Before Rolling Stone’s Sabrina Rubin Erdely fell for an untrue UVA gang rape story, she was conned by “Billy Doe” whose tale took the life of an innocent priest.
Some of this story surfaced just before Thanksgiving and unraveled just before Christmas. None of us really had the stomach for it in any of its versions. I just spent several days asking myself, “Do I really want to write about this?” If you read on, you will agree. How could I not?
The tipping point for me came in the mail from Martin Barillas, editor of Spero News for which I am an occasional columnist. I suspect Martin knew his letter would cause the hair on my head, if I had any, to stand on end.
Along with Martin’s letter was a copy of a November 17, 2014 article entitled “Handcuffs and a Hospital Bed” by journalist Ralph Cipriano at his Big Trial blog. I spent much of December fuming about it. The story made me very angry. It will make you angry as well if you read on. In fact, I am counting on it.
It should make you angry because it is the truth, and because it is evil, and because the priest it happened to deserved better. I hope this story makes you angry enough to share this post far and wide because the outcome of this story could just as easily be my fate as well. Please shout this post from the rooftops, and be the prophetic voices of justice God calls us to be. Here is what Ralph Cipriano wrote that so filled me with righteous indignation:
“For Father Charles Engelhardt, the ordeal is finally over. The 67-year-old priest died at 8:30 PM Saturday night [November 15] an inmate at the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township [PA] where he served nearly two years of a 6-to-12-year sentence.”
Father Charles Engelhardt died in a prison hospital bed from untreated coronary disease, his body held in restraints, his left wrist and right foot chained to the bunk with two armed guards, and no one else, at his sides. Prison officials waited three days to notify his family.
Had Father Engelhardt been a diocesan priest, this story might have ended in prison. His bishop may have feared the S.N.A.P. activists and the media enough to avoid his funeral and decline to bury him in a diocesan cemetery. But Father Engelhardt was a member of a religious order, the Oblates of Saint Francis DeSales, with a Provincial superior who was not so eager to denounce him.
A Mass of Christian Burial was offered on November 21st at Saint Anthony of Padua Church in Wilmington, Delaware. Father Engelhardt’s attorney, Michael J. McGovern, called him “a beautiful and holy man… a true martyr.” Father Charles Engelhardt, I am now convinced, was innocent of any crime.
SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY
Bear with me, please, as I leap to another story that unfolded in the days between Father Engelhardt’s death and his funeral. It’s a story with stunning irony for its connections to this one. It’s a story that must be told.
I have never seen a media sensation unravel so completely, so rapidly, and with such force. In the November 19, 2014 issue of Rolling Stone, writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely unleashed a torrent against the fraternity culture at the University of Virginia with the story of “Jackie” in “A Rape on Campus.”
“I feel really pretty,” Ms. Erdely quoted “Jackie,” standing before a mirror adding make-up before the first-year student headed off for a date at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity party at UVA. “I didn’t know it would be the last time I wouldn’t see the empty shell of a person,” recounted “Jackie” as she spoke of turning away from the mirror to commence her date.
The Rolling Stone article went on to describe a horrific nightmare as “Jackie” recounted being led upstairs by her frat date to a darkened room where she was restrained and brutally raped by seven men in a three-hour ordeal. The story was utterly sickening in its terrifying detail, a fact not lost on the prison censors as the magazine never made its way to the few prisoners here who subscribe to Rolling Stone.
The account went on to describe how “Jackie’s” friends, intimidated by the fraternity culture at UVA, pressured her not to report the traumatic crime to police. Then “Jackie” herself reportedly pressured Ms. Erdely not to seek any corroboration of the story by conducting interviews on campus.
In response to the story, the University of Virginia presumed the guilt of the unnamed men and suspended all fraternity activity on campus while an investigation ensued. In a pattern with eerie similarity to a story I wrote about in June, 2011 in “Lessons from a Duke University Sex Scandal,” Sabrina Erdely’s account unleashed a trial-by-media that within days swept the campus, the news media, and the nation.
Then, just a week after exploding in Rolling Stone, the story imploded under the weight of its discrepancies. Investigation revealed, for example, that there had been no party at UVA’s Phi Kappa Psi fraternity on the night “Jackie” claimed to have been attacked. “Jackie” herself told multiple conflicting versions of the story.
According to Kevin Williamson at NationalReview.com, Ms. Erdely set out to prove that “American colleges are hotbeds of sexual violence,” but in the process violated every tenet of basic journalism by failing to corroborate the story. Then Rolling Stone issued a retraction.
But despite it, the desperate spin set in. One writer at Politico.com insisted that regardless of the details, “Jackie’s” story “rang true” at UVA. Well, “rang true” should not equate with “true,” but this was not the first time the media, including Sabrina Rubin Erdely, had confused them.
Emily Yoffe at Slate.com cautioned that the Rolling Stone debacle is a warning sign that “feminist activists have stampeded the media” into accepting faulty and uncorroborated data as true, and college administrators are abrogating the rights of accused male students by presuming their guilt.
My sense of déjà vu in this story is overwhelming. Where were these media watchdogs when the United States Catholic Bishops did the very same thing to their priests with the Dallas Charter now in force in its twelfth year? Wrote commentator Andrew Sullivan, when a story like this reinforces our preexisting narratives, “we all believe what we want to believe.”
TROPHY JUSTICE IN PHILADELPHIA
This wasn’t the first time Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely were taken in by an untrue story because “rang true” seemed good enough. In the September 15, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone, Ms. Erdely published “The Catholic Church’s Secret Sex-Crime Files.” Her story profiled a sensational account of gang rape by Catholic priests allegedly perpetrated against a drug addict whose identity was shielded from public view when he was dubbed “Billy Doe.”
The discrepancies in Ms. Erdely’s “A Rape on Campus” pale next to the unraveling of “Billy Doe’s” account fabricated in Rolling Stone. Among its many uncorroborated claims, Ms Erdely failed to uncover and include some crucial facts, including “Billy Doe’s” criminal history. He had been arrested six times, including one arrest for the attempted sale of 56 bags of heroin.
“Billy,” who self-reported that he has been in unsuccessful drug treatment twenty-three times, was described by Ms. Erdely as “a sweet, gentle kid with boyish good looks” before he was turned into “a drug addicted loner” by Catholic priests. Journalist Ralph Cipriano presents a very different picture of “Billy Doe” in any number of real, and really responsible, journalistic forays into his story at the Big Trial blog, the most recent being, “Before Rolling Stone Was Conned by ‘Jackie,’ They Fell for ‘Billy.’”
Like her current journalistic fiasco at Rolling Stone, Ms Erdely’s treatment of “Billy Doe’s” story had some immediate problems. Among them was that the story he told her was vastly different from the one he told to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in a quest to bankroll his future. Sitting before Sabrina Erdely, taken in by this “sweet, gentle” con man’s “boyish good looks,” her subject abandoned his previous stories of being anally raped for five hours by priests, tied up with liturgical cinctures and traded between priests, and then punched and knocked out by one of them.
“Billy Doe” invented an entirely new tale for Ms. Erdely who didn’t bother seeking out the prior versions. In the Rolling Stone account, “Billy Doe” scrapped all the tales of violence for a lurid story about strip teases, oral sex, and mutual masturbation with priests. Even these details kept changing.
I first wrote of “Billy Doe’s” fantastic claims and their slow, tedious unraveling in “Trophy Justice: The Philadelphia Monsignor William Lynn Case.” I call this unraveling slow and tedious because the news media has grossly failed to police itself when it comes to lurid, but untrue stories about Catholic priests.
Three priests went to prison based on “Billy Doe’s” wild claims despite the multiple discrepancies. One of those priests died in November, chained to his prison hospital bed. The media continues to hide behind a shield that these stories “rang true,” and their writers count on your own “pre-existing narratives” to accept them without question. In the end, as one media watchdog predicted, “We all believe what we want to believe.”
In regard to Sabrina Erdely’s UVA story, at least, Howard Kurtz on FOX News’ “The Media Buzz” (December 14) charged that “Rolling Stone has a huge credibility problem… in how this monstrosity of a story was published.” For The Wall Street Journal’s Joseph Rago on the Journal Editorial Report (also December 14) Rolling Stone’s “agenda is more important than the truth.” Conor Friedersdorf at TheAtlantic.com reminded us in the wake of the UVA story that false accusations can and do destroy people’s lives.
There has been a lot more at stake here than just a few bricks thrown through a UVA frat house window. Some in the media’s handling of these stories are complicit in the death of Father Charles Engelhardt, a good priest who died in prison, sent there based not on evidence, but on the media-hyped word of a “sweet, gentle” street hustler, criminal, and con man.
The story of “Billy Doe” remains shielded from real public scrutiny because the media no longer distinguishes between what “rings true” and what is true in its rapid descent toward depravity. Like a rolling stone.
Editor’s Note: We have met our goal for the fund for Father Gordon MacRae’s Federal Appeal at These Stone Walls. At this writing, the habeas corpus appeal remains pending before the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. Father MacRae is deeply grateful to readers for their generosity and spirit of justice. As this troubling case proceeds, there will be other costs, legal and otherwise. Should you wish to help or to continue assisting with the support of These Stone Walls, the PayPal link on TSW remains active. Please, see the CONTACT page on These Stone Walls for additional avenues of assistance.
Mark says
Very interesting article, Father. I just would like to know if you are familiar with the website Catholics4Change? In case you haven’t, it’s run by two Catholic Women, Susan Mathews and Kathy Kane. It gives victims and other concerned citizens a chance to let their voices be heard. One cannot fail to commend such a website but it seems to me that they blindly believe everything in the media. They certainly bought Sabrina’s Rolling Stone story about the Catholic Church: http://catholics4change.com/2011/09/04/rolling-stone-publishes-8-page-article-on-philly-catholic-church-cover-up/
They don’t have time for Bill Donohue either, as this link shows: http://catholics4change.com/2011/09/25/catholic-league-mouthpiece-maligns-journalists/
In part, the second link reads, “Not one aspect of Sabrina Erdely’s article in Rolling Stone is untrue. Donohue can call it inflammatory all he wants, but that doesn’t change the facts. Church leadership covered up alleged abuse and put our children at risk. Bottom line. Without legal and media ramifications, the Church would not be making any moves to address this problem.”
Well, it seems Bill was right this time. But no public apology to him has come from Susan Mathews that I am aware of.
HELEN says
May God rest the soul of Father Charles Engelhardt and bring him into His Kingdom of Joy… as he continues to pray for his Priest Brothers.
Fr. Gordon…what evil times we live in…. Echoes of
2 Timothy 3 continue to replay over and over and over.
The law entered in* so that transgression might increase but, where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. RM 5:20-21 — Shall we dig in and hold onto these passages…?
I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say, Fr. Gordon… except that the depth of sin, today, in our world…the war on goodness, is breath-taking… However, we DO have a promise that … “If God be for us, who can be against us? ” For whatever reason You are having to deal with such heart-break and unfairness…You ARE being used by God to alert us of the untruth reigning in our world, today.
God bless You and Your Priest Brothers, who are, also, falsely accused. YOU and they are in my daily prayers.
God bless and strengthen You until the day of Your freedom.
Helen S.
Carla T. says
Aren’t there any TSW readers in Concord that can meet Jesse when he gets out of prison and get him the help he needs? Surely there must be someone on “the outside” qualified to help him navigate this difficult time. Anyone?
As for this post, I continue to be blindsided by the cruelty toward and neglect of priests who seem to have no civil rights whatsoever. I pray for priests daily, and will add Fr. Engelhardt to my growing list of priests that I pray for .
Father Gordon MacRae says
Thank you, Carla, for your generous and just heart. I had placed my friend Jesse in the hands of our Blessed Mother hoping that she could untie some knots for him. In the last week that has happened. He does now have a place to go and someone will be meeting him at the prison door. I thank readers for their great concern for Jesse. Know he is most grateful as well. With blessings, Father Gordon
Mary Fran says
Thank you for posting this, Fr. G. My heart is relieved that Jesse will not be completely on his own Thursday.
Ryan A. MacDonald says
On my way out of Mass this morning I picked up a copy of the January 11 issue of Our Sunday Visitor. In it is published a very pointed and poignant letter by Father MacRae about this story. Both the OSV letter and this post ought to stir us into the only two actions possible: to pray for Father Charles Engelhardt and for the restoration of justice, and then to share this post as much as possible. Then perhaps God alone will know which of us was the link in a chain that brought forward an answer to our prayer.
Father Gordon MacRae says
Thank you, Ryan. I was only vaguely aware that OSV had published a letter of mine about the Father Charles Englehardt story. It is indeed a tragedy that cries out for justice, and the only way to bring that about is to make it known. So I thank you and all our readers for doing just that. With blessings, Father Gordon
Mary Fran says
Ha!!!!! I can actually read something you’ve sent elsewhere. Your OSV letter to the editor is available on line. And the letter that prompted your reply. Hurray for Google. And hurray that it doesn’t require a subscription to log on to read more than a couple of words.
Juan says
Let us turn to trustful and persevering prayer, it is our best choice.
Juan.
Anne Marie Brandt says
Dear Father Gordon and Readers:
I am outraged by this atrocity, By ALL of this! I have heard more, within the past year, about good Holy Priests being falsely and unjustly accused, of things conjured up by satan and his little demons. He uses people to do his DIRTY work, and they easily fall prey. It is happening more and more. And, what is wrong with our Church, with all of our “lawyers”, why aren’t they investigating these allegations, and clearing the names of these Holy Priests ???? I am appalled, to say the least. I pray that God has mercy on the “fallen prey” and on the upper echelon, of the Catholic Church, for not protecting and helping our saintly priests, like yourself, my dear friend and poor Father Englehardt! What are we all afraid of? The only thing I can say is Don’t take out on GOD, what man does (or doesn’t do)! This is all sick and depraved, and I cannot believe we are that gullible! The good thing is GOD is still in control and “He will NOT contend with man forever?
Please know, I remember you in my heart and prayers daily and nightly. Please do not give up! God will come through!
God bless you and keep you safe,
Anne Marie
Lynda Finneran says
I echo everything Annemarie Brandt says. The scandal of Church authorities colluding with state authorities in charging and convicting innocent priests is horrific. The very stones cry out for vengeance.
Dee Susan says
I am angry after reading this message and I am also afraid. Afraid because this seems like an echo of the things that happened to our Jewish brethren 75 years ago. They say history repeats itself. I hope Catholics/Chrsitians are not the future holocaust. I pray everyday for people to return to God and repent. Surely we MUST be in end times which the Bible described as the time when “what is Wrong is Right and What is Right is Wrong.
But there is hope because Jesus says, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against My Church!”
Carlos Caso-Rosendi says
Pope Francis said something about (paraphrased) “How come when a homeless person dies is not news but it is big news if the market drops two points?” Glorious words that cut both ways as you shall see.
The death of a martyr may go unnoticed or unmentioned in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church and other elites — by now we are accustomed to the usual treatment by bureaucracies of all kinds — but it will be noticed in Heaven because the blood of martyrs is precious to God. Here on earth the “abomination that causes desolation” is now in control of all the levers of power and placidly sitting in a (no longer) holy place.
No one – NO ONE – is a citizen any more. “We the people” are the ones being raped under cover of darkness by the Liberals of the left and right. Liberals in the old, French Revolution sense of the word: liberals liberated from the loving limits that God gave mankind through commandments and wise counsel. They are gods unto themselves.
The “rolling stone” culture has “sympathy for the devil” but not for the poor devils that happen to be outside their self-defined circle of preference. Example: here in Buenos Aires a self defined “healer” curate who travels everywhere in the world accompanied by a young “brother” who “blesses genitals” enjoys the good life and even gets to visit the Pope. In some other planet (apparently light years apart from this tired earth) a servant of God dies in chains without anyone in the Church saying pipsqueak. Good, now to that encyclical about “global warming” … may be the new untouchables will be excommunicated form the environment. Let us prepare to move to the city dump or a convenient extermination camp where we will be turned into fertilizer.
Years ago I saw with my very eyes how a teacher from UVA jumped for joy at the sight of the crumbling towers of the WTC in New York. I have no sympathy for the Charlottesville liberal ilk. It is true poetic justice to see them fall into the very trap they helped prepare for others. A lesson for those “free thinkers” who study “journalism” and never have to sit on a course called Truth 101.
No one is a citizen anymore: no one has rights before the Beast. We are all at the mercy of its power and lies.
Dee Susan says
You are correct when you say that none of us have any rights before the Beast. What a tangled web our whole world has become. if you consider the mess our society and our world has become – it’s completely understandable why Jesus will return – for only He can fix the mess.
Carlos Caso-Rosendi says
Our God is bigger than this tiny bump in the road of History. He loves us and He won’t let us be tried beyond what we can bear. Those tiny martyrs in the Middle East have shown all of us how to live and die as Christians. Fear not little flock for is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. At the other end of the storm the Kingdom is waiting for us.
Frank Dias says
Fr. Gordon, after reading this about Father Charles E. i am so mad. Our President is letting killers loose to go back into the battles fields to kill more Americans. This world is upside down. We are turning our backs on the genocide of our Catholic brothers and sisters, going on still in the middle east and Africa. Our Catholic Faith is being turned by the Evil all around us to extinguish our voice like world war were over 6 million were killed..I am just rambling because of the attack still on my Catholic Faith. I pray for you all the time in Adoration and for all our Priests they are the real heroes in our Church today, I pray that soon you will see freedom out of those walls. Thank you for your courage and Faith. In Vietnam i could fight against the enemy with bullits now all i have is Prayers going your way, Semper Fi Father Gordon writing with tears coming down my face.Lastly we are turning our backs on God so he his letting us alone and this scares me…. God Bless you and your friends.
Lionel (Paris) says
C’est purement et simplement scandaleux de la part de l’Institution Judiciaire!
I am indeed disgusted.
Let us pray for him! Lionel
Bea says
Enraged, yes, but also deeply saddened. Thank you for drawing our attention to this story, Father Gordon.
It is my hope that Father Engelhardt, in his final dark hours, felt God’s warm embrace and saw the gentle face of Jesus telling him, “Do not be afraid; it is I.” May he rest in peace!
Mary Fran says
There is so much wrong here. The saddest part is that they felt the need to chain this innocent priest to his bed. What kind of a threat was he?
Barb Schoeneberger says
I find the majority of media today to be completely unbelievable because they don’t bother to check facts. What’s worse, people of varying levels of authority go around repeating untruths because they are too lazy or too politically driven to verify. Back in the 1950s my dad repeatedly warned me, “Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper.” Today we can add the internet, TV, radio, magazines, etc. to that. Pick any hot button of today, any ideology, and disbelieve anything their pushers tout as truth until you verify facts for yourself.
Thanks for this post. I am sickened by the terrible treatment of priests who are falsely accused, and really angry with the bishops who are more concerned about what SNAP will say than they are about priests receiving justice.
Mary Fran says
Yes, this does make me angry, but not as angry as another event which will take place January 15, that was mentioned in last week”s TSW post. Next week. When a 27 year old prisoner named Jesse will be escorted to the prison door, “free” for the first time in years, with nothing but a plastic bag of belongings. No money, no place to go, no half-way house, no family, no friends, no talents, no job, no support system to help him make it in the outside world where so much has changed. Forbidden contact with all the friends he made in prison who could help him make it. Into the 31-degree weather in Concord with a 60% chance of snow—3-5 inches. And probably with no boots or a warm enough coat. Totally abandoned. Alone. On his own for the first time in 8 or 9 years.
THIS MAKES ME REALLY ANGRY. And Jesse is just ONE of the young men in this situation. How is it that in the richest country in the world we can just dump people in the street like garbage?