as it came. I then forgot that I had requested the consult. So two months later I made my way through the morning cold in the dark to a holding area where a guard pointed to an empty cell where I would sit in silence upon a cold concrete slab to await what is called here “a med run.”
Over the course of 30 years here, I have had five such medical “field trips.” That is an average of one every six years so there has been no accumulated familiarity with the experience. The guards follow strict protocols, as they must, requiring that I be chained in leg irons with hands cuffed and bound tightly at my waist. It is not a good look for a Catholic priest, but one which has likely become more prevalent in recent decades in America. During each of my “med runs” over 30 years, my nose began to itch intensely the moment my hands were tightly bound at my waist.
The ride to one of this State’s largest hospitals, Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, was rather nice, even while chained up in the back of a prison van. The two armed guards were silent but professional. My chains clinked loudly as they led me through the crowded hospital lobby. The large room fell silent. Amid whispers and furtive glances, I was just trying hard not to look like Jack the Ripper.
I was led to a bank of elevators where I was gently but firmly turned around to face an opposite wall lest I frighten any citizens emerging from one. As I stared at the wall, I made a slight gasp that caught the attention of one of the guards. Staring back at me on that wall opposite the elevators was a large framed portrait of my Bishop who I last saw too long ago to recall. I smiled at this moment of irony. He did not smile back.
A Consecration of Souls
The best part of this day was gone by the time I returned from my field trip to my prison cell. I was hungry, thirsty, and needed to deprogram from the humiliation of being paraded in chains before Pilate and the High Priests. My first thought was that I must telephone two people who had been expecting a call from me earlier that day. One of them was Dilia, our excellent volunteer editor in New York. The other was Claire Dion, and I felt compelled to call her first. Let me tell you about Claire.
As I finally made my way up 52 stairs to my cell that day, I reached for my tablet — which can place inexpensive internet-based phone calls. I immediately felt small and selfish. My focus the entire day up to this point was my discomfort and humiliation. Then my thoughts finally turned to Claire and all that she was enduring, a matter of life and death.
I mentioned in a post some years back that I grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, a rather rugged industrial city on the North Shore of Boston. There is a notorious poem about the City but I never knew its origin: “Lynn, Lynn, the City of Sin. You never go out the way you come in.” After writing all those years ago about growing up there, I received a letter from Claire in West Central Maine who also hails from Lynn. She stumbled upon this blog and read a lot, then felt compelled to write to me.
I dearly, DEARLY wish that I could answer every letter I receive from readers moved by something they read here. I cannot write for long by hand due to carpal tunnel surgery on both my hands many years ago. And I do not have enough typewriter time to type a lot of letters — but please don’t get me wrong. Letters are the life in the Spirit for every prisoner. Claire’s letter told me of her career as a registered nurse in obstetrics at Lynn Hospital back in the 1970s and 1980s. It turned out that she taught prenatal care to my sister and assisted in the delivery of my oldest niece, Melanie, who is herself now a mother of four.
There were so many points at which my life intersected with Claire’s that I had a sense I had always known her. In that first letter, she asked me to allow her to help us. My initial thought was to ask her to help Pornchai Moontri whose case arose in Maine. The year was late 2012. I had given up on my own future, and my quest to find and build one for Pornchai had collapsed against these walls.
Just one month prior to my receipt of that letter from Claire, Pornchai and I had professed Marian Consecration, after completing a program written by Father Michael Gaitley called 33 Days to Morning Glory. It was the point at which our lives and futures began to change.
Claire later told me that after reading about our Consecration, she felt compelled to follow, and also found it over time to be a life-changing event. She wanted to visit me, but this prison allows outsiders to visit only one prisoner so I asked her to visit Pornchai. He needed some contacts in Maine. The photo atop this post depicts that visit which resulted in her guest post, “My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri.”
The Divine Mercy Phone Calls
From that point onward, Claire became a dauntless advocate for us both and was deeply devoted to our cause for justice. In 2020, Pornchai was held for five months in ICE detention at an overcrowded, for-profit facility in Louisiana. It was the height of the global Covid pandemic, and we were completely cut off from contact with each other. But Claire could receive calls from either of us. I guess raising five daughters made her critically aware of the urgent necessity of telephones and the importance of perceiving in advance every attempt to circumvent the rules.
Claire devised an ingenious plan using two cell phones placed facing each other with their speakers in opposite positions. On a daily basis during the pandemic of 2020, I could talk with Pornchai in ICE detention in Louisiana and he could talk with me in Concord, New Hampshire. These brief daily phone calls were like a life preserver for Pornchai and became crucial for us both. Through them, I was able to convey information to Pornchai that gave him daily hope in a long, seemingly hopeless situation.
Each step of the way, Claire conveyed to me the growing depth of her devotion to Divine Mercy and the characters who propagated it, characters who became our Patron Saints and upon whom we were modeling our lives. Saints John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Faustina Kowalska, Therese of Lisieux, all became household names for us. They were, and are, our spiritual guides, and became Claire’s as well by sheer osmosis.
Each year at Christmas before the global Covid pandemic began, we were permitted to each invite two guests to attend a Christmas gathering in the prison gymnasium. We could invite either family or friends. It was the one time of the year in which we could meet each other’s families or friends. Pornchai Moontri and I had the same list so between us we could invite four persons besides ourselves.
The pandemic ended this wonderful event after 2019. However, for the previous two years at Christmas our guests were Claire Dion from Maine, Viktor Weyand, an emissary from Divine Mercy Thailand who, along with his late wife Alice became wonderful friends to me and Pornchai. My friend Michael Fazzino from New York, and Samantha McLaughlin from Maine were also a part of these Christmas visits. They all became like family to me and Pornchai. Having them meet each other strengthened the bond of connection between them that helped us so much. Claire was at the heart of that bond, and it was based upon a passage of the Gospel called “The Judgment of the Nations.” I wrote of it while Pornchai was in ICE Detention in 2020 in a post entitled, “A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King.”
Father Michael Gaitley also wrote of it in a book titled You Did It to Me (Marian Press 2014). We were surprised to find a photo of Pornchai and me at the top of page 86. Both my post above and Father Gaitley’s book were based on the Gospel of Matthew (25:31-46). It includes the famous question posed in a parable by Jesus: “Lord, when did we see you in prison and visit you? And the King answered, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me’” (Matthew 25:39-40)
That passage unveils the very heart of Divine Mercy, and as Father Gaitley wrote so eloquently, it is part of a road map to the Kingdom of Heaven. It was Claire who pointed out to me that she was not alone on that road. She told me, “Every reader who comes from beyond these stone walls to visit your blog is given that same road map.”
The God of the Living
In Winter, 2023 Claire suffered a horrific auto accident. While returning home from Mass on a dark and rainy night a truck hit her destroying her vehicle and causing massive painful tissue damage to her body, but no permanent injury. I have been walking with her daily ever since. Miraculously, no life-threatening injuries were discovered in CT or MRI scans. However, the scans also revealed what appeared to possibly be tumors on her lung and spinal cord.
At first, the scans and everyone who read them, interpreted the tumors to be tissue damage related to the accident that should heal over time. They did not. In the months to follow, Claire learned that she has Stage Four Metastatic Lung Cancer which had spread to her spinal cord. The disruptions in her life came quickly after that diagnosis. I feared that she may not be with us for much longer. This has been devastating for all of us who have known and loved Claire. I was fortunate to have had a brief prison visit with her just before all this was set in motion.
Claire told me that on the night of the accident, she had an overwhelming sense of peace and surrender as she lay in a semi-conscious state awaiting first responders to extricate her from her crushed car. Once the cancer was discovered months later, she began radiation treatments and specialized chemotherapy in the hopes of shrinking and slowing the tumors. She is clear, however, that there is no cure. Claire dearly hoped to return to her home and enjoy her remaining days in the company of her family and all that was familiar.
As I write this, Claire has just learned that this will not be possible. Jesus told us (in Matthew 25:13) to always be ready for we know not the day or the hour when the Son of Man will come. I hope and pray that Claire will be with us for a while longer, but I asked her not to call this the last chapter of her life, for there is another and it is glorious. Just a week ago, Christ conquered death for all who believe and follow Him.
In all this time, Claire has been concerned for me and Pornchai, fearing that we may be left stranded. I made her laugh in my most recent call to her. I said, “Claire, I am not comfortable with the idea of you being in Heaven before me. God knows what you will tell them about me!” I will treasure the laughter this inspired for all the rest of my days.
This courageous and faith-filled woman told me in that phone call that she looks forward to my Divine Mercy post this year because Divine Mercy is her favorite Catholic Feast Day. I did not tell her that she IS my Divine Mercy post this year. Now, I suspect, she knows.
“Now we see dimly as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part, but then I shall understand fully even as I am fully understood.”
— St Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:12
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae:
Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Please pray for Claire Dion in this time of great trial. I hope you will find solace in sharing her faith and in these related posts:
My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri by Claire Dion
A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King
Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare
The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead
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.”