At the Catholic Media Association, Bias and a Double Standard

 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Walter Ciszek, Thomas More, Cardinal George Pell all inspired us from prison but the Catholic Media Association silences Fr Gordon MacRae. 

                                                                                                             By Ryan A. MacDonald - 15 November 2021                                                       

The Chicago-based Catholic Media Association (CMA) publishes in its preamble that it exists "to spread and to support the Kingdom of God" with "principles derived from the Catholic faith."  Many Catholics might be hard-pressed to comprehend how that is accomplished by the creation of a new class of lepers in the Church, Catholic priests judged guilty for being accused.

The Catholic Media Association invites those engaged in writing and publishing regarding the Catholic faith - including Catholic bloggers - to apply for membership.  In a review of Fr Gordon MacRae's blog, Beyond These Stone Walls, Catholic Culture gave its highest marks for fidelity to the faith and for fairness and content. Our Sunday Visitor cited it as its Readers' Choice for the Best of the Catholic Web.

About.com awarded it second place in its "Best Catholic Blog" category.  The National Catholic Register has cited it in various online and print articles.  Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has cited it on numerous occasions and has published two centerpiece articles by Fr MacRae who is also a member of the Catholic Writers Guild. But none of this was sufficient to overcome the prison "leper" class into which Father MacRae was relegated by the Catholic Media Association with this terse dismissal from CMA Executive Director Timothy M. Walter:

            "Mr. MacRae:  I appreciate your interest in the Catholic Media Association but I'm sorry to                      inform you that the Membership Committee has denied your request for membership at this                   time." 

Beyond These Stone Walls, the blog of a falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned Catholic priest, is in its twelfth year of publication.  It has inspired people on six continents, and is widely considered to be one of the most visited and influential blogs by a Catholic priest.  Though he is in prison, Father MacRae remains a priest. He has not been removed from the clerical state by the Vatican because the integrity of his trial and conviction has been widely called into question.

In a series of major articles, The Wall Street Journal concluded in 2013, "Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to believe that any court today would overlook the perversion of justice it represents."  The late Cardinal Avery Dulles urged Father MacRae to "write a new chapter in the volume of Christian literature from those wrongly in prison."  Cardinal Dulles included Father MacRae among such honored names as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Walter Ciszek, St Thomas More, and by extension, Cardinal George Pell.  Ironically, Cardinal Pell devoted several pages of his celebrated Prison Journal Volume Two to the prison writing of Fr Gordon MacRae.

There are other striking ironies in all this.  Shortly before the CMA tersely rejected a membership application from the blog of Father MacRae, the organization awarded his Bishop, Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci of the Diocese of Manchester, with a citation for "Best Column by a Bishop in a Diocesan Magazine."  It was for an essay by Bishop Libasci about his participation at a Black Lives Matter rally.

Before the award was announced, publicity ensued regarding a lawsuit filed against Bishop Libasci alleging sexual abuse of a minor while he was a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York in 1983.  It was the same year as the allegations against Father MacRae.  Though he was not a bishop at the time of the allegations, Bishop Libasci is nonetheless subjected to a different standard than the "credible" standard now applied to accused priests.  Despite the pending civil case, Bishop Libasci remains in office and in good standing.  It seems that the Catholic Media Association, like the Vatican, has a different standard when the accused priest later becomes a bishop despite the fact that Bishop Libasci was "Father" Libasci at the time of these claims.

I have studied in detail the lawsuit against Bishop Libasci and all the media accounts that have sprung from it.  I should add here that I do not believe any of the claims against him for the same reasons that I do not believe any of the claims against Father MacRae.  None of them are rationally credible, and all of them are brought for monetary gain.

But it was Father MacRae's own writing that most swayed me on this matter.  He laid out a solid defense of his bishop, and of the canonical right to a presumption of innocence, in his widely read and highly cited article, "Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo."

The Catholic Media Association should, in fairness, rethink this.  Father MacRae is not looking for awards.  He wants only justice and consistency.  He has a right to be spared the bias and blatant double standards that have been employed here.  He has a right to his good name.

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Note:  Please share this post and visit these related posts:

The Trials of Father MacRae by Dorothy Rabinowitz, The Wall Street Journal 

Fr Gordon MacRae Case Facts:  The Media Report by David F. Pierre, Jr.

Travesty of Justice:  The Ordeal of Fr. MacRae - by William Donohue, Ph.D.

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The Testimony Judge Joseph Laplante Has Not Heard

 The Testimony Judge Joseph Laplante Has Not Heard

                   By Ryan A. MacDonald

Video documentary testimony of Rev. Gordon MacRae is a compelling challenge to the standard Catholic abuse narrative.  Is that why it went missing for seven years?


As long time readers know, I have written about the story of abuse in the Catholic Church and priesthood from multiple angles.  Some of those who present themselves as authority sources for this story are charlatans with agendas of their own.

Sites such as Bishop Accountability and the beleaguered and widely discredited SNAP, the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests, have counted on their audiences to both share their agendas and to not look too closely at their lurid accounts.  I find that those who still routinely cite them as authorities generally share their obvious agenda to disrupt the Catholic Church, weaken its voice, and demolish its priesthood.

The story I and others have followed most closely is that of Father Gordon MacRae, a priest approaching his 25th year in prison when he could have been out in one year had he actually been guilty or willing to pretend so. I find most compelling the bravery necessary to stand by the truth in the face of such personal cost.  Others, however, still stick to their narrative.  For example, I just received this from a comment posted at the conservative site, Church Militant:


     "MacRae is in prison where he belongs.  Take a look some day at the long list of this               creep's crimes at bishop-accountability. Notice that he confessed to several indiscretions of the sodomic (sic) variety.  If he lied about those incidents when he confessed to authorities, then he could.easily be lying now to credulous people like you..."

As is usual, the writer of this twisted take on things gets to put it out there without taking any responsibility for it by  publishing his name.  Father Gordon MacRae, on the other hand, has courageously posted under his own name from prison for the last ten years in the face of vitriol from those with the worse combination of human traits:  closed minds and open mouths.

I  and others have written extensively about the corrupt bias and agendas of the site the above writer refers to. (See https://araminthethicket.blogspot.com/2013/07/in-fr-gordon-macrae-case-whack-mole.html and follow the links to related articles).  A problem with the Bishop-Accountability site is that it plays the "every one's a victim" card by redacting all names of accusers so that readers never know who it is they are reading about.

In "A Priest's Story" Parts I and II, The Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote the same story, but independently investigated it.  She named the accusers, thoroughly debunked their claims, and demonstrated the fact that most were "serial accusers" having made identical claims against multiple others in attempts to squeeze money out of the accused.

She uncovered the story of one such "victim," a man who has since recanted his entire set of accusations against MacRae while Bishop-Accountability has ignored his recantations.  He today says he was approached by a corrupt detective with a promise of money if he would concoct a claim against MacRae "as others had done." He states today that MacRae is entirely innocent.

This man who recanted is convinced that the others now in hiding - others he knew well as they all concocted their claims together - also created false stories with the enticement of money.  I should add here that Father MacRae took and conclusively passed multiple polygraph examinations in this case while his accusers remain unresponsive to requests that they now do the same.

In June of 2016 I wrote about "The Grievous Error in Judge Joseph Laplante's Court." Judge Laplante is a United States District Court Chief Justice.  In 2016 Father MacRae and his legal team brought a habeas corpus petition before Judge Laplante with an extensive, well-investigated, and well documented Memorandum of Law in support of Father MacRae's efforts to seek a new trial. As a hearing was held in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, the imprisoned priest was in his jail cell just a few miles away forbidden from being present.  Like State judges before him, Judge Laplante ultimately dismissed the appeal without allowing any testimony from Father MacRae or any of the named witnesses who were prepared to testify on his behalf.  The judge, a former prosecutor, seemed to lapse into his prosecutorial role by undermining witness testimony without actually even hearing it.

The most convincing testimony for MacRae's defense is in his own words.  The commenter cited above has not indicated whether he looked and listened, but I have listened extensively to newly released video documentary evidence in which this beleaguered priest got to do what he was prevented from doing at his trial, and at every effort for justice since.He spoke openly and candidly about his accusations and accusers, and it is both riveting and compelling.  Here is what he wrote about this video testimony at These Stone Walls:
 

   "All I am asking of the Church is simply to be heard.  As I approach the ominous 25-year mark in wrongful imprisonment, being heard feels almost as important to me as being free.  Almost! At my trial and sentencing 25 years ago, I was not permitted to utter a single word in my own defense.

      "At a flawed 1996 appeal represented by a public defender, I was not even allowed to be present. In three attempts at habeas corpus appeal at the state and federal levels, neither I nor any witness on my behalf was allowed to speak.  At no time since my 1994 trial has anyone heard a single  word from me.

     "Since then, all the pundits of both left and right have had their say.  SNAP has had its say, invited by the US Bishops to help shape the Dallas Charter.  SNAP demanded, and was given, the ruin of a filial relationship of trust between bishops and priests, transforming it into a model of servitude in which priests are summarily separated from their civil and canonical rights.

     "Voice of the Faithful has had its say, using 'The Scandal' toward its own ends to reshape the Church in its own image and likeness.  Bishop-Accountability has had its say, recklessly treating every lawsuit and decades old demand for money as 'proof' that condemns every priest to the dubious justice of 'guilty for being accused.'
    
     "The contingency lawyers have had their say, relentlessly brow beating Church officials into more than $3.5 billion in unquestioned financial settlements across America since the story emerged in the early 1990s.

     "And every step of the way for over twenty-five years, the news media, including the Catholic media, has aided and abetted this by both hyping stories of real abuse and suppressing stories of false witness and greed.

      "Now, after 25 years of silent endurance, it is my turn to speak."

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I for one am inclined to let him, and I suggest you do the same.  The video documentary testimony in Father Gordon MacRae's own words should not be missed.  And if you care at all for the Church and priesthood, that testimony should be widely shared.

You will find it at the ABOUT Page at These Stone Walls.  Just scroll to it.  The audio portion of Part I begins about 30 seconds into the tape.

And please share this post.

   

A Small Glimmer of Justice Found in The Fisher's Net Awards

These Stone Walls is a finalist for Best Social Justice Site

These Stone Walls, the blog of falsely accused priest Fr Gordon MacRae, is a finalist for The Fisher's
Net Award for Best Social Justice Site, an ironic achievement given that justice is denied this priest.


In the sometimes dark forest of Internet research, I came upon a ray of light one day, an online endeavor called The Fisher's Net Awards.  It's an international effort to recognize the finest website or web presence, in any of ten categories, that best represents the mission and teachings of the Catholic Church.  According to The Fisher's Net Awards website, "nominees must exemplify excellence in online media utilising creative use of design and technology or exceptional content."

I went to The Fisher's Net Awards site and did some exploring.  While there, I decided to nominate These Stone Walls for the category of "Best Blog."  I thought it would go nowhere, and nowhere is exactly where it went. There are some 20 million blogs and thousands of them describe themselves as Catholic blogs.  I thought the sheer volume of competition would overwhelm my nomination of the blog of a priest unjustly in prison.

The nominations for this award closed on September 8 so I went back there to have a final look. Sure enough, These Stone Walls was missing from the long list of finalists in the "Best Blog" category.  I spent some time reviewing the sites listed, and voted for the Catholic blog I thought best fit the criteria for exceptional content even though it wasn't the one I nominated.

Then I opened up a few other categories to scroll through their list of nominees.  When I looked at the nominees for "Best Social Justice Site," I was startled to see These Stone Walls listed among the five finalists. I voted again, thinking I might be in a tiny minority.

A week or so later, I began to come across some social media buzz about this category so I went back to it.  I was shocked to see the voting tally for These Stone Walls stretch all the way across the page with more than 70% of the votes.  I can only attribute this outpouring of support to one thing:  among the hearts of Catholics, there are many who recognize the need to bring some small glimmer of justice to the story behind These Stone Walls.

This is not the first public acclaim that the consistently exceptional content at These Stone Walls has produced.  But it is the first main stream Catholic recognition on an international scale.  Please lend your support to this endeavor by visiting The Fisher's Net Awards, by reviewing the nominees, and by voting in each of the ten categories listed there. Please also spread word of this effort among your social media contacts.

And if you deem it worthy, please join the votes and voices of many in recognition of These Stone Walls, a voice in the wilderness that raises the bar in the Catholic online world.  You can vote only once in each category, and voting closes on December 1, 2015.