by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 24, 2011 · 29 comments
. . . It’s also time to cease giving any credence whatsoever to groups using “victimhood” to mask a devious agenda. In just about every news account of Catholic scandal since 2002, the news media gives the last and loudest word to representatives of SNAP – the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests – whose spokespersons stand ever ready to condemn the Catholic Church, the priesthood, the bishops, the Pope, and even Catholics in the pews for still being Catholics in the pews. SNAP has become an inexhaustible source of the story the news media wants – and the media has discovered that SNAP will never tire of condemning the Catholic Church for still standing even in the face of SNAP’s self-serving rhetoric. It’s a marriage made in . . . well, certainly not Heaven. SNAP is now a part of the problem and should be treated as such. Its sole goal is to denigrate me, you, and our shared faith, and it plans to do so until the entire Church is bankrupt. It’s time to stop listening to SNAP. This group surrendered its moral credibility when it confused justice with vengeance by promoting only the latter, it advocates for a never-ending state of victimhood for its adherents. That is not true advocacy. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 17, 2011 · 29 comments
. . . I thought of Batman recently when I received a snail mail letter from TSW reader Dorothy Stein after her on-line exchange described above. I was struck by her message and I think you will be, too. I asked her permission to use it, so hear it is: “From watching some of the debate on Catholic blogs, I have come to the conclusion that there are factions in your Church whose prevailing agendas are to destroy the Church. Knowing that any sane person would realize as I have that there exists no evidence for your supposed guilt, I can only conclude that attacks on you are not motivated by that at all, but by your witness, your fidelity, your support of the priesthood, your asking your readers to remain faithful to their Church. If you were willing to abandon all that, as some others have done, it seems things would go so much easier for you. But don’t do it, Father. Take the Bangs and the Bonks! It’s for a good cause. Just learn when to duck!” . . .
. . . Actually, what fell apart was the credibility of DSK’s accuser. Writing for The Wall Street Journal Editorial Pages (”The DSK Lesson,” July 5, 2011) columnist Bret Stephens chastised his own industry, the news media, for the sheer delight it took in the DSK charges. He wrote of how disappointed reporters were at news that the accuser had squandered her credibility on previous false claims and her recorded expectations of a financial windfall in the DSK case. Bret Stephens described the central problem with the news media’s build-up of the DSK case, and what he wrote is something Catholics should pay attention to: “The media has too often been guilty of looking only for the evidence that fits a pre-existing story line. It doesn’t help that in journalism you can usually find the story you’re looking for . . .” Such writing is exactly why I subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, and I believe it’s why the Journal is the sole American newspaper to actually expand its readership over the last few years while other papers are dying. It takes courage to take on big stories like the rape case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn or sexual abuse by Catholic priests. But it takes even greater courage to police your own industry, and to challenge your peers when the story they want takes precedence over the truth. . . .
. . . 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.” . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on February 16, 2011 · 11 comments
. . . In the post, I made a brief mention of a letter from Father Neuhaus to Pornchai Moontri, and of how that letter was among the forces that caused Pornchai to become a Catholic. What surprised me was the number of comments mentioning my brief paragraph about Pornchai. He was certainly not central to that post, but lots of people mention him in their comments on several of my posts. In fact, I’ve noticed a pattern. It might be just my imagination, but when I mention Pornchai, readers seem to comment more. I showed the comments on that post to Pornchai and told him about my theory. He readily concurred. “If you don’t mention me,” he said, “no one reads it!” Well, I doubt that’s true. At least, I HOPE it isn’t true! . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on January 12, 2011 · 5 comments
The sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has been used for some troubling hidden agendas. We are all responsible for our practice of truth in justice.
Forgive me if it takes a moment or two to work your way around the full meaning of my title for this post. In “My New Year’s Resolution About [...]
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on December 29, 2010 · 12 comments
The bigger scandal in the Catholic Church is the way pop culture has drawn us into a climate of gossip and ruined reputations. Is it time to stem that tide?
It happens so easily, and sometimes even innocently. Very few of us are exempt from being both the victims and the proponents of gossip. As I [...]
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on October 13, 2010 · 24 comments
. . . False accusations are rare? Tell that to Mike Gallagher and the falsely accused men I described in “The Eighth Commandment.” Tell that to the twelve falsely accused men who appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” with Innocence Project attorney Barry Scheck on October 6, after they each were exonerated following an average of 20 years in prison accused of sexual assaults they had nothing to do with. Their stories, and the hundreds like them, will be the subject of a landmark film, Conviction, opening this Friday. Justice has turned on its head when men who stand to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars for making a false claim are automatically called “victims” by Church leaders now, while priests accused without evidence from decades ago are just as quickly called “priests-offenders” and “slayers of souls.” . . .
. . . 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. . . .
. . . 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. . . .
