“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

Fr. Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD 4/2/25 Fr. Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD 4/2/25

Vatican Bans Publishing Lists of ‘Credibly’ Accused Priests

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts, two other Vatican Dicasteries, and Pope Francis himself have banned publishing lists of priests ‘credibly’ accused.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts, two other Vatican Dicasteries, and Pope Francis himself have banned publishing lists of priests ‘credibly’ accused.

April 2, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae and William A. Donohue, PhD

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: This post may not move hearts, but it should move minds and consciences. It is of utmost importance to me, to the priesthood and to the whole Church. So we should not be silent in the face of injustice. So please share this post.

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On February 22, 2025, the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, the Vatican office responsible for issuing authoritative legal interpretations and directives for the universal Church, published online a long awaited guidance to bishops impacting the due process rights of “credibly accused” Catholic priests.

The announcement underscores the Dicastery’s decision that bishops considering publication of lists of priests deemed credibly accused of sexual abuse are prohibited under Canon Law from doing so. This guidance is for a multitude of reasons connected to long established civil and canonical rights of due process. I will describe below some examples of how these rights have been impacted.

From the point of view of official Church positions, the problem is, and has always been, the bishops’ collective interpretation and use of the term “credible” in their response to the crisis. It is a standard applied nowhere else in the world of civil or criminal jurisprudence. It means only that a claim of abuse cannot be immediately dismissed on its face. If a claimant alleges abuse in a specific community 30 or 40 years ago, for example, and the named priest had once been assigned there, the claim is “credible” unless and until it is disproven.

There is no court in America that admits such a standard of evidence but it is routinely applied now to accused Catholic priests. Courts have long recognized that older memories are highly malleable, and misidentification of the accused is a frequent risk.

Before delving further into this, I want to present a reaction to the Vatican news from William A. Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who has consistently defended the due process rights of priests.

From Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Vatican Finally Does Right by Accused Priests

Six years after Pope Francis rejected the practice of publishing the names of accused priests, the Vatican has finally codified his plea. Henceforth, dioceses are discouraged from publishing such a list. Among the reasons cited was the inability of deceased accused priests to defend themselves.

This should never have been an issue in the first place. But in the panic that ensued following the 2002 series in The Boston Globe detailing clergy sexual abuse, the bishops convened in Dallas in 2004 to adopt a charter that listed comprehensive reforms, some of which substantially weakened the rights of the accused.

At the time, I was highly critical of the way some bishops allowed a gay subculture to flourish, one that resulted in a massive cover-up of the sexual abuse of minors (homosexual priests — not pedophiles — were responsible for 8 in 10 cases of abuse). But I also said of the Dallas reforms, “There is a problem regarding the rights of the accused. It appears that the charter may short-circuit some due process rights.”

One of the problems was the desire to publish the names of accused priests. Egging the bishops on was Judge Anne Burke, the first person to head the National Review Board commissioned by the bishops to deal with the problem.

She made it clear that priests — and only priests — should be denied their constitutionally prescribed right to due process. “We understand that it is a violation of the priest’s due process rights — you’re innocent until proven guilty — but we’re talking about the most vulnerable people in our society and those are children,” she said. Such thinking allowed the bishops to make public the names of accused priests.

In an interview I had in my office with a female reporter from CNN, she became quite critical of the Church for not posting the names of accused priests on its diocesan websites. I picked up the phone and, holding it in my hand, asked her for the name and phone number of her boss. When she asked why, I said I was going to accuse her of sexual harassment. I added that I wanted to see if CNN would post her name on its website. She said, “I get it.” I put the phone down. (For more on this see my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse).

No organization in the United States, religious or secular, publishes the names of accused employees. That there should be an exception for priests is obscene.

The rights of accused priests need to be safeguarded, and the penalties for those found guilty need to be severe. The Church failed on the latter, which is why the scandal took place, and it failed on the former, which is why Pope Francis, and now the entire Church, had to act.

The sexual abuse of minors in the Church in America has long been checked — almost all the cases in the media are about old cases, and most of the bad guys are dead or out of ministry. Now that the rights of the accused have been given a much needed shot in the arm, we can say with confidence that the problem has been ameliorated.

Now back to Father MacRae............

But My Diocese Employs “Trauma-Informed” Consultants

On July 31, 2019, Bishop Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire proactively published a list of the names and assignment histories of 73 priests in his diocese who had been “credibly” accused of sexual abuse of minors and removed from ministry. Most of the claims deemed “credible” are decades old. The majority of the priests on Bishop Libasci’s list are long deceased. In most cases, the sole condition making the claims “credible” was the fact that money — lots of it — changed hands.

Bishop Libasci’s stated goal for publishing his list was “transparency.” In 2024, long after Pope Francis discouraged bishops from doing so, Bishop Libasci republished the list with the names of additional accused but deceased priests.

Weeks after Bishop Libasci’s original list was publicized in 2019, Ryan A. MacDonald penned and published a contentious objection: “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.” It was contentious because it represented well my disagreement with this action of the bishop of my diocese, something I otherwise hoped to avoid. Plaintiff attorneys and activist groups like SNAP pressured bishops to publish such lists for the purpose of “assuring victims they are not alone and that they are heard.”

The real reason for pushing for published lists, however, was to provide a forum and online database for false “copycat” claims, a lucrative business for contingency lawyers and claimants alike with little or no court oversight. In May 2024, Ryan A. MacDonald published a report on how and why this happens in “To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants.” Here is an excerpt from an official statement of my Diocese:

“The Diocese of Manchester provides financial assistance to those who have been harmed, regardless of when abuse occurred, through a process utilizing independent trauma-informed consultants.”

A basic problem with handling the matter of due process for the accused and outcomes for the Diocese by abdicating judgment to “trauma-informed consultants” is that the term is widely noted and critiqued by professionals as highly biased. It has a documented negative impact on judicial fairness and due process of law in claims of sexual abuse and assault.

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity (CPI ) is an organization that seeks to strengthen prosecutorial ethics, promote due process, and end wrongful convictions. Victim-centered investigations, also known in the sex abuse contingency lawyer industry as “trauma-informed,” presume the guilt of all accused and lead to wrongful convictions.

According to the Center’s website, “The most destructive types of victim-centered investigations are known as “Start by Believing,” and “Trauma-Informed.” The Center exhibits a professional bibliography documenting the “junk science” behind such investigations creating an epidemic of false witness and police and prosecutorial misconduct. Given the well-founded caution about false claims and financial scammers, it was alarming to read the following in a recent news article, “Diocese of Manchester Settles Sexual Abuse Claims from the 1970s.” Here’s an excerpt:

“No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, but the attorney representing the ‘John Doe’ who was involved said it’s important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process, … thus announcing a six-figure settlement outside the Diocese of Manchester office.”

Has it never dawned on anyone in Church leadership that there are those in our midst who would find a “six-figure settlement” an enticement for false accusations? This is especially so when there is no court oversight for such claims. The process has been made very simple. A lawyer writes a letter and a bishop writes a check.

In addition to these trauma-informed consultants retained by the Diocese of Manchester and other dioceses,”it seems that civil lawyers and risk managers, not bishops, are often running the show.” So wrote prominent canon lawyer, Michael Mazza, JD, JCD, in a recent First Things article (February 24, 2025): “Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries?” Mazza concludes:

“ln the wake of the clerical abuse crisis, church leaders may have surrendered too much authority to risk managers focused on eliminating every threat. Seasoned entrepreneurs understand that the moment lawyers run the show, adopting a zero-risk strategy as the business model, the company grinds to a halt. While the surest way for a car company to avoid getting sued is to stop making cars, that strategy is not an option for an institution that has received a divine call to preach the Gospel to all nations. Bishops must recognize this truth and seize the helm with the resolve their office demands.”

The Perspective of a Not-So-Credibly Convicted Priest

My name was on Bishop Libasci’s published list under the unique category, “convicted,” but that was not at all my point of contention with his list. Unlike most of the priests named on that ongoing list, I at least had public charges in a public forum — a 1994 criminal trial — no matter how jaded and unjust it was. The details of those charges and that trial have emerged over time and are also now in public view. They have raised awareness about the absence of truth and the aura of injustice in the forum in which I was condemned and sentenced.

As Ryan A. MacDonald’s article, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List” points out, Bishop Libasci’s predecessor, the late Bishop John B. McCormack, went on record in an unpublished media interview in the aftermath of my trial stating his informed belief that I was falsely accused, wrongly convicted, and should not be in prison. He insisted, however, that this information should never leave his office. These details were exposed in a 2021 post, “Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded.”

Going back even further in this history of neglected due process, Bishop McCormack’s predecessor, the late Bishop Leo O’Neil, chose not to wait for the outcome of a trial. Before my trial commenced, he published an official diocesan press release declaring that I victimized not only my accusers but the entire Catholic Church. After that, a trial seemed just a formality.

The most visible post-trial analysis of due process in the case, however, was that of Dorothy Rabinowitz, awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her courageous exposure of “accusation, false witness, and other terrors of our time.” Her series of articles in The Wall Street Journal culminated in “The Trials of Father MacRae” in 2013, six years before Bishop Libasci published his list.

In a compelling five-minute video interview produced by The Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz saw through all the smoke and mirrors and got to the heart of the matter. It is a brief but bold exposé of unassailable truth that ties the two-decade outbreak of clergy abuse claims to the very unquestioned settlements money promised by my Diocese in its statements above.

I give the last word to “A Video Interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz.”

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Note from Father Gordon Mac Rae: I thank Catholic League President Bill Donohue for his contribution to this post. His outstanding book on this subject is The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse (2021) published by Ignatius Press.

I also thank Michael J. Mazza, JD, JCD for letting us reprint a segment of an article that I highly recommend: Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries? First Things, February 24, 2025.

During Lent this year I created a list of our Scriptural posts and published them together under the title “From Ashes to Easter.” We shared the list on several Facebook Catholic groups. In response, Facebook dismissed it as “SPAM,” and then froze our account. (Again!) So we cannot share this post on Facebook, but you can. Thank you for doing so.

You may also like these related and eye-opening posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Aﬃdavits Expanded

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.”

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/29/25 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/29/25

Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square

Six years after the death of Richard John Neuhaus, a new biography by Randy Boyagoda echoes his bold, timely, vibrant voice on religion in the public square.

Six years after the death of Richard John Neuhaus, a new biography by Randy Boyagoda echoes his bold, timely, vibrant voice on religion in the public square.

January 29, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae

[Editor’s Note: The following post first appeared in 2015 at an earlier version of this blog. It has been heavily updated with new material by Father Gordon MacRae.]

When I was cast into the exile of unjust imprisonment in 1994, a friend concerned for what he imagined was a dearth of intellectual stimulation here gifted me with a subscription to First Things magazine. It was a gift that expanded a mind trapped in a world of concrete and steel, but it also created a serious problem for me. I simply could not part with the monthly issues that piled up on my cell floor drawing frowns from prison guards. “Why would you keep these?” asked one. “There aren’t even any pictures in them!”

I live in a micromanaged world in which every precious square inch of space must be accounted for, leaving little room for a collection of First Things. So I took a job in the prison library, found an empty shelf, and began what is likely the only collection of First Things spanning fifteen years in a prison library. You might be surprised by how often they are checked out, the lack of pictures notwithstanding.

But there is one issue that has never left my cell. I keep it in a safe place, and return to it twice a year in January and May. It is the April 2009 issue, Number 192, bearing the cover, “Richard John Neuhaus In Memoriam.”

I was simply amazed that, just three months after RJN’s untimely death from the ravages of cancer on January 9, 2009, this collection of essays could be gathered from the friends and colleagues for whom he was the hub in the arena of religion and public life in America. I should say, “in the Americas,” for Richard was Canadian by birth and his voice was as influential to our north as it was here in the U.S.

I keep this issue close because when Father Richard left this world, I could partake of none of the usual rituals with which we say goodbye. So I never said goodbye. Through the words of those who loved and cherished his company, he is still very much here, and I am grateful for that.

I have written of this before, so forgive my repetition, but my first inkling that something was amiss with Richard’s health came in a handwritten note from Steve Oslica in October of 2008. He had been in New York and attended a Mass offered by Father Richard. “Keep Father Neuhaus in your prayers,” Steve wrote. “I think he is dealing with some health issues.” Two months later, he was gone. Father Richard John Neuhaus left this world in the Lord’s friendship on January 9, 2009.

He also left dangling the friendship of countless others, including mine, though it was a friendship formed almost entirely through mutual friends, and in a dynamic exchange of letters to and from prison that spanned the last decade of his life. His influence upon me within these prison walls is directly proportional to the void that he left here.

A month after his death, I received the kindest of notes, dated February 17, 2009, from the Honorable Mary Ann Glendon, just returned from her post as United States Ambassador to the Holy See:

“Greetings from Boston — It’s good to be home again. I have just returned from a meeting in NYC to discuss the continuation of First Things and other aspects of Father Neuhaus’ work. I know you must be feeling his loss as keenly as the rest of us who depended on his leadership in so many ways.”

I was so deeply grateful to Ambassador Glendon. The brief letter filled in for me what had been lacking in the absence of ritual and sacrament to acknowledge death. Then, that April when First Things published its truly wonderful “In Memoriam” issue, I stored that letter within it, and marveled at the wit and wisdom and deeply felt love and respect that issue contains.

Of the dozens of profound and moving remembrances paying tribute to RJN, my favorite was, and still is, one entitled “Canadian Summers” by Father Tim Moyle of the Diocese of Pembroke, Ontario, who today reads Beyond These Stone Walls on occasion. Father Tim wrote of a long friendship with Richard and of the impact of one of his lesser known works, Freedom for Ministry (1979):

“Richard offered a powerful vision of pastoral service. Here he spoke of the importance of finding ways to present the awesome challenge of Jesus Christ to those under one’s pastoral care. By accepting the wonderful ‘challenge of orthodoxy’ that is the placing of Christ at the center of their lives, clergy of all stripes would find the inspiration to minister God’s love to all the baptized as they labored to promote the Kingdom of God. His fraternal care and concern for those who took up the pastoral yoke of Jesus Christ was where his compassion, faith, and profound humility in the face of the paschal mystery shone through the brightest for me.”

For me as well, Father Tim. I revisit this and other essays each May because that is the month of Richard’s birth. It is an irony that Father Richard John Neuhaus was born on May 14, the Feast of Saint Matthias, chosen by lot to complete the Twelve Apostles by filling the vacancy left by Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:21-26). The significance of that for me may be more evident below.

The Biography

Now, six years after RJN’s untimely death, biographer Randy Boyagoda has written a stellar biography of this great good friend and his prodigious voice in the arena of religion in American — and, yes Father Tim, Canadian — public life. Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square (Image Books, 2015) is a timely tribute and a most welcomed addition to the national discussion of the role of religion and faith with which we in the Americas now struggle. In 459 pages, Randy Boyagoda captured well the strength of courage and depth of faith, coupled with a most formidable intellect, that produced the prophetic voice of Richard John Neuhaus. I received it and devoured it with that same old familiar sense of feeling both elated and deflated.

Elated first: A biography about a friend must naturally be approached with some trepidation, and I am not the first to express that thought. In a brief review, former First Things interim editor, Russell E. Saltzman wrote,

“I have never read a biography of someone I knew well. It was with apprehension, then, that I read the galleys of Randy Boyagoda’s biography of Neuhaus … I was having trouble figuring out how anyone could capture Neuhaus whole.”

— Russell E. Saltzman, “New Biography Captures Spirit of One of the Great Catholic Intellectuals,” Feb. 18, 2015

Randy Boyagoda did just that, however. He captured well the man I knew and still know through the pens of the many whose esteem for him ran deep. Boyagoda summarized him as “a bold Christian and a bold intellectual and a bold cosmopolitan and a bold operator, all at once, all as one.”

First Things and Last Things

Few people know the extent of that boldness, professed, at times, at great personal cost to himself. I have a first hand account of it, and to this day Neuhaus is subjected, even in death, to the ridicule he expected — but never feared — on account of his own exercise of justice.

Among the many tributes to RJN, published anew as reviews by Mr. Boyagoda’s wondrous biography, was one I admired greatly. It appeared in the The Wall Street Journal (“From Anti-War Pastor to Pro-Life Priest,” March 27, 2015) by University of Oklahoma History Professor and former First Things Editorial Board member, Wilfred M. McClay. I disagree however, with one point emphasized in both the book and Mr. McClay’s review.

“Mr. Boyagoda does not refrain from faulting some of Neuhaus’ more questionable judgments, such as his playing down of the clergy sex-abuse scandal, which led him to undertake a fierce and misguided defense of Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, who would eventually be exposed as a prodigious sexual abuser and disciplined by Pope Benedict XVI.”

— Wilfred M. McClay, “From Anti-War Pastor to Pro-Life priest,” WSJ, March 27, 2015

Some of the comments on that McClay review at WSJ.com dusted off old prejudices about Catholics, charging that Neuhaus “abandoned the word of God” in his transformation from Lutheran pastor to Catholic priest. Others highlighted what Wilfred McClay termed his “fierce and misguided defense of Father Marcial Maciel.” So I posted two comments of my own, and this is one of them:

“It is a distortion and an injustice to characterize Father Richard John Neuhaus’ concerns for justice in the Church as “playing down the sex-abuse scandals.” He did no such thing. His collection of essays under the title, ‘Scandal Time’ comprised the sanest, most just, and most critical analysis of that crisis in print. Father Neuhaus rightly called upon the U.S. Bishops not to simply replace one injustice with another to appease a scandal hungry media, and the ravenous tort bar.”

The “Scandal Time” essays are compiled and posted in pdf format here at Beyond These Stone Walls. Even a cursory read of them will tell you that Boyagoda’s characterization of this great priest as “bold” is immensely understated. In the face of a modern day witch hunt in the secular media, and, sadly, even the Catholic press as clergy sex abuse scandals unfolded in 2002, the voice of Father Neuhaus was more than bold. It was revolutionary. This one man held back the tide of “availability bias” to give accused priests a singular voice calling for justice, due process, and fairness. And this was after his defense of Marcial Maciel was shown to be flawed and misdirected.

I cannot convey in mere words what this meant to me, personally. Even while being bludgeoned for his misjudgment on Maciel, Father Neuhaus published “A Kafkaesque Tale,” demonstrating to the Catholic Christian community the inconsistency of its application of justice in the wake of the U S Bishops’ “Final Solution,” the 2002 Dallas Charter that blatantly equated accusation with guilt. In this, Richard John Neuhaus stood almost entirely alone in Catholic media in the religious public square.

Father Neuhaus refused to use the apparent guilt of Maciel to undermine justice and due process for other accused Catholic priests even when many other writers were doing just that. To fault Father Neuhaus for this today is to add insult to injustice. Even after his defense of Father Maciel was undermined and criticized, Father Neuhaus published “A Kafkaesque Tale” in the January 2008 edition of First Things:

“Among the many sad consequences of the sex abuse crisis are the injustices visited on priests falsely accused. A particularly egregious case is that of Father Gordon MacRae of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. He was sentenced to sixty-seven years and has been imprisoned more than twelve years with no chance of parole because he insists he is innocent. I have followed the case for several years. Lawyer friends have closely examined the case and believe he was railroaded. The Wall Street Journal ’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz published, on April 27 and 28, 2005, an account of the travesty of justice by which he was convicted. Now the friends of Father MacRae have created a website, BeyondTheseStoneWalls.com, which provides a comprehensive narrative of the case, along with pertinent documentation. Bishop John McCormack, a former aide of Boston’s Cardinal Law, and the Diocese of Manchester do not come off as friends of justice or, for that matter, of elementary decency. You may want to visit the website and read this Kafkaesque tale. And then you may want to pray for Father MacRae, and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

Among His Last Things

Beyond These Stone Walls came into being exactly six months after Father Neuhaus left this world. In part, at least, this blog was his idea, an idea shared and generated by his friend of long standing, Cardinal Avery Dulles. As our “About” page describes, they together wrote, “Your article is an important one, and will hopefully be followed by many others. Your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”

In this call for fairness in the face of a witch hunt, Father Neuhaus came full circle. Born on the Feast of Saint Matthias who resolved the first Judas Crisis in the Church, Father Neuhaus sought to also resolve its newest form as the 21st Century commenced. He and Cardinal Dulles were lone voices in the media glare of 2002, but truth and justice accommodating the acceptable media view is an old practice that history always exposes eventually as deeply flawed.

This boldness extended into First Things as Father Neuhaus published several letters of mine including “Crime and Punishment,” (First Things, November 2008), and “Sin and Risk Aversion” (November 1996). In his last letter to me two months before his death, Father Neuhaus asked, “How does one go about arranging to visit with you?” Upon hearing of his illness I quickly wrote back, assuring him that he had been living the Corporal Works of Mercy for the last decade of our fraternal correspondence — an exchange in which I never once felt like the outcast so many other corners of the Church fashioned for me. This adviser to popes and presidents found room to also quietly live the exhortation of Hebrews 13:3.

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“Zero tolerance, one strike and you’re out, boot them out of ministry. Of course the victim activists are not satisfied and, sadly, may never be satisfied. The bishops have succeeded in scandalizing the faithful anew by adopting [in the Dallas Charter] a thoroughly unbiblical, untraditional, and un-Catholic approach to sin and grace.… They ended up adopting a policy that was sans repentance, sans conversion, sans forbearance, sans prudential judgment, sans forgiveness, sans almost everything one might have hoped for from the bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

— Richard John Neuhaus, “Scandal Time”, 2008, First Things

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post about my great good friend, Father Richard John Neuhaus. You may also like these related posts:

Pell Contra Mundum: Cardinal Truth on the Synod

Canon Law Conundrum: When Moral Certainty Is Neither Moral Nor Certain

Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age

How I Became the Catholic I Was by Richard John Neuhaus

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD 9/4/24 Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD 9/4/24

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/10/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 7/10/24

Neither Donald Trump nor I Should Wear That Scarlet Letter!

Convicted felon is a label bestowed like a scarlet letter solely to shame another. The real shame is when it is used selectively as cover for one’s own inadequacies.

Convicted felon is a label bestowed like a scarlet letter solely to shame another. The real shame is when it is used selectively as cover for one’s own inadequacies.

July 10, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

The famous New England author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, published The Scarlet Letter in 1850. In its time, it was a lurid Puritan New England soap opera that became classic American literature. In its pages, which shocked the Puritans of Hawthorne’s time, the young Hester Prynne was found to be with child, but the father was not her husband, a much older and morally ruthless Puritan man. The real father was the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the local Congregational minister. Refusing to reveal that truth, Hester Prynne was placed on display in the market square each day to be publicly shamed and shunned while adorned with a scarlet letter “A” for “adulterer” prominently on her dress. Nathaniel Hawthorne was well versed in the Puritan prejudices that shaped New England. His great grandfather was one of the three judges who presided over the 1692 Salem Witch Trials.

Today, the scarlet letter takes many other forms. We made it almost to the end of the now infamous June 27, 2024 Presidential Debate before President Joe Biden declared to the American people that Donald Trump, his opponent in the upcoming election, is a “convicted felon.” It seemed much more an act of desperation than inspiration. “What was the point of it?” a commentator asked. Everything about it told me that its only point was to lay shame upon the opposing candidate when all other rhetoric was failing.

It told us nothing about Donald Trump that we did not already know. It told us nothing about the New York trial that mysteriously transformed questionable misdemeanor charges into felonies to bestow that dubious title upon him for strictly political purposes. But it spoke volumes about the desperate state of the one who said it. It was the clearest thing said by President Biden that night, and likely the most rehearsed.

I, too, am a convicted felon, and if you are not reading this blog for the first time then you know, or at least suspect, that the term has been unjustly imposed. So I have a legitimate gripe about its use and misuse. Just about every fair-minded person familiar with this blog knows that even a cursory look under the hood of my 1994 trial leaves its outcome in serious doubt. Only those with bias and hidden agendas of their own still point to the “convicted felon” millstone around my neck.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, a longtime columnist and member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her bold series of concience-stirring revelations about some of the most notorious witch-hunts sex abuse trials of modern times. My trial was one of them. In regard to my “convicted felon” status, Ms. Rabinowitz wrote: “Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents.” (“The Trials of Father MacRae,” The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2013).

To those who read and share my posts, I am grateful for your openminded conclusion that justice failed on the day that scarlet letter was imposed on me. And not only on me; the late Cardinal George Pell also refused to wear the “convicted felon” label before he was finally exonerated after 400 days and nights in solitary confinement in prison. Fortunately, the Australian justice system ultimately delivered him from that injustice. American courts differ from Australian courts in this respect. In modern times, American courts have developed a barrier to the pursuit of justice that grants to the justice system itself the last word and a right to finality. Experts described the dynamics behind this in an article, “Why This Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison.”

There have been thousands of proven wrongful convictions in U.S. courts during the 30 years I have spent in prison for refusing to willfully accept the Scarlet Letter label. I could have left prison 28 years ago if I accepted the deal the State of New Hampshire tried to impose upon me. There are an estimated tens of thousands still wrongfully in prison in the United States because they are unable to “prove” their innocence even when no one had to prove their guilt.

Our incarceration nation leads the world in imprisonment with five percent of the world’s population but twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. So it would follow that it also leads the world in conviction errors, forty-percent of which are attributed to police and prosecutor misconduct.

A “Convicted Felon’ in the White House?

On the night before beginning this post, I had a long distance discussion about it with my friend, Pornchai Moontri in Thailand. He is, as most readers know, a real survivor of the very sort of crimes for which I was falsely accused. He is also a survivor of almost 16 years in a prison cell with me. In our recent discussion, Pornchai told me that my only crime was being a Catholic priest and then letting it cost me everything I had. I guess I have to let that sink in. I could have devoted my life in this injustice to building a monument of volcanic bitterness. There is plenty of that to go around where I live. “Thank God you didn’t,” Pornchai said.

So instead of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I write. I do not just write about the state of my own injustice. I also write about injustice that has befallen others. I write about the state of our freedom, and what is at stake when we take it for granted. I write about the state of our character, about our Church, our politics, our descent into evil and our capacity for good. I write about the senseless impact of prison, and about some, like my friend Pornchai, who overcame it, became redeemed from it, and now faces the challenge of avoiding debilitating labels like the one imposed on me and Donald Trump.

Pornchai Moontri added his belief that I would not be in prison today if I were not a Catholic priest. Then he said that Donald Trump would not have faced those charges in New York if he were not a Republican candidate for President. Mr. Moontri is right about this, and he zoomed in on the one thing that I find most disturbing about Trump’s candidacy: the elitist view that a political outsider has no business running for President of the United States. This prejudice has been evident in mainstream news media since his election in 2016. It has been nothing short of an attempt at voter nullification and egregious election interference.

I know that some of our readers do not like Donald Trump. Back in 2021, we lost some readers when I wrote “Biden and the Bishops: Communion and the Care of a Soul.” It is globally one of our most read posts and it was also recommended by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. But some of our slightly left-leaning readers concluded that any criticism of President Biden is an ipso facto affirmation of Donald Trump. That post is a classic example of the sometimes vague boundaries between politics and morality, and why no priest should be afraid to write or speak about the latter.

I have never promoted Donald Trump, and do not do so now. That said, I have never demoted him either. But as an American, I resent all the one-sided rhetoric denouncing his candidacy based on his character. That is a matter for voters to decide, not the courts, and not the news media, and certainly not the elite holding office in Washington, DC. In 2020, it was insisted to me that the whole Hunter Biden laptop story that emerged and was covered up before the election of 2020 was Russian disinformation. I know that I ruffled feathers when I wrote “Miranda Devine, Cardinal Pell, and the Laptop from Hell.” I was lied to then, and so were you.

The clincher in my decision to write this post about Donald Trump’s legal woes came from reading the June 21, 2024 issue of the National Catholic Reporter. It is a far left-leaning “independent” newspaper that I stopped reading decades ago. Another priest gave me a gift subscription to it, and I have wondered ever since what I did to offend him. The front-page headline in the June 21 issue is “Does the Catholic Vote Still Matter?” It was followed by this highlighted text: “A majority of Catholics are trending toward voting for Donald Trump — even after conviction.” Should that fact alone be evidence that the Catholic vote no longer matters just because it doesn’t fit NCR’s ideology?

… and to the Banana Republic for Which It Stands …

I am much informed by a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Why Republicans Don’t Abandon ‘Felon’ Trump” by Michael W. McConnell (June 20, 2024). The author is a Stanford Law School professor, a retired judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He dissected the various charges lodged against Mr. Trump during this election cycle. His conclusions are an eye-opener. Only one of these cases has gone to trial, and after a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings, it appears that many of the other claims perhaps never will. Of the supposed felonies for which a New York State court declared Trump guilty, Professor McConnell wrote:

“Most Democrats I know persuaded themselves of the righteousness of criminally prosecuting Donald Trump to keep him from becoming President again. How, they ask, can any respectable person defend Mr. Trump now that he is a felon? Many Republicans … believe that Democratic prosecutors are waging lawfare against Mr. Trump [and] now consider the legal crusade against Trump to be as threatening to democracy as what happened on January 6, 2021. The charges against Mr. Trump in New York were bogus.”

The article lays out in compelling terms how New York DA Alvin Bragg’s prosecution was an attempt to influence voters and the electoral process. DA Bragg had also been a donor to the Biden campaign and should have disqualified himself from prosecuting the case. Instead, according to Professor McConnell he “openly campaigned on a vow to hold Mr. Trump and his family accountable.” The attention grabber for me was what followed in Professor McConnell’s article: “Mr. Bragg didn’t pursue particular crimes of concern to the public. He pursued a particular defendant who happened to be the other party’s candidate for President.”

That analysis is so vastly unlike almost all other news coverage of that trial that is shocked me, and for good reason. The “suspect in search of a crime” motif was exactly what happened to me. No one ever went to Keene, NH Detective James F. McLaughlin with a complaint about me. Instead, this sex abuse crusader targeted me for no reason other than my being a Catholic priest. Then, armed with a fraudulent claim that he himself manufactured, he manipulated — sometimes with monetary bribes and threats — dozens of troubled adolescents and young adults in places where I had been assigned. He did this relentlessly for five years until he found some who would accuse me for money. (See the “Statement of Steven Wollschlager.”)

The “ lawfare” pursuit of Donald Trump was political, but it never reflected American justice. Its sole purpose was the imposition of a scarlet letter that would most likely be overturned on appeal. According to the purposes of D.A. Bragg, it need only hold up until the November election. After a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Presidential Immunity, New York State judge Juan Merchan delayed Mr. Trump’s sentencing until September 18, 2024.

Meanwhile, President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, now also a “convicted felon” has been serving in the role of a senior advisor to the President during both family and staff negotiations about his future political life, negotiations in which Hunter Biden has a clear conflict of interest. The hypocrisy is stunning.

In his first term as 45th President of the United States, President Donald Trump sponsored the First Step Act. A major tenet of it was a call for the removal of “the box,” a prejudicial feature of federal job applications that kept thousands of former prisoners from finding meaningful work. Permanent “Convicted Felon” status is unjust, demeaning, useless and sometimes even baseless. Recall the words of Sheriff Beauford Puser in my post, “Walking Tall: The Justice Behind the Eighth Commandment”: “If you let ‘em get away with this, you give ‘em the eternal right to do the same damn thing to anyone of you!”

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this timely post. You may also like these related titles from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Hamas Assault on Israel and the Emperor Who Knew Not God

Miranda Devine, Cardinal Pell, and the Laptop from Hell

Why This Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison

Walking Tall: The Justice Behind the Eighth Commandment

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Ryan A. MacDonald 5/29/24 Ryan A. MacDonald 5/29/24

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

With no court oversight the Diocese of Manchester paid a six-figure settlement for an expired abuse claim urged on by discredited “trauma-informed consultants.”

With no court oversight the Diocese of Manchester paid a six-figure settlement for an expired abuse claim urged on by discredited “trauma-informed consultants.”

May 29, 2024 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Editor’s Note: The following post is by Ryan A. MacDonald who has published extensively on the sexual abuse narrative in the Catholic Church. His most recent was a collaboration with Los Angeles writer and researcher Claire Best entitled “The New Hampshire YDC Scandal and the Trial of Father MacRae.”

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I hear that there is a lot going on in New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” State. The State has long operated a juvenile detention facility called YDC — the Youth Development Center. In more recent years it was renamed the “Sununu Youth Development Center” after former Governor John Sununu, father of current Governor Christopher Sununu. They both now seem anxious to have their family name removed from that facility. The “YDC,” as it is commonly called has been at the center of a massive child sexual and physical abuse case in New Hampshire. There are currently an estimated 1,300 open lawsuits and other claims against the State and its officials for alleged physical and sexual abuse and attempts to cover that up. The alleged abuse was going on, but hidden, at the same time the Diocese of Manchester was on the public radar when Fr. Gordon MacRae faced trial in 1994. It was still going on in 2002 when the State launched a grand jury investigation of the Diocese whose abuse narrative paled next to the one being kept hidden by the State. After the State convened a grand jury to investigate the Catholic Diocese in 2002, it convened another to investigate the prestigious St. Paul’s School in later years. The State has convened no grand jury to investigate the YDC claims, though they dwarf other cases.

The YDC saga exploded into public view last year when former resident David Meehan filed a lawsuit against the State for hundreds of incidents of victimization by sexual and physical violence as a young teen held at YDC. He was but the first of many to come forward. Recognizing its liability, the State Legislature earmarked a $100 million fund to settle the YDC claims. The lawyers involved scoffed stating that it needed to be at least four times that amount. The list of plaintiffs then exploded. The State offers unquestioned settlements of up to $1.5 million for sexual abuse claims and $150,000 for claims of physical abuse.

A minority of the 1,300 claimants opted for a quick settlement while to date most others are holding out for a trial to present evidence and have their injuries heard in open court. The horrific case of David Meehan was the first to go to trial in early May, 2024. It generated lurid headlines about the abuse he suffered, including testimony of some staff who tried to report it, but were not allowed to. A shocked jury came back with a verdict just a week before I am writing this post. The jury awarded David Meehan $38 million in compensatory and punitive damages for his pain and suffering. Now there are over 1,000 trials yet to be scheduled and heard. Writer and researcher Claire Best has a companion post this week describing the connections in this story and how its tangled web has influenced the case against Fr. MacRae and the responses of the Diocese of Manchester.

Back in 2019, I wrote an article that I am told is among the most read and cited posts at this site. “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List” documents a 2019 decision of Bishop Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester, to publicize for at least the second or third time an ever expanding list of New Hampshire Catholic priests who have been “credibly” accused going back at least 50 years.

It is alarming to see that in that relatively small New England diocese, there are now over 75 names on Bishop Libasci’s list. Most of those priests are deceased, some for decades, and few have had anything resembling legal due process through which to defend themselves. That is most certainly so when they are accused posthumously like most of those on the list.

Bishop Libasci cited “transparency” as his motive for updating and republishing that list. However, the words “credibly accused” seem to have fallen off the list. In the Diocese of Manchester, the standard for public shaming is now simply “accused.” It seems far more Calvinist than Catholic. For some transparency of our own, we should clarify that Fr. Gordon MacRae is also on that list under the unique heading of “convicted.” There have been many published commentaries about the how and why of that, but perhaps the best of these is a series in the highly credible venue, The Wall Street Journal.

If you visit that link, be sure to view and listen to its first item, a five-minute video interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz, a member of the WSJ Editorial Board who was awarded a Pulitzer for her writings on “Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Time.”

Bishop Libasci’s published list does more than just inform the public. What would be the public interest in learning that a long deceased priest was posthumously accused of molestation? The list also acts as a “hit list,” giving an aura of credibility to scammers who would take advantage of the abuse crisis by filing false claims while using the list to get their facts straight. It is folly to believe this does not happen. Our bishops know full well that it does. Just recently in these pages, Fr. MacRae himself wrote of several modern examples in “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian. Courtesy of ***TheMediaReport***

Given the well-founded caution about false claims and financial scammers cited above, it was alarming to read the following in a recent news article, “Diocese of Manchester Settles Sexual Abuse Claim from the 1970s.” Here is an excerpt:

“No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, ... but the attorney representing the ‘John Doe’ who was involved said it’s important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process. Attorney Mitchell Garabedian and Bob Hoatson, President of the non profit “Road to Recovery,” announced the six-figure settlement outside the Diocese of Manchester office.”

Activist Bob Hoatson said he drove all the way to Manchester from New Jersey to recognize what he called “the heroic actions of the accuser.” In a statement, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Manchester explained why the Diocese opted for a six-figure settlement despite the fact that the statute of limitations for filing any claim at all had expired many years ago:

“The Diocese of Manchester provides financial assistance to those who have been harmed, regardless of when the abuse occurred, through a process utilizing independent trauma-informed consultants.”

To understand how this is all connected to the vast number of unquestioned settlements in the State of New Hampshire YDC cases, just take a moment to listen to this brief advertisement from a local New Hampshire lawfirm. This diocese should prepare itself now for an onslaught of claims filed with no judicial oversight, but demands for settlements brought by the likes of Attorney Mitchell Garabedian and victim-activist Bob Hoatson. Ironically, the two of them were also at the center of a most important op-ed here in these pages entitled, “Betrayed by Victims’ Advocates.”

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity

A most basic problem with handing the matter of due process for the accused and outcomes for the Diocese by abdicating judgment to “trauma-informed consultants” is that the term itself is widely noted and critiqued as highly biased by professionals. It has a documented negative impact on judicial fairness and due process of law in cases of sexual abuse and assault.

The Center for Prosecutor Integrity (CPI) is an organization that seeks to strengthen prosecutorial ethics, promote due process, and end wrongful convictions. Victim-centered investigations, also known in the sex abuse industry as “trauma-informed” investigations, presume the guilt of all defendants and lead to wrongful convictions by steering their investigations around an initial presumption of guilt.

According to the Center’s website, “The most destructive types of victim-centered investigations are known as “Start by Believing,” and “Trauma-Informed.” The CPI displays an entire bibliography documenting the “junk science” behind them, and how they have turned the problem of wrongful convictions into an epidemic of false witness and police and prosecutorial misconduct.

This has crept into the arena of sexual abuse and assault convictions in just the last decade as advocacy groups flourish through federal Department of Justice grants. One of these groups, “End Violence Against Women International,” had been the recipient of 18 grants totaling millions of dollars from the US Department of Justice since 2011. It had been one of the main proponents of “Start by Believing” and “Trauma-Informed” investigations. The organization widely distributed a “Start by Believing” Action Kit to police and prosecutors nationwide. According to the CPI, it openly endorses investigator bias, utilizes guilt-presuming terminology, and contains false claims."

The CPI website lists dozens of scholarly articles refuting the “trauma-informed” methods of civil and criminal investigation and adjudication of claims. Nasheia Conway, the Civil Rights Program Director for Prosecutor Integrity complained in 2019 to the Office of the U.S. Inspector General:

“These concepts and investigative methods abuse the mission of the Department of Justice, which states in part, “... to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.” Termed a ‘multimillion dollar threat to justice,’ they abuse the purpose and intent of Congressional appropriations. And they abuse the public trust which is critical to the effective functioning of our criminal justice system.”

These facts have been documented and exposed by the Center for Prosecutor Integrity:

Since 1989 there have been over 2,400 documented cases of persons who have been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated.
An estimated 43% of wrongful convictions arise from misconduct involving prosecutors, police, investigators, and other officials.
More than 90% of criminal cases are adjudicated during closed-door plea-bargain negotiations. These cases have little or no public accountability or even awareness.
The most common types of ethical violations committed by prosecutors include:
- Failure to disclose exculpatory evidence (Brady violation)
- Use of inadmissible or false evidence/lack of candor
- Plea bargain offenses (former Keene, NH Detective James F. McLaughlin vastly bolstered his conviction rate by offering minuscule and lenient plea-bargain deals to defendants.)
- Inflammatory statements and witness harassment (Read the statement of Debra Collett.)
- Mischaracterizing evidence
- Vouching

In 2019, the CPI published an extensive report documenting the “Junk Science in Trauma-Informed Investigations.” The U.S. Department of Justice ceased funding for “trauma-informed” investigations because it was determined that they disavowed due process.

Upon information and belief, the trauma-informed prosecutorial organization to which the Diocese of Manchester has deferred in the matter of abuse investigations and settlements is the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV). The official investigator for the Diocese is now Julie Curtin, a former police officer in Concord, New Hampshire. She was also the principal investigator in a case that Fr. MacRae once wrote about in these pages: “Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester.” It is worth reading. It is also alarming to see that Ms. Curtin is now the investigator for the Diocese of Manchester Office for Ministerial Conduct.

Some months ago, Los Angeles researcher Claire Best wrote a long, nebulous, but entirely truthful analysis of the matter that sent Fr. MacRae to prison 30 years ago and keeps him there today. It is “New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case.”

This week, Claire Best has a commentary on current events in New Hampshire which is simultaneously published at the Voices from Beyond page at this site.

“A New Hampshire Ponzi Scheme Uncovered?”

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