Posts tagged as:

falsely accused

Sticks and Stones: My Incendiary Blog Post on Catholic Civil Discourse

by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on March 16, 2011 · 13 comments

Sticks and stones, Catholic Civil Discourse, incendiary blog post, Catholic blogs, These Stone Walls, Fr. Gordon J. MacRae, Rev. Gordon MacRae, Chris Clarke, Fr. Tom Euteneuer, Church and priesthood, falsely accused, wrongly imprisoned, Beatitudes, priests falsely accused, Father Dominic Menna, Padre Pio, Ken Paulson, USA Today, First Amendment, anti-Catholic, Catholic issues, Catholic Church, Catholic bloggers, civil discourse, National Catholic Reporter, National Catholic Register, Joan Frawley Desmond, Catholic Exchange, Ryan A. MacDonald, Mother Teresa, a voice in the wilderness

. . . In the online world, we can be anyone or no one at all. We can light fires with our words, or we can fan an inferno lit by someone else. We are free to write with the assurance that no one out there knows who we are, or can suspect what is truly in our hearts. We can strip the Beatitudes from our soulful existence, and let anger and disdain run amok. We can take a rumor and run with it without ever stepping for a single moment into the shoes of the subjects of our contempt. We can delude ourselves into kneeling before God with thanks that we are truly unlike that tax collector over there on the other side of the Church. We can pat ourselves on the back believing that his sin, now in the open, is so much worse than our own, still hidden behind the veil of cyberspace – hidden from everyone but God. . . .

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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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In the Land of Nod, East of Eden

by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on February 10, 2010 · 12 comments

prisoners, family life, gordon macrae, eden, east, falsely accused, new hampshire, prison, adam and eve, torah, christian mythology, bible, religion, plymouth, massachusetts, cain and abel, book of genesis, land of nod, curse and mark of cain, squanto, east of eden, plymouth, massachusetts, Catholic Distance University, East of Eden, Fall of Man, HobbyCraft, Land of Nod, Mayflower, Mike Herrick, New Hampshire, Pew Study, Pilgrims, Pornchai Moontri, Scott Chretien, Squanto

. . . Many of the younger prisoners are just lost. There’s a clear correlation between their presence here and the systemic breakdown of family – especially fatherhood – in our culture. There is an alarming number of young prisoners here who have had either abusive fathers or none at all. There is a direct and demonstrable correlation between the breakdown of family and the marked increase in prisoners in our society. . . . Anyone who is not alarmed by this statistic doesn’t understand the relationship between religious values, family life, crime, and the abandonment of young people to wander east of Eden. Among young men now in the New Hampshire prison system, the recidivism rate is a staggering 57 percent. . . .

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