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Daniel Henninger

Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Lessons from the Duke University Rape Case

by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on June 15, 2011 · 4 comments

Duke University Rape Case, prosecutor Mike Nifong, Duke University lacrosse players, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, Fr. Gordon J. MacRae, Rev. Gordon MacRae, These Stone Walls, Mike Nifong, Duke University rape case, wrongful imprisonment, David Evans, Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann, due process, presumption of innocence, exculpatory evidence, court of public opinion, Church sex scandal, Daniel Henninger, Michael Jackson, When Priests Are Falsely Accused, CNN Larry King Live, innocent In prison, Ryan A. MacDonald, truth in Justice, Nathan Thornburgh, DNA exonerations, Innocence Project Attorney Barry Scheck, John Bacon, Johnny Pinchback, the Eighth Commandment, National Center for reason and Justice, Opus Bono Sacerdotii, Scott P. Richert, clerical sexual abuse, Father John Corapi, Bill Donohue, the Catholic League, Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan

. . . dded to that uproar were the tactics of a now disgraced and disbarred state prosecutor. Former Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was more interested in throwing “gasoline on the fire,” according to USA Today, than gathering evidence. He ignored the complete lack of evidence, not to mention the accuser’s constantly changing story, and vowed to continue his prosecution even after the case fell apart. This prosecutor suppressed exculpatory evidence, hid it from defense lawyers, and held repeated news conferences to keep the momentum of judgment going in the court of public opinion. Co-opting some Duke faculty into pre-trial condemnation of the accused was a tactical advantage for prosecutor, Mike Nifong. The result was a trial-by-media that should sound hauntingly familiar to Catholics reeling from the Church’s own sex scandal. . . .

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Roman Polanski, Father Marcial Maciel, and the Eye of the Beholder

by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 4, 2010 · 10 comments

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae, Roman Polanski, Father Maciel, eye of the beholder, McCarthy Era, Catholic Church, Catholic priests, Whoopi Goldberg, American justice system, Mr. Polanski, Swiss government, Los Angeles prosecutors, The Washington Post, European press, The

. . . Since his 1977 conviction for child sexual assault, Roman Polanski has won three Academy Award nominations and a 2002 Oscar for Best Director. Meanwhile in our own backyard, Catholics are now pitted against Catholics. Bishops are bullied into shunning their priests. Cardinals are sniping at each other in public, and the mere taint of association may cost one of the highest ranking Catholic Church officials his reputation and career. There is something wrong with this picture. And there is one ominous figure who is taking it all in from his place in the shadows, having the laugh of his long, dark life. . .

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Pop Stars and Priests: Michael Jackson and the “Credible” Standard

by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on March 9, 2010 · 5 comments

accused priests, availability bias, Catalyst, Catherine Coy, catholic, catholic priest, Catholic priests, catholic sexual abuse scandal in the united states, child sexual abuse, childhood, d.s., Daniel Henninger, Daniel Kahneman, Dorothy Rabinowitz, Father Edward Arsenault, Father Richard John Neuhaus, jackson, JoAnn Wypijewski, John Jay Report, michael, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson and sexual abuse, Michael Jackson fans, music, pedophilia, priests, roman catholic church sex abuse scandal, Ryan A. MacDonald, sex abuse, Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud, sexual abuse, sexual abuse scandal in the catholic archdiocese of boston, singers, The Catholic League, The Eighth Commandment, Truth in Justice

. . . 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. . . .

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