. . . Some people actually get angry with me when they hear of my 2002 statement to my Bishop. Some feel that I was foolish to make such an overture. “What if he took you up on it?” My response is simple. I was accused falsely, and in the context of being a Roman Catholic priest. If I was not a priest, I would not have been accused. To pretend that somehow the claims against me are not related to the context of my priesthood is false. This is something that most Church officials long recognized. but many have put aside the rights of priests in open disregard of Church law. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on May 12, 2010 · 9 comments
. . . Go back just another thirty to forty years, I wrote, and you will find yourself right in the middle of the Nazi horror that engulfed Europe and claimed the lives of six million Jews and millions of others. I suggested that Catholics should not accept what some would now impose: that the Catholic Church is to be the moral scapegoat of the Twentieth Century.
A TSW reader responded to that insight by sending me a rather startling document. As I began to read it, I almost tossed it aside dismissing it as just another sensational headline. You might be tempted to do the same. Resist that temptation, please, and keep reading: . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on April 21, 2010 · 7 comments
. . . William McGurn filled in an essential part of the story that Laurie Goodstein conveniently left out of the New York Times. Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer quoted at length by Ms. Goodstein isn’t just a lawyer “for five men who have brought four lawsuits” against the Church. He is a lawyer who has become ravenously wealthy suing Catholic institutions for decades. He is a lawyer who once boasted to a newspaper that he is “suing the sh– out of them everywhere.” . . . The information that Jeffrey Anderson has made a long career of suing the Catholic Church was well known to Goodstein and The New York Times. As far back as 1988, Mr. Anderson spoke of receiving referrals from other lawyers with clients interested in suing Catholic dioceses and religious orders. He appeared on the “Geraldo [Rivera] Show” on November 14, 1988 to speak of his representation of a man who had been in prison and was then suing a priest for sexual abuse. I wrote of this in . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on April 14, 2010 · 9 comments
. . . Perhaps NBC sensed the line of decency was breached a few weeks ago when it apologized to The Catholic League and the world for a scandalous and libelous smear against Pope Benedict XVI on its affiliate news channel, MSNBC. We owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Donohue and The Catholic League for not letting this one pass. It is also no coincidence that the lurid stories of priestly sex abuse and papal complicity rose to a frenzy in the U.S. in the same weeks that tax-payer funded abortion was being argued in the Obama health care bill. Writer and art historian Elizabeth Lev made this same point in a brilliant essay on PoliticsDaily.com entitled “In Defense of Catholic Clergy (Or Do We Want Another Reign of Terror?)” Ms. Lev cited English statesman, Edmund Burke’s 1790 commentary on Catholic witch hunts during the French Revolution: “What would Edmund Burke make of the headlines of the past few weeks …? In 1790, Burke answered … ‘It is not with much credulity I listen to any when they speak evil of those they are going to plunder.’ What would he think of the insistent attempt to tie [a] sexual abuser to the Roman pontiff himself through the most tenuous of links … as the present sales of Church property to pay settlements swell the coffers of contingent-fee lawyers and real estate speculators …?” . . .
. . . Pornchai started his 19th year in prison just before Easter, and now he is entering a life of faith through the narrowest gate, an open and honest witness to redemptive grace.
Pornchai has asked Charlene Duline to be his Godmother. They share an interesting bond that Charlene describes in a new post entitled “Pornchai Moontri is Worth Saving” on the Prodigal Catholic Writer blog. Pierre, the visitor I described in my post, “Stigmatized,” has graciously assented to be Pornchai’s Godfather. Because this event is happening in a prison, however, neither one of them will be allowed to be present. I will act as proxy for them both because of the unusual circumstances.
I call upon the Church to recognize the transformation that has led Pornchai to Her Sacraments. In “Pornchai’s Story,” the powerful autobiographical essay The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Pornchai described his transformation: . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on March 31, 2010 · 13 comments
. . . I received a letter from Simon of Cyrene last month. No, not the original one but one of the many people I have come to equate with him. Dr. James P. Guzek, M.D., an ophthalmologist and surgeon in Washington State, is a devout Catholic and author. I have been privileged to proofread and comment on some of his upcoming book on the Early Church transition from the Jewish Sabbath to a Sunday celebration of The Lord’s Day. What could be dry historical theology became fascinating in Dr. Guzek’s hands. I’ll write of it when it’s published. I am proud to say that Dr. Guzek is a subscriber and occasional commenter on These Stone Walls. Dr. Jim Guzek has also fulfilled the example of Simon of Cyrene in profound ways, and I have come to admire him as a true model of faith and witness. He is a modest man, and will be the last to tell you that he has accomplished a Corporal Work of Mercy of Biblical proportion. Dr. Guzek has restored sight to the blind at home, and, more recently, in Ghana and Ethiopia. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on March 17, 2010 · 6 comments
. . . The part of St. Patrick’s story about being carried off by marauders and forced into six years of slavery is seen through the eyes of Irish history as part of the “lucky charm” of St. Patrick’s life. Think about that! I doubt very much that it felt that way at age sixteen. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time – or the right place at the right time depending on your point of view.
Would Patrick be Saint Patrick without that awful six years of his life? I doubt it. We’re in an unholy quagmire if we’re hell-bent on shedding where we are in life, or where we’ve been. God’s pursuit of us calls not just our halo, but our shadow as well. We can leave neither behind, and there’s no point in running. Just as with “that look” my Irish mother mastered, resistance is futile. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on March 9, 2010 · 5 comments
. . . As a result of availability bias, humans tend to replace their beliefs with the crowd’s beliefs simply because a proposition has been repeated in the media and presented as widely believed. We are subjected to subtle cues of social pressure every day in marketing that convince many people to purchase things they don’t really need. We also face subtle cues and social pressure in the daily bombardment of news stories that cause many people to believe something based solely on its prevalence in the media. It is indeed possible that Michael Jackson and many Catholic priests became the subjects of classic, media-fueled availability bias. . . .
