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.

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.”

A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece

Inspired by Bishop Robert Barron’s acclaimed Letter to a Suffering Church, the Editor of Beyond These Stone Walls was moved to write and publish this inspired reply.

April 10, 2024 by Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD with an Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae

Introduction

I will always owe a debt of gratitude to Suzanne Sadler of Australia. After following the sordid story that entangled many Catholic priests in false witness, Suzanne came upon an article I was invited to write for Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The article, which appeared in the July, 2009 issue of Catalyst, was “Due Process for Accused Priests.”

Immediately upon reading it, Suzanne wrote to me from Australia with a suggestion that I permit her to establish a blog that would feature my writing. I was highly dubious, believing that I had nothing of interest or value that anyone would want to read. It was Pornchai Max Moontri, my friend and roommate of many years in prison who encouraged me to try. He reminded me of a letter from Cardinal Avery Dulles urging me to add a new chapter to the literature of Christians wrongly imprisoned. It was also Max who suggested this blog’s first title, “These Stone Walls.” Then Pornchai’s Godmother, Charlene C. Duline, a retired U.S. State Department official jumped aboard with an offer to help with logistics. I ran out of excuses, and in August of 2009 These Stone Walls was born with my first of hundreds of posts “St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Man in the Mirror.”

Over the course of the next nine years, These Stone Walls published some 500 original posts written mostly by me but some by far more distinguished guest writers. Then, in 2019, Covid struck and grew into a global pandemic affecting every tenet of our lives, including our lives of faith. Much that we had come to cherish began to desintegrate before our eyes. In the course of a single week in 2020, my voice in this wilderness of prison and false witness was silenced. These Stone Walls had collapsed.

Then, seemingly from out of the blue came a letter from Dilia E. Rodríguez in New York. She wrote that she was so enamored by a post she stumbled upon about Pope Benedict XVI and Saint Joseph that she felt compelled to read more. Just before my blog was taken offline she downloaded its entire contents onto her own computer.

So the end that I thought was upon us turned out not to be an end at all, but a new beginning. It was in September 2020 that this news came to me. It was just as my longtime friend Pornchai Max Moontri was departing for deportation to Thailand. Just as I was immersed in loss and sadness, Dilia was quietly in the background resurrecting this blog with new life and a new name, “Beyond These Stone Walls.” Dilia has now been our Editor for going on four years.

As we faced the terminal illness of Claire Dion, the subject of my Divine Mercy post last week, Dilia accepted the necessity of stepping out of the shadows and into the light to also take over all that Claire had managed.

Dilia E. Rodriguez, PhD retired in 2022 from a career in U.S. Government service as a civilian scientist for the United States Air Force. Holding advanced degrees in both Physics and Computer Science, Dilia is also a daily communicant and a strong supporter and participant in Eucharistic Adoration. In recent weeks she has also stepped up to take on the logistics of support services for me and this blog as described at our Contact and Support Page.

To mark this occasion and further introduce Dilia, I want to restore and repost something she had written on the Feast of the Holy Innocents in December 2019. Her post is a brilliant response to a small book by Bishop Robert Barron entitled, “Letter to a Suffering Church.”

Here is Dilia E. Rodriguez with

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A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and to me it offers symbols for the crisis in the Church.

First, let me say that, as so many others, I am moved by the impassioned efforts of Bishop Robert Barron to stop Catholics from leaving the Church. His heart and soul are on fire with the love of Jesus, of His Church and of His People.

I never thought of leaving, and it is not just “to whom shall we go?” It is that God is LOVE, and as one saint, whose name I cannot recall, said, “LOVE is not loved.” I see the current scandal as stark evidence that LOVE is not loved. So my reaction is that I want to love God, I want to love Jesus with my whole being, as I have never loved Him before.

I want to consider (… think aloud … pray aloud …) three points: the devil’s masterpiece, evangelization at this time, and the call for saints.

Bishop Barron convincingly describes the sexual abuse scandal as exquisitely designed by the devil. He shows the horror that attends the sexual abuse of young people by priests, and the cover-up of these abuses by bishops. Whether or not it is seen as the devil’s masterpiece, this is what is described almost universally as the entirety of the sexual abuse scandal, by the mainstream media, by the Catholic media, by attorneys general and others.

But there is more to the devil’s masterpiece. There is a mirror image that remains invisible to most. The Father of Lies surely can use lies in this masterpiece of masterpieces. In this mirror image the accused priests are innocent, and the ones who claim to have been abused are the abusers. In this mirror image bishops abuse innocent priests by publishing their names in lists of “credibly” accused. This requires no corroboration or evidence of the accusation. It replaces “innocent until proven guilty” with “guilty until proven innocent” or even “guilty even if proven innocent.” This “credible” accusation standard is neither a legal nor a biblical standard.

So two abuses coexist: the visible one, the sexual abuse of young people by priests; and the invisible one, the abuse of innocent priests by those who falsely claim to have been abused and profit from it.

In the accused innocent priests Jesus is living His Passion. Pilate said, “I find no guilt in him.” There is no evidence against many of the accused priests. Jesus stood wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. The chief priests and the guards cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate tried to release him, but the crowd insisted, “Crucify him!” Bishops may want to do the right thing, but they cave in to the pressure and they crucify innocent priests; they remove them from the ministry to which God called them. Bishops cave in to the pressure of those who ask cynically “What is truth?”, and do not listen to the One Who is TRUTH.

Holy Innocents: Double Symbol for the Crisis

The massacre of the holy innocents captures in symbol the two coexisting abuses. Herod’s killing of the innocent children represents the killing of innocent faith of the young who have been abused by priests. The way of Herod — to kill the many to ensure killing the One — is the way that has been adopted to assuage the anger and fears of the crowd and the media. So Herod’s killing of the innocent children also represents the destruction of the lives of innocent priests without having to prove any claim against them. Both are very grievous abuses.

A mirror adds much light where there is light. The mirror-image abuse deceptively intensifies the dark evil of the abusive priests.

What can I do, … we do, … the bishops do, in response to the devil’s masterpiece of masterpieces? Absolutely nothing. Jesus said it, “Without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) But He said, “Whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit.” Only Jesus can respond to the devil’s masterpiece of masterpieces.

This time of great scandal is the Olympics of Evangelization. The Gospel is not just for intellectual discussions or for run-of-the-mill problems. It is only the full power of the Gospel that can cope with the immensity of this scandal.

The response of Jesus cannot be implemented by the weekend Catholic “athletes.” After a recent EWTN / Real Clear poll, Professor Robert George of Princeton University noted: “So even if you take the most devout Catholics — those who believe all of what the Church teaches or most of what the Church teaches — only 66% of those believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.” Clearly, an overwhelming majority of the laity can in no way be part of the response of Jesus. They are way out of shape.

The response of Jesus is the response of His Olympic team, the living saints, whom Bishop Barron and Benedict XVI point out as the great evangelizers; those who remain in Him, and He in them.

God is LOVE. Jesus said, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.” In the mystery of Jesus, LOVE, TRUTH, and LIFE are synonyms. There can be no love without truth. There can be no life without love. Only Jesus can love both the abused and the abuser. Only Jesus can restore their lives. Only Jesus, the WAY, can reject the way of Herod. Only Jesus … through those who remain in Him and He in them.

Bishop Barron wrote (p. 97): “Above all, we need saints, marked by holiness of course, but also by intelligence, an understanding of the culture, and the willingness to try something new.”

Under “intelligence” and “understanding of the culture” should come a realization that the moral relativism of this age, the pervasive misinformation in the news (e.g. huge pro-life marches become invisible), the readiness to attack the Church, etc., do not foster an accurate portrayal of the scandal in the Church.

Conditioned by the Media

If in trying to solve a problem, or to understand a phenomenon, we ignore whole classes of facts and observations, we have no possibility of success: we will not solve the problem or understand the phenomenon.

Even though way back I realized that the real abuses of minors by priests could be exploited by others against the Church, I was still conditioned by the media. When the Pennsylvania Attorney General report came out, my knee-jerk reaction was “Here we go again.” But there was almost nothing new in it, and truth and fairness may not necessarily be its hallmark.

Jesus said: “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Matthew 10:16). Saints marked by intelligence and understanding of the culture eagerly and persistently seek the truth in this age that so fiercely rejects it. Their messages and their lives are a bright light in this very dark period. Consider the following examples: “A Weapon of Mass Destruction: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused”; Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast; Men of Melchizedek; A Ram in the Thicket; The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights ; Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories.

I began to see the magnitude of the mirror-image scandal when I accidentally discovered the blog “These Stone Walls.” It is the blog, published with the help of some friends, of Father Gordon J. MacRae, a falsely accused priest who has been in prison for 30 years. When the “hour had come,” Jesus prayed to the Father for those the Father had given to Him, “Consecrate them in the truth.” With a plea deal, Father MacRae could have been out of prison after one year. But he is consecrated to the Truth, and did not lie. For that, he got a life sentence.

Of his case Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote: “You may want to pray for Father MacRae, and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

The scandal of the Church is a colossal problem. The Dallas Charter of 2002 got some things right, but it also helped create the mirror-image scandal. Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote in 2004:

“The church must protect the community from harm, but it must also protect the human rights of each individual who may face an accusation. The supposed good of the totality must not override the rights of individual persons. Some of the measures adopted [at Dallas] went far beyond the protection of children from abuse … [By their actions, the bishops] undermined the morale of their priests and inflicted a serious blow to the credibility of the church as a mirror of justice.”

He also added:

“having been so severely criticized for exercising poor judgment in the past, the bishops apparently wanted to avoid having to make any judgments in these cases.”

If the priesthood is to be renewed, Jesus must be the foundation of this renewal. It must be His Way, His Love, and His Truth that renews the priesthood. The Church cannot be divided. It cannot call for saintly priests, while at the same time depriving some saintly priests of their civil and canonical rights when falsely accused.

Jesus, train me in Your ways. May I not utter empty words, and cry out “Lord, Lord.” May I love all the abused, all the abusers, and as Bishop Barron says, all fellow sinners. You have redeemed me through a Very Great Sacrifice. May I constantly beg You to make me Totally Yours.

Amen.

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Encoded Message from God

I got the idea that I wanted to find in the awful number the prison assigned to Father Gordon a comforting message from God. Maybe somehow the numbers could be mapped to some verse in the Bible. My starting point was to associate with each of the digits in 67546 the letters that phones assign to digits:

6 -> m n o; 7 -> p q r s; 5 -> j k l; 4 -> g h i; 6 -> m n o.

It really didn’t make much sense. I wanted to find some verse whose first word started with m or n or o, and whose second word started with p or r or q or s, and so on. I wasn’t finding such a five-word verse. I have as my desktop background the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. So I asked her for help. After a while I considered my favorite Bible verse:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

— John 15:5

There was no direct connection, but it was possible to see a loose one.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever REMAINs IN ME and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

At first I thought that it would have been better if “Jesus” had been the second word. But then I realized that Jesus being in the middle, at the heart of the prayer, was perfect.

With the help of Our Blessed Mother we can see that in the number the prison system uses to demean Father Gordon, God encoded the prayer he is living, and attests that he is bearing much fruit.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: I am deeply grateful to Dilia for the ways she has saved my voice in the wilderness from being drowned out in the scandals of this age. I believe the Lord has in fact sent her just in the nick of time.

You may also like these other posts about our quest for Jesus and for justice:

Casting the First Stone: What Did Jesus Write On the Ground?

A Devil in the Desert for the Last Temptation of Christ

St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Our Salvation

Maximilian Kolbe: The Other Prisoner Priest in My Cell

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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