Just a quick announcement to let you know that The Catholic League mentioned These Stone Walls in this month’s Catalyst. Please follow this link to access:
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Falsely Accused Priest
. . . Remember when I wrote last week that I don’t swear unless I’m quoting someone? I’m not exactly sure who I was quoting, but out it came! Ninety-nine percent of every day in here is so filled with noise that I can’t hear myself think. It was just my luck that my single moment of foul outburst occurred during the sole moment of silence of the entire day in this cavernous place. Over the next hour, I heard a litany of “Fifty cents!” “Fifty cents!” as prisoners came by to gloat. My confessor is planning a visit next week. Good timing! Father Fred is retired in New York City, and drives ten hours round trip every couple of months to touch base with me and hear of my flaws. Fred has been driving up here for over fifteen years. He spends most of his time in retirement writing to priests in prison. I hate losing patience, but it’s what I seem to do best. I’m trying hard not to add to the list between now and Fred’s visit. The Sacrament of Reconciliation has always been painful and humbling for me, but very necessary. For that reason I have always been sympathetic to how painful and humbling it is for others, and always tried to make it less so. . . .
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. . . I am not at all spared anxiety in prison, and the place where it most manifests itself is in dreams. I have very vivid dreams since I have been in prison, and they have not abated over the years. I have two recurring dreams that are haunting and clear displays of my own anxiety. They make some nights more… well … Lenten than others. I have had each of them in one form or another many, many times.
In one of the dreams, I am about to celebrate Mass in a church. As I begin the Mass, the people in the congregation become hostile. They brandish newspapers and begin to shout as I start the Eucharistic Prayer. Sometimes they are just a crowd of silent, angry, condemning eyes. Sometimes they stand en masse and turn their backs on me. Every version is painful, but I must proceed with the Mass. When the time comes, no one will take the Body of Christ from my hands. . . .
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. . . When I was growing up North of Boston, I spent as little time as possible indoors. I climbed every tree I could find. My friends and I spent a lot of time in trees – something Freud, or maybe Darwin, might read into. There was a huge elm on our block. When I was ten, I loved to climb high into it above the traffic of the street, find my favorite perch, and read for hours. Every now and then my mother would wail out a window, “IF YOU FALL OUT OF THAT TREE AND BREAK YOUR LEG, DON’T COME RUNNING TO ME!!” As a ten-year-old, I envisioned myself a consumer of only the finest literature, much of which I read in trees. My favorite was a series of paperbacks about a quasi-superhero, “Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze,” and his team of dedicated crime fighters. I traveled all over the world with Doc and his crew. I was part of the team, and could always foresee the danger lurking ahead. . . .
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. . . On August 26th, I posted “Postcards from the Edges.” It wasn’t exactly a masterpiece of western literature. Nonetheless, I thought it was a good post that addressed a timely topic: news media bias. It was barely noticed, and received few comments. Six weeks later on October 7th, I posted “To the Readers of These Stone Walls.” I didn’t think it was very interesting, but it generated more comments than any post before it, and was linked on a number of other blogs. Readers seemed interested in how These Stone Walls came into being, and in the obstacles we face. . . . A number of readers have posted comments and sent messages with pointed questions about prison, possible appeals, my weekly Mass, etc. I’d like to respond to some of them here. Some are direct questions from readers, and some are composites of questions asked by several readers. . . .
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. . . Last month, a Massachusetts high school teacher was exonerated after facing a nearly identical plight. A 14-year-old student accused him of sexual assault. Months later, his life in near ruins, the teacher was exonerated at trial when it was learned that the girl made up the story because the teacher had reprimanded her in class. Here in prison, men often joke about how easy it is to set someone up in this way. Some have openly asked me for the names of priests who might have been present in their childhood communities so they can bring an accusation for money. (See “Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud.”).
A few months ago, a self-described member of Voice of the Faithful wrote a scathing message to me. The writer, a retired teacher, declared that any effort to revisit the case against me is “nothing but a misguided right-wing conspiracy.”
The man’s criticism was responded to by a friend who asked him what makes him feel so immune in an arena in which anyone can be accused by anyone, from decades ago, and with no evidence whatsoever. His blustering response was, “I have absolutely no fear of EVER being accused of such a thing.” Well, neither did Michael Gallagher. Neither did I until it happened. . . .
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. . . My final post of 2009 is a day earlier than my usual Wednesday posting day. I think you will see why as you read it. It was written for Priests in Crisis. I think it is the most important post of the year. . . . As we prepare to begin a new year, I will offer Mass on the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God for the readers of These Stone Walls. Thank you for your presence here, your support and encouragement, and most especially for the gift of your prayers and prayerful witness. . . .
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. . . Many of the Christmas cards that now adorn my cell wall tell of a Light shining in the darkness. You have cast a light into the darkness and spiritual isolation of prison this year. It’s a light magnified ever so brightly, in my life and in yours, by Christ. The darkness can never, ever, ever overcome it. . . . When a young prisoner came to Dr. Frankl in the throes of despair, he was cautioned not to “waste grace.” Dr. Frankl advised him that his days of suffering must be offered for the family he may never see again. It’s a difficult concept for someone on the wrong end of injustice, but the young man was transformed by that advice. . . .
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. . . When These Stone Walls was first considered, I was a bit nervous about an expected onslaught of negative, hateful comments. It’s astonishing that in the five months of this blog’s existence, only three such comments were aimed in our direction. One was from a self-described member of Voice of the Faithful that was little more than a name-calling rant. One was from a contingency lawyer who made enormous profit from keeping the accusations against priests going. The third was from a from a man who was charged with trying to blackmail a Boston priest in 2003. Voices like these have been given the loudest and last word in virtually every media article about accused priests since 2002. On These Stone Walls, you have overwhelmed and supplanted such comments with voices of reason, mercy, and truth – voices of faithful witness to the Gospel. This Christmas, the angels we have heard on high are you, the readers of These Stone Walls. . . .
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. . . Then the other prisoner was back! “This was in the book,” he said as he propped a photograph against my small TV screen. It was the photo of my mother and Frances that I had lost four years earlier – the photo I searched for in vain when my mother died. Just as Mass began on my mother’s birthday – at the very moment I was offering the Mass for her and her sister – their last photograph together found me. An accident? Mere coincidence? It’s a greater leap of faith to dismiss such events as coincidence than to accept them for what they are: personally miraculous gifts of actual grace. When I looked at the photograph, it was as though someone had lifted a tiny corner of the veil between life and death. I saw something in the photo I hadn’t noticed before. The two sisters stood side by side – my mother on the right – on the shore of a new life, being prepared for the Presence of God. I never saw my mother look happier. I never saw more contentment and hope in her eyes. I never felt so happy for her, so filled with promise that her journey is near its end: Home, her New Found Land. . . .
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