The first post of this two-part series is here.
At the time I was accused and faced trial in 1994, my attorney sought the help of my Diocese to defend the case. I was sitting in the attorney’s office on the day he called the Chancellor of my diocese asking for details of the protocol for reporting accusations of abuse to state officials.
The Chancellor, a monsignor, said that the diocese had never had to make such a report until accusations emerged against me. I was the only one, he said.
Months later as I prepared for trial, the Chancellor and a diocesan lawyer issued a press release about me. Knowing that I refused “plea deals,” maintained my innocence, and struggled to mount a defense, the press release declared:
“The Church has been a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae just as these individuals.”
My trial, from that point on, was but a farce.
Eight years later, when my diocese entered into an agreement with state officials to publish the files of all accused priests – both those convicted of crimes and those who had merely been accused – I learned that my attorney and I had been lied to. I was not the only priest so accused.
In fact, some sixty-two priests of my diocese – almost half the current number of diocesan priests – had faced accusations of sexual abuse over a forty year period. Almost all of them were the subjects of quiet financial settlements with no publicity, a pattern agreed to at the time by the diocese, the claimants, and their contingency lawyers.
I do not blame my brother priests for feeling hostility, but I am perplexed by how much it has lingered, and even supplanted mercy and charity.
I DO NOT KNOW HIM
Among my closest friends in the priesthood was a priest in my diocese with whom I vacationed each year. We hiked in Acadia National Park in Maine and climbed the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico. He was a defense witness in my trial, and spoke of his firm belief that I was falsely accused. From the moment I was convicted and sent to prison, however, I never heard from him again. I was in prison sixty miles from his rectory, and he never visited, never responded to a letter. Had our places been reversed, Lord forbid, I could not imagine leaving him stranded in prison.
I had been in prison for eight years when I saw my friend’s face on the local television news one night. No, he had not been accused. He was canoeing on his day off, fell from his canoe, and suffered a fatal heart attack. It was his 60th birthday. It is a monument to the immense destructive power of sex abuse accusations that my spontaneous and immediate reaction was a feeling of relief that my friend was in the news because of his death rather than an accusation from which he would never fully recover his good name.
I was profoundly sad by his death and by my reaction. I do not have the words to express such sadness.
Over time, I have come to see the demeanor of other priests less in terms of myself and more in terms of what they must be going through. What could possibly have caused my friend to turn his back on me and on the Corporal Works of Mercy?
The fear wrought by the clerical scandal has done more harm to the priesthood than the scandal itself. The Church is in danger of losing far more than the $2.6 billion exacted by claims of abuse. We are in danger of losing our most sacred trust on Earth: our capacity for mercy.
SELF-EMPLOYED PRIESTS?
It had to be terribly demoralizing for priests to learn that one bishop in a now infamous deposition referred to priests as “independent contractors.” Another bishop declared under oath that priests are, for legal purposes, “self-employed.”
Such unfortunate defenses were, of course, attempts to reign in vicarious liability in civil lawsuits. All corporations practice risk aversion driven by their disdain for lawsuits in the modern age. The Dallas Charter and “zero tolerance” are the work of CEO’s, not shepherds.
As Charlene Duline asks in her memoir, Drinking from the Saucer, “What kind of shepherd abandons his sheep when they misstep?”
Perhaps New England is still too close to the epicenter of The Scandal for reason and hope to yet fully replace blaming and fear. I hear from many priests from throughout the U.S. who are appalled at the attitude of scapegoating that has thus far prevailed here. Many are men in religious orders who find it simply inconceivable that a priest can be discarded and shunned because of a decades-old unproven claim.
I believe, as Cardinal Dulles wrote to me in 2005:
“The time is bound to come when the tide will shift, and even the bishops [and priests] will be ready to hear the [accused] priests’ side of the story. The change will come, but not before the public is prepared for it by [stories] such as yours.”
I believe we are coming to a crossroad under this burden of scandal. Clericalism and the clerical culture within the Church are giving way to what Father John Zuhlsdorf called “the sacred priesthood of service.” In this, we are collaborators with the laity in a Great Mission, to lead souls to Christ, and we must not lose sight of it.
I find much hope in the emergence of sites like “Priests in Crisis” and “These Stone Walls,” both propagated and launched through the singular courage of lay members of the Church.
Perhaps it is time for us priests to lean on them and to learn from them. As John Henry Cardinal Newman once pointed out, we clergy would look pretty silly without them.
Editor’s Note: Several of you have expressed a desire to join Fr. MacRae in a Spiritual Communion. He celebrates a private Mass in his prison cell on Sunday evenings between 11 pm and midnight. You’re invited to join in a Holy Hour during that time if you’re able.
Subscribe to Fr. Gordon MacRae’s Posts
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
dolores crowley wrote:
dear father gordon, i have been reading your site from day one… and via other sources you know of my support for you and your innocence, as i read your postings i am impressed with your gifts…so given to you…this injustice you have suffered, makes me reflect on your gifts you manifest in your writing…
thank’s to Cardinal Dulles for telling you to write…..so a question for you…has this suffering been mysterious /Mystery’s way of tendering your mind, heart, soul…to bring out the gifts you have been given, as revealed in our articles,ponderables, etc.?..did you also have such insights, etc. before the ‘cross’ fell on you?
how has it tendered , exposed your gifts? I have met and worked with many priests over my long life, it always seemed to me that each had suffered in someway that made the gifts Mystery gave them, sparkle more brightly amid the dark nights we all experience.
I ask for your priestly blessings. dee
Website:
IP: 69.232.195.107
–
Father Gordon J. MacRae
© 2009 Microsoft Privacy Terms of use
Dear Father MacRae:
Your article brings to mind several things. As I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s we Catholics relied too much on priests and nuns to do everything except fundraising. I know I did. I thought holiness was only for them. Thus, I became disappointed and backed out of the Church for a while after finding out that priests and nuns were indeed human and did make mistakes. I just had not understood that as a child. I was a spiritual child for a long time, not growing in my faith.
Many bad things occurred in my life which led me back to Christ and my faith, eventually. Christ in His mercy and goodness showed me that He had been there with me through it all, and it was He who led me to accept people as they are, not as I wanted them to be. His love for me touched me and I knew Him at last.
I made a really good confession to a priest who had himself been recovering from a hurtful past. He was the image of Christ’s mercy to me. I will always be grateful to him. He had been damaged, and now because of his own weaknesses, he could be so kind and loving and merciful to me in confession. A priest who had sinned, recovered, and now a true Person of Christ, was responsible for helping me to see the priesthood in a different light. This was a real bridge for me into a more grown up faith.
In the year 2000, John Paul II became a most important person and example to me, as well as teacher. I could finally begin to see how important each of us as lay faithful Catholics are to the mission of our Church. Yes, I had a mission too, not just priests and nuns. I could see how we who are living and working out in the world must use everything at our disposal to evangelize and bring others to Christ. We have to live our faith 24/7, not just in Church on Sunday. I really think I had believed that in my earlier years. But now I could see more truth. Sin is blinding, and now I was beginning to see more and more.
From that time on, I have had a different attitude toward the Church, and her place in the world and in my life. I only wish I had caught on sooner. Maybe I would have been actively engaged in promoting a culture of life.
So many wonderful things have opened up to me as the result of my encounters with my priests, either in Confession, or hearing what they have said in homilies or on Catholic television, specifically EWTN. My priests have meant the world to me. I pray for each of you daily. Without you, I would not have Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, and I would not have the grace to do what He asks of me daily. The priesthood is the most precious gift we have. No priests, no Eucharist!
By the time I read the end of your article, I can see that there is much hope for you, and I think it will come from the laity. It is time for you good priests and nuns to rely on the goodness of Christ in the men and women who live the faith daily out in the world.Christ will change hearts and minds through His instruments, not only His priests, but His lay faithful as well.
God bless you Father MacRae, and thank you for answering His call to the priesthood. Just for today …
Your Faithful Catholic Friend,
Mary Elizabeth
Katy, TX
My heart is continually broken by your story, dear Father.
Priests have it hard enough but to be accused falsely and then be abandoned by your own brothers… simply shameful.
I agree, though- things do come to good through Christ.
Take care, Fr.- as usual, you have my prayers.
The Mystery and His Love
A breath taken in and yet another
One life given for billions of others
A last call upwards for divine understanding
A last look downward to all those standing
One Father with love not understood today
One Son with a heart too pure to convey
The ultimate sacrifice for the forgiveness of all
The ultimate miracle to forever enthrall
The message so clear of an incomparable good
Translated for centuries it is still misunderstood
Why do so many this divine message choose to spurn
The answer to life’s greatest question is what we all yearn
It is neither bunnies nor candy nor saccharine verse
It is a solemn reality to which too many are averse
There is no greater beauty found anywhere anytime
There is no greater truth more humbling or sublime
As He gasped out His last breath and last closed His eyes
This man and God of ours died just as every one of us dies
That Savior’s heart must have beat with pain and fear
And He must have let life go with a last painful tear
One human life was extinguished, as are human lives all
But that life ended to ensure that hope nevermore need fall
On that one Sunday the sun arose
And The Resurrected Son brought the glorious prophecy to its close
~ Good Friday 2002
Out here we ARE truly fighting a movement to eradicate hope and faith, you’d be pleased to see the swells of people. As it is I KNOW that you know how to pray and that is what is coming to us all as our best resort in this time of crisis, in a land that is led by those who would deny the principles of faith and justice that gave ordinary men extraordinary courage, on behalf of many who would never appreciate their efforts.
Yours appears equally thankless but do not despair of other priests. There are many who do not know you or know much of you. Those who deny you I suppose can only be prayed for in their gossamer thin glass houses.
Are you able to access all of the web or just what is allowed onsite? I ask because I am not sure whether anecdotes or humor might be of no worth or if they could prove a measure of interest for you.
If you correspond back to me I’ll filter more of myself to you. For now I just ask that you pray and in these prayers please ask for my mind and heart to settle enough to pray from my soul.
I mean this in all seriousness, I am so grateful that you have access to more than your own thoughts because you have this column.
God bless again and Christ’s peace settle into every pore of you.
Jeannie
Dear Father,
Your story continues to break my heart, the deeper it goes. Know that you are always in my prayers, as well as other priests unjustly accused and those unjustly imprisoned.
I am certain that you are living this agony for a reason, and God is going to use it for His Glory and for the salvation of souls. The entire time you are there, if you offer it…is a great gift to the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for poor sinners here on earth, for all those most in need of God’s mercy. And each of those souls, when they enter God’s presence, will realize your own gift, and they will pray for you and your intentions.
If only we all had the courage and the gift of such suffering!
Father, I think you know I do not demean anything you are going through, but, in looking in, through the eyes of faith, I see a HUGE chance for grace through your priesthood, something HUGELY efficacious for the Church, even as the Church as a whole remains oblivious. It is the hidden suffering that means the most to the Church.
Please pray that all of us who support you are more deeply converted so that we can better offer our own sufferings, and CHOOSE that freely, in union with you and with Our Lord.
What you are suffering is NOT in vain!
You have has a disheartening and dispiriting experience thus far Father.
I don’t think there can be anything more painful than being unjustly accused and convicted of a heinous crime.
The sad part is innocent priests have become scapegoats for the evil perpretated by fellow religious and sadly in some cases covered up by Church officials who wanted the whole nightmare to go away and tried to pay their way out of this awful scandal.
Don’t forget when you feel low and it seems as if earthly justice will never prevail in your case the Communion of Saints is an invisible army of supporters and all the angels especially your own Guardian Angel.
Given the fear and timidity of being associated with you I am focusing on praying for the conversion of your accusers in the hope that they will recant their testimony.
God Bless you Father