by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on October 27, 2010 · 17 comments
. . . It’s ironic that this same priest is often angry with me because he doesn’t think I am angry enough. I assure you, he’s wrong on that score. But being angry and feeling let down does not excuse me from doing the right thing. It does not excuse me from fidelity to the Gospel, fidelity to the Church, and fidelity to my own sense of right and wrong. At the end of the day, I am still wrongly imprisoned, but I have the freedom to choose the person I’m going to be while wrongly imprisoned. When I began this three-part post three weeks ago, I set out to write the nature and scope of the injustices that took place in my diocese. Now that it comes down to it, I can’t. It feels too much like vengeance. There is far too much at stake for me to settle for something so unfaithful as vengeance. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on September 22, 2010 · 16 comments
. . . The New York Times (September 24, 1998) carried an article charging that Padre Pio was the subject of no less than twelve Vatican investigations in his lifetime, and one of the investigations alleged that “Padre Pio had sex with female penitents twice a week.” It’s true that this was alleged, but it’s not the whole truth. The New York Times and Atlantic Monthly are simply following an agenda I’ve described before. That should come as no surprise to anyone. I’ll describe below why these wild claims fell apart under scrutiny. But first, I must write the sordid story of why Padre Pio was so accused. That’s the real scandal. It’s the story of how Padre Pio responded with heroic virtue to the experience of being falsely accused repeatedly from within the Church. This heroic virtue in the face of accusation is a space we simply do not share. It far exceeds any grace ever given to me. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 4, 2010 · 10 comments
. . . 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. . .
. . . 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 19, 2010 · 4 comments
. . . Up to that point, I had no idea of a blog’s potential. They didn’t exist when I came to prison nearly sixteen years ago. I read about them, and heard them mentioned on the news, but I had no idea how blogs worked. I remember sitting in my cell last May, knowing that I made a commitment with a deadline, but I had no idea what to write. I thought of my first night in prison, of that maddening, foot stomping chant that went on for hours. So I wrote . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on May 11, 2010 · 2 comments
These Stone Walls and the case of Father Gordon MacRae have been noticed by publications and individuals concerned for the state of due process, justice, and liberty in America. Here are some of their comments:
Scott P. Richert, Catholicism Guide on About.com
“Fr. Gordon MacRae’s blog, These Stone Walls, is a timely reminder that, for Catholic priests [...]
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on May 5, 2010 · 9 comments
. . . In the corner of my cell where I type sitting on an empty bucket, my head is just six inches from the barred cell window. The window doesn’t open – a fact that I deeply resent – but there is a little security grate with a knob that opens a small section of the grate for a little – very little – air. As I sat here early yesterday morning thinking of a title, I heard something unusual through the open grate. It was a song, and it came from a red-breasted robin perched atop the spirals of razor wire on the twenty-foot wall that has been my view of the outside world for sixteen years. I watched the robin for a long time, and listened as he sang. It instantly made me think of . . .
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 January 6, 2010 · 9 comments
. . . In “Scandal Time,” Fr. Neuhaus stared straight into the hearts of panicked American bishops who responded to the crisis with neither fidelity to the law of the Church nor with mercy. To the very end of his life, Father Neuhaus, like Cardinal Dulles before him, pleaded for the due process rights of priests accused, and for fidelity to the Magisterium and laws of the Church. In one of his last letters to me, Father Neuhaus wrote of his concern that priests have a fair and just hearing, and that bishops not be allowed to implement mob justice that resulted in the forced laicization of many in cases that were decades old and defied fair investigation. In a letter dated October 27, 2008, Father Neuhaus wrote: “It is indeed disturbing that [a bishop] may move on this without giving you a chance to offer a defense, and without your even knowing the case being presented against you … ln the modern history of the Church, it is more often than not the case that Rome is inclined toward checking possible abuses of power by bishops. So let’s pray that happens in this case. . . . .
