We thought you’d like to read Ryan’s response to a Voice of the “Faithful” comment that appeared in the March 2010 Homiletic and Pastoral Review. It sheds some light on the fraudulent claims against Fr Gordon MacRae.
Should the Case Against Father Gordon MacRae be Reviewed? by Ryan Anthony MacDonald
It’s located under the Case History tab above as well.
Thanks,
The TSW Editors
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MacDonald’s article is very good. Had people spoken up when priestly trials were going on and said: WAIT A MINUTE!!!!! There is NO evidence!
There again, had people invited me to the Catholic Church when I was a teen, perhaps my life would hae turned out different…….that is why ‘what ifs’ are not reasonable ways to think……..And I don’t mean that his article encourages such thinking, only that we must move on…..
I sent Fr. MacRae article recently about the national news article aobut the North Carolina Commission (new) that is going after the cases of people who say they were wrongly incarcerated and getting at least one person’s release.
After going back many decades and looking freshly at the trial and evidence, the Commission determined that the man was indeed innocent and he went free.
Does New Hampshire have such a Commission? Are there people working with Fr. MacCrae who can answer this question.
I live in St. Louis, Missouri, and frankly do not know what to do but pass on this information about a North Carolina success story.
I would like to see on Fr. MacRae’s website or emails a current update on work for his release…..or is it somewhere and I just did not see it? Plan for Success and it will happen!
In Christ, Happy Easter, Patricia
Fr. Gordon received an email recently from a woman who remembered him from long ago. Her email was touching as she described the priest that you and I know. I asked if I could share her email with Fr. Gordon’s blog readers and she agreed, but asked that her name not be used. Here are some of her comments to Fr. Gordon and to me.
“Dear Fr. Gordon,
You came to St. Bernard’s…I think I was in 4th or 5th grade. I think you are a wonderful person. I am Unitarian but my parents sent me [there] because they liked the school. You would be on the playground in the mornings and other times with the other priests. You also taught a class on drug abuse and gave me an A on my paper (which meant a lot to me.)
Your acceptance of me (even though I was a Unitarian kid) and your belief in me really stands out in my past as a positive influence. I remember being so jealous of the boys at St. Joe’s because Father H. would completely ignore the girls and play marbles with the boys, but you would talk to all the kids and you made me feel like you thought I was nice.
I write ignoring the fact that I found your address through the website that posts the information about your case so I feel I should address it. This simply proves that life really is not fair and I am so sorry that this happened to you.
You were the first person in my life to actually make me feel like I was not invisible to the rest of the world. You recognized a shy kid who would not speak out of turn or hurt a fly, and you spoke to me out on the playground, and looked at me and smiled when you handed me back my paper – with the A on it – as if to say, of course you would get an A.
Thank you for imprinting my life the way you did. You did a good thing.”
To me she wrote:
“This is certainly not the first time I have thought about or talked about my experiences in Catholic school or the way the older priests would focus solely on a few boys. But Father Gordon was younger than the other priests and he would come and talk to us on the playground before school started – it was certainly nothing inappropriate and he certainly never seemed to focus on one particular kid apart from the others.
The difference was he was nice to everyone, the girls and the boys, and he knew our names. I would go to St. Bernard’s with my friends’ families sometimes on weekends and I remember being surprised that the other priests would not recognize my friends or me from the school. But Father Gordon did. Honestly, if there was any priest at St. Bernard’s who was misbehaving, Father Gordon would have been my LAST guess.”
Yes, Fr. Gordon’s case should definitely be reviewed. As was said of another man before His crucifixion, “This man is innocent.”
This is the kind of priest he is, the kind of man he is, a kind soul who made a little girl feel that she was worth something. She was not a Catholic, nor did she need to be. But she remembers that he looked at her when he talked to her. After all these years, she still remembers. This is a priest who has always put others before himself.
Is that such a terrible thing? How many of us do that? What kind of man and priest is this who lives out the Gospel as we all ought to do? He took very seriously his vows at his Ordination, but he was destined to suffer and suffer he has.
I pray for his freedom. I pray that those in power will realize that the accusation was solely for money, and I pray that one day he will be allowed to publicly celebrate the Mass – the Mass so dear to him that he celebrates alone in his cell late on Sunday nights – and that his accusers will, before they leave this planet, have the decency to come forward and admit they lied.
His bishop, who originally offered to help fund Fr. Gordon’s defense, and then out of fear of the hate groups, has washed his hands of this priest. The accusers have been paid off. Someday all of them will stand before the Judgment Throne and I wonder how they will respond when our Lord asks, “Why did you do this to my son?”