by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 10, 2011 · 5 comments
. . . My posts over the last few weeks have been some of the longest I have written for These Stone Walls. I thank readers for their forbearance and patience, and especially for sticking with these long but important posts. But I think you need a break, and I cannot look the other way while something very important for These Stone Walls is occurring on the Church calendar. Though August 14 is a Sunday this year, and the Sunday celebration takes precedence, it is also the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the inspiration behind These Stone Walls. August 9th is the Feast of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein, and a saint for whom I have great personal devotion. They died one year apart in prison at Auschwitz, but that is not the end of their story. It’s a story of the triumph of grace over great evil. Please read . . .
. . . The Bishops’ Charter failed to add a qualifying statement of Pope John Paul II to the American cardinals summoned to Rome in 2002: “At the same time . . . we cannot forget the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God, which reaches to the depth of a person’s soul and can work extraordinary change.” By omitting the most important part of the Pope’s statement, the U.S. Bishops adopted a punishment with no allowance for repentance. In an essay for Homiletic & Pastoral Review (”Sex Abuse and Anti-Catholicism”) Ryan MacDonald wrote: “The Puritan founders of New England would approve of the purging of the priesthood now underway in Western Culture, for it is far more Calvinist than Catholic.” . . .
. . . I can only conclude that there were agendas at work that went far beyond simply telling the truth about Father Maciel. I hope I’m not the only person to notice that all the evidence against him seemed to surface just in time to attempt to derail the Beatification of Pope John Paul II who presumed – just as he should have done – Maciel’s innocence absent proof of his guilt or an admission of guilt. There was neither. But for my purposes, the cost of Father Maciel is clear. The Constitution and Church law notwithstanding, the true cost of Father Maciel is to rob any accused Catholic priest of a presumption of innocence. It is the worst possible example of the Catholic Church in America caving into the prejudices of pop culture. I witness the cost of Father Maciel every day. A number of prominent Catholics who once openly supported my defense have been silenced since post-mortem evidence surfaced of Fr. Maciel’s bizarre double life and lifestyle. Some Catholics who held out a presumption of his innocence, without solid evidence to the contrary, have been burned by the stinging rebukes they’ve received from all corners in the Catholic media once that evidence began to surface. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on April 13, 2011 · 6 comments
. . . In his 1948 book, The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill wrote of a 1935 proposal to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin suggesting that the Soviet Union should not suppress Catholicism, but should rather encourage it in order to gain favor with the Pope. Stalin famously responded, “The Pope? How many divisions has he got?” Ironically, that conversation took place on May 13, 1935, forty-six years to the day before the Soviet Union tried to kill Pope John Paul II because he was the most feared man in all of Europe. The Pope survived. Stalin’s successors in the Soviet Union learned the answer to his question far too late for their own survival. Karol Wojtyla has earned the place in history summarized by the title given to him by Father Richard John Neuhaus and other admirers. He helped rid the world of Satan’s most earthly Evil Empire. Without doubt, he was – and is – Pope John Paul the Great. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on February 9, 2011 · 5 comments
. . . Greg Erlandson, publisher of Our Sunday Visitor, knows the difference, too, and it prompted him to add cable news to his list of things to avoid in 2011 (OSV, “New Years Resolutions,” January 2). He clearly considered at least some of what passes for news on 24-hour cable news channels to be more akin to nuisance when he wrote: “The talking heads seem engaged in an anger and anxiety arms race, playing on ignorance and fears to get the best ratings.”Greg Erlandson resolved to find “more rational and less incendiary ways” to be informed of the news. A couple of OSV readers reacted in letters to the editor. Dave Maxwell of Adrian, Michigan wrote that for him, “FOX News and The Wall Street Journal are the only reliable and balanced sources for the daily news.” It seems that a lot of people agree. I’m not writing an advertisement for Fox News or The WSJ, but both news outlets are pulling in the highest ratings these days. I suspect there’s a good reason for that, but it may also cause other news outlets to compete for ratings, sometimes by appealing to our basest nature. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on February 2, 2011 · 9 comments
. . . I don’t mean to pick on Jacqueline Suzanne and Harold Robbins, though Mr. Spock might have. Their books are actually quite popular in prison where any human dramas – even the seediest ones – are preferable to the ones prisoners are living. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien are also very popular here, as are many classic authors like Jack London, Mark Twain, and John Steinbeck. The literary elite are as snooty in prison as anywhere else. Not long ago in the Library check-out line, I saw a prisoner with a pair of Steinbecks sneer at a grizzly-looking guy in line with a stack of books by Jackie Collins and Nora Roberts. The question of what books endure the test of time doesn’t really apply here. Many prisoners will read whatever they can get their hands on, within limits. Part of my job in the library is to fill book requests for prisoners who have misbehaved and have been hauled off to “the hole” for weeks, or months, or sometimes years. . . .
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 11, 2010 · 8 comments
. . . Catholics in France, Belgium, Holland and throughout Europe organized to rescue tens of thousands of Jewish children from deportation to the Death Camps. Philip Friedman, in Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust (The Jewish Publication Society, 1980) commended the Catholic bishops of the Netherlands for their public protest about the Nazi deportation of Jews from Holland. In retaliation for those bishops’ actions, however, even Jews who had converted to Catholicism were rounded up for deportation to Auschwitz. . . .
. . . The sole accusation that just destroyed this 8O-year-old priest’s good name is that he abused someone fifty-one years ago when he was 29 years old. Kelly Lynch, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Boston, announced that Father Menna was placed on administrative leave, barred from offering the Sacraments, and ordered to pack up and leave the rectory where he had been spending his senior years in the company of other priests. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on June 23, 2010 · 7 comments
. . . I learned that a donor heart had been found for Christopher. As I write this he is in the middle of an eight to ten hour heart transplant surgery at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital. The days and weeks to follow will be of critical importance for this young man. Your prayers are also of critical importance. Please pray for Christopher Warwick, for his new heart, for the heart’s donor, and for the Warwick family. . . .
