By Ryan A.
MacDonald
A wrongly convicted priest
fights back from his prison cell, and teaches a lesson in fidelity and Catholic
witness in the toughest of public squares.
On October
13, 2005, Catholic League President Bill Donohue appeared on NBC’s “Today” show
to square off against a panel of contingency lawyers promoting lawsuits
alleging sexual abuse by priests. In the heated debate, the lawyers and litigants painted the
Catholic Church and priests with a broad brush as evil, lecherous
offenders. But Bill Donohue had
the last word, and it was the most memorable sound bite of the day:
“There is no segment of the
American population with less civil
liberties
protection than the average American Catholic priest.”
Bill
Donohue was referring specifically to the case of Rev. Gordon MacRae, a priest
of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, who by that point had spent eleven
years in prison for crimes that a growing number of people believe never
occurred at all. What caught
Bill Donohue’s attention was “A Priest’s Story,” (April 27/28, 2005) a two-part
series on the MacRae case by Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize winning
investigative journalist on The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board.
Father
Gordon MacRae is 58 years old. Last September he marked 17 years of a life sentence in prison, but if he had
accepted any of the “plea deals” offered to him before his 1994 trial, he could
have left prison after only one or two years. This is what makes this case such “a Kafkaesque tale,”as the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus
described it. If guilty and
willing to say so, Fr. MacRae could have left prison fifteeen years ago. For insisting he is innocent, this
priest may spend 67 years in prison for claims – prosecuted with no evidence or
corroboration at all – alleged to have occurred almost 30 years ago.
At a time
when many Catholics reeled over the scandal in the Catholic Church, Dorothy
Rabinowitz took a hard look at the facts of the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae –
facts that the rest of the news media distorted or conveniently omitted. The
result was a disturbing account of greed, false witness, and, as Father Neuhaus
described it in First Things magazine (July, 2009) “a Church and a
justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”
The Wall
Street Journal series
caught the attention of some civil liberties experts and lawyers troubled by the
case, and an investigation is near completion. It has revealed some remarkable evidence of fraud and
larceny – and Church officials all to eager to accommodate both – but no
evidence whatsoever that the claims against this priest might be true. It is hoped
that resources will be raised to bring a new appeal in the case of Fr. Gordon
MacRae in the not-too-distant future.
In the
meantime, this priest has been writing from the confines of his prison cell,
and what he writes truly warrants the Church’s notice. Sitting in his cell on an empty plastic
bucket in front of an old Smith Corona typewriter, Father MacRae has produced
some remarkable writing about the scandal of the last decade, about the Church
in Western Culture, about fidelity, false witness, and prison itself. His typed articles are mailed to a
supporter in Indiana who scans and e-mails them to Australia from where they
are posted on-line.
It’s the
most arduous cyber-process even, but the amazing result is These Stone Walls an eye-catching, conscience-grabbing blog that is both riveting and spiritually
uplifting. This blog’s fidelity to
the Church, and to the truth, has been deemed by many to be the finest example
of priestly witness the last decade of scandal has produced.
In November
2005, The Catholic League journal, Catalyst,
published the first of two major articles by Fr. Gordon MacRae about the
scandal in the Catholic Church. “Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud” was a well-researched account of how some have taken
advantage of the Church’s scandal to score windfall settlements based on
fraudulent claims. The article
made its way to the late Cardinal Avery Dulles who wrote to the imprisoned
priest:
"Your article is an important one, and hopefully will be followed by many others.
Unfortunate though your situation is, you are in a position to carry on an
effective apostolate on behalf of unjustly accused priests.
The time is bound to come when the tide will shift and even the bishops will be
ready to hear the priests' side of the story. The change will come, but not before
the public is prepared for it by articles such as yours. Your writing, which is clear,
eloquent, and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials."
It seems
that tide is indeed shifting. These
Stone Walls was recently honored by Our Sunday Visitor’s “2010
Readers’ Choice for the Best of the Catholic Web.” In recent months, These Stone Walls has been noticed
in The Catholic World Report, Catalyst, The Catholic Response, Homiletic
& Pastoral Review, and has become a growing presence in the important
arena of evangelism and Catholic commentary on the World Wide Web. The Catholic League for Religious and
Civil Rights has highly recommended These Stone Walls to its
members.
These Stone
Walls and Fr.
Gordon MacRae’s defense are endorsed and sponsored by the National Center for Reason and Justice ,
a Boston-based organization whose board of lawyers, journalists, and wrongful
conviction specialists examined and unanimously approved the case of Father
MacRae for sponsorship. These
Stone Walls is also endorsed by numerous civil liberties and wrongful conviction
organizations and websites.
Perhaps the
most remarkable aspect of These Stone Walls is what is not found there. The Lord has
accomplished within this priest exactly what Cardinal Avery Dulles
predicted. These Stone Walls
portrays articulately a spirituality for the wrongly imprisoned, and it does so
with grace, dignity, and a challenge to all of us to seek justice upon the high
road. An example is this closing
paragraph from Fr. MacRae’s recent, superbly written three-part series, “When Priests Are Falsely Accused.” His blog
post challenged one accused priest who responded to his own plight with anger
and vindictiveness:
“It’s ironic that this priest is often angry with me because he doesn’t think I am angry enough.
I assure you, he is wrong on that score. But being angry and feeling let down does not excuse
me from doing the right thing. It does not excuse me from fidelity to the Gospel, fidelity to the Church, and fidelity to my own sense of right and wrong. At the end of the day, I am still
wrongly imprisoned, but I have the freedom to choose the person I am going to be while
wrongly imprisoned.”
No priest should be required to
sacrifice his life to satisfy the demands of lawyers, insurance companies, and
a rabid news media feeding on scandal.
The case of Rev. Gordon MacRae opens a new chapter in the story of
scandal in the Catholic Church.
Have a long, hard look at These Stone Walls for a story of faithful priestly witness in the toughest of public
squares.
