A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece

Inspired by Bishop Robert Barron’s acclaimed Letter to a Suffering Church, the Editor of Beyond These Stone Walls was moved to write and publish this inspired reply.

April 10, 2024 by Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD with an Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae

Introduction

I will always owe a debt of gratitude to Suzanne Sadler of Australia. After following the sordid story that entangled many Catholic priests in false witness, Suzanne came upon an article I was invited to write for Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The article, which appeared in the July, 2009 issue of Catalyst, was “Due Process for Accused Priests.”

Immediately upon reading it, Suzanne wrote to me from Australia with a suggestion that I permit her to establish a blog that would feature my writing. I was highly dubious, believing that I had nothing of interest or value that anyone would want to read. It was Pornchai Max Moontri, my friend and roommate of many years in prison who encouraged me to try. He reminded me of a letter from Cardinal Avery Dulles urging me to add a new chapter to the literature of Christians wrongly imprisoned. It was also Max who suggested this blog’s first title, “These Stone Walls.” Then Pornchai’s Godmother, Charlene C. Duline, a retired U.S. State Department official jumped aboard with an offer to help with logistics. I ran out of excuses, and in August of 2009 These Stone Walls was born with my first of hundreds of posts “St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Man in the Mirror.”

Over the course of the next nine years, These Stone Walls published some 500 original posts written mostly by me but some by far more distinguished guest writers. Then, in 2019, Covid struck and grew into a global pandemic affecting every tenet of our lives, including our lives of faith. Much that we had come to cherish began to desintegrate before our eyes. In the course of a single week in 2020, my voice in this wilderness of prison and false witness was silenced. These Stone Walls had collapsed.

Then, seemingly from out of the blue came a letter from Dilia E. Rodríguez in New York. She wrote that she was so enamored by a post she stumbled upon about Pope Benedict XVI and Saint Joseph that she felt compelled to read more. Just before my blog was taken offline she downloaded its entire contents onto her own computer.

So the end that I thought was upon us turned out not to be an end at all, but a new beginning. It was in September 2020 that this news came to me. It was just as my longtime friend Pornchai Max Moontri was departing for deportation to Thailand. Just as I was immersed in loss and sadness, Dilia was quietly in the background resurrecting this blog with new life and a new name, “Beyond These Stone Walls.” Dilia has now been our Editor for going on four years.

As we faced the terminal illness of Claire Dion, the subject of my Divine Mercy post last week, Dilia accepted the necessity of stepping out of the shadows and into the light to also take over all that Claire had managed.

Dilia E. Rodriguez, PhD retired in 2022 from a career in U.S. Government service as a civilian scientist for the United States Air Force. Holding advanced degrees in both Physics and Computer Science, Dilia is also a daily communicant and a strong supporter and participant in Eucharistic Adoration. In recent weeks she has also stepped up to take on the logistics of support services for me and this blog as described at our Contact and Support Page.

To mark this occasion and further introduce Dilia, I want to restore and repost something she had written on the Feast of the Holy Innocents in December 2019. Her post is a brilliant response to a small book by Bishop Robert Barron entitled, “Letter to a Suffering Church.”

Here is Dilia E. Rodriguez with

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A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and to me it offers symbols for the crisis in the Church.

First, let me say that, as so many others, I am moved by the impassioned efforts of Bishop Robert Barron to stop Catholics from leaving the Church. His heart and soul are on fire with the love of Jesus, of His Church and of His People.

I never thought of leaving, and it is not just “to whom shall we go?” It is that God is LOVE, and as one saint, whose name I cannot recall, said, “LOVE is not loved.” I see the current scandal as stark evidence that LOVE is not loved. So my reaction is that I want to love God, I want to love Jesus with my whole being, as I have never loved Him before.

I want to consider (… think aloud … pray aloud …) three points: the devil’s masterpiece, evangelization at this time, and the call for saints.

Bishop Barron convincingly describes the sexual abuse scandal as exquisitely designed by the devil. He shows the horror that attends the sexual abuse of young people by priests, and the cover-up of these abuses by bishops. Whether or not it is seen as the devil’s masterpiece, this is what is described almost universally as the entirety of the sexual abuse scandal, by the mainstream media, by the Catholic media, by attorneys general and others.

But there is more to the devil’s masterpiece. There is a mirror image that remains invisible to most. The Father of Lies surely can use lies in this masterpiece of masterpieces. In this mirror image the accused priests are innocent, and the ones who claim to have been abused are the abusers. In this mirror image bishops abuse innocent priests by publishing their names in lists of “credibly” accused. This requires no corroboration or evidence of the accusation. It replaces “innocent until proven guilty” with “guilty until proven innocent” or even “guilty even if proven innocent.” This “credible” accusation standard is neither a legal nor a biblical standard.

So two abuses coexist: the visible one, the sexual abuse of young people by priests; and the invisible one, the abuse of innocent priests by those who falsely claim to have been abused and profit from it.

In the accused innocent priests Jesus is living His Passion. Pilate said, “I find no guilt in him.” There is no evidence against many of the accused priests. Jesus stood wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. The chief priests and the guards cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate tried to release him, but the crowd insisted, “Crucify him!” Bishops may want to do the right thing, but they cave in to the pressure and they crucify innocent priests; they remove them from the ministry to which God called them. Bishops cave in to the pressure of those who ask cynically “What is truth?”, and do not listen to the One Who is TRUTH.

Holy Innocents: Double Symbol for the Crisis

The massacre of the holy innocents captures in symbol the two coexisting abuses. Herod’s killing of the innocent children represents the killing of innocent faith of the young who have been abused by priests. The way of Herod — to kill the many to ensure killing the One — is the way that has been adopted to assuage the anger and fears of the crowd and the media. So Herod’s killing of the innocent children also represents the destruction of the lives of innocent priests without having to prove any claim against them. Both are very grievous abuses.

A mirror adds much light where there is light. The mirror-image abuse deceptively intensifies the dark evil of the abusive priests.

What can I do, … we do, … the bishops do, in response to the devil’s masterpiece of masterpieces? Absolutely nothing. Jesus said it, “Without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) But He said, “Whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit.” Only Jesus can respond to the devil’s masterpiece of masterpieces.

This time of great scandal is the Olympics of Evangelization. The Gospel is not just for intellectual discussions or for run-of-the-mill problems. It is only the full power of the Gospel that can cope with the immensity of this scandal.

The response of Jesus cannot be implemented by the weekend Catholic “athletes.” After a recent EWTN / Real Clear poll, Professor Robert George of Princeton University noted: “So even if you take the most devout Catholics — those who believe all of what the Church teaches or most of what the Church teaches — only 66% of those believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.” Clearly, an overwhelming majority of the laity can in no way be part of the response of Jesus. They are way out of shape.

The response of Jesus is the response of His Olympic team, the living saints, whom Bishop Barron and Benedict XVI point out as the great evangelizers; those who remain in Him, and He in them.

God is LOVE. Jesus said, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.” In the mystery of Jesus, LOVE, TRUTH, and LIFE are synonyms. There can be no love without truth. There can be no life without love. Only Jesus can love both the abused and the abuser. Only Jesus can restore their lives. Only Jesus, the WAY, can reject the way of Herod. Only Jesus … through those who remain in Him and He in them.

Bishop Barron wrote (p. 97): “Above all, we need saints, marked by holiness of course, but also by intelligence, an understanding of the culture, and the willingness to try something new.”

Under “intelligence” and “understanding of the culture” should come a realization that the moral relativism of this age, the pervasive misinformation in the news (e.g. huge pro-life marches become invisible), the readiness to attack the Church, etc., do not foster an accurate portrayal of the scandal in the Church.

Conditioned by the Media

If in trying to solve a problem, or to understand a phenomenon, we ignore whole classes of facts and observations, we have no possibility of success: we will not solve the problem or understand the phenomenon.

Even though way back I realized that the real abuses of minors by priests could be exploited by others against the Church, I was still conditioned by the media. When the Pennsylvania Attorney General report came out, my knee-jerk reaction was “Here we go again.” But there was almost nothing new in it, and truth and fairness may not necessarily be its hallmark.

Jesus said: “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Matthew 10:16). Saints marked by intelligence and understanding of the culture eagerly and persistently seek the truth in this age that so fiercely rejects it. Their messages and their lives are a bright light in this very dark period. Consider the following examples: “A Weapon of Mass Destruction: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused”; Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast; Men of Melchizedek; A Ram in the Thicket; The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights ; Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories.

I began to see the magnitude of the mirror-image scandal when I accidentally discovered the blog “These Stone Walls.” It is the blog, published with the help of some friends, of Father Gordon J. MacRae, a falsely accused priest who has been in prison for 30 years. When the “hour had come,” Jesus prayed to the Father for those the Father had given to Him, “Consecrate them in the truth.” With a plea deal, Father MacRae could have been out of prison after one year. But he is consecrated to the Truth, and did not lie. For that, he got a life sentence.

Of his case Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote: “You may want to pray for Father MacRae, and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

The scandal of the Church is a colossal problem. The Dallas Charter of 2002 got some things right, but it also helped create the mirror-image scandal. Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote 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. The supposed good of the totality must not override the rights of individual persons. Some of the measures adopted [at Dallas] went far beyond the protection of children from abuse … [By their actions, the bishops] undermined the morale of their priests and inflicted a serious blow to the credibility of the church as a mirror of justice.”

He also added:

“having been so severely criticized for exercising poor judgment in the past, the bishops apparently wanted to avoid having to make any judgments in these cases.”

If the priesthood is to be renewed, Jesus must be the foundation of this renewal. It must be His Way, His Love, and His Truth that renews the priesthood. The Church cannot be divided. It cannot call for saintly priests, while at the same time depriving some saintly priests of their civil and canonical rights when falsely accused.

Jesus, train me in Your ways. May I not utter empty words, and cry out “Lord, Lord.” May I love all the abused, all the abusers, and as Bishop Barron says, all fellow sinners. You have redeemed me through a Very Great Sacrifice. May I constantly beg You to make me Totally Yours.

Amen.

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Encoded Message from God

I got the idea that I wanted to find in the awful number the prison assigned to Father Gordon a comforting message from God. Maybe somehow the numbers could be mapped to some verse in the Bible. My starting point was to associate with each of the digits in 67546 the letters that phones assign to digits:

6 -> m n o; 7 -> p q r s; 5 -> j k l; 4 -> g h i; 6 -> m n o.

It really didn’t make much sense. I wanted to find some verse whose first word started with m or n or o, and whose second word started with p or r or q or s, and so on. I wasn’t finding such a five-word verse. I have as my desktop background the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. So I asked her for help. After a while I considered my favorite Bible verse:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

— John 15:5

There was no direct connection, but it was possible to see a loose one.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever REMAINs IN ME and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

At first I thought that it would have been better if “Jesus” had been the second word. But then I realized that Jesus being in the middle, at the heart of the prayer, was perfect.

With the help of Our Blessed Mother we can see that in the number the prison system uses to demean Father Gordon, God encoded the prayer he is living, and attests that he is bearing much fruit.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: I am deeply grateful to Dilia for the ways she has saved my voice in the wilderness from being drowned out in the scandals of this age. I believe the Lord has in fact sent her just in the nick of time.

You may also like these other posts about our quest for Jesus and for justice:

Casting the First Stone: What Did Jesus Write On the Ground?

A Devil in the Desert for the Last Temptation of Christ

St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Our Salvation

Maximilian Kolbe: The Other Prisoner Priest in My Cell

Please consult our “Contact and Support” Page for new information on how to support this blog and our cause for justice.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

In a Mirror Dimly: Divine Mercy in Our Darker Days

Your friends behind and Beyond These Stone Walls have endured many trials. Divine Mercy has been for them like a lighthouse guiding them through their darkest days.

April 3, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Editor’s Note: In 2018, Mrs. Claire Dion visited Pornchai Moontri in prison and wrote a special post about the experience which we will link to at the end of this one. In the years leading up to that visit, the grace of Divine Mercy became for them both like a shining star illuminating a journey upon a turbulent sea. Divine Mercy is now their guiding light.

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I had clear plans for the day I began writing this post, one of many at this blog about Divine Mercy. But, as often happens here, my best laid plans fall easily apart. The prison Library where I have been the Legal Clerk for the last dozen years has been open only one day per week for several months due to staff shortages. During down times in the Law Library, I am able to use a typewriter that is in better condition than my own. So this day was to be a work day, and I had lots to catch up on, including writing this post.

I kept myself awake during the night before, mapping out in my mind all that I had to accomplish when morning came and how I would approach this post. Divine Mercy is, after all, central to my life and to the lives of many who visit this blog. But such plans are often disrupted here because control over the course of my day in prison is but an illusion.

Awake in my cell at 6:00 AM, I had just finished stirring a cup of instant coffee. Before I could even take a sip, I heard my name echoing off these stone walls as it was blasted on the prison P.A. system. It is always a jarring experience, especially upon awakening. I was being summoned to report immediately to a holding tank to await transport to God knows where. I knew that I might sit for hours for whatever ordeal awaited me. My first dismayed thought was that I could not bring my coffee.

It turned out that my summons was for transportation to a local hospital for an “urgent care” eye exam with an ophthalmologist. For strict security reasons I was not to know the date, time, or destination. Months ago, I developed a massive migraine headache and double vision. The double vision was alarming because I must climb and descend hundreds of stairs here each day. Descending long flights of stairs was tricky because I could not tell which were real and which would send me plummeting down a steel and concrete chasm.

So I submitted a request for a vision exam. My double vision lasted about six weeks, then in mid-February it disappeared as suddenly as it came. I then forgot that I had requested the consult. So two months later I made my way through the morning cold in the dark to a holding area where a guard pointed to an empty cell where I would sit in silence upon a cold concrete slab to await what is called here “a med run.”

Over the course of 30 years here, I have had five such medical “field trips.” That is an average of one every six years so there has been no accumulated familiarity with the experience. The guards follow strict protocols, as they must, requiring that I be chained in leg irons with hands cuffed and bound tightly at my waist. It is not a good look for a Catholic priest, but one which has likely become more prevalent in recent decades in America. During each of my “med runs” over 30 years, my nose began to itch intensely the moment my hands were tightly bound at my waist.

The ride to one of this State’s largest hospitals, Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, was rather nice, even while chained up in the back of a prison van. The two armed guards were silent but professional. My chains clinked loudly as they led me through the crowded hospital lobby. The large room fell silent. Amid whispers and furtive glances, I was just trying hard not to look like Jack the Ripper.

I was led to a bank of elevators where I was gently but firmly turned around to face an opposite wall lest I frighten any citizens emerging from one. As I stared at the wall, I made a slight gasp that caught the attention of one of the guards. Staring back at me on that wall opposite the elevators was a large framed portrait of my Bishop who I last saw too long ago to recall. I smiled at this moment of irony. He did not smile back.

A Consecration of Souls

The best part of this day was gone by the time I returned from my field trip to my prison cell. I was hungry, thirsty, and needed to deprogram from the humiliation of being paraded in chains before Pilate and the High Priests. My first thought was that I must telephone two people who had been expecting a call from me earlier that day. One of them was Dilia, our excellent volunteer editor in New York. The other was Claire Dion, and I felt compelled to call her first. Let me tell you about Claire.

As I finally made my way up 52 stairs to my cell that day, I reached for my tablet — which can place inexpensive internet-based phone calls. I immediately felt small and selfish. My focus the entire day up to this point was my discomfort and humiliation. Then my thoughts finally turned to Claire and all that she was enduring, a matter of life and death.

I mentioned in a post some years back that I grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, a rather rugged industrial city on the North Shore of Boston. There is a notorious poem about the City but I never knew its origin: “Lynn, Lynn, the City of Sin. You never go out the way you come in.” After writing all those years ago about growing up there, I received a letter from Claire in West Central Maine who also hails from Lynn. She stumbled upon this blog and read a lot, then felt compelled to write to me.

I dearly, DEARLY wish that I could answer every letter I receive from readers moved by something they read here. I cannot write for long by hand due to carpal tunnel surgery on both my hands many years ago. And I do not have enough typewriter time to type a lot of letters — but please don’t get me wrong. Letters are the life in the Spirit for every prisoner. Claire’s letter told me of her career as a registered nurse in obstetrics at Lynn Hospital back in the 1970s and 1980s. It turned out that she taught prenatal care to my sister and assisted in the delivery of my oldest niece, Melanie, who is herself now a mother of four.

There were so many points at which my life intersected with Claire’s that I had a sense I had always known her. In that first letter, she asked me to allow her to help us. My initial thought was to ask her to help Pornchai Moontri whose case arose in Maine. The year was late 2012. I had given up on my own future, and my quest to find and build one for Pornchai had collapsed against these walls.

Just one month prior to my receipt of that letter from Claire, Pornchai and I had professed Marian Consecration, after completing a program written by Father Michael Gaitley called 33 Days to Morning Glory. It was the point at which our lives and futures began to change.

Claire later told me that after reading about our Consecration, she felt compelled to follow, and also found it over time to be a life-changing event. She wanted to visit me, but this prison allows outsiders to visit only one prisoner so I asked her to visit Pornchai. He needed some contacts in Maine. The photo atop this post depicts that visit which resulted in her guest post, “My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri.”

The Divine Mercy Phone Calls

From that point onward, Claire became a dauntless advocate for us both and was deeply devoted to our cause for justice. In 2020, Pornchai was held for five months in ICE detention at an overcrowded, for-profit facility in Louisiana. It was the height of the global Covid pandemic, and we were completely cut off from contact with each other. But Claire could receive calls from either of us. I guess raising five daughters made her critically aware of the urgent necessity of telephones and the importance of perceiving in advance every attempt to circumvent the rules.

Claire devised an ingenious plan using two cell phones placed facing each other with their speakers in opposite positions. On a daily basis during the pandemic of 2020, I could talk with Pornchai in ICE detention in Louisiana and he could talk with me in Concord, New Hampshire. These brief daily phone calls were like a life preserver for Pornchai and became crucial for us both. Through them, I was able to convey information to Pornchai that gave him daily hope in a long, seemingly hopeless situation.

Each step of the way, Claire conveyed to me the growing depth of her devotion to Divine Mercy and the characters who propagated it, characters who became our Patron Saints and upon whom we were modeling our lives. Saints John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Faustina Kowalska, Therese of Lisieux, all became household names for us. They were, and are, our spiritual guides, and became Claire’s as well by sheer osmosis.

Each year at Christmas before the global Covid pandemic began, we were permitted to each invite two guests to attend a Christmas gathering in the prison gymnasium. We could invite either family or friends. It was the one time of the year in which we could meet each other’s families or friends. Pornchai Moontri and I had the same list so between us we could invite four persons besides ourselves.

The pandemic ended this wonderful event after 2019. However, for the previous two years at Christmas our guests were Claire Dion from Maine, Viktor Weyand, an emissary from Divine Mercy Thailand who, along with his late wife Alice became wonderful friends to me and Pornchai. My friend Michael Fazzino from New York, and Samantha McLaughlin from Maine were also a part of these Christmas visits. They all became like family to me and Pornchai. Having them meet each other strengthened the bond of connection between them that helped us so much. Claire was at the heart of that bond, and it was based upon a passage of the Gospel called “The Judgment of the Nations.” I wrote of it while Pornchai was in ICE Detention in 2020 in a post entitled, “A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King.”

Father Michael Gaitley also wrote of it in a book titled You Did It to Me (Marian Press 2014). We were surprised to find a photo of Pornchai and me at the top of page 86. Both my post above and Father Gaitley’s book were based on the Gospel of Matthew (25:31-46). It includes the famous question posed in a parable by Jesus: “Lord, when did we see you in prison and visit you? And the King answered, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me’” (Matthew 25:39-40)

That passage unveils the very heart of Divine Mercy, and as Father Gaitley wrote so eloquently, it is part of a road map to the Kingdom of Heaven. It was Claire who pointed out to me that she was not alone on that road. She told me, “Every reader who comes from beyond these stone walls to visit your blog is given that same road map.”

The God of the Living

In Winter, 2023 Claire suffered a horrific auto accident. While returning home from Mass on a dark and rainy night a truck hit her destroying her vehicle and causing massive painful tissue damage to her body, but no permanent injury. I have been walking with her daily ever since. Miraculously, no life-threatening injuries were discovered in CT or MRI scans. However, the scans also revealed what appeared to possibly be tumors on her lung and spinal cord.

At first, the scans and everyone who read them, interpreted the tumors to be tissue damage related to the accident that should heal over time. They did not. In the months to follow, Claire learned that she has Stage Four Metastatic Lung Cancer which had spread to her spinal cord. The disruptions in her life came quickly after that diagnosis. I feared that she may not be with us for much longer. This has been devastating for all of us who have known and loved Claire. I was fortunate to have had a brief prison visit with her just before all this was set in motion.

Claire told me that on the night of the accident, she had an overwhelming sense of peace and surrender as she lay in a semi-conscious state awaiting first responders to extricate her from her crushed car. Once the cancer was discovered months later, she began radiation treatments and specialized chemotherapy in the hopes of shrinking and slowing the tumors. She is clear, however, that there is no cure. Claire dearly hoped to return to her home and enjoy her remaining days in the company of her family and all that was familiar.

As I write this, Claire has just learned that this will not be possible. Jesus told us (in Matthew 25:13) to always be ready for we know not the day or the hour when the Son of Man will come. I hope and pray that Claire will be with us for a while longer, but I asked her not to call this the last chapter of her life, for there is another and it is glorious. Just a week ago, Christ conquered death for all who believe and follow Him.

In all this time, Claire has been concerned for me and Pornchai, fearing that we may be left stranded. I made her laugh in my most recent call to her. I said, “Claire, I am not comfortable with the idea of you being in Heaven before me. God knows what you will tell them about me!” I will treasure the laughter this inspired for all the rest of my days.

This courageous and faith-filled woman told me in that phone call that she looks forward to my Divine Mercy post this year because Divine Mercy is her favorite Catholic Feast Day. I did not tell her that she IS my Divine Mercy post this year. Now, I suspect, she knows.

“Now we see dimly as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part, but then I shall understand fully even as I am fully understood.”

— St Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:12

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae:

Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Please pray for Claire Dion in this time of great trial. I hope you will find solace in sharing her faith and in these related posts:

My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri by Claire Dion

A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King

Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare

The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ

The fall of Simon Peter was a scandal of Biblical proportions. His three-time denial of Jesus is recounted in every Gospel, but all is not as it first seems to be.

Note from Father Gordon MacRae: At Beyond These Stone Walls, I try to present many important matters of faith, but I also try not to overlook the most important of all: Salvation. In 2023 we began what I hope will be an annual Holy Week and Easter Season tradition by composing past Holy Week posts into a personal Easter retreat. The posts follow a Scriptural Way of the Cross. You are invited to ponder, pray and share them in our season of Highest Hope. They are linked again at the end of today’s post.

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Holy Week, March 27, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

I had been 17 years old for only one month when I graduated from high school in May, 1970. Unlike most of my peers, I was too young to go to war in Southeast Asia. Some of my friends who went never came back. On my 17th birthday in April,1970, President Richard Nixon ordered U.S. troops into Cambodia while the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam began. Across this nation, college campuses erupted into violence and walkouts. At Kent State in Ohio, four students were killed by national guardsmen sent to prevent rioting. In response to the protests, Congress passed an amendment to block U.S. troop incursions beyond South Vietnam.

The measure did not forbid bombing, however, so U.S. air strikes continued and increased in Cambodia until 1973. The combined effects of the incursion and bombings completely disrupted Cambodian life, driving millions of peasants from their ancestral lands into civil war. The Khmer Rouge was formed and then became one of the deadliest regimes of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the United States was yet again in a state of rage. Satan loves rage.

This was the setting of my life at seventeen. It seemed that evil was all around me then, but not yet in me. As 1970 gave way to 1971 and I turned eighteen, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty was published by Harper and Row. I do not today recall how or why I came to have a copy of it so hot off the presses, but I read The Exorcist within weeks of its publication. I cannot say that I devoured it. At one point, I feared it might devour me.

The book left a vivid imprint on me, so much so that halfway through it I had to set it aside for a month. In its pages I came face to face with the personification of evil, accepting that it was a catalyst behind so much of this world’s agony. But I also had no delusion that I was any match for it. William Peter Blatty’s disturbing story of demonic possession seemed to be an allegory for what was happening in the world in which I lived.

Two years later, in 1973, the film version of The Exorcist was produced to scare the hell out of (or into) the rest of the nation that had not yet read the book. Because I did read the book, I was somewhat steeled against the traumatic impact that so many felt from the film. Its influence was evident in its awards. The Exorcist won the Academy Award for Best Writing and Screenplay for William Peter Blatty, and Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor.

An Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress went to Linda Blair for her unforgettable portrayal of Regan, the possessed and tormented young target of an unnamed demon. The film’s producers hired a priest, Father William O’Malley, to portray “Father Dyer,” one of the priest-characters in the book and film. That lent itself to an aura of realism present throughout the book.

Ultimately, The Exorcist also set in motion my resolve to find something meaningful to embrace in life. I began to explore more deeply the Catholic faith that my family previously gave only a Christmas and Easter nod to. I felt called to a journey of faith just as most of my peers were abandoning theirs, but it did not last long. At the same time, my family was disintegrating and I was powerless to stem that tide and the void it left behind.

I was haunted by a sense that even as I embraced the Sacraments of Salvation, evil and its relentless pursuit of souls was never far behind in this or any age. Both seemed in pursuit of me. I was living in a verse reminiscent of Francis Thompson’s epic poem, “The Hound of Heaven” which begins:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days ;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years ;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him.

Not even Satan can hide from God. I wrote the previously untold story of my path to priesthood on the 41st anniversary of my ordination. It was “Priesthood Has Never Been Going My Way.”

While pursuing a degree in psychology in the later l970’s, I had an interest in the work of psychoanalyst Erik Erikson and his stages of human development. Erikson predicted that in the latter years of our lives — the years I am in now — we enter a crisis of “generativity versus despair.” Many of us begin recalling and recalibrating the past, especially at “inflection points,” the points at which we changed. At this writing, I am 70 years old and counting. I realized only in later years that The Exorcist was an unexpected inflection point in my life, a point at which I turned from one path onto another.

The Betrayer Judas Iscariot

Even at age seventeen, the Catholic experience of Holy Week became a most important time for me. I began then to see clearly that the events of Holy Week were a nexus between the promises of Heaven and the pursuits of hell. The sneakiest thing Satan has ever done in the modern world was to get so many in this world to cease believing in him, and then to marginalize God. Many in the current generation calling itself “woke” now believe that Satan, if even real at all, has just been misunderstood.

The nightmarish story of The Exorcist was like a battleground. I was deeply impacted by a scene near the end of the book and film when the Exorcist, Father Damien Karras, tricked the demon into leaving young Regan and entering himself. He then leapt through a high window to his death on the Georgetown streets of Washington, DC down below. The scene set off a national debate. Had Father Karras despaired and committed suicide? Or had he heroically saved the devil’s victim by sacrificing himself?

Just as I was recently pondering this idea, I was struck by the photo atop this section of my post. It is my friend, Pornchai Moontri standing against a map of Southeast Asia which, I just now realized, is also where this post began. I had seen the photo previously in his January 2024 post, “A New Year of Hope Begins in Thailand,” but I failed to look more closely at it then.

Look closely at the T-shirt Pornchai is wearing in the photo. It quotes another inflection point in both his life and mine. His T-shirt bears a quote from St. Maximilian Kolbe who became a Patron Saint for us and who deeply impacted our lives. Maximilian also sacrificed his life to save another. His simple but profound quote on Pornchai’s T-shirt is, “Without Sacrifice,There Is No Love.”

That is how Father Damien Karras defeated the devil. Pornchai today says it is also how he was released from the prison of his past. And it is how Jesus conquered death and opened for us a path to Heaven. Sacrifice is the “Narrow Gate” He spoke of, the passage to our true home.

Earlier this Lent, I wrote “A Devil in the Desert for the Last Temptation of Christ.” It was about how Satan first set his demonic sights in pursuit of Jesus Himself. What utter arrogance! At the end of that account, having given it his all, the devil in the desert “departed from him until an opportune time.” (Luke 4:13)

By his very nature, the betrayer Judas Iscariot provided this opportune time. The Gospel gives many hints about his greed and ambition, traits that leave many open to the subtle infiltration of evil. Satan plays the long game, not only in human history, but also in a person’s life and soul. In the allegorical book, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis laid out the long, subtle trail upon which we humans risk the slippery slope toward evil:

“It does not matter how small sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge a person away from the Light and out into the Nothing ... . Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

— The Screwtape Letters, Letter #12, p. 60-61

Judas Iscariot gave Satan a lot to work with. He served as a treasurer for the Apostles but he embezzled from the treasury. The Gospel of John described him as “a devil” (6:70-71), “a thief” (12:6), “a son of destruction” (17:12).

The Gospel makes clear that Jesus was betrayed because “Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot” (Luke 22:3). At the Passover meal (John 13:26-30), Jesus gave a morsel of bread to Judas. When Judas consumed it, “Satan entered into him.” That would not have been possible had Judas truly believed in the Christ. The Gospel of John then ends this passage with a chilling account of the state of Judas’ life and soul: “He immediately went out, and it was night.” (John 13:30).

In the scene laid out in the Gospel of John above, Satan finds his opportune time when Judas let him in. I wrote of a deeper meaning in this account in one of our most-read posts of Holy Week, “Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light.”

The Turning of Simon Peter

The Eucharist had just been instituted and shared by Jesus among his Apostles. All the Gospels capture these moments. All are inspired, but Luke is my personally most inspiring source. The Evangelist cites at the very end of the meal its true purpose: “This chalice which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 23:20). Jesus adds that “The Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.”

The others at the Table of the Lord are alarmed by all this talk of Jesus being betrayed. They launch immediately into a dispute about who among them would do such a thing, who among them would never do such a thing, and finally who among them is the greatest (Luke 22:26). Simon Peter leads that last charge, but first we need to look at what has come before. How and why did Simon come to be called Peter? The answer opens some fascinating doors leading to events to come.

On a hillside in Bethsaida, a fishing village on the north side of the Sea of Galilee, a vast crowd gathered to hear Jesus. They numbered about 5,000 men. This was Simon’s hometown so he likely knew many of them. After a time, the disciples asked Jesus to send the crowd away to find food. Jesus instructed the disciples to give them something to eat. They protested that they had only seven loaves of bread and a few meager fish.

In a presage of the Eucharistic Feast, Jesus blessed and broke the bread, and with the few fish, a symbol of Christ Himself, the disciples fed the entire multitude on the hillside (Luke 9:10-17). Immediately following this, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Simon is thus given a new and transformative name and mission:

“You are Peter (in Greek, Petra and in Aramaic, Cephas — both meaning “rock”) and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

This is more than a figurative gesture. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Hades is the abode of the dead, the place where souls descend through its gates to an eternal Godless realm of the dead (Psalm 9:13, 17 and Isaiah 38:10) where they are held until the Last Judgment. It is the precursor to our traditional concept of hell being under the Earth, the place of the habitation of evil forces that bring about death.

In Hebrew tradition, the Foundation Stone of the Temple at Jerusalem, called in Hebrew “eben shetiyyah,” was a massive stone believed since ancient times to seal and cap off a long shaft leading to the netherworld (Revelation 9:1-2 and 20:1-3). It is this particular stone that the Evangelist seems to refer to as the rock upon which Jesus will build His Church. The Jerusalem Temple, resting securely on this impenetrable rock, was thus conceived to be the very center of the Cosmos and the junction between Heaven and Hell.

Jesus assures Peter, from the Biblical Greek meaning “rock,” that Peter and his successors will have the figurative keys to these gates and the power to hold error and evil at bay. By being equated with the very Foundation Stone itself, Peter is given the unique status of a prime minister, a position to be held for as long as the Kingdom stands.

Later in Luke’s Gospel, Simon Peter insists that he is “ready to go to prison and even death” with Jesus. Jesus corrects him saying, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.” (Luke 22 : 31-32)

We all know, now, that Peter’s faith did fail. It gave way to fear and led him to three times deny being with, or even knowing, Jesus. But there is a lot more packed within that brief statement of Jesus above. The word “you” appears three times in the short verse. Like the rest of Luke’s Gospel, it is written in Biblical Greek. The word used for the first two occasions of “you” is plural. It refers to all of the Apostles, except Judas who had already gone out into the night.

The third use of the word “you” in that passage is singular, however, referring only to Peter himself. Jesus knew he would fall because his human nature had already fallen. But, “When you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.” Peter’s three-time denial of Jesus pales next to the betrayal of Judas from which there is no return. The story of Peter’s denial is remedied, and he “turns again” in the post Resurrection appearance at the Sea of Galilee (John 21:15-19).

Jesus brings restorative justice to Peter’s three-time denial by asking him three times to “feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” “feed my sheep.” Then Jesus tells Peter what to expect of his unique apostolate:

“Truly, truly I say to you, when you were young, you fastened your own belt and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will fasten your belt for you and carry you where you do not wish to go”

— John 21:18

This was to foretell the assaults from beyond the Gates of Hell to which the Church will be subjected. And then, in John 21:19, He spoke His last words to Peter which, in Matthew 4:19, were also His first words to Peter. Through them, He speaks now also to us in this Holy Week of trials, assailed from all sides:

“Follow me.”

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“Stay sober and alert for your opponent the devil prowls about the world like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him steadfast in the faith knowing that your brethren throughout the world are undergoing the same trials.”

— First Letter of Peter 5:8-9

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Photo by Nicolas Grevet (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: You are invited to make our Holy Week posts a part of your Holy Week and Easter Season observance. I cannot claim that they are bound in Earth or Heaven, but we will retain them at our “Special Report” feature until the conclusion of the Easter Season at Pentecost:

The Passion of the Christ in an Age of Outrage (2020)

Overshadowing Holy Week with forced pandemic restrictions and political outrage recalls the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132 against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.

Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light (2020)

The central figures present before the Sacrament for the Life of the World are Jesus on the eve of sacrifice and Satan on the eve of battle to restore the darkness.

Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane (2019)

The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of the Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.

The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ (2024)

The fall of Simon Peter was a scandal of biblical proportions. His three-time denial of Jesus is recounted in every Gospel, but all is not as it first seems to be.

Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands (2014)

‘Ecce Homo,’ an 1871 painting of Christ before Pilate by Antonio Ciseri, depicts a moment woven into Salvation History and into our very souls. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’

The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’ (2017)

The Passion of the Christ has historical meaning on its face, but a far deeper story lies beneath where the threads of faith and history connect to awaken the soul.

Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross (2023)

Simon of Cyrene was just a man on his way to Jerusalem but the scourging of Jesus was so severe that Roman soldiers feared he may not live to carry his cross alone.

Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found (2012)

Who was Saint Dismas, the Penitent Thief, crucified to the right of Jesus at Calvary? His brief Passion Narrative appearance has deep meaning for Salvation.

To the Spirits in Prison: When Jesus Descended into Hell (2022)

The Apostles Creed is the oldest statement of Catholic belief and apostolic witness. Its Fifth Article, what happened to Jesus between the Cross and the Resurrection, is a mystery to be unveiled.

Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb (2015)

History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerges from the Gospel a faithful, courageous, and noble woman, an Apostle to the Apostles.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Our Holy Week Retreat for Beyond These Stone Walls

Isenheim Altarpiece (1512-16), Matthias Grunewald in the Musee Unterlinden, Collmar, France

Each Holy Week since 2010 Fr Gordon MacRae has composed a special post based on the Scriptural events of the Way of the Cross. They now comprise a Holy Week retreat.

March 20, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae

As many of our readers know, this blog began in controversy in 2009. Born out of a challenge from the late Cardinal Avery Dulles to rise above suffering and consider instead its legacy. Many posts in my long Prison Journal since 2010 have been about the injustices that I and other priests have faced. But in the weeks before his death in December 2008, Cardinal Dulles sent a series of letters to me in prison. He challenged me to dig deeper into my own passion narrative. Cardinal Dulles wrote:

“Someone might want to add a new chapter to the volume of Christian literature from those unjustly in prison. In the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Alfred Delp, Fr Walter Ciszek, and Saint Paul, your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”

And so in preparation for Holy Week in 2010, I began to make a concerted effort to set aside my own unjust plight to write a post about the Passion of the Christ. I compose a new Holy Week post every year since to present a different scene in the Way of the Cross. For me, this has become a sacred obligation as a priest to take part in my own unique way in the events that led to Calvary and beyond. And, yes, there IS a beyond.

Many readers, especially those who have also suffered in ways large or small, have found these posts to be inspiring. No one has been more surprised by this than me. So we have collected our Holy Week posts in the order in which they appear in the Gospel narrative to become an invitation for a personal retreat. We invite you to make these posts a part of your Holy Week and Easter observance.

If any of them touches your heart and soul in some way, or gives you a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, then please also share a link to them with others. I hear from many newer readers who first came to this blog in just that way, and then found in these pages spiritual consolation and a path to peace.

We will add a new post on Wednesday of Holy Week this year and will make the title linked here, active at that time. We will retain these links at our “Special Post” feature until Pentecost, the conclusion of the Easter Season:

The Passion of the Christ in an Age of Outrage (2020)

Overshadowing Holy Week with forced pandemic restrictions and political outrage recalls the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132 against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.

Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light (2020)

The central figures present before the Sacrament for the Life of the World are Jesus on the eve of sacrifice and Satan on the eve of battle to restore the darkness.

Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane (2019)

The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of the Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.

The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ (2024)

The fall of Simon Peter was a scandal of biblical proportions. His three-time denial of Jesus is recounted in every Gospel, but all is not as it first seems to be.

Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands (2014)

‘Ecce Homo,’ an 1871 painting of Christ before Pilate by Antonio Ciseri, depicts a moment woven into Salvation History and into our very souls. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’

The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’ (2017)

The Passion of the Christ has historical meaning on its face, but a far deeper story lies beneath where the threads of faith and history connect to awaken the soul.

Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross (2023)

Simon of Cyrene was just a man on his way to Jerusalem but the scourging of Jesus was so severe that Roman soldiers feared he may not live to carry his cross alone.

Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found (2012)

Who was Saint Dismas, the Penitent Thief, crucified to the right of Jesus at Calvary? His brief Passion Narrative appearance has deep meaning for Salvation.

To the Spirits in Prison: When Jesus Descended into Hell (2022)

The Apostles Creed is the oldest statement of Catholic belief and apostolic witness. Its Fifth Article, what happened to Jesus between the Cross and the Resurrection, is a mystery to be unveiled.

Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb (2015)

History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerges from the Gospel a faithful, courageous, and noble woman, an Apostle to the Apostles.

Before the gates there sat, On either side a formidable Shape

One of Gustave Dore’s illustrations of the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton (Courtesy of University at Buffalo)

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Saint Joseph: Guardian of the Redeemer and Fatherhood Redeemed

In 1989, Pope John Paul II added a new title to honor Saint Joseph. As “Guardian of the Redeemer” Joseph’s dream set us on a path from spiritual exile to Divine Mercy.

Out of my sometimes inflated separation anxiety, you may have read in these pages an oft-mentioned thought. From behind these walls, I write from the Oort Cloud, that orbiting field of our Solar System’s cast-off debris 1.5 light years from Earth out beyond the orbit of Pluto. It was named for its discoverer, the Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrick Oort (1900-1992).

There are disadvantages to being way out here cast off from the life of the Church. I am among the last to receive news and the last to be heard, if at all. But there is also one distinct advantage. From out here, while dodging the occasional asteroid, I tend to have a more panoramic view of things, and find myself reflecting longer and reacting less when I find news to be painful.

It’s difficult to believe, but it was just eleven years ago, March 13, 2013 that Pope Francis was elected to the Chair of Peter. In the previous month we had news from Rome that, for many, felt like one of those asteroids had struck at the very heart of the Church. I wrote a series of posts about this in the last week of February and the first few weeks of March 2013. The first was “Pope Benedict XVI: The Sacrifices of a Father’s Love.”

Like most of you, I miss the fatherly Pope Benedict, I miss his brilliant mind, his steady reason, his unwavering aura of fidelity. I miss the rudder with which he stayed the course, steering the Barque of Peter through wind and waves instead of causing them.

But then they became hurricane winds and tidal waves. Amid all the conspiracy theories and “fake news” about Pope Benedict’s decision to abdicate the papacy, I suggested an “alternative fact” that proved to be true. His decision was a father’s act of love, and his intent was to do the one thing by which all good fathers are measured. His decision was an act of sacrifice, and the extent to which that is true was made clear in a post I wrote several years later, “Synodality Blues: Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy.” Benedict was firm that he was guided by the Holy Spirit.

For some, the end result was a Holy Father who emerged from the conclave of 2013 while silently in the background remained our here-but-not-here “Holier Father.” Such a comparison has always been unjust. Some years ago a reader sent me a review by Father James Schall, S.J., in Crisis Magazine. “On Pope Benedict’s Final Insights and Recollections” is a review of a published interview by Peter Seewald, Benedict XVI: Last Testament.

The word, “final” in Father Schall’s title delivers a sting of regret. It hearkens back to that awful March of 2013 when the news media pounced on Pope Benedict’s papacy and delivered news with a tone of contempt too familiar to Catholics today. The secular news media is getting its comeuppance now, and perhaps even finding a little humility in the process. Even the late ever fatherly Benedict XVI took an honest poke at its distortions:

“The bishops (at Vatican II) wanted to renew the faith, to deepen it. However, other forces were working with increasing strength, particularly journalists, who interpreted many things in a completely new way. Eventually people asked, yes, if the bishops are able to change everything, why can’t we all do that? The liturgy began to crumble, and slip into personal preferences.”

— Benedict XVI, Last Testament, 2016

Benedict the Beloved also wrote back then from the Oort Cloud, but it is one that he cast himself into. I have always hoped I might run into him out here one day and I might have. His testament ended with these final, surprising words:

“It has become increasingly clear to me that God is not, let’s say, a ruling power, a distant force, rather He is love, and loves me, and as such, life should be guided by Him, by this power called love.”

Carnage in the Absence of Fathers

In the winter of a life so devoted to a dialogue with the deep theological mysteries of our faith, it seemed surprising that Benedict XVI would choose this as the final message he wants to convey to the Church and the world. My own interpretation is that he chose not the words of a theologian, but those of a father, an equal partner in the ultimate vocation for the preservation of life and the sake of humanity: parenthood.

Fathers who live out the sacrifices required of them are an endangered species in our emerging culture of relativism and self-indulgence. In his inaugural address to the nation, President Donald Trump spoke of the “carnage” that our society has failed to face, and he was widely ridiculed for it. If he was wrong about anything else, he was right about that. I see evidence of that carnage every day in the world I am forced to live in here, and I would be a negligent father if I did not write about it.

So, I did write about it, and it struck a nerve. “In the Absence of Fathers A Story of Elephants and Men” has been shared over 30,000 times on social media and reposted in hundreds of venues. It seemed to awaken readers to the wreckage left behind as fathers and fatherhood are devalued into absence in our society. I am a daily witness to the shortsighted devastation of young lives that are cast off into prisons in a country that can no longer call itself their fatherland.

We breed errant youth in the absence of fathers, and those who stray too far are inevitably abandoned into prisons where they are housed, and fed, and punished, but rarely ever challenged to compensate for the great loss that sets their lives askew. Prison is an expensive, but very poor replacement for a caring and committed father

I saw this carnage in a young man I once wrote about, but to whom I never returned because I wanted to shelter readers from the truth of what befell him. A light-hearted post several years ago — “Prison Journal: Looking for Lunch in All the Wrong Places” — included some of the culinary creations of other prisoners who greatly delighted in seeing them in print. One of them was a young man named Joey who made us all laugh with his recipe for a concoction called “mafungo” and his weird instructions for making it.

Joey descended into prison at age 17 as the result of a simple high school fight with another student who was injured. While in prison, he discovered the plague of opiates that is fast consuming a nation in denial. The extent to which drugs have consumed life in this prison was back then the subject of a Concord Monitor article “As drugs surge, inmate privileges nixed” (Michael Casey, Associated Press, Feb 27, 2017).

Joey reached out to me repeatedly throughout the ordeal of his imprisonment. As a member of a small group of prisoners tasked with negotiating over prison conditions, I argued for treatment over punishment when Joey’s addiction kept disrupting his life. The interventions were simply too little too late. At age 23, after six years here, Joey left prison with a serious problem that he did not come in with. Just two months after his release, Joey fatally overdosed on the street drug, fentanyl. He became a statistic, one of hundreds of overdose deaths of young adults in the city of Manchester, New Hampshire which, according to reports, led the entire nation in the rate of young adults opioid overdose deaths. If this is what President Trump meant then by “carnage,” we must face the reality that we are tightly in its grip, and the absence of fathers has been a devastating risk factor.

Now Comes Joseph, Guardian of the Redeemer

I do not think it is mere coincidence that in the midst of this cultural crisis of fatherhood and sacrifice, our Church and faith are experiencing a resurgence in devotion to Saint Joseph, Spouse of Mary. His Feast Day on March 19th was honored by “sensus fidelium” over twelve centuries ago. He was declared Patron of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX in 1870. In 1989, he was given a new title, “Guardian of the Redeemer,” by Saint John Paul II. This title beckons fathers everywhere to live their call to sacrifice and love so essential to fatherhood.

I had barely given Saint Joseph a passing thought for all the years of my priesthood, but in the last two years he surfaces in my psyche and soul repeatedly with great spiritual power. It haunts me that he shares his name with my young friend, Joey, who personified a life in the absence of a father, sacrificed to some south-of-the-border cartel and the carnage of our culture of death.

And it is not lost on me that he shares his name with the late Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, who in life and death personified for the Church a summons to Divine Mercy. The winter of Benedict’s own life spent in silent but loving witness to the Church reflects the life of Saint Joseph in the Infancy Narratives of the Gospel, silent but still so very present. I suddenly hear from readers constantly with a growing interest in Saint Joseph. Last Christmas, I wrote what I consider to be a most important post for our time, and a prequel to this summons to Divine Mercy. It was “Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah.”

Ii was a post about love, fidelity, and sacrifice, the hallmarks of fatherhood and the foundations of Divine Mercy. And I wrote a sequel to that post which contains a painful but vital story. It was “Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents.”

These biblical stories were lived by one who remains utterly silent in the pages of the Gospel, but whose life and actions as Guardian of the Redeemer were like a trumpet call to fatherhood and sacrifice. I am hereby bestowing upon him another title. He is, Saint Joseph, “Guardian of Fatherhood Redeemed.”

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Note Number 1 from Father Gordon MacRae: On occasion the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, stewards of The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, send me a book from their own publishing house that they would like to see reviewed at Beyond These Stone Walls. We have featured several of them over time, but the last one they sent is a real treasure, and here it is: Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father, by Father Donald H. Calloway, MIC.

Please also note that the beautiful top graphic for this post is “Saint Joseph and the Christ Child” by Jacob Zumo (2019). It was commissioned by Father Donald H. Calloway, MIC for inclusion in Consecration to Saint Joseph. This and other wondrous works of art are available at Art By JZumo.

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Note Number 2 from Father Gordon MacRae: Some years ago his Eminence Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke wrote to me in prison. It was a personal letter which in many ways was a gift of Divine Mercy and Divine Compassion. Now he has invited me to take part in a worldwide call to prayer, Return to Our Lady through devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, a nine-month novena. Here is Cardinal Burke’s invitation to us. I have subscribed for the good of our Church, and I hope you will join me.

Tap or click the image.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”