Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded

Silencing the truth is never in the service of the Church. For one wrongly imprisoned priest, the buried truth and uncovered lies have both been crosses to bear.

“Have no fear, for nothing is covered over that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What you hear in the dark utter in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim from the rooftops.”

Matthew 10:26-29

Editor’s Note: The following is Part 2 of a guest post by Father George David Byers, SSL, STD. Part 1, was “A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church: Affidavits.”

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Last week here at Beyond These Stone Walls, I presented some examples of a plague of omertà that has arisen in recent decades in the Catholic Church in America. Omertà is an insidious code of silence that can too easily become a part of mob justice, influencing someone to set aside truth in deference to the mob’s preferred or demanded truth. Omertà empowered the mafia, but it has no place in the Catholic Church.

When fearlessly digging into truths that some want to be kept hidden and not shouted from the rooftops, other truths are also necessarily unearthed. Before delving into some truths in the form of some affidavits by courageous people revealed here in Part 1 of this post, I want to tell you a true story. It was revealed to me by the great Pornchai Maximilian Moontri who now dwells in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Pornchai has helped me to understand a truth that is nearly universal among those who have in fact been victims of sexual assault. The only thing that is as obnoxious to them as having been raped is to see their own sufferings capitalized upon by false accusers for money, and by clericalists who make themselves into heroes by paying out settlements with no evidence or due process of law. Priests are too often considered guilty just for being accused.

Pornchai conveyed the story of one day being in the cell alone with Father Gordon. They had been cell mates for about two years then. It was about a year before Father Gordon’s blog began. Father G was reading his mail and said to Pornchai, “This woman wants to know if I am safe here.” Pornchai responded spontaneously and with total sincerity: “Does she mean from us or from other priests?” Then the next letter Father G opened was from a priest of his diocese to whom he had written. The priest returned his letter with a note on the envelope: “Communication with you is neither prudent nor welcome.”

Prison, by nature, is often a violent place. As a child of 12 brought to the State of Maine from a foreign country, Pornchai became a victim of violent sexual abuse. Father Gordon wrote that shocking story in “Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam.” When Pornchai went to prison at age 18, he dealt with the prison violence in the only way he could. He vowed that he would never again be someone’s victim. So he understandably met violence with violence of his own. It landed him in repeated long years in solitary confinement. After 14 years, Pornchai was transferred to the New Hampshire prison.

(Not long after, PBS Frontline produced a feature about the very solitary confinement cell in which Pornchai had spent years. PBS Frontline “Solitary Nation” should not be missed.)

In New Hampshire, Pornchai ended up in a cell with a man accused and convicted of the very thing that destroyed his life. It did not take him long — with his innate alertness to predation — to discover that Father G had been falsely accused. Pornchai once told me this story that I held off writing until he was out of the prison system:

“One day, I got a notice from the prison mental health department that a new 2O-week program was beginning called ‘Interpersonal Violence.’ My friend Father G thought it might be an opportunity for me so I said I would go if he goes with me. So we both signed up for it. Prison is filled with needy young men who have really broken lives. Some of them look for safe, comfortable older prisoners who might buy them things and take care of them. The result is a sort of mutual exploitation and prisons are filled with this. One young kid, about 19, who was attending the program quickly tried to latch on to Father G without knowing anything about him. I was going to speak with him, but decided to wait.

“Over the next few sessions as I sat next to Father G, I was aware of how this kid was skillfully trying to gain his interest and maneuver his way into his life, but Father G was oblivious to it. Later that night I told him what I observed, but he had no idea what I was talking about. At the next session, Father G and I simply agreed to switch seats. In all his years in prison, Father G has been surrounded by people like this, many of them young drug addicts who would sell their soul for a few bucks for drugs. In all those years, Father G was never observed or even suspected of having any interest in them at all except to show those receptive to it a way out of their prison within a prison.”

The Egregious Double Standard of Justice

There is a lot more to Pornchai’s story of his years with Father Gordon MacRae in prison. As he came to trust Father G, he had a growing awareness of things changing for the better in his life. After a few years, Pornchai made a decision to become a Catholic. He was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday an event related beautifully by Felix Carroll in a chapter in his Divine Mercy Conversion book, Loved, Lost, Found.

In the years to follow, Father Gordon’s writing about Pornchai’s life garnered some attention in both the United States and across the globe, especially in Thailand where that story began. Thanks to Father Gordon’s writing, Pornchai’s tormentor was brought to justice 33 years after he brought destruction to this young man’s life. I am not certain we can actually call it justice, however.

In late 2017, Richard Alan Bailey was arrested at his Oregon home and indicted on forty (40) felony charges of sexual violence against Pornchai at ages 12-14. There was much evidence against him discovered in the form of police reports, school reports, social services battered child reports, medical reports, but none of it ever resulted in action. In September 2018, Richard Alan Bailey entered a plea of “no contest” but was found guilty on all forty counts in a Maine court. Bailey was sentenced to forty years in prison, all suspended, and 18 years probation. He will never serve a single day in prison.

Meanwhile, Pornchai was very much aware that in the neighboring State of New Hampshire, Father Gordon MacRae refused a plea deal that would have resulted in one year in prison, then was found guilty of five charges with no evidence at all and sentenced by a bitterly anti-Catholic judge to 67 years in prison. Pornchai was also aware that Father Gordon’s bishop and diocese stacked the jury with a pre-trial press release pronouncing him guilty of victimizing not only his accusers, but the entire Catholic Church.

Pornchai says that Father G “led by example” when explaining to him that bitterness and resentment over past wounds, however deep, are “like a toxic brew that you put in your own tea, and then drink to your own spiritual peril.”

On that Divine Mercy Sunday when Pornchai was received into the Church in 2010, it just happened to be a day that Bishop John McCormack offered his annual Mass at the Concord, New Hampshire prison. He Confirmed Pornchai in his faith and gave him First Eucharist, but never spoke a single word to Father Gordon. In the prison chapel sacristy after Mass, Pornchai shook Bishop McCormack’s hand. “You have a good friend,” said the Bishop who had read the accounts of Pornchai’s life. “You have a good priest,” Pornchai responded.

Father Gordon saw to it that Pornchai came into the Catholic faith with eyes open about the meaning and power of both sin and grace. “If these events had not happened to me,” Father Gordon said, “Pornchai and I would have never met.” He challenged Pornchai to rise above resentment, and it was in the rising that they both found grace. This was a story, however, in which the insidious practice of Omertà, that evil code of silence that I wrote about here last week, has played a destructive role. In First Things magazine in 2008, the late Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote:

“The Bishop and the Diocese of Manchester do not come off as friends of justice, or, for that matter, of elementary decency. You may want to read this Kafkaesque tale then you may want to pray for Fr. MacRae, and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

— A Kafkaesque Tale

Affidavits Expanded

In my first installment of this post, “A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church,” I revealed two affidavits prepared by a New Hampshire lawyer and a senior executive of PBS which produces the award-winning investigative news program Frontline. The affidavits were entirely independent from each other. They describe meetings with former Diocese of Manchester Bishop, the late John McCormack. To recap, the following are the most pertinent statements in these affidavits:

From the Affidavit of Attorney Eileen A. Nevins:

“In June of 2000, I met with New Hampshire Bishop John McCormack at the Diocesan office .… During this meeting with Bishop McCormack and [Auxiliary] Bishop Francis Christian, they both expressed to me their belief that Father MacRae was not guilty of the crimes for which he was incarcerated.”

From the Affidavit of Leo P. Demers:

“During October 2000, I met with Bishop John McCormack at the Diocesan office in Manchester, New Hampshire .... The meeting with Bishop McCormack began with him saying, ‘Understand, none of this is to leave this office. I believe Father MacRae is not guilty and his accusers likely lied. There is nothing I can do to change the verdict.’”

Fortunately, Mr. Demers prepared careful notes immediately following his meeting. They provide a most helpful context for what was going on in the background in the Diocese of Manchester at the time. The transcript is fascinating, and I begin it here with the initial telephone call to Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian at the Manchester Chancery office:

LEO DEMERS: “I am calling from WGBH-TV in Boston ... I am concerned that Fr. Gordon MacRae was being considered as a feature story for Frontline here on PBS. Since you are the only person left in the Chancery Office who was there at the time of the accusations and trial ... I would like to meet with you to discuss the matter.”

[Note from Father Byers: Just four months earlier, but unknown by Mr. Demers, Bishop Christian attended a meeting with Bishop McCormack and Attorney Eileen Nevins. At that meeting, as per the affidavit of Attorney Nevins above, Bishop Christian was quite clear in his view that Father MacRae was not guilty. Did something happen in the interim? Given his stacking of the jury in his 1993 pre-trial press release, was he intimidated by someone in the news media? Read on … ]

BISHOP CHRISTIAN: “This is not my responsibility. I have nothing to do with that. You will have to speak with Bishop McCormack.”

LEO DEMERS: “But you were part of what happened at that time and would have firsthand knowledge of all that occurred. Bishop McCormack was in Boston when all this happened.”

BISHOP CHRISTIAN: “You will have to speak with Bishop McCormack. He is the one who is responsible. I can arrange for you to have a meeting with him.”

LEO DEMERS: “I would rather meet with you.”

BISHOP CHRISTIAN: “Bishop McCormack handles all such inquiries. You will have to call him yourself or I can arrange a meeting with him for you.”

[ Note from Father Byers: Mr. Demers noted that he would be in Israel and the Middle East for the next two weeks. His notes indicate that a meeting was scheduled with Bishop McCormack for October 13, 2000, and that Father MacRae knew nothing of this planned meeting. He writes that upon arrival at the Chancery he was escorted to Bishop McCormack’s office. The Bishop spoke first: ]

BISHOP McCORMACK: “I don’t want any of this to leave this office because I have struggles with some people in the Chancery office that are not consistent with my thoughts, but I firmly believe that Father MacRae is innocent and should not be in prison.”

[Note from Father Byers: Mr. Demers then wrote in his notes: “This knocked the wind out of my sails. It seems to me that the wrongful imprisonment of Fr. Gordon is ongoing. Those concerned with this matter could be subpoenaed by a court of law or by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).” The transcript continued: ]

LEO DEMERS: “You know why I am here. I assume Bishop Christian has informed you of our phone conversation and my desire to speak with him. You are a busy man. Bishop Christian has firsthand knowledge of the events surrounding Fr. MacRae’s incarceration.”

BISHOP McCORMACK: “He was tried and found guilty.”

LEO DEMERS: “With all due respect, your Excellency, I was there and you were not. There was nobody present representing the Manchester Diocese.”

BISHOP McCORMACK: “I mentioned to you that I believe he is innocent. I plan on meeting with him when I visit the prison during the coming Christmas season and I will discuss this.”

LEO DEMERS: “You said that your hands were tied because of your belief in his innocence. How can you help him?”

BISHOP McCORMACK: “I want to do what I can to make his life more bearable under the circumstances of prison life. I cannot reverse the decision of the court system. What can I do?”

LEO DEMERS: “It is not a flawless judicial system. Many innocent people fall through its cracks. Correcting an injustice is a formidable task and Fr. Gordon does not have the resources to even begin the process.”

Epilogue: The Spin

The promised Christmas meeting with Father MacRae in prison never took place. On February 15, 2002, Bishop McCormack, Bishop Christian, and Father Edward Arsenault held a press conference to release the names of all priests of the Diocese who were “credibly accused.” Father MacRae was not on that list. (That scene is depicted in the graphic atop this post with, left to right, Father Edward J. Arsenault, Bishop Francis X. Christian, and the late Bishop John B. McCormack at the podium.)

Over the course of the next year, many “confidential” memos passed between Bishop McCormack, Father Edward Arsenault, and various attorneys for the Diocese. Father MacRae was privy to none of them. Father Arsenault, who oversaw all lawsuit settlements for the Diocese, had an egregious conflict of interest in that he was simultaneously Chairman of the Board of the National Catholic Risk Retention Group providing oversight of insurance settlements for Catholic institutions across the country. At some point, he took over communications with Father MacRae on behalf of the bishop.

Father MacRae was never told of the above affidavits and did not know of Bishop McCormack’s statements about his belief in MacRae’s innocence and wrongful incarceration. A major sticking point in the various subsequent exchanges from the Bishop’s office was a demand that Father MacRae cease all contact with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal, submit to the Diocese a list of the names of everyone with whom he has discussed this matter, and agree in writing to limit all future contacts only to those approved by Diocesan officials. He was also asked to agree to appeal only his sentence and not his conviction, and to allow Father Arsenault to choose his legal counsel. Father MacRae rejected those conditions.

After The Wall Street Journal published an explosive series of articles by Dorothy Rabinowitz on the Father MacRae case in 2005 and again in 2013, Father never again heard from any official of his diocese with the exception of letters described below.

In 2008, Bishop McCormack wrote in a letter to an advocate of Father MacRae denying that he ever stated a belief that Father MacRae is innocent and should not be in prison. In 2009, Father Edward Arsenault became Monsignor Edward Arsenault and assumed a $160,000 per year position as Executive Director of the St. Luke Institute in Maryland where Bishop McCormack served on the Board of Directors. In 2015 he went to prison for embezzlement and forgery. Among the documents he is now suspected of forging were letters to the Holy See about the MacRae case.

Monsignor Arsenault was subsequently dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis. He has since changed his name to Edward J. Bolognini.

Bishop Peter A. Libasci, the current Bishop of Manchester, has, to this day, not once allowed Father MacRae to speak of this case in his own defense. Ryan A. MacDonald wrote of the unconscionable statements in this regard by the diocesan spokesman in “The Post-Trial Extortion of Father Gordon MacRae.”

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Please share this post and review these related posts:

Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List by Ryan A. MacDonald

The Trials of Father MacRae — The Wall Street Journal

Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Father George David Byers, SSL, STD is a parish priest in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, a chaplain to law enforcement, and a Missionary of Mercy appointed by Pope Francis for the Jubilee Year of Mercy, a position the Holy Father has extended to the present day. Father Byers writes at the faithful and bold Catholic blog, Arise! Let Us Be Going!

From the BTSW Editor: Ryan A. MacDonald has a new post at A RAM in the Thicket that impacts both Father Gordon MacRae and this blog. Please read “At the Catholic Media Association, Bias and a Double Standard.”

Monsignor Arsenault served two years of a four-to-twenty year sentence with the remainder suspended. He is depicted here shaking hands with his prosecutor from the NH Attorney General’s Office after accepting a plea bargain.

A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church: Affidavits

Silencing truth is never in service to the Church. No priest should ever have been sacrificed on the altars of tort lawyers, insurers, or a predatory news media.

(Pictured above: The Chancery Office of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire.)

November 10, 2021

Editor’s Note: The following is Part 1 of a two-part post by Father George David Byers, SSL, STD, parish priest, chaplain to law enforcement, an accomplished theologian, and a Missionary of Mercy appointed by Pope Francis for the Year of Mercy, a position extended by the Holy Father to the present day. Father Byers writes of how a code of silence has inhibited justice in the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae.

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This post has spent a long time being written. I first wrote it, or rather one quite like it, a decade ago for my now retired blog, Holy Souls Hermitage. Its purpose now is to bring the abuse crisis full circle. It is about an ongoing abuse of power in the Church. It is about the replacement of one abuse with another.

The same abuse of power in which youngsters were abused is the same abuse of power in which guilty priests were moved from parish to parish with omertà, that evil code of silence. It is also the same abuse of power which, when caught out today, will feign heroism by throwing merely accused priests out of the priesthood or into prison with no presumption of actual innocence. It is the same abuse of power which will cover up actual innocence for the sake of self-referential self-congratulations, ad infinitum.

It is this self-referential element in the Church that Pope Francis once said he wants to bring to its knees in repentance and conversion to our Lord Jesus Christ. Just because actual cases of contemporary sexual abuse have wound down to zero, as they have today, does not necessarily mean that anything has changed. Until the abuse of power changes, it is all the same. It is manifested in omertà.

Omertà is a mafioso term with its origin in 13th Century Sicily. It refers to a code of silence practiced by the mafia, a highly organized crime syndicate with a strong hierarchy. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it spread to the United States. Of interest, the original meaning of omertà was connected to “humility.” To practice a code of silence required the humility to set aside one’s own truth in deference to the organization’s preferred or demanded truth. It has no place in a Catholic setting.

The Late John Brendan McCormack

Four years after Father Gordon MacRae was convicted in a sham trial and sent to prison, Auxiliary Bishop John Brendan McCormack of the Archdiocese of Boston was appointed by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to serve as Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire. Complicating this story somewhat, Bishop McCormack passed away in a Manchester, New Hampshire Catholic nursing home just weeks before I began to write this article. From his prison cell, Father Gordon offered Mass for him. Father Gordon had some concern about the timing of this post, but the truth has its own life and must not be buried with anyone.

Bishop McCormack became a part of the code of silence practiced in his new diocese, but there were signs that he may not have been an entirely willing one, at least, not at first. Back in Boston, Bishop McCormack had been instrumental in seeking the administrative laicization of Boston priest and notorious abuser, Father John Geoghan. Later, Geoghan was brutally murdered in prison, in part due to the publicity that his dismissal from the clerical state brought about.

In 1998, at the time of Bishop McCormack’s appointment as Bishop of Manchester, he received a letter from Mr. Leo Demers, a senior official from WGBH-TV in Boston, a flagship production house for PBS public television. Mr. Demers revealed that he was present for much of the 1994 trial of Father Gordon MacRae. He expressed concern that this was not a fair trial and any dismissal from the priesthood could not justly be based upon its outcome.

Bishop McCormack responded that he was unfamiliar with the case, but is aware of no plan in the diocese to seek Father MacRae’s dismissal. He pledged to begin an investigation of the matter to determine what, if anything, he could do. There were also some media rumblings at the time. An organization known as the National Justice Committee worked with FOX News to review Father MacRae’s trial, but prison officials blocked these contacts. A Fox News representative appealed to then Governor Jeanne Shaheen, now U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) who responded:

“I understand your organization’s interest in the matter of Gordon MacRae, now an inmate in the NH prison, but I will not interfere with the decision not to allow media access to Mr. MacRae.”

— 1999 letter of Gov. Shaheen

The Wall Street Journal

It is likely that a file on the case was then sent from FOX News to The Wall Street Journal. Later in 1999, a correspondence ensued between Father MacRae and Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on the WSJ Editorial Board who opened an inquiry on the case. The Diocese of Manchester suddenly became much more interested in the fate of Father MacRae. Then, in 2000, Bishop McCormack was approached by New Hampshire attorney Eileen Nevins who also had been present throughout the MacRae trial. Ms. Nevins later produced the following sworn affidavit:

Affidavit of Eileen Nevins, Esq:

1. “My name is Eileen A. Nevins and I am an attorney licensed to practice in the State of New Hampshire and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

2. I met Reverend Gordon MacRae in the early 1980s when he was an associate priest assigned to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Parish in Hampton, New Hampshire.

3. On or about 1994, while still a law student, I became aware of charges of sexual misconduct filed against Gordon MacRae. I contacted his . . . attorney, Ron Koch, to offer my assistance in doing any legal research that may assist Father MacRae in New Hampshire.

4. Upon acting in a clerk capacity for Attorney Koch I became firmly convinced that the charges against Father MacRae were false and brought for financial gain.

5. I believe now as I believed during his trial that the charges against him are false and have assisted him however possible in obtaining further legal assistance to address the wrong against him. My belief is based on personal knowledge of the case against Father MacRae acquired during the investigation prior to his trial and my ongoing pursuit and review of the investigation into his situation subsequent to his trial and incarceration.

6. In June of 2000, I met with New Hampshire Bishop McCormack at the Diocesan office in Manchester, New Hampshire to discuss the possibility of the Diocese offering some financial assistance to obtain an appellate relief.

7. During this meeting with Bishop McCormack and [Auxiliary] Bishop Francis Christian, they both expressed to me their belief that Father MacRae was not guilty of the crimes for which he was incarcerated and that Bishop McCormack would consider offering some financial aid to assist with a legal defense.

8. In follow-up correspondence with the Bishop, I stated that it was my understanding that the Diocese would now consider financial aid to retain an attorney to assist in [Fr.] Gordon’s appeal.

9. I had been working with Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal and she recommended Attorney Robert Rosenthal to assist with the appeal.

10. Due to the unforeseen events of clergy abuse scandals in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the Bishop subsequently failed to act on his offer of assistance. It is my understanding that Bishop McCormack has transmitted Father MacRae’s case to the Vatican for disposition.”

Signed and sworn by Eileen A. Nevins, Esq. 18 October 2005.

Falling Towers and Fallen Hope

Father MacRae knew nothing about the above affidavit or the meetings it described until years after it was issued in 2005. In the interim, there were many setbacks and disappointments. After two years of gathering evidence from prison and submitting reams of documentation to The Wall Street Journal, the imprisoned priest learned that all had been destroyed along with The Wall Street Journal offices in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

He would have to start over, and he was not certain that he could. Meanwhile, a series of correspondence began between Father MacRae, Bishop John McCormack, and the Diocesan Moderator of the Curia and Delegate for Ministerial Conduct, Father Edward J. Arsenault.

Without ever telling Father MacRae of his stated belief in his innocence, Bishop McCormack and Father Arsenault appeared to make their offer of legal assistance contingent upon the priest’s assent to curtail his contacts with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal. This effort to sever any media contact was clear in a series of confidential memos between the Bishop and Father Arsenault. These memos were later released as part of an Attorney General grand jury report in the diocese in 2003. (In 2019, Father MacRae described this report and its consequences in “Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester.”)

The internal memos and the Bishop’s correspondence also set other conditions. Father MacRae was asked to agree to allow the Diocese to choose his legal counsel. He also had to agree that he would appeal only his sentence and not his convictions. Father MacRae refused these conditions, and then the matter went silent. The account of what transpired at this time was stunning. It was revealed by Ryan A. MacDonald in “The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence.” It was a classic example of omertà.

However, Attorney Nevins was not the only one with an affidavit. Enter Leo Demers, the PBS executive who earlier wrote to Bishop McCormack in 1998 with a concern about the fairness of Father MacRae’s trial. He, too, was summoned to a meeting with Bishop McCormack in 2000, six months after the Bishop’s meeting with Attorney Eileen Nevins. At the time, Mr. Demers was Director of Engineering for WGBH-TV in Boston which produced, among other PBS programming, the award-winning investigative journalism program, Frontline. This affidavit and the dialogue that follows is an eye-opener:

Affidavit of Leo P. Demers, Jr.

“The purpose of this affidavit at this time is to convey the context and substance of a meeting by me with Bishop John McCormack during which he expressed his belief in the innocence of the charges against Fr. Gordon MacRae that led to his conviction and subsequent imprisonment for the past twelve years.

1. My name is Leo P. Demers, Jr. and I have been a broadcast engineer in New England since 1962. I am a practicing Catholic.

2. I first met Reverend Gordon MacRae in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s when he was a Franciscan Friar in Novitiate training at the former St. Anthony’s Capuchin Friary in Hudson, New Hampshire.

3. During 1994, I visited Father MacRae in New Mexico where he was working in ministry. At that time Father MacRae informed me that criminal charges of sexual misconduct with a minor had been filed against him in New Hampshire.

4. I believe now, as I testified under oath during the sentencing phase of his trial in Keene, New Hampshire, that the charges against him are false.

5. During October 2000, I met with Bishop John McCormack at the Diocesan office in Manchester, New Hampshire. At the time, my employer, the WGBH Educational Foundation, wanted to produce a segment of Frontline. This production would have resulted in a national story about Father MacRae. Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian arranged the meeting with Bishop McCormack.

6. I had contacted assistant Bishop Francis Christian from my office at WGBH to inquire about the story because he was the only person in the Manchester Chancery Office who was present during the time of the accusations against Father MacRae. Bishop Christian wanted nothing to do with my inquiry regarding Father MacRae but did offer to arrange a meeting with Bishop McCormack.

7. The meeting with Bishop McCormack began with him saying, ‘Understand, none of this is to leave this office. I believe Father MacRae is not guilty and his accusers likely lied. There is nothing I can do to change the verdict.’

8. I have recently learned that Bishop McCormack submitted an expert report to Rome. This report purportedly concludes that Father MacRae’s trial was fair and his sentence just. Further, this report avers that no avenue of appeal is available to Father MacRae. Since I have been in contact with various professionals representing Father MacRae, who are actively involved in investigating his case and prosecuting an appeal, I believe any expert opinion submitted by the Diocese of Manchester to be subject to challenge and serious defect.

9. I am motivated to submit this affidavit, obviously in disregard of any confidentiality requested by Bishop McCormack, because I cannot accept the inconsistency between Bishop McCormack’s statements to me regarding Father MacRae’s innocence and his submission of an expert report to the contrary that is in clear opposition to his stated belief.”

Signed and sworn by Leo P. Demers, 13 February 2005.

Those with Ears to Hear but Hear Not (Ezekiel 12:2)

Anyone familiar with all that remained hidden in this story might readily understand the hesitance of Auxiliary Bishop Francis Christian to be involved in that meeting with Leo Demers. It was Bishop Christian who penned a pre-trial press release of the Diocese which had the effect of stacking the jury against Father Gordon:

“The Church has also been a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae just as these individuals have been. It is clear that he will never again function as a priest.”

Editing out any mention of mere allegations serves to mask the complete lack of any evidence behind this case. This point was made in yet another affidavit, that of FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott, now retired. He had one of the more spectacular FBI careers in the Bureau’s history. David F. Pierre, Jr., Moderator of The Media Report, performed a public service when he analyzed and summarized the vast documentation on this case available at the website of the National Center for Reason and Justice. David F. Pierre’s summary is available at The Media Report under the title, “Alarming New Evidence May Exonerate Imprisoned Priest.” Among that evidence is an affidavit of Special Agent James Abbott who concluded:

“In the entirety of my three-year investigation of this matter, I found no evidence that MacRae committed these crimes or any crimes. Indeed, the only ‘evidence’ was [Thomas] Grover’s stories that have since been undermined by his family and others who surrounded him at the time he made his claims.”

There is a very necessary Part 2 to this post that will hopefully be forthcoming soon. There is much more to this story, and to the practice of omertà that fueled it. Fortunately — or perhaps not so much for those bent on blindly assuming this priest’s guilt — the Holy See has not seen fit to remove him from priesthood. At one point, officials there asked for copies of the affidavits contained herein. That speaks well of them. Perhaps omertà is not as widespread as some believe.

There has nonetheless been a grave injustice here. Whatever one might conclude about the case against Father Gordon MacRae, he has never been allowed a defense — not in his trial, not in any appeals, and not at all before the one person charged with the defense of truth: his bishop. Bishop John McCormack retired and now has passed away. Father Edward Arsenault became Monsignor Edward Arsenault, then went to prison for financial misdeeds. Now he has a new life and a new name, Edward J. Bolognini.

In 2011, Bishop Peter A. Libasci became Bishop of Manchester. Whatever story he might have inherited about this matter, he has never allowed himself to hear a single word from the imprisoned Father Gordon MacRae speaking in his own defense. Whether he has reviewed any of the vast evidence of fraud in this case is entirely unknown, but that would require an open mind.

In July, 2021, Bishop Libasci was himself accused of sexual abuse stemming from his ministry as a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York in 1983, the same year as the accusations against Father MacRae. Ironically, from his prison cell, Father MacRae has presented a spirited and rational defense, linked below, for why the case against his bishop is not “credible” at all.

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Editor’s Note: Next at Beyond These Stone Walls Father George David Byers will present Part 2 of this article. Father George David Byers holds a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem and Rome, and a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

Please share this post. You may also wish to read the following:

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

The Trials of Father MacRae by Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ

The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence

Convicted for Cash: An American Grand Scam

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm on the Priesthood

Pope Francis issued 2019 guidelines for preserving a right of defense for accused priests and limits on publishing their names. Many U.S. bishops just ignored them.

Editor’s Note: The following guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald is an important sequel to his previous post, In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.

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In the above-captioned article at These Stone Walls, I wrote about a decision of The Most Rev. Peter Libasci, Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, to publish a list of the names of priests “credibly” accused in that state over the past fifty years. At the time the list was published in August 2019, the Bishop and Diocese issued a press release citing ‘transparency” as the reason for publishing it.

The list contained the names of 73 accused priests. More than half are deceased. Only five of the 73 ever had a case for prosecution before any New Hampshire court. None of the claims were current. Most alleged misconduct from three to five decades ago. Virtually all were brought with a financial demand that resulted in a monetary settlement from the diocese.

Bishop Peter Libasci’s published list was generated, not by any semblance of due process, but rather by a one-sided grand jury investigation of the diocese launched in 2002. That investigation treated all claims in civil lawsuits and other demands for settlement as demonstrably true with no standard of evidence whatsoever.

Bishop Libasci’s press release revealed that the claims against all 73 priests were determined to be “credible.” This is a standard that the United States bishops adopted at their Dallas meeting in 2002. “Credible,” as the bishops are applying it, means only “possible.” If it could have happened, it’s credible.

A 2003 grand jury investigation of the Diocese was the source for the recently published list. In that investigation, none of the accused — the few who were still living, anyway — were permitted to appear to offer any defense. That is the nature of a grand jury investigation. It is a strictly prosecutorial affair that is supposed to determine whether indictments and trials should follow. None of the subjects on Bishop Libasci’s list were indicted after the 2003 grand jury report became public.

My article cited above was followed by a related and stunning article by Fr. Gordon MacRae, one of the priests whose name appears on the bishop’s list. His category was unique on the list. It was simply, “convicted.” It was published without nuance by a diocese whose previous bishop told others in secret that he knows Father MacRae to be innocent and unjustly imprisoned. “Transparency,” however, has its limits.

Father MacRae’s article is “A Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester.” Amazingly, from reports I have seen generated by These Stone Walls, the article was heavily read around the world, most notably in Washington D.C., at the Holy See, and throughout Rome. In New Hampshire, it was the most-read article of the year at These Stone Walls.

My article, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List,” focused on injustices behind the scenes in a decision of the Bishop and Diocese to publish that list anew. Father MacRae’s remarkable sequel contrasts the 2003 grand jury investigation of his Diocese with a similar 2018 investigation of a nationally known Concord, New Hampshire academy, St. Paul’s School, with historic ties to the Episcopal church. Fr. MacRae brought to light a judicial ruling that publishing these grand jury reports — and by extension the Bishop’s list of names — is actually forbidden under New Hampshire law.

Grave Injustice in the ‘Live Free or Die’ State

Father MacRae’s article revealed a grave injustice in the Diocese of Manchester and multiple other U.S. dioceses. Fifteen years after the Diocese and Attorney General signed a deal in secret to publish a grand jury report in 2003, New Hampshire Superior Court Judge Richard McNamara ruled that the report, and one involving a 2018 St Paul’s School grand jury investigation, cannot legally be published.

New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald pressed to allow publication of the St. Paul’s School report. He cited the 2003 Diocese of Manchester precedent in which a report and files were published — the source for the names on Bishop Libasci’s list.

Father MacRae revealed that in 2003, the current N.H. Attorney General was part of a legal team representing the Diocese when release of the report was agreed upon in secret. It was the Attorney General’s citing the precedent that triggered Judge McNamara’s 23-page Order dated August 12, 2019, ten days after Bishop Libasci published his list.

Given the various one-sided grand jury investigations of Catholic dioceses across the U.S., Judge McNamara’s Court Order should give Catholics pause. The judicial findings summarized below cast doubt on the U.S. bishops’ collective decisions to publish lists of names arising from grand jury investigations:

• The OAG [Office of the Attorney General] argues that a common law precedent for such a report does in fact exist because the Hillsborough County [NH] Superior Court [in 2003] authorized an agreement between the OAG and the Diocese of Manchester to waive the secrecy of a grand jury investigation …

• The Hillsborough County Superior Court endorsed the Diocese-OAG Agreement without explanation and without any written Order. This Court respectfully disagrees with the decision to approve the Diocese-OAG Agreement [in 2003].

• The Diocese-OAG Agreement fulfilled none of the traditional purposes of the common law grand jury.

• The Court cannot find that the use of grand jury materials and the breach of grand jury secrecy in order to prepare a report is a practice authorized by New Hampshire common law.

• Rather than investigation of crime, the report is a post hoc summary of information the grand jury considered, but did not indict on. It did not protect the privacy interests of those witnesses and subjects that were never charged with a crime by the grand jury.

• The deficiency of the Diocese-OAG Agreement is cast in bold relief by [a] December 2018 decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Pennsylvania has a statute that specifically authorizes investigative grand juries and investigative reports. However, as in most states, the statute contains statutory procedures to provide individuals with due process protections for their reputational rights … the petitioners were entitled to have a report published with redactions of their names in order to protect their right to reputation. [emphasis added]

• A grand jury is not an adversary hearing in which guilt or innocence is established. Rather, it is an ex parte investigation to determine whether a crime has been committed and whether criminal proceedings should be instituted against any person.

• Grand jury testimony can involve all sorts of false, damaging, and one-sided information and New Hampshire has no historical or legal basis for releasing such information.

• An allegation of wrongdoing or impropriety, based on half-truths, illegally seized evidence, or rumor, innuendo or hearsay may blight a person’s life indefinitely.

• Mark Twain famously said that a lie is half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. In an internet age, he might have added that the lie will forever outrun the truth as search engines become more efficient.

• Accordingly, the Court DENIES the OAG Motion to Produce and Disclose. The OAG may not produce any report that contains any material characterized as a “Grand Jury Report.”

[Source Order of Judge Richard B. McNamara In Re: Grand Jury No. 217-2018-CV-00382, August 12, 2019.]

Now Comes the Pope

The Court Order should have applied to the Bishop of Manchester as well. He took it upon himself to do what the law forbids the State to do: to prosecute and convict in the public square those who were not indicted, were not tried or convicted, but were merely accused. I find it a disturbing coincidence that Bishop Peter Libasci’s decision to publish a list of the names of 73 accused priests — the vast majority of whom are merely accused — took place just days before the Order by Judge McNamara was issued.

This is ironic, at best, and at worst highly suspect. Had the Order preceded the release of names, the priests involved — those still living, anyway — may have had legal standing to challenge it. But this all pales next to published guidelines of another authority the bishops should be heeding.

On November 12, 2019, Archbishop Christoph Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, addressed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C. His address emphasized that “The pastoral thrust of this pontificate must reach the American people.” The bishops can fulfill this, he said, with “tangible signs of their communion with the Holy Father.”

Among the “pastoral thrusts” of the pontificate of Pope Francis that might require communion with his bishops was a February 21, 2019 issuance of a set of guidelines that bishops should follow on how allegations of sexual abuse by priests are to be handled. The list included 21 points that Pope Francis asked the bishops to observe. Point Number 14 is as follows:

“The right to defense: the principle of natural and canon law of a presumption of innocence must also be safeguarded until the guilt of the accused is proven. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the lists of the accused being published, even by dioceses, before the preliminary investigation and a definitive condemnation.”

— Guidelines of Pope Francis, February 19, 2019

Rev. Msgr. Thomas G. Guarino, Professor of Systematic Theology and a prolific author, has published what I consider to be a landmark article entitled “The Dark Side of the Dallas Charter (First Things, October 2, 2019). Father Guarino characterized the 2002 Dallas Charter — the operable document under which accused priests are removed from all ministry:

“The harried bishops, with their Dallas Charter of 2002… passed Draconian norms that come close to venturing beyond Catholic teaching. The American bishops decreed ‘zero tolerance’ for priests accused of sexual abuse, a norm that, as Cardinal Avery Dulles acknowledged in 2002, violates equitable treatment for priests. Dulles added, ‘Having been so severely criticized for exercising poor judgment in the past, the bishops apparently wanted to avoid making any judgments in these cases’”

Father Guarino’s article points out that Pope Francis has been reluctant to invoke the term “zero-tolerance.”  The Wall Street Journal  reported that of the twenty countries in the world with the largest Catholic populations, only the Bishops of the United States have invoked a policy of “zero tolerance.”

In 2000, the U.S. bishops issued a pastoral document critical of the American criminal justice system. The bishops rejected terms such as “zero tolerance” and “three-strikes” in the application of punishments in the criminal justice system. They urged lawmakers to focus on rehabilitation and restorative justice while imposing sentences.

But two years later, at Dallas in 2002, under the harsh glare of the news media and victim advocates such as S.N.A.P. (who were directly invited by the bishops) the U.S. bishops inflicted the same panic-driven one-size-fits-all policy on their priests that they asked the justice system NOT to inflict on all other U.S. citizens. Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote in rebuttal in 2004:

“The Church must protect the community from harm, but it must also protect the human rights of each individual who may face an accusation… Some of the measures adopted [at Dallas] went far beyond the protection of children… [Bishops] undermined the morale of their priests and inflicted a serious blow to the credibility of the Church as a mirror of justice.”

— Avery Cardinal Dulles, “The Rights of Accused Priests,” America 2004

The Dark Side of the Dallas Charter

As Father Gordon MacRae exposed in “A Grand Jury, St. Paul’s School, and the Diocese of Manchester,” the late Father Richard John Neuhaus interviewed an American prelate who was one of the unnamed principal architects of the U.S. Bishops’ Dallas Charter. Father Neuhaus quoted him in a First Things  article: “It may be necessary for some innocent priests to suffer for the good of the Church.” That prelate, according to Father MacRae, was Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

As Father Guarino points out in “The Dark Side of the Dallas Charter,” a significant problem with the Bishops’ policy is that most accused priests have not actually been found guilty of abuse. Of the 73 priests, both living and deceased, on Bishop Peter Libasci’s published list, only five ever had due process in any court of law. Three of those were by plea deals, and one, as Bishop Libasci’s predecessor has acknowledged in secret, is wrongfully convicted.

For all the other names on the Diocese of Manchester list — and for the vast majority of the hundreds of American priests who have been removed from ministry, the allegations against them were only considered “credible,” meaning only that it is possible that they happened. If any other American citizens from any walk of life were subjected to such a standard before being shamed in the public square, libel and slander lawsuits would flood the courts.

Perhaps the greatest insult to Catholics in the pews is the statement of Bishop Libasci — and other bishops who have published lists of names of the accused — that this is done for the purpose of “transparency.” I have personally attempted to review the required canonical investigations of Father MacRae that a previous official of the Diocese of Manchester insisted were carried out. I was told that these investigations are confidential.

I have requested to see the list of settlements meted out to the accusers in his case which have been called into question by The Wall Street Journal  and other interested parties. I was told that these settlements are confidential.

Father MacRae himself requested of a previous bishop, the Most Rev. John McCormack, that he be permitted to see the canonical investigation that the bishop claimed was forwarded to the Holy See. Father MacRae was reportedly told that this, too, is confidential. He was later told by another official of the Diocese that no required canonical investigation ever took place. This was before MacRae learned from a New Hampshire attorney and a PBS producer that Bishop McCormack revealed, after requesting secrecy, that “I firmly believe Father MacRae is innocent and should not be in prison.”

“Zero Tolerance” is an insult to Catholic theology and to our priests who are disenfranchised from their priesthood, and from their civil rights as citizens, on the whim of a bishop after being accused.

“Transparency,” however, is an insult to all the rest of us who have waited under shrouds of duplicity for our bishops to reflect the mirror of justice that this world needs the Church to be.

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Editor’s Note: Please share this important post with the priests and Catholic laity you know. You are also invited to Subscribe to These Stone Walls  and to Follow on Facebook some inspiring related graphic presentations of these posts.

You may learn more on the story of Catholic priests falsely accused from these relevant articles:

• In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List by Ryan A. MacDonald

• The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence by Ryan A. MacDonald

• Bishops, Priests and Weapons of Mass Destruction by Father Stuart A. MacDonald, JCL

• The Trials of Father MacRae by Dorothy Rabinowitz, The Wall Street Journal

Grand Jury, St Paul’s School and the Diocese of Manchester

Blocking a grand jury report on sex abuse at an elite NH prep school, a judge ruled that an NH Catholic diocese defamed its priests without due process of law.

October 23, 2019 (updated December 27, 2021)

“Did my bishop throw his priests under the bus illegally?”

This post is by necessity contentious, so it must begin with a disclaimer. The current Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester is not in any way complicit with the events described herein with one exception: his recent publication of a list of priests who have been “credibly” accused. Ryan MacDonald wrote of this in his latest guest post, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.”

The term “credibly” accused has serious due process problems which even some bishops now acknowledge, but only because the standard is now also being applied to them. I described this affront to justice in “The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests.” Now there is a new and stunning development in this story. Saint Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, with historic ties to the Episcopal church, has a long and storied history as a prestigious American prep school. Its distinguished alumni list reads like a Who’s Who of Washington political insiders. It includes congressmen and senators, ambassadors and Secretaries of State, and the children and grandchildren of U.S. presidents.

Graduates of St. Paul’s include Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, Former “Russia Probe” Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, and Democratic Senators John Kerry (MA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI). In 2011, Princeton University Press published Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St Paul’s School by Shamus Khan.

In recent years, St. Paul’s School has been embroiled in a sexual abuse controversy. In 2015, former student Owen Labrie was tried and convicted for the statutory rape of a 15-year-old freshman while in his senior year, a story reportedly connected to an unsanctioned school custom called “Senior Salute.”

In 2017, St. Paul’s School was the subject of a sexual misconduct investigation led by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger. His investigation included allegations over a forty year period from 1948 to 1988.

In July, 2017, New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald convened a grand jury to investigate allegations of abuse at the school. The grand jury completed its investigation late in 2018 at which point a plea deal was signed between the Attorney General and St Paul’s School administration.

The plea deal was nearly identical to one arranged in 2002-2003 by the New Hampshire Attorney General with Bishop John McCormack, former Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester, and his Chief Compliance Officer, Rev. Edward J. Arsenault. Both deals allowed their respective targets — St Paul School and the Diocese of Manchester — to squash a possible misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of minors in exchange for a five year plan of staff training and improved monitoring.

A central tenet of both deals was that the prestigious school and the Catholic diocese would waive grand jury confidentiality so the respective reports and documents could be published. Officials of both the Diocese of Manchester in 2003 and St Paul’s School in 2018 signed these waivers. In the case of the Diocese, the grand jury report and related files were published with massive local and regional media coverage in March, 2003.

This is why Ryan MacDonald published “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List,” a well-researched report of how this closed-door deal and its behind-the-scenes manipulation by some central staff of the Diocesan Chancery Office sabotaged due process rights for me and other priests.

Now Comes Judge Richard McNamara

Ryan MacDonald’s article laid out the closed-door duplicity at work at the time the deal was carried out. My defense file and a vast amount of exculpatory material were requested by the Bishop’s Chief Compliance Officer, Rev. Edward Arsenault, under the false pretense of securing legal counsel for me. Once obtained, the confidential files were turned over to state prosecutors to be selectively published after the removal of exculpatory material.

The deal allowed the diocese to arrange for each accused priest to have a ten-day review to challenge in court any material deemed to be confidential. I was the only priest of this diocese to be denied that right. In the end, as Ryan reports, I protested the deal between my bishop and the state because of its blatant sabotage and misuse of privileged files.

My protest was sent to Bishop John McCormack’s appointed Delegate, Father Edward Arsenault, who seemed to be behind most of the suppression of rights. Like all other attempts to address this with my diocese, my multiple letters were met with silence.

I then wrote directly to Bishop McCormack who responded that the diocese tried in good faith, but without success, to prevent release and publication of confidential materials. He claimed that the Attorney General issued a subpoena to take indiscriminate custody of the priests’ files with no opportunity to challenge their publication.

In contrast, Assistant Attorney General Neals-Erik William Delker wrote in a letter to me that under New Hampshire law, grand jury investigations, reports, and files are confidential. For the report and related documents to be published, he wrote, the Bishop of Manchester had to waive confidentiality, and did waive confidentiality, on behalf of all parties involved.

Now, sixteen years later in a stunning development, New Hampshire Superior Court Judge Richard McNamara has denied publication of the grand jury report and investigation files in the case of St Paul’ School. In his 23-page order, Judge McNamara dropped a bombshell that should shake the earth beneath the feet of Catholic bishops and their lawyers across the land. In denying the Attorney General’s Motion to publish, he wrote:

“For hundreds of years, the grand jury has been a buffer between the power of the state and the citizen. Confidentiality of witness and cooperator information has been an essential part of how the grand jury works since colonial times.”

Making this development more stunning still, the Attorney General argued that there is in fact a precedent in New Hampshire for publishing grand jury reports: The 2003 Agreement with the Diocese of Manchester. It is easy to see why the current Attorney General cited this precedent. In 2003 he was an attorney representing the Diocese of Manchester in the matter of negotiating settlements.

Judge: “All Sorts of False, Damaging, One-Sided Information”

The following are excerpts from Judge NcNamara’s 23-page Court Order denying the Attorney General’s motion to publish the St Paul’s School report using the precedent of the 2003 Diocese of Manchester Grand Jury Report:

“The OAG [Office of the Attorney General] argues that a common law precedent for such a report does in fact exist because the Hillsborough County Superior Court authorized an agreement between the OAG and the Diocese of Manchester to waive the secrecy of a grand jury investigation … and to authorize the release of sealed subpoenas, pleadings, and orders related to the grand jury investigation … The Hillsborough County Superior Court endorsed the Diocese-OAG Agreement without explanation and without any written order.”

“The Court respectfully disagrees with the decision of the Hillsborough County Superior Court to approve the Diocese-OAG Agreement. The Agreement … fulfilled none of the traditional purposes of the common law grand jury. Rather than investigation of crime, the report is a post hoc summary of information the grand jury considered but did not indict on. It did not protect the privacy interests of those witnesses and subjects that were never charged with a crime by the grand jury.”

Judge McNamara explained that he is blocking publication of the St Paul’s School grand jury report for the same reasons that the Diocese of Manchester report and files should have been blocked in 2003. He wrote that grand jury testimony can involve “all sorts of false, damaging and one-sided information.” In holding that the Diocese of Manchester Report did not protect the privacy rights of those named, Judge McNamara concluded:

“Mark Twain famously said that a lie is halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. In an internet age, he might have added that the lie will forever outrun the truth as search engines become ever more efficient.”

It is for these reasons, Judge McNamara ordered, that grand jury investigations in New Hampshire are confidential. As a reporter for the New Hampshire Union Leader observed, “His ruling decided a case that had been argued in secret” (see Mark Hayward, “Judge blocks release of St Paul’s grand jury info,” New Hampshire Union Leader, Oct 1, 2019).

Transparency in the Diocese of Manchester

There are some alarming questions that arise from the handling of these reports, the potential for conflicts of interest, and the apparent absence of effective judicial oversight of the Diocese of Manchester grand jury report in 2003.

Publication of that report sabotaged the due process rights of many priests and placed damning information in public view resulting in condemnation without trial. The content from this report was then absorbed by the toxic site, Bishop-Accountability which was established for a singular purpose: to foster new accusations against priests with no effort to corroborate any of the claims gathered and published there.

Judge McNamara’s Order explains that a grand jury is seated for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting crime. In the cases of the Diocese of Manchester in 2003 and St Paul’s School in 2018, no indictments were issued. The Judge wrote:

“Grand jury reports that criticize individuals are extremely controversial. A grand jury report that does not result in an indictment but references supposed misconduct results in a quasi-official accusation of wrongdoing drawn from secret ex-parte proceedings in which there is no opportunity available or presented for a formal defense. The Florida Supreme Court described [such] a grand jury report as ‘not far removed from … and no less repugnant to traditions of fair play than lynch law.’”

The respective “deals” contain a hint of extortion. A misdemeanor criminal charge could be avoided if the administrations of the two institutions agreed to waive grand jury confidentiality and allow the reports to be published. The threat of prosecution weighed heavily on Bishop John McCormack who wrote in a December 10, 2002 letter to priests:

“The substance of the [grand jury’s] conclusion was to weave 40 years of history into one moment, and based on some rather complicated legal understanding of knowledge and intention, they concluded that they had enough evidence to indict the Diocese of Manchester for the endangerment of the welfare of children…”

“I agreed with the Attorney General that it was in the best interest of the Church and the people of the State to resolve this matter by a public Agreement between the Diocese of Manchester and the State of New Hampshire… Let me assure you that no archival material regarding any priest, other than those against whom we have had a credible accusation … was submitted to the Office of the Attorney General.”

— (December 10, 2002 letter to priests of the Diocese of Manchester sent to every priest except Fr. Gordon MacRae.)

But was the threat of prosecution against either St. Paul’s School or the diocese even realistic? Louisiana State University Law Professor John S. Baker had doubts. Writing for the Boston College Law Review in 2004 Professor Baker revealed that the New Hampshire Attorney General admitted in 2004 that the theory of law behind the threat of such a charge was “novel” at best, and highly unlikely.  The statute of limitations for a misdemeanor child endangerment charge is one year while the time period of the grand jury report dated back forty years or more. The report unveiled not a single contemporary case. So why did Bishop McCormack sign such an agreement? The question remains unanswered, but it set a dangerous precedent for the Catholic Church in America. Prof. Baker wrote:

“The Church should recognize the New Hampshire settlement for what it potentially is: the camel’s nose inside the tent.’… This intrusion by a state prosecutor into the jurisdiction of the Church may encourage and be the basis for actions by other state prosecutors… The decision by the Diocese to enter into this agreement represents a dangerous capitulation by one diocese that may have created a serious threat to the other dioceses in the United States.”

— John S. Baker, “Prosecuting Dioceses and Bishops,” Boston College Law Review, 1061, 2004

The claims of transparency in the Diocese of Manchester are highly selective. There is much related to this matter that is far from transparent. It would be difficult to believe that Edward Arsenault — who would later be charged, convicted, imprisoned and dismissed from the clerical state for his embezzlement of $300,000 from the Diocese and other sources — was not involved in the Kafkaesque diocesan affairs of 2003. He has since changed his name and is now officially known as Edward J. Bolognini.

In his published resume, which has been removed from public view, Arsenault identified himself as “Chief Operating Officer / Chief Compliance Officer” for the Diocese of Manchester from 2000 to 2009. He was thus at the center of all that Ryan MacDonald wrote about in his report, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.” The resume went on to describe Arsenault’s role:

“[To] provide advice and counsel to the Bishop of Manchester for pastoral governance, strategic management, and operational oversight of the Diocese of Manchester including but not limited to the successful settlement of over 250 civil claims associated with sexual abuse.”

In the strangest twist, the lawyer retained by staff and former staff, of St Paul’s School who successfully challenged publication of the grand jury report was Attorney David Vicinanzo, the same lawyer who Father Arsenault claimed was retained by the Diocese to represent me at the time Father Arsenault obtained my defense files under false pretense. Neither Arsenault nor Mr. Vicinanzo ever responded to my multiple requests for explanation in 2003 or after.

Strangely, in December of 2003, nine months after the grand jury report and files exploded in the press, Arsenault wrote in a letter to me: “I have not yet had a chance to discuss with Attorney Vicinanzo the matters we previously discussed.” I never heard from Arsenault again.

In his successful blocking of the 2018 grand jury report on St. Paul’s School, Attorney Vicinanzo was quoted in the news media. He called Judge McNamara’s Order “a full-throated defense of the grand jury as an institution.”

Judge McNamara issued his Order stating that the 2003 grand jury report on the Diocese of Manchester should not have been published because it failed to protect the privacy rights of those involved. Just a few days previously, Bishop Peter A. Libasci, the current Bishop of Manchester, published a list of all 73 priests of his diocese who have been “credibly” accused. He did this, he says, for transparency.

There is much more to come on the murkiness that is now called “transparency.”

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Postscript: An Update on This Story

December 27, 2021

Now Bishop Peter A. Libasci has himself been “credibly accused.” On July 22, 2021, the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, in an article by Mark Hayward, reported, “NH Bishop accused of sexual abuse by an altar boy decades ago.” Whatever differences I have had with Bishop Peter Libasci and his published list, I was and am deeply saddened by this development. The accusation stems from 1983, the same year as the accusations against me. The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk County, New York, alleges that then Father Peter Libasci sexually assaulted a boy aged 12 to 13 “on numerous occasions” at a parish and Catholic school in Deer Park in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York.

Unlike the cases of any similarly accused Catholic priest, Bishop Libasci has to date faced no restrictions on his ministry. This matter contains none of the transparency that Bishop Libasci cited as his singular motive for publishing a list of 73 priests accused — merely accused — and in the same manner in which he himself has now been accused. For this complete story see “Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo”

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: David F. Pierre Jr. of The Media. Report has an excellent brief analysis of the above along with some links to how it connects to and impacts my own situation. See TheMediaReport.com (October 9, 2019): “Stunner: New Hampshire Judge Says 2003 Diocese of Manchester Grand Jury Report Never Should Have Been Released.”

You may also wish to read and share

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

and these related articles from some very accomplished writers:

Justice & a Priest’s Right of Defense in the Diocese of Manchester by Ryan A MacDonald at A Ram in the Thicket

Journalism Outside the Box: Wall St. Journal Bravely Profiles Stunning Case of Wrongfully Convicted Priest by David F. Pierre, Jr. at The Media Report

The Ordeal of Father MacRae by Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Spotlight Oscar Hangover: Why ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film by JoAnn Wypijewski in CounterPunch

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“In the course of my 1994 trial, and while sentenced to life in prison, and during State and habeas corpus appeals I have never been allowed to utter a single word in my own defense. In 2011 a two-part documentary video was made of my testimony. It went missing for several years and has just turned up.”

— Fr. Gordon MacRae

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

Citing “transparency” the Catholic Diocese of Manchester posted the names of 73 accused priests. Most are dead. The only one in prison is innocent, and they know it.

August 21, 2019 by Ryan A. MacDonald (last updated April 8, 2024)

Note: The following is a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald whose previous articles include “#MeToo & #HimToo” and “Justice and a Priest’s Right of Defense in the Diocese of Manchester.”

Michael Voris, former moderator and podcast host of Church Militant, had been posting some eye-opening commentary about a story from the Archdiocese of Detroit. Church officials there, in apparent disregard for canon law, published the name of a priest who has been accused of sexual misconduct. The priest is Father Eduard Perrone.

Reportedly, the Archdiocese published his name and a statement that the claims against him are “credible” while steadfastly refusing to publicly acknowledge the fact that Father Perrone maintains his innocence and has a right of defense. Church Militant reported that the original claim is forty years old and came from “a repressed memory,” a highly dubious and dangerous source according to experts in the field of psychology.

Weeks later, attorneys for Father Perrone issued a statement that he has conclusively passed a series of expert polygraph examinations that support his innocence. To date, the Archdiocese has been unresponsive to that fact as well, and so has the Catholic news media commenting on the story while acting as little more than a public relations outlet for the Archdiocese. This all has a chilling ring of the familiar.

On Wednesday, July 31, 2019, for no apparent reason other than the fact that everyone else is doing it, Bishop Peter A. Libasci of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire published a list of 73 Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse of minors. Fully two-thirds of the priests named on the list are dead and thus in no position to defend themselves. The only one currently in prison is innocent. Officials of the diocese publicly suppress that fact after privately admitting it. So much for transparency.

The treatment of Father Eduard Perrone in the Archdiocese of Detroit pales next to the sabotage of justice and basic civil rights that took place in New Hampshire in the case of Father Gordon MacRae. Refusing multiple plea deals offering him a mere one year in prison in 1994, MacRae was asked by his lawyer to consider taking a series of polygraph tests with an expert.

Like Father Perrone in Detroit, MacRae agreed without hesitation. 

He was scheduled for three polygraph exams with questions based on police reports itemizing the specific claims of each alleged victim. The third one was cancelled because MacRae passed the first two so conclusively. When that fact was made known to the Diocese of Manchester before jury selection in MacRae’s 1994 trial, the Diocese published a press release with this statement:

“The Diocese mourns with those who were victimized prior to the discovery of his problems… The Church has been a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae as well as these individuals.”

— Diocese of Manchester Press Release, September 11, 1993

There was little left for a jury to do. Armed with that statement, Prosecutor Bruce Elliott Reynolds compared MacRae to Hitler in his closing arguments before a heavily manipulated jury. A decade after the trial, a second prosecutor took his own life.

In a case brought twelve years after the alleged crimes, with no evidence of guilt at all to review and weigh, the jury reached a verdict of “guilty” on all charges in less than two hours. This account has been vividly exposed by Dorothy Rabinowitz in a series in The Wall Street Journal concluding with “The Trials of Father MacRae.”

The Predecessor: Bishop John McCormack

After his 1994 trial, MacRae had languished in prison with little contact with or from the outside world for the next seven years. Five years after the trial, Bishop John McCormack arrived in Manchester after a stint as Auxiliary Bishop of Boston promoted by Cardinal Bernard Law.

In 2000, rumblings began to occur pointing to some troubling media interest in the case of Father Gordon MacRae — troubling, at least, to those who put him in prison and kept him there. The initial hints of inquiry came from The Wall Street Journal and PBS Frontline. The media interest ultimately resulted in the creation of two sworn affidavits by persons entirely unrelated and unaware of each other. The following is an excerpt from the affidavit of a New Hampshire attorney:

“Upon acting in a clerk capacity for [the 1994 trial] I became firmly convinced that the charges against Father MacRae were false and brought for financial gain… In June of 2000, I met with New Hampshire Bishop John McCormack at the Diocesan office in Manchester, New Hampshire. During this meeting with Bishop McCormack and [Auxiliary] Bishop Francis Christian, they both expressed to me their belief that Father MacRae was not guilty of the crimes for which he was incarcerated.”

Four months later in 2000, an official of WGBH-TV, the flagship PBS station and production house in Boston, arranged a meeting with Bishop John McCormack. In that four-month period, something happened that drove off auxiliary Bishop Christian who was — by the way — the author of the press release declaring MacRae guilty before jury selection in his trial. What follows are excerpts of a sworn affidavit from the WGBH official:

“The WGBH Educational Foundation wanted to produce a segment of Frontline. This production would have resulted in a national story about Father MacRae. I had contacted assistant Bishop Francis Christian from my office at WGBH to inquire about the story because he was the only person remaining in the Manchester Chancery Office who was present during the time of the accusations against Father MacRae. Bishop Christian wanted nothing to do with my inquiry regarding Father MacRae but did offer to arrange a meeting for me with Bishop McCormack.

“The [October 2000] meeting with Bishop McCormack began with him saying, ‘Understand, none of this is to leave this office. I believe Father MacRae is not guilty and his accusers likely lied. There is nothing I can do to change the verdict.’”

Far more telling, however, is a transcript of notes documented by the PBS official Leo Demers after his meeting with Bishop McCormack. The notes reveal a diocese compromised by the demands of lawyers and insurance companies and a Bishop struggling to retain his moral center in a time of moral panic. The transcript was compiled in 2000, but MacRae was unaware of it until 2009 when a former FBI agent began to investigate. Here are excerpts:

[Auxiliary] Bishop Christian: “This is not my responsibility. I have nothing to do with that. You’ll have to speak with Bishop McCormack.”

Leo Demers: “But you were part of what happened at that time and would have firsthand knowledge of all that occurred. Bishop McCormack was in Boston when all this happened… I would rather meet with you.”

[A few days later I received a phone call from a Chancery Office secretary regarding a meeting schedule. I explained that I would be in the Middle East and Rome for the next two weeks. The meeting was scheduled for Friday, October 13, 2000. I arrived at the Chancery Office and was escorted to the Bishop’s office… The first words out of his mouth were…]

Bishop McCormack: “I do not want this to leave this office because I have struggles with some people within the Chancery office that are not consistent with my thoughts, but I firmly believe that Father MacRae is innocent and should not be in prison… I do not believe the Grovers [accusers at trial] were truthful.”

Leo Demers: The Grover brothers viewed this Chancery Office as an ATM machine, and why shouldn’t they? They’ll likely be back to make another withdrawal.”

Bishop McCormack: “You know that I cannot discuss any settlement agreements.”

Leo Demers: “The specifics of settlements are of no concern to me. What concerns me is the ease with which such settlements are reached.”

Bishop McCormack: “I mentioned to you that I believe he is innocent.”

Leo Demers: “You said that your hands were tied because of your belief in his innocence. How can you help him?”

Bishop McCormack: “I want to do what I can to make his life more bearable under the circumstances of prison life. I cannot reverse the decision of the court system. What can I do?”

Monsignor Edward J. Arsenault

It is striking who is not on the newly released list of accused Manchester priests. Former Monsignor Edward J. Arsenault is not found there. At the time he was elevated to “Monsignor” in 2009, Arsenault landed a $170,000 per year position as Executive Director of St. Luke Institute in Maryland. Simultaneously, Arsenault billed for over $100,000.00 in “consultation” services for Catholic Medical Center in New Hampshire. Bishop John McCormack was the sole U.S. bishop serving on the St. Luke Institute Board of Directors at that time.

Most of those who are today involved in an investigation of the case against Father MacRae believe that Arsenault was the person referred to in Bishop McCormack’s statement to the PBS Executive above:

“I do not want this to leave this office because I have struggles with some people within the Chancery office that are not consistent with my thoughts, but I firmly believe that Father MacRae is innocent and should not be in prison.”

Over the previous two years, Arsenault had risen to become McCormack’s right hand man and the hub of all diocesan administration and finances. By 2001, Father Arsenault had effectively become the power behind the diocesan throne. In that capacity, according to his resume published online (but since removed), Arsenault personally negotiated mediated settlements in over 250 claims of sexual abuse alleged against priests of the Diocese of Manchester.

The newly published list of these accused priests is deceiving. Most claims were never brought before any court of law, but were simply demands made by letters from lawyers representing the claimants whose claims were often thirty or forty years old. In 2002, Plaintiffs’ attorney Peter Hutchins, who later claimed to have received 250 such settlements — a curious coincidence — revealed the climate in which these settlements were made. The following newspaper excerpts are from “NH Diocese Will Pay $5 Million to 62 Victims,” (Mark Hayward, NH Union Leader, Nov. 27, 2002):

“The Catholic Diocese of Manchester will pay more than $5 million to 62 people who claim they were abused by priests… The incidents took place as long ago as the 1950s and as recently as the 1980s and involved 28 priests… The Diocese disclosed the names of the priests.

“None of these men will exercise any pastoral ministry in the Church ever again,” said the Rev. Edward J. Arsenault, delegate of the Bishop for Sexual Misconduct.

“‘It shows good faith on the part of the diocese that victims of abuse will be treated and that their needs will be met,’ said Donna Sytek, Chairman of the Diocesan Task Force on Sexual Abuse Policy [and now Chairperson of the New Hampshire Parole Board].

“‘During settlement negotiations, diocesan officials did not press for details such as dates and allegations for every claim’ [Attorney Peter] Hutchins said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’

“[N]o one will receive more than $500,000… but at the request of Hutchins’ clients, the diocese will not disclose their names, the details of the abuse or the amounts of individual settlements.”

Simultaneous to his positions and role in negotiating settlements in the Diocese, Rev. Edward J. Arsenault also served as Chairman of the Board of The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, an oversight conglomerate of insurance providers for a multitude of Catholic dioceses and institutions across the United States that covered the settlements.

Hypocrisy and a Double Life Unmasked

On April 23, 2014, Monsignor Arsenault was convicted in a plea deal that would prevent full public disclosure of the facts of his case and make them anything but transparent. The above handshake with his prosecutor became for some a symbol of the closed-door justice behind the deal.

Charged with embezzlement of $288,000 from the Diocese of Manchester and the estate of a deceased priest — funds used to groom and support a homosexual relationship with a young musician — Arsenault was sentenced to a prison term of four to twenty years. However someone had a vested interest in keeping Father MacRae from asking too many questions.

After a brief initial stay in the Concord prison receiving area, someone took the highly unusual step of arranging for Arsenault to be moved to a county jail to serve out his sentence. It was a move that some believe was orchestrated to prevent MacRae from learning anything about Arsenault’s handling of his own case.

Arsenault served only two years of his four-to-twenty year sentence before his prison term was commuted to home confinement. Somehow, even while in prison without income, his entire $288,000 restitution bill was paid in full. In February of 2019, Arsenault’s remaining twenty year sentence was mysteriously and quietly vacated and commuted to time served. Many in the State and the Diocese of Manchester, though no one would go on the record, state their belief that Monsignor Arsenault received very special treatment in the Justice System. This was less true in the Church at higher levels. Before his sentence was terminated, Arsenault was dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis.  Today, as “Mr. Arsenault,” he is managing a multimillion dollar contract for the City of New York.

Of interest, one of the charges against Monsignor Arsenault was that he had forged Bishop McCormack’s signature on travel and hotel vouchers for himself and his “guest” to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Arsenault also created and forged phony invoices from a psychologist for $15,000.

It seems that Arsenault developed his forgery technique directly from the case of Father MacRae. Between 2002 and 2005, Arsenault is alleged to have forged Bishop McCormack’s signature on official letters sent to MacRae in prison and on documents sent to the Vatican seeking canonical dismissal of Father MacRae from the priesthood. This commenced two to four years after Bishop McCormack stated his informed belief that MacRae is innocent and unjustly imprisoned.

It seems clear who Bishop McCormack’s “struggle” was with. It was in the interest of Arsenault’s ties and commitments with insurance companies that all claims against the diocese be settled. MacRae’s obstinacy in refusing to accept plea deals and settlements proved an obstacle that had to be removed. From 2001 to 2005, Father Arsenault carried out a pattern of misinformation to the Vatican and collusion with attorneys to summarily deprive the imprisoned priest of his rights to canonical, civil, and criminal due process. The manipulation against MacRae is its own scandal.

In 2002, Arsenault had Prisoner MacRae summoned to a prison office to engage him in a telephone conversation for a proffered deal. If MacRae would sever all communications with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal, Arsenault reportedly said, the diocese would retain counsel on his behalf for a new appeal.

Having just learned that all documentation sent to The Wall Street Journal  was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, MacRae felt he had no other options. In March of 2002, Arsenault asked MacRae to send to his office all his defense files used at trial for the purpose of consultation with Attorney David Vicinanzo, a lawyer Arsenault claimed was retained to review MacRae’s case.

Six months later, MacRae learned that his legal files were never given to Attorney Vicinanzo, but were instead turned over to the NH Attorney General’s Office. Multiple letters to Arsenault and Attorney Vicinanzo for an explanation were never answered.

In January, 2003, MacRae was informed by other lawyers hired by Arsenault that a vast public release of files would take place as part of a diocese-wide settlement with the Attorney General in March of that year. MacRae was assured that he would be given a ten-day notice to review files in his regard and to challenge their release. Among all 73 priests on the list of the “credibly” accused newly published by Bishop Peter Libasci, MacRae was the only one never provided with the ten-day notice or any opportunity to review and challenge the release of his own privileged files.

Father MacRae’s letters of protest to Arsenault were never answered. His letter to Bishop McCormack resulted in a claim that the Attorney General issued a subpoena on the Diocese and walked off with priests’ files without regard for their source or for legal confidentiality.

In contrast, the Attorney General wrote to MacRae stating that, over the course of a week, the Diocese provided unfettered access to its files with no attempt at oversight. Further, the Attorney General wrote that all the files were reviewed as a result of a Grand Jury subpoena and were to remain confidential by law. However Bishop McCormack had signed a waiver surrendering the rights of all the priests involved. It is unclear, given the history above, who actually signed that waiver.

To their great credit, Vatican officials have not seen fit to move with a canonical process against this wrongly imprisoned priest. They have, however, administratively dismissed Monsignor Arsenault from the clerical state. He has since changed his name and is now known as Edward J. Bolognini.

To release a list of names of the accused today under the guise of transparency with Father Gordon MacRae identified solely as “convicted” is anything but transparent. It only further obscures this travesty of justice and turns it into just another kind of cover-up.

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Editor’s Note: Ryan A. MacDonald has published on the abuse crisis in multiple Catholic and secular publications. Please share this important post. You may also wish to read these related posts:

Grand Jury, St Paul’s School and the Diocese of Manchester

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church: Affidavits

Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded