by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on September 14, 2011 · 17 comments
. . . So I was not at all surprised when prisoners came one after another to my cell door during “Court TV’s” coverage of the Father Geoghan trial. After some incredible testimony from the accuser, they showed up during commercials to ask, “Are you watching this?” I was watching it, and I heard what they heard. The twenty-something-year-old accuser testified that a dozen years earlier, when he was eleven, he was in a public swimming pool. He said that he recognized Father John Geoghan as someone who had visited his housing project. While trying to climb out of the pool, the young man testified, Father Geoghan came up behind him and, under the guise of helping him to climb out, squeezed his buttocks. Based upon this testimony, the 68-year old priest was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to nine years in prison. It was a death sentence. . . . Am I defending Father John Geoghan? Not at all. Do I doubt that this accuser told the truth? Not at all. The behavior ascribed to Father Geoghan was consistent with what scores of others said of him, and an egregious example of how much his own reasoning and judgement skills had deteriorated. The Church had a responsibility to protect young people from John Geoghan and a responsibility to protect Father Geoghan from himself. Church officials failed on both counts. I don’t question the truth of any of it. . . .
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 October 20, 2010 · 13 comments
. . . How does a priest accused from ten, twenty, or thirty years ago defend himself or ever restore his name when a diocese simply writes a check with no other evidence of guilt than the claim itself? And unlike the lawsuits filed by the accusers of Bishop Eddie Long, the lawyer who was given a $5.2 million check by my diocese – the first of several rounds of mediated settlements with the same lawyer who proclaimed,
“I’ve never seen anything like it!” – didn’t even file the claims in a court of law. He simply wrote a letter demanding settlement, and got it. Last month, the Concord Monitor reported on another case handled by that same lawyer with amazing result. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on October 14, 2009 · 11 comments
. . . Whoopi Goldberg now ridicules the case against Roman Polanski, inferring that it is unjust to impose a penalty in a case from so long go. Moreover, and most shockingly, she minimized the child’s victimization with the astonishing statement, “It wasn’t really rape, rape!” The inference here is that the victim “consented,” despite being drugged, and despite being thirteen years old. If Roman Polanski was a Catholic priest, Whoopi Goldberg would want his head presented to Herod on a platter. . . . As the national priesthood scandal unfolded seven years ago – at which point I had already been wrongly imprisoned for eight years – my bishop wrote the following to a Vatican official: “Whatever the truth is about [Father MacRae’s] guilt or innocence, the Diocese of Manchester was in a difficult situation during his public trial. I do not feel that the Diocese can publicly advocate on his behalf without risking grave public misunderstanding.” . . .
