In his last years, Father Richard John Neuhaus served the Church in the spirit of Saint Matthias. He saw The Judas Crisis for what it was, and named it.

The elephant in the sacristy this week is, of course, that stunning May 11 article by Dorothy Rabinowitz in The Wall Street Journal entitled, “The Trials of Father MacRae.” In effect it brought the truth of one case of false witness to the public square for all to see, and the result is a far different story than what many in the news media have propagated to date. Like any wound so exposed, I found the article to be painful but necessary, and the cleansing of this festering wound of wrongful imprisonment will no doubt be painful still.

Just a week before that Journal article appeared, the local Comcast cable system in Concord, NH decided to add EWTN to its Basic Cable service available to, and funded by, prisoners at no cost to taxpayers. This prison system lost access to EWTN five years ago, and it is suddenly back. Our friend, Pornchai, was the first to notice. He awoke during a sleepless night and turned on his little TV. There on his screen was Dawn Eden being interviewed about her book,  Peace I Give You; Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Pornchai wrote of her and that book in “Divine Mercy and the Doors of My Prisons” for Holy Souls Hermitage last month. If you haven’t read his guest post, you must not miss it.

The next morning Pornchai told me about EWTN and Dawn Eden so I tuned in later that night in time to catch a rerun interview with the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, as brilliant and erudite as ever. It made my heart sink a little. He left us in January, 2009, and I have written more than one tribute to him, the last being “In Memoriam: Avery Cardinal Dulles and Fr. Richard John Neuhaus” on TSW in January 2011. They were the greatest of friends and collaborators, and they left this world three weeks apart from each other. In the last century of American Catholicism, there has been no one to match the strength of their combined voices in the public square – with the exception, of course, of the legendary Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

The night Father Neuhaus posthumously appeared on my TV screen, he was right on cue. I was lying awake re-reading a series of his commentaries for First Things magazine on the Catholic priesthood sex abuse scandal. Originally published in “The Public Square” section of First Things, we collected these brilliant commentaries into a single document posted under “Articles and Commentary” here on TSW with Father Neuhaus’ original title, “Scandal Time.”

Father Neuhaus wrote most of “Scandal Time” just before and after the U.S. Bishops’ ratification of the so-called Dallas Charter in 2002 with its policies of zero tolerance and widespread suppression of the rights of accused priests. It makes for painful but necessary reading because it exposes a gaping wound in the life of the Catholic Church in the United States – a wound that threatens the very nature of priesthood. Father Neuhaus did not cushion his message, and in fact began it by citing The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz:

“Unbridled outrage can too easily become hysteria. One recalls [the] blizzard of criminal charges and lawsuits over alleged abuses, including satanic rituals and other grotesqueries, perpetrated by people working in day care centers. Whole communities around the country were caught up in a frenzy of mutual recriminations, and many people went to jail, until the heroic and almost single-handed work of Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal exposed the madness for what it was.” (Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, “Scandal Time,” 2002)

MY LOT IN LIFE

A TSW reader suggested awhile back that my being falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned may be “your lot in life,” brought about so that These Stone Walls could come into being. I find that to be an intimidating notion, and I’m not sure I want to put much stock in it. The euphemism, “my lot in life” is intriguing, however. We’ve all heard it and used it, but I think most people are unaware of the term’s Biblical roots. It comes from the practice of casting lots, a term used throughout Scripture.

“Lots” were marked objects somewhat like dice, cast to resolve disputes or to discern the will of the Lord. The term is mentioned in Proverbs 16: 33: “The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is wholly from the Lord.” Among many Biblical examples, lots were cast after the conquest of Canaan (Numbers 26:55) to divide up the territory of Canaan among the tribes of Israel. Lots were also used on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) to select a scapegoat to send into the desert to Azazel bearing the sins of all Israel (Leviticus 16: 7-10). That particular reference was also the basis of my January, 2013 post, “What Dreams May Come: Azazel and the Pursuit of Justice.”

Psalm 16:5 is a reminder to the Lord that “thou holdest my lot,” and each of the Gospel Passion Narratives describes the Roman soldiers casting lots for the garments of the crucified Christ.

In one of the last references to casting lots in the chronology of Scripture, the practice was used to discern the successor to Judas to complete the Twelve after his betrayal and death. In Acts of the Apostles (1: 21-26) the remaining Apostles cast lots to select Matthias to replace Judas. Matthias was described in Acts as a witness to Christ from the Baptism of Jesus by John to the Resurrection and Ascension. Matthias was chosen to resolve the first Judas crisis in the Church.

THE NEW JUDAS CRISIS

It might strike you as an irony of Biblical proportions, therefore, that Father Richard John Neuhaus, whose “Scandal Time” essays laid out the foundations for the current Judas Crisis in the Church and priesthood, came into this world on the Feast of Saint Matthias, May 14, 1936. If you have read “Pope Francis and The Judas Crisis” by Father George David Byers on These Stone Walls, then the following excerpts from “Scandal Time” written a decade ago by Father Neuhaus will ring a loud bell, and will ring true. Father Neuhaus here presents in graphic terms, and with courage and fidelity, the milieu in which the Dallas Charter and The Judas Crisis were born:

“New reports claiming that a certain number of priests have been charged with abuse and that the claims were settled out of court must not be interpreted to mean that the priests are guilty. Some of them insisted and insist they are innocent, but bishops were advised by lawyers and insurance companies that a legal defense against the charges would cost much more than settlement out of court . . .

“There is an unseemly readiness on the part of many, including some Catholics, to believe the worst. What we know is wretched enough. We would not know what we do know without the reporting of The Boston Globe. [However] it is pointed out that the Globe, like its owner The New York Times, is no friend of the Church. The suggestion is not that we kill the messenger, but that we should be keenly aware that the messenger has, on issue after issue, points to score against the teaching and claims of the Catholic Church; that the messenger is not a neutral party.

“In setting themselves against their priests, the bishops have turned themselves into assistant district attorneys determined to prove themselves tougher than their bosses. Note what counts as an offense for which a priest is removed from ministry for life. A sexual offense, the [Bishops' Dallas] Charter says, is not ‘necessarily to be equated with the definitions of sexual abuse or other crimes in civil law.’

“After the [Dallas Charter] vote, some bishops said that everything was so rushed and they did not know the definition of abuse was so loose and potentially abusive of priests. You voted for it, sir. You voted to make it mandatory, with absolutely no exceptions, that a priest be excluded forever from ministry for anything that might fall within the above definition of a sexual offense. This is not for ‘the good of the Church.’ This has nothing to do with ‘the protection of children and young people.’ This is panic, and panic results in recklessness.

“Among the most elementary of elementary rules in every recognized system of justice is that you cannot make laws apply retroactively. This is precisely what the bishops did in adopting zero tolerance and draconian punishment for vaguely defined incidents not only of the present and future, but of the past. Priests are instructed that the good of the Church, meaning the public image of bishops, is not compatible with the gift of redemption. Another elementary rule of justice is the presumption of innocence. Now, it would seem, an accused priest is guilty until proven innocent . . . The bishops had a historic opportunity to show, with the whole world watching, how Christians deal with sin and grace, mercy and justice. Sadly, the opportunity was missed.”

THE JUDAS CRISIS AND FIDELITY

The “Scandal Time” essays by Father Neuhaus collected at TSW comprise about thirty pages, but for those who want to know how we got to where we are, they provide the most astute and informative discussion of the crisis available, in my opinion. What makes these essays so reliable and informative is the same thing that makes Father Byers’ discussion of The Judas Crisis reliable. In addition to being rather straightforward writers of truth and justice, both priests are models of fidelity. If they were not, you would not see them quoted here.

There is also an issue of media fidelity – fidelity to the truth – and the time has come for all Catholics to discern what news venues are supported with their time, attention, and subscriptions. The above comments by Father Neuhaus about The Boston Globe and The New York Times raise serious concerns about fair treatment of Catholic issues and fidelity to truth. A few years ago when These Stone Walls first started. two friends gave me gift subscriptions to The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal. Neither friend was aware of the gift of the other. From inside this 9′ x 12′ prison cell that I just cannot bring myself to call home, the two papers were my windows onto the world.

When it came time to renew, however, I simply could not afford the almost $900 cost of a year’s subscription to The Boston Globe, and it was far from worth it. So I chose the far superior paper, The Wall Street Journal, and surprisingly at a fraction of the Globe’s cost. I do not point this out because The Wall Street Journal just published an article that treated me with justice. This isn’t about me at all. I find that the Journal consistently treats the truth with justice, and doesn’t deny justice and truth to Catholic issues simply because trashing the Church is what’s now expected to sell newspapers.

I was therefore not at all surprised to see that a recent Pew Research Center survey determined that the WSJ is now seen as the most believable and trusted newspaper in America. With 2.4 million print and digital subscribers, it is by far the largest as well, and has far surpassed both The New York Times and USA Today in subscribers.

The quality of the Journal’s integrity in news reporting was really made clear to me during the tumultuous months in news out of Rome from February to April this year. The Journal’s coverage of the abdication of Pope Benedict, the papal Conclave, and the election of Pope Francis was outstanding and exceptional among secular media. Scandals were not avoided, but unlike in almost all other of the U.S. print media, scandal was not the raison d’etre for the Journal’s coverage of the riveting stories of Vatican news.

In the Journal’s daily coverage of Vatican affairs, one writer in particular stood out among all others. Stacy Meichtry’s frequent news reporting from Rome was a model of clarity, in-depth analysis, and a demonstrable awareness of Catholic history and practice. These reports have been collected by The Wall Street Journal staff into a downloadable e-book format that I hear is just terrific – and a real bargain at $4.99. Its title is Pope Francis: From the End of the Earth to Rome, and it can be found at www.PopeFrancisTheBook.com.

“I am thinking now of some advice Saint Francis of Assisi gave his brothers: Preach the Gospel and, if necessary, use words. Preach with your life, with your witness. Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church’s credibility.” (Pope Francis, April 14 Homily at St. Paul Outside-the-Walls)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Be sure to read Journalism Outside the Box: Wall St. Journal Bravely Profiles Stunning Case of Wrongfully Convicted Priest Fr. Gordon MacRae by David F. Pierre of TheMediaReport.com

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Editors Note: In a major development in the case of wrongly imprisoned priest, Father Gordon MacRae, the nations largest newspaper has once again taken up this story. Dorothy Rabinowitz, a pulitzer prize winning journalist on The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, published a riveting article on the Father MacRae case on May 11/12, 2013 entitled, “The Trials of Father MacRae.”

Dorothy Rabinowitz analyzed Father MacRae’s 1994 trial as well as the issues and newer evidence in the current appeal effort now underway. Her article also presents due process concerns for both the Church and the justice system.  Her interview video is a must watch!

This is an important story, not only for Father Gordon MacRae and the readers of These Stone Walls, but for all falsely accused priests. We invite These Stone Walls readers to

1. Read The Wall Street Journal article 
2. Watch the interview video
3. Leave a Comment over at WSJ (if you subscribe)
4. Use the Social Media Buttons below and share a link to this article, video, and to this announcement with others who are concerned for justice in both the Church and the justice system.

Thank you for your prayers and support for Father MacRae!

The TSW Editors

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I want to thank Father George David Byers of Holy Souls Hermitage and Ryan MacDonald of A Ram in the Thicket for stepping in for me on These Stone Walls over the last two weeks. I hadn’t gone anywhere. Prisoners do not get vacations, after all. Remember my post, “When the Caged Bird Just Can’t Sing“?

Sometimes keeping up with writing from behind prison walls can be difficult. When I asked Father George and Ryan to write, I gave no indication at all what I would like them to write about. Both tackled something painful but necessary, and I am in their debt. There is more to write on these topics, and no doubt it will be written soon.

But this week, something else has my attention. You may remember a post I wrote a few years ago entitled “A Corner of the Veil.” It was about my mother, Sophie Kavanagh MacRae, who died on November 5, 2006 during my 12th year in prison. That hasn’t stopped her from visiting, however. I had a strange dream about her a few nights ago, and I keep going back to it trying to find some meaning that at first eluded me.

The United Kingdom celebrates Mothering Sunday on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, but in North America, Mother’s Day is coming up on May 12. I wonder if that was what prompted my vivid dream. It was in three dimensions, sort of like looking through one of those stereoscopic View Masters we had long ago. Pop in a disk of images and there they were in three dimensions and living color. My dream was like that, even the color – which is strange because I am colorblind since birth. My rods and cones are just not up to snuff, and though I do see some color, my view of the world is, I am told, not far afield from basic black and white and many shades of gray. Priesthood saved me from a lifetime of wondering why people grimace at my unmatched clothes.

Back to my dream. I was standing on Empire Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, in front of the urban home where I grew up. My mother was standing with me, but in the dream, as in today’s reality, we could not go inside that house because neither of us lived there any longer. My dream contained overlapping realities. It was clear to me that my mother had died, but there she was. And it was clear to me that I am in prison, but there I was with her on that street in front of the home I left forty years ago.

The scene was the stuff of dreams, and it strikes me now that this dream was a reminder of something essential, some truth I could easily let slip away, but must not. I once wrote of that house and that street in an early TSW post called “February Tales.” I wrote of the books that captivated me in childhood, books that I read for hours on end perched high in the treetops along our city street. To this day I can hear my mother calling out a window in her Newfoundland brogue, “IF YOU FALL OUT OF THAT BLOODY TREE AND BREAK YER LEG, DOEN’T COME ARUNNIN’ TO ME!”

As my mother and I crossed the street away from that house in my dream, we spoke, but nothing of that conversation survived in my consciousness except one sentence, and it was perplexing. I said, as I kissed her good-bye, “I have promises to keep.” With a pack over my shoulder in my dream, I turned away to walk toward the end of our city street. In my youth, there was a bus stop there where I could board a bus that would take me the ten miles to Logan Airport or on to Boston’s North Station. From there, I could go anywhere. As I walked down the street in the last scene of my dream, I looked back to see my mother waving. I was leaving. I was always leaving.

You may recognize my final words to my mother in the dream. They are a line from a famous, multi-layered and haunting poem by the great Robert Frost entitled “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Here it is:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

A LIFE AND DEATH CONVERSATION

I say this poem is multi-layered because all by itself, with no search at all for deeper meaning, it tells a nicely unadorned tale on its surface. However, I believe Robert Frost packed this little verse with profound meaning about life and death. For me, the owner of the woods who lives in the village is God, the Author of Life, our Redeemer from death, and One who calls us to a task that gives meaning to our lives – even when we have no idea what that meaning is just yet. Even when we do not even know the task to which we are called.

There is something haunting and alluring about stopping by woods on a snowy evening. If you have ever stood in the woods at night while it snows, then you know the awesome, mesmerizing silence of that experience. All sound is absorbed, and the powerful sense of aloneness can produce inner peace. But it can also trigger a sense of foreboding, of being cut off from the sounds and sights of humanity, cut off from life in the village. Today’s fear of death is, in its essence, a fear of utter silence, of the world of no more.

Even the poem’s “little horse” is a symbol of the simplicity of our animal nature. The horse ponders not the meaning of the woods, and “gives his harness bells a shake” to bring his rider back to his senses. “We’ve no reason to stop here.” The horse knows nothing of his rider’s yearning for surrender, for a time of removal from the civilization and social responsibility in which the Owner of those woods is engaged in the village ahead.

It’s okay to stop by the woods on a snowy evening. We just can’t stay there. Not yet. Robert Frost’s woods represent death. “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,” and they stand in the poem as an invitation to final surrender and rest. “Sleep” in the poem is a metaphor for death, just as it is for Jesus as he awakens Lazarus from the sleep of death:

“‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we too may die with him.’” (John 11: 11-16)

If you have read this far, and my analysis of Robert Frost’s poem hasn’t put you to sleep, then like me you might wonder what exactly I meant when I whispered to my mother that “I have promises to keep.” The dream didn’t spell it out for me, so I had to search for its deeper meaning.

In our poem, the rider seems to be on a journey, though Frost gives us no indication of its purpose or destination. At the end of his journey, the rider has “promises to keep” but the woods, “lovely, dark, and deep” are an enticing release from both the journey and his burdens. But the responsibility of his promises pulls harder than the woods, and his release – his inevitable death – is postponed. The rider moves on toward his destiny and the fulfillment of his promises – both those he has made and those made to him. He moves on, as I did in the dream of my mother, with “miles to go before I sleep.”

THE PROMISE

My mother died a terrible death, having suffered for three years from hydrocephalus, the build-up of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. It was misdiagnosed in her early seventies, and by the time it was properly diagnosed, it could not be treated. She visited me in prison with a cane, and then a walker, and then a wheelchair, and then, for the last year of her life, not at all. Though only sixty miles away from my prison, she could not even speak with me by telephone for the last six months of her life. She became paralyzed, and entered a prison of her own.

In our last visit in the New Hampshire State Prison visiting room a year before my mother died, I told her I was sorry for what had become of my life and my priesthood. Most mothers of priests – especially Irish mothers – take a certain pride in the priesthood of their sons. My mother left this world with her own priest-son in prison. I worried about the wounds to her pride my false imprisonment wrought.

But all was not lost. There was grace even in that. Sometime between now and Mother’s Day I hope you might read anew – or for the first time – “A Corner of the Veil.” It describes a promise I made to my mother that I would never take the easy way out of the crisis that priesthood brought me to. I intend to keep that promise, and in a dream last week, my mother showed up to help strengthen its resolve. But more than that, “A Corner of the Veil” is about the continuity of relationship between the living and the dead. That post described a very subtle but deeply meaningful connection with my mother beyond this life, and I might have missed it if I let the growing spiritual cynicism of this world take root in prison and take my faith as it grew and festered.

What I described in that post is a true tale, and a powerful one, and I haven’t yet recovered from the nudge – a smack upside the head, really – from my mother. It was her wake-up call to me to stop by the woods on a snowy evening just long enough to peer through a corner of the veil between this life and the next, and to renew my engagement with both the mysteries and promises of my faith despite where I must, for this moment, live it.

I have heard from so many readers of These Stone Walls asking me for prayers for their mothers, living and dead, some beloved and some estranged, some deeply missed and some slowly leaving this world. On Mother’s Day I promise, the Owner willing, to offer Mass for all the readers of These Stone Walls who are mothers, and for all of your mothers. Those who have passed from this life are, I think, also reading, and they can hold me to it. Perhaps they’ll gather. Perhaps they’ll even plot. Were that the case, my mother would surely be in Heaven!

We, the living, have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep. First among those promises is to engage in a vibrant life of faith that opens itself to the continuity of life between this world and the next, something our culture of death denies. Fostering that faith, and making fertile its ground, is a great responsibility, and the source of all freedom. That’s the absolute truth! Just ask Mom!

“And he said to them, ‘How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things within her heart.” (Luke 2: 49-51)

Sophie MacRae is on the right with her sister.

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Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald of A Ram in the Thicket.

A troubling back story in the trial and lawsuits against Father Gordon MacRae has been in open view for two decades, but overlooked by both Church and State.

In an article I wrote last September entitled “Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced Father Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison,” I aimed a spotlight at the glaring injustice of the 1994 prosecution of Father Gordon MacRae. Last week in these pages, Fr. George David Byers aimed another spotlight at a Church hierarchy morally paralyzed by litigation. A full and transparent view of justice now requires unveiling a related story in the background of the troubling case against Father Gordon MacRae. It’s a story, as the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus once described in the pages of First Things magazine (June/July 2009), “of a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

This account begins in tragedy. Shortly after noon on Friday, May 11, 1979, Peter Linsley, 35, and Jane Linsley, 28, both of Concord, New Hampshire, walked unannounced through the open door of the rectory at Saint Rose of Lima church in Littleton, NH, a town of (then) about 5,400 in the north of that state. A year earlier, in May, 1978, Peter Linsley was discharged from the state psychiatric hospital after he was declared no longer a danger to himself or others. He previously entered a plea of innocent by reason of insanity to a charge of aggravated assault on a police officer in July, 1977.

As the Linsleys barged into the Littleton church rectory in May, 1979, two parishioners, Mrs. Patricia Lyons and her son, Michael, had been working inside. The home invaders brandished a pair of .357-caliber Magnum revolvers and declared themselves to be “King and Queen of the Church” sent there by God to “cleanse the temple.” They demanded to see the parish priest.

The priest assigned at Saint Rose of Lima parish at the time was the Rev. Stephen Scruton. As the drama unfolded in his parish rectory that day, Fr. Scruton was aboard a plane somewhere over the Atlantic headed for a vacation in Ireland. With her son held at gunpoint, Mrs. Lyons telephoned Rev. Joseph Sands in the nearby town of Lancaster, about 15 miles away. She asked the priest to come immediately. A half hour later, Father Sands became the Linsleys’ third hostage.

After the arrival of Father Sands, the couple ordered Mrs. Lyons to retrieve a dog left in their car, but once outside she ran for help. Meanwhile, the priest convinced her son, Mike, to escape by jumping from a second floor window, reportedly telling him, “If you want to get out alive, get out quickly.” Father Joe Sands thus made himself the sole hostage.

Mrs. Lyons went right to the police. Within a half hour, a State Police SWAT team surrounded the parish house, and established a telephone link with the Linsleys. The tape-recorded negotiations went on for the next five hours, ending at 5:22 PM when four shots were fired inside the rectory. Peter Linsley murdered Father Joe Sands, then shot and killed Jane Linsley, and then, finally, turned his gun on himself.

At the time in 1979, sitting New Hampshire Governor, the late Honorable Hugh Gallen was a native of Littleton and a friend of Father Stephen Scruton whose vacation was cut short as he was quickly returned to a parish mired in tragedy. According to a priest who had once lived in that rectory with Father Scruton, Governor Gallen took command of the scene and ordered the five hours of taped negotiations between the Linsleys and police negotiators to be sealed. The tapes never became public.

That priest, the late Rev. Maurice (Moe) Rochefort, was a friend of both Father Joe Sands and Father Gordon MacRae. MacRae once wrote of him in an article entitled “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.” “Father Moe” reportedly once told MacRae that the Littleton rectory and its parish priest were not random targets. He said that the gunman sought revenge against Father Stephen Scruton specifically for some unknown previous encounter at the church. That has long been rumored among priests of the Diocese of Manchester who knew Scruton, but none would respond to inquiries about Father Scruton or this incident.

A few years ago, Father MacRae wrote a haunting and deeply sad article entitled “Dark Night of a Priestly Soul.” It was about a priest he knew in his Diocese who 10 years ago tragically took his own life after an accusation surfaced against him from 1972. That accusation was also alleged to have occurred at St. Rose of Lima Parish in Littleton. The accuser in that case also accused another priest, Fr. Stephen Scruton.

During the five years before the tragedy that took the life of Father Joe Sands, Gordon MacRae had been a seminary student with the New York Province of the Capuchin Order. After completing the one-year Capuchin novitiate in 1974, MacRae was assigned to Saint Anthony Friary in Hudson, NH from where he attended nearby Saint Anselm College. He graduated with degrees in philosophy and psychology, with honors, in 1978. During the summer of 1978, the young seminarian sought the counsel of fellow Capuchin and mentor, Father Benedict Groeschel, as he discerned leaving the Capuchins to pursue graduate studies in theology as a diocesan priest.

It was an amiable transition. For the next four years (1978 to 1982) seminarian Gordon MacRae studied at St. Mary Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland where he earned simultaneous degrees in divinity and pastoral counseling, and a Pontifical degree in theology. His summers were spent working in three New Hampshire parishes.

A year after the tragic death of Father Sands, in June of 1980, Father Stephen Scruton was transferred from Littleton to Saint John Parish in Hudson, NH on the state’s southern border. Because seminarian Gordon MacRae had lived in that community as a Capuchin, he requested to be ordained at Saint John church on June 5, 1982. He was the only candidate for priesthood ordination for the Diocese of Manchester that year. It was there, in late May and early June of 1982 that he first met Father Stephen Scruton.

In an article last year on These Stone Walls entitled, “The Expendables: Our Culture’s War Against Catholic Priests,” Father MacRae wrote of some especially challenging conditions in his first assignment as a priest about an hour’s drive from the town in which he was ordained. For an occasional day off, he would drive to Hudson where he had developed many friendships during his years as a Capuchin. On a few occasions, he also visited the three priests at Saint John Parish in Hudson.

During one of those visits in 1983, a Hudson parish secretary pulled Father MacRae aside and told him of a troubling incident in the rectory. She said that she suspected that Father Scruton’s assistant, Father Mark Fleming, had been sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in this rectory. She told Father MacRae that she saw nothing specific, but that her instinct on this was very strong. She said she tried to discuss this with Father Scruton, but he brushed it aside and told her not to mention it to anyone else. Father MacRae reportedly told her that if she saw anything at all that caused her to make such a conclusion, she was obligated to report it to police. Other than that conversation, Father MacRae had no connection whatsoever to that case.

Soon after in 1983, Father Stephen Scruton reported to officials in the Diocese of Manchester that he walked in on and witnessed his associate, Father Mark Fleming, in a sexual incident with a minor boy from the parish. A report was made by the Diocese to state officials as required by New Hampshire law, and the state launched an investigation.

Nothing of this became public until two decades later when the Diocese of Manchester released its priests’ personnel files in an unprecedented agreement with the State Attorney General’s Office. It was revealed only twenty years after the 1983 investigation by the state, that Father Fleming had abused three boys, all brothers. No criminal charges were filed, but Fleming was removed from ministry and placed at a psychiatric treatment center in St. Louis. In a 2003 article, the Nashua (NH) Telegraph reported on this story (Albert McKeon, “Priest Turned in another, then was also caught,” March 6, 2003).

In 1984, a year after the Hudson case involving Fathers Scruton and Fleming, Father Stephen Scruton was arrested for lewd conduct and indecent exposure at a highway rest area near Londonderry, NH. According to news accounts, those charges were dropped when he agreed to a plea deal for a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass. Scruton was placed on leave of absence for six months, then assigned to a small parish in Bennington, NH to replace a priest on sick leave. Upon that priest’s return, he complained to Diocesan officials that Father Scruton embezzled parish funds. The priest threatened civil litigation. Scruton was placed on leave again. During this period he was arrested a second time for lewd conduct and indecent exposure at a highway rest area in Massachusetts. Those charges were never fully processed.

In June of 1985, Father Stephen Scruton was assigned as pastor of Saint Bernard Parish in Keene, NH where Father Gordon MacRae had already served as associate pastor for the preceding two years. In a protracted statement entitled, “Affidavit of Rev. Gordon MacRae” posted on These Stone Walls, MacRae described in detail the next two years in that parish with Father Scruton. This document is well worth the time to understand the nightmarish conditions faced by MacRae in these years of priesthood.

After multiple incidents described in Father MacRae’s Affidavit linked above, Father Stephen Scruton was arrested once again for lewd conduct and indecent exposure at a highway rest area near Keene. His arrest occurred on the afternoon of Easter Sunday in 1987. In police reports, Father Scruton cited the stresses of Holy Week as the cause for his behavior. He pled guilty to the charge in Keene District Court.

To Father MacRae’s shock, Scruton was not immediately removed from the parish by Diocese of Manchester officials. In fact, MacRae heard nothing from anyone connected to his Diocese throughout Scruton’s arrest and the subsequent news accounts. Father Scruton granted an interview with a Keene Sentinel reporter to tell of how his arrest was an “opportunity” to educate the public about sexual addiction. It was then that Father MacRae picked up the phone and called Church officials to demand Scruton’s removal from the parish. Scruton was sent to a treatment facility in Golden Valley, MN, but not before a local bank official called Father MacRae to report Scruton’s embezzlement of $20,000 in parish funds.

Six years later, in 1994, Father Gordon MacRae faced criminal charges and simultaneous civil lawsuits brought by three brothers, Thomas, Jonathan, and David Grover alleging abuses from sometime between 1978 and 1983. Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote masterfully of the details of MacRae’s trial and the charges brought by these brothers and other related claims in “A Priest’s Story: The Trial of Father Gordon MacRae,” in April, 2005, article in The Wall Street Journal.

Jonathan and David Grover, the first of the Grover brothers to make accusations, claimed to have been repeatedly assaulted in Saint Bernard Rectory in Keene, and in other places, by both Father Gordon MacRae and Father Stephen Scruton acting both separately and simultaneously. Both brothers claimed that these assaults first occurred when they were twelve years old.

An immediate and never explained problem was that Father MacRae was never inside the Keene rectory until June of 1983 when Jonathan Grover was 14 years old and David Grover was just two weeks shy of turning 18. Father Scruton was never inside that rectory until June of 1985 when these brothers were ages 16 and 20 respectively. However, Father Scruton refused to answer any questions put by Father MacRae’s defense before trial, and fled the state when an attempt to subpoena him.

As these facts emerged pre-trial, the investigating police detective apparently did nothing to investigate or question them. He recorded no interviews, left no evidence to determine who said what to whom and when. At one point, he gave the Grover brothers a copy of Father MacRae’s resume so they could get their dates straight. Then he simply eliminated Father Stephen Scruton from all future reports in the case as though his name had never come up.

The progression of this story from this point on is utterly shocking, and was documented by me in “Truth in Justice: Was the Wrong Catholic Priest Sent to Prison?” I have no lingering doubts about the answer to that question, and neither will you if you read on. I recommend scrolling to the subheading, “Part II: Déjà Vu,” and reading from there.

After the onslaught of mediated settlements as described by Father Byers last week, many deceased priests of the Diocese of Manchester were accused, and could do nothing, of course, to defend themselves or their names. Nearly 30 years after his tragic death, Father Joe Sands was posthumously accused. Remember David Pierre’s great article in these pages one year ago, “Kicking the Dead and Collecting Cash.”

Justice for Father Gordon MacRae has a long way to go. If you are inclined to help, the “Contact” page of These Stone Walls describes how readers may assist with the ongoing costs of this legal and investigative effort, and with support of These Stone Walls.

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This guest essay written by Father George David Byers, of Holy Souls Hermitage, compares four points of Cardinal Bergoglio’s pre-conclave speech with four scenes of betrayal and evangelization of the dark peripheries of Gethsemane: The Judas Crisis & TNCRRG.

It is with sweet and comforting joy that we thank His Holiness, Pope Francis, for being the Papa of our Catholic Family of Faith. We are confident of his solidarity with us in the midst of our evangelization of the most extreme peripheries of existential desperation.

It is with unbounded trust in his fatherhood as he walks among us that we rush out as the littlest of children to grasp his hand, wanting to pull him into the peripheries known to us, so that we may show him, our beloved Papa, who willingly comes with us, what we see, peripheries so dark that they necessitate the authoritative governance of his fatherhood as Bishop of Rome in order for those peripheries finally to reflect He who is the Lumen Gentium, the Incarnate Light of the Nations.

Easily getting lost in the maze of badly lit back alleys of the peripheries, purposely labyrinthed with the self-referential ideologies of greed and political correctness, it is Pope Francis himself who hands us a map that leads us to Jesus Christ, who is the Way. That map consists not of images, but of four paragraphs, the four points of his speech to the Cardinals immediately preceding the Conclave. These four points – with my own, more accurate translation below – reflect the Gospel’s four descriptions of betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane inasmuch as it is by these accounts that our Lord’s supreme example of evangelizing the most obscure of existential peripheries is manifested with goodness and kindness, Truth and Life.

The peripheries into which we make a foray are those bureaucratic, highly refined, protectionist, and ever so self-referential betrayals that are the hierarchical, episcopal abuses of power regarding the many clergy whom so many bishops know to have been falsely accused of sexual abuse of young people, but whom they condemn as guilty by way of their written policies of immediate cash settlements, policies which tolerate no due-process for priests, but have those priests forever removed from the priesthood, and even imprisoned by criminally stacking any jury in this way. The bishops think that they save thirty pieces of silver even while drawing attention to their façade of solicitude for the Church. In this way, they only further endanger true victims, whose voices will not be heard as people tire of false accusations and a lack of priests.

Have no doubt, the same abuse of power which indulged in sexual abuse, is the same of abuse of power which overlooks that abuse. The abuse of power which condemns as guilty those priests they know to be innocent, is the same abuse of power which will once again indulge in, or overlook sexual abuse. Abuse of power is self-serving, self-referential, self-perpetuating, hidden in darkness of its own non-light, far from Christ Jesus.

When cases against priests reach the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it is assumed that there are no local diocesan policies forbidding due process for priests. We pray that the officials there will take a few minutes to follow the links in the next paragraph, and thus discover the truth of the written policies forbidding due process for priests. It seems that we too easily forget the lack of due process for Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, who, today, may well have been literally left to die under a bridge, forever barred from active ministry (see, for instance, “I Am a Mystery to Myself.” The Last Days of Padre Pio, with associated links). It seems that we too easily forget the lack of due process for Jesus, and, indeed, the time When Jesus Was in Prison, when all of his Apostles, including Peter, collegially ran away.

I’ve recently written on the frankly penned policies which, in an effort to save those thirty pieces of silver, forbid due process for priests: see The Judas Crisis and The National Catholic Risk Retention Group (TNCRRG). Father Gordon MacRae has a number of articles of compelling interest, including, Why the Catholic Abuse Narrative Needs a Fraud Task Force and When Priests Are Falsely Accused Part I: The Mirror of Justice Cracked. Although he doesn’t say so explicitly, the latter article references Father Steven Rossetti, who was head of the horrific Saint Luke Institute at the time. Father Rossetti, along with Monsignor Edward Arsenault, are the cheerleaders of The Judas Crisis, of the betrayal of priests known to be innocent.

Having said all that, it must quickly be added that such Cardinals, Archbishops and bishops are to be called “Friend”, the name Jesus gave to Judas at the moment of betrayal, and this in an effort to evangelize these darkest of existential peripheries. We must remember that eleven of the Apostles returned, having taken Jesus’ evangelizing of their own existential peripheries to heart, He having taken their hearts to His own. And isn’t that what we all want? Isn’t that what is of greatest benefit to the Church?

There are no peripheries awaiting our surging forth unto evangelization which could possibly be darker, colder, more cynical – or more needful of that evangelization – than the present policies of most (Arch)dioceses, for such betrayal of innocent priests is an affirmation and confirmation of the abuse of office and power which was and continues to be the cause of the abuse of youngsters, an action singled out for its horror by our Lord Himself.

The following four sections of this article will each include a point from the speech of Pope Francis, a description of betrayal during the account of the Jesus being apprehended in the Garden of Gethsemane, and a further drawing out of an analogy of the abuse of office.

One

From Cardinal Bergoglio’s Intervention

“(1) Evangelizing necessitates Apostolic Zeal. Evangelizing necessitates in the Church a speaking of the truth, a surging forth from herself. The Church is called to surge forth from herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographical, but also the existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of thought and of all misery.”

From Luke’s Account of Gethsemane (22,39-46)

“Then surging forth, He went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed Him. When he arrived at the place He said to them: ‘Pray that you may not undergo the trial.’ After withdrawing about a stone’s throw from them and kneeling, He prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.’ And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him. He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. When he rose from prayer and returned to his disciples, he found them sleeping from grief. He said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not undergo the trial.’”

The Word of the Father surges forth to the immobilization of the Cross, to speak in the silence of death to the darkest of existential peripheries, becoming sin so as to conquer pain, injustice, ignorance and indifference to religion, self-referential ideology and all misery. In surging forth with an acceptance not of His will, but that of the Father, He is betrayed by the failure of His co-evangelizers to pray, so that they, in their self-referential sleep, must become the first subjects of this surging evangelization: “Get up! Pray that you may not undergo the trial!” Their sorrow differs so much from His agony, grieving their own loss instead of literally bleeding goodness and kindness for others. He prepares to carry them in the battle, to lay down their lives with His own, that they might not flee into the futility of doing battle alone, merely to die the death of the self-referential, immediately forgotten by their politically correct sycophants.

Our Heavenly Father sacrifices His Son for this evangelization of the dark peripheries, but there are those who fall asleep, turn in on themselves, and refuse to accept that there is a battle to be fought, betrayers to confront and evangelization to be accomplished with one’s own life being lain down with that of Jesus Christ. One sleeps as the betrayers hiddenly go about their secret work. One permits Satan to have his way with the flock, their lives being shattered because the shepherds sleep with dreams of their own satisfaction, in this way bringing only pain, injustice, ignorance and indifference to religion, self-referential ideology and all misery. The betrayer is upon them, and they don’t want to know it, letting him free to do his work of sacrificing the Son of Another, Jesus, the Son of the Father, so as to satisfy his own self-referentiality.

At least in the U.S.A., the epicenter of abuse, especially from 1968 to 1978, it was as if all were asleep, for those abusing the children of others were permitted to do so with impunity, that is, by those in authority who knew that this was happening.

Two

From Cardinal Bergoglio’s Intervention

“(2) When the Church does not surge forth from herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick (as with the woman collapsing in upon herself in the Gospel). The evils that, in the course of time, afflict ecclesial institutions, have a root in self-referentiality, in a kind of theological narcissism. In the Apocalypse, Jesus says that He is at the threshold and calls. Evidently, the text refers to the fact of His being outside of the door and knocking in order to enter… But at times I think that Jesus knocks from within, so that we might let Him out. The self-referential Church has the pretense of keeping Jesus Christ within herself, and does not let Him go forth.”

From Luke’s Account of Gethsemane (22,47-48)

“While he was still speaking, a crowd approached and in front was one of the Twelve, a man named Judas. He went up to Jesus to kiss him. Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?’” (Luke 22,47-48).

Jesus had commanded Peter, James and John to pray that they might not enter into the battle, just as He did when He taught them to pray: “Do not bring us to the battle (alone), but deliver us from the Evil One” (who would attack us far from God). Now they had an example of one of their own, Judas, who had decided to throw in his lot with the Evil One, putting his betrayal into action right in front of their full view.

The kiss of Judas, so repugnant to Jesus, was Judas’ self-referential kiss of death: Jesus is mine! He wants to go forth and evangelize, but He is all mine! I can kiss Him! Possess Him! Sell Him! Betray Him! Kill Him! He is all mine! He will never go forth from me! Look at me! Only me! I am narcissistically mine! But Judas, whose feet had been cleansed of the cursed dust of Satan at the Last Supper was now possessed once again. “Friend!” Jesus exclaimed, always trying to evangelize even the darkest of hearts with goodness and kindness. Yet, the others, immobilized by their lack of prayer, can only watch as Judas goes about his work, sacrificing the Son of Another, Jesus, the Son of the Father, for his own satisfaction. Inversion, theological narcissism, looking only to oneself, as to an idol, cannot tolerate fruitfulness, but only that the children of others are sacrificed as a confirmation of one’s own self-referentiality.

The other Apostles look on, immobilized in their waking slumber, watching as the abuse of children continues for all to see. There were signs of nervousness, of course, but nothing significant would change the course of Judas from 1978 until 2002.

Three

From Cardinal Bergoglio’s Intervention

“(3) The Church, when she is self-referential, without being aware of this, believes to have her own light; she ceases to be the “mysterium lunae” [the mystery of the moon (which reflects the light of the sun, that is, the Son)] and gives way to that ever so serious evil which is spiritual worldliness (according to De Lubac, the worst evil into which the Church can run amuck): that living so as to give glory to one another. Put simply, there are two images of the Church: [1] the evangelizing Church which surges forth from herself, “Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidente proclamans” [religiously listening to God’s Word and faithfully proclaiming], or [2] the worldly Church, living within herself, by herself, for herself. This must shed light on the possible changes and reforms to be accomplished for the salvation of souls.”

From Luke’s Account of Gethsemane (22,49-51)

“His disciples realized what was about to happen, and they asked, ‘Lord, shall we strike with a sword?’ And one of them struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said in reply, ‘Stop, no more of this!’ Then he touched the servant’s ear and healed him.”

We see here a form of betrayal that is all the more insidious as it is all the more subtle. It is the betrayal of “doing something”, a tantrum of self-righteous indignation, a doing of anything but listening religiously to God’s Word, anything but faithfully proclaiming that Word. What is done under such vacuous circumstances of believing that one is one’s own light cannot be anything other than a confirmation of self-referentiality, a spiritual worldliness seeking to be praised and adored by the world. One cuts off the ear of the one who stands before God’s very Word, attempting to cut short his faithful proclamation, ensuring that all are mirror images of oneself, living within oneself, by oneself, for oneself, never reflecting the light of the Son of God among us. Malchus is cut down without due process. He is guilty by association. Judas was guilty as judged by the King of kings and Lord of lords and the Prince of the Most Profound Peace. But Malchus was judged by the self-referentiality of Peter.

Regarding the treatment of priests who are accused of sexual misconduct, most all bishops follow the bad example in the early life of the first Pope. Priests are held to be guilty for the incredible “reason” that a few Judas priests certainly were guilty. Innocent priests are guilty by association, that is, just because they are priests. Due process for priests accused of abuse of minors is expressly forbidden by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, a ruling subscribed to or otherwise followed by most every bishop in the U.S.A. See how the policy is explained to bishops, with a critique, here: The Judas Crisis and The National Catholic Risk Retention Group (TNCRRG). The priests are simply hacked down with the sword of immediate monetary settlements being made with the accuser, often without knowing the dates or allegations. The facts are not important. It is the saving of thirty pieces of silver by Judas, and the self-righteous indignation wrought by cutting down the innocent by Peter that are thought to be important. Flashing a sword makes one look nice. But this is condemned by our Lord Jesus Himself. Jesus evangelizes the dark peripheries of the heart of Peter: No, Peter! Put the sword away! There is a redemption to accomplish!

Four

From Cardinal Bergoglio’s Intervention

“(4) Thinking of the next Pope: [We need] a man who, by way of the contemplation of Jesus Christ and the adoration of Jesus Christ, may help the Church to surge forth from herself unto the existential peripheries, that he may help her to be the fruitful mother who lives “by way of the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.”

From Luke’s Account of Gethsemane (22,52-53)

“And Jesus said to the chief priests and temple guards and elders who had come for him, ‘Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? Day after day I was with you in the temple area, and you did not seize me; but this is your hour, of the power of darkness.’”

In this last and saddest scene of betrayal, we see Judas, possessed by the prince of the power of darkness, having such influence upon the ecclesiastics of the day. They take the scandal he offers. They rejoice in the lack of due process for Jesus, Priest of priests. They rush to support the accusation of Judas, which became irresistible by its sheer repetition, irresistible with more and more bearing clubs and swords. Father Gordon MacRae masterfully wrote of this “availability bias” in his article defending Pope Francis, called: Strike the Shepherd: Behind the Campaign to Smear the Pope.

This availability bias, demanding submission to any false accusation by way of insisting on lack of due process for priests, is today everywhere present in the self-referential Church spoken of by Cardinal Bergoglio. Those ecclesiastics who wield their swords and clubs against Jesus still today would do well to let the darkest of their existential peripheries be evangelized by the goodness and kindness of Jesus.

Jesus, indeed, provides an example of this evangelization by pointing out the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of those who wield their swords and clubs. For good measure, He mocks their action with the description of a mere hour, which will end as the Day of the Lord continues, providing them a chance to repent. In contemplating and adoring Jesus Christ, the very power of His proclamation – “I AM” – we are encouraged to surge forth into even these existential peripheries, knowing such goodness and kindness of Jesus, and therefore the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing even in the midst of betrayal.

It is true that the many innocent priests who have been betrayed by their bishops are suffering with our Lord for the good of the Church, but it cannot be said that the action of the betrayal is good for the Church, as has so often been said: Pro bono Ecclesiae! The betrayal must be set right without respect for one person over another. Sure, the world is set against priests, including those who are innocent. They come with swords and clubs. Yet, evangelization of the peripheries, those who have been abused, is never served by holding that it is better that innocent priests die humiliated and imprisoned so that many in the episcopacy might save thirty pieces of silver and, they think, their own credibility. Instead, they loose more money, more priests and all credibility by not providing justice for all involved, and only pave the way for more abuse.

How wonderful it would be if Pope Francis were to come to these United States of America, to our darkest peripheries. How wonderful it would be for him to have a chat with our Episcopal Conference about The National Catholic Risk Retention Group and those who imitate their policies. How wonderful it would be – before dealing with those peripheries – if Pope Francis were to visit our prisons, indeed, the New Hampshire State Prison for Men, where the falsely accused priest at the epicenter of this controversy, Father Gordon J. MacRae (about), has been imprisoned for almost two decades.

Should this article make it into the hands of Pope Francis, I have only one message to give him in regard to Father Gordon J. MacRae, his faithful priest-son:

Miserando atque eligendo!

Editor’s Note:  You can listen to Joe Maher’s interview on falsely accused priests here. (at the 38-43 minute mark.)  Joe founded Opus Bono Sacerdotii. Also, Ryan A. MacDonald will have a guest post on These Stone Walls next Wednesday, May 1st.  Father Gordon will return on May 8th.  He much appreciates Ryan and Father Byers stepping in for two weeks while he engages in another writing project.

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