Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

While some high-profile priests are maligned from both in and beyond the Church, The Catholic University of America published its National Study of Catholic Priests.

“You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?”

— Matthew 7:16

January 11, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

In 2005, Catholic League President Bill Donohue was interviewed on the NBC Today show about accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests — some sadly true, but some also sadly false. Citing the case against me as an example, he said, “There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.”

Catholic priests in the United States have long been under assault from the news media, from activist groups, and at times even from within the Church. As most readers know, I have been the subject of many published articles, but not because I have been accused. It is because I strenuously refute the accusations as false. Much evidence has amassed in support of that. For some reason, this poses a threat to some nefarious agendas built around the sex abuse crisis in the Church.

When accused priests defend themselves in online media, seeding articles with vile comments using fake screen names had long been a tactic of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an organization that sought not so much to support legitimate victims, but to maximize monetary awards and media condemnation. Its representatives terrorized Church officials with media manipulation whenever any accused priest is defended in the court of public opinion.

Despite all that, some standout news media have bravely produced articles and commentary against the tide of public vitriol about accused priests. The Wall Street Journal recently published its fourth such article about the case against me. The most recent was by Boston Attorney Harvey Silverglate entitled “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.” This generated some excellent analysis by David F. Pierre, Jr. moderator of The Media Report. Those and other articles appear in our featured section, The Wall Street Journal.

I have much gratitude for Dorothy Rabinowitz, Harvey Silverglate, Ryan MacDonald, Bill Donohue, and David F. Pierre, Jr. for their valiant efforts to correct the public record. Without their truthful courage, I was at the mercy of nefarious means driven mostly by progressive political agendas and litigious greed. Most recently, however, even some bold Catholic writers have taken up the subject of Catholic Priests Falsely Accused.

The National Study of Catholic Priests

When I was first accused, my bishop and diocese published a press release declaring, without evidence, that I victimized not only my accusers, but the entire Catholic Church. That bishop’s successor later went on record to state his informed belief that I am innocent and should never have been in prison. Then his successor chose only to shun me, and to release my name on a public list of the “credibly” accused. He did this, he stated, for “transparency,” but that transparency has been highly selective.

My own experience leaves me with no trust at all that my bishop could, or would even try, to discern guilt from false witness in defense of me or any accused priest. Trust and distrust as the fallout from the scandal are now central issues in a recently published survey of 10,000 U.S. priests sponsored by The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. I highly recommend reviewing a report on the study results entitled, “The National Study of Catholic Priests: A Time of Crisis.” It was the largest study on the state of the priesthood in fifty years. Here is an overview of its parameters:

“Over the last two decades, the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has significantly eroded the trust between laity and clergy... Since the earliest days of the Dallas Charter there have been concerns that the bishops’ understandable eagerness to crack down on abusive priests was coming at the expense of due process protections for the accused: a de facto policy of ‘guilty until proven innocent.’ These concerns have been exacerbated by an expansion in the scope of the Church’s anti-abuse policies coupled with a perceived double standard in the way allegations against bishops have been handled in comparison to priests.”

Father Roger Landry, a columnist for the National Catholic Register, has an excellent analysis of The Catholic University of America study entitled, “Repairing the Relationship Between Priests and Bishops.”

The findings of the study are based on the responses of the thousands of U.S. priests who participated and submitted completed surveys. Given the difficult period of the last 20 years since the U.S. Bishops’ Dallas Charter was enacted, some of these responses are surprising, and point to the depth of commitment, spiritual life, optimism and resiliency of most priests. Most priests reported a high level of satisfaction in their ministry. A stunning 77% of priests self-reported that they are flourishing in their vocation.

Among the results, however, are some big red flags: 82% of priests report living with a fear of being falsely accused and left with no defense; 45% of priests report that they experience at least one symptom of ministry burnout, while 9% described their level of burnout as severe, and characterized by high levels of stress and emotional and physical exhaustion. Reports of high stress came particularly from younger priests. (I will get back to this later) .

The biggest concern among priests is related to the toll and fallout of the U.S. Bishops’ collective response to the sex abuse crisis in the Church. The sense of vulnerability among priests and their trust level for their bishops are the two most significant areas of negative fallout from the crisis.

In his NC Register column linked above, Father Roger Landry points to what I have called a disaster in the relationship between bishops and priests: the drafting and enactment of the 2002 “Dallas Charter” which imposed a draconian standard of “zero tolerance” and one-strike-and-you’re-out in response to any “credible” accusation against a priest. For an analysis of this standard of evidence, see my post, “The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests.”

Father Landry reports that the drafting of these policies in 2002 was done “hurriedly and under enormous pressure from the press, lawsuits and furious faithful.” Priests in the current study actually appreciated the efforts to respond to the crisis openly and with transparency. “But the priests surveyed gave stark testimony to the harms that have come from what the bishops in Dallas left out of balance.”

Guilty for Being Accused

The Vatican and Catholic hierarchy were unfairly maligned throughout publicity on “The Scandal.” At one point, SNAP partnered with the far-left, New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights to bring a crimes-against-humanity charge against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Some of the false claims against me were employed to shame Pope Benedict on a global scale. The scheme was nothing more than a publicity stunt to embarrass the Church into maximizing financial settlements. Many of its claims, including those against me were exposed as a fraud. Journalist Joann Wypijewski exposed this story in “Oscar Hangover Special: Why “Spotlight” Is a Terrible Film.”

Only in the Catholic Church is the highest echelon of governance blamed for the lowest level of misbehavior. Even in his later years, Benedict was demonized by German Catholics and others eager for any reason to blame him for the abuses of the past. Of interest, in the State of New Hampshire where I live more than 900 men between the ages of 20 and 50 have open lawsuits alleging systemic sexual abuse by State agents in the State’s juvenile detention facilities. Not one media outlet, not one victim group, not one of the victims themselves has blamed any of this on any present or former governor. This State carried out a witch-hunt in 2002 when the accused were Catholic priests. It is now confirmed that simultaneous to the witch-hunt was an active cover-up of the malfeasance of State agents.

As stated above, 82% of priests now report that they feel vulnerable to false accusations of sexual abuse that under existing policy will summarily end their ministry without due process. Compounding this fear, many report that they would be treated as guilty and left without support unless they could prove their innocence. Sixty-four percent said they would be left without support or resources to mount a defense, and almost half, 49%, think they would not be supported by their bishop. Father Landry added a sobering understanding of the reality:

“In most dioceses, when a priest is accused, he loses his home, his job, his good name — all within hours. He is removed immediately from his rectory and parish assignment, prevented from public ministry for the length of what is often an inexcusably glacial investigation, and required to dress like a layman. A press release is published in which the priest’s reputation is injured, if not ruined. He needs to exhaust his meager savings or beg and borrow money to hire a lawyer. Most excruciatingly, he has to linger for months or years under suspicion of being a sadistic pervert as well as a hypocrite to the faith for which he has given his life.”

Given the reality that most claims against priests are many years or decades old, establishing clear evidence is difficult if not impossible. So the bishops adopted what they called the “credible” standard. It means only that if a priest and an accuser lived in the same parish or community 20, 30, or 40 years ago, the accusation is “credible” on its face. No one in America but a Catholic priest could lose his livelihood, his reputation, sometimes even his freedom, under such a standard. I exposed one such case in “The Exile of Father Dominic Menna and Transparency at The Boston Globe.”

I am most appreciative to Father Roger Landry and the National Catholic Register for their bold and transparent analysis of what actually happens to an accused priest. By taking all the steps a diocese or bishop imposes above, such a priest is effectually silenced and unable to defend himself at all.

Stress along the fault lines between bishops and priests that these policies have caused is also clear in the survey. There is a wide disparity between how bishops view themselves and how they are viewed by their priests. Seventy-three percent of bishops reported viewing priests as their brothers. Only 28% of priests reported that their bishops treat them that way.

The disconnect revealed itself in several other ways as well: 70% of bishops reported that they are spiritual fathers to their priests while only 28% of priests thought the same. Father Landry reported that the biggest disconnect relates to a priest who is struggling. Ninety-percent of bishops reported that they would be present to and supportive of a struggling priest while only 36% of priests thought that this is true.

The Double Standard

Also evident in both the survey and Father Landry’s analysis of it is the double standard created when bishops failed to hold themselves accountable to the same standards imposed on their priests. In 2002, as the Charter was being debated during the U.S. Bishops Conference at Dallas, Cardinal Avery Dulles published a landmark article in America magazine entitled “The Rights of Accused Priests.”

The article was cheered by priests but largely ignored by bishops. Cardinal Dulles cited a 2000 pastoral initiative of the U.S. bishops entitled “Responsibility and Rehabilitation.” It criticized the U.S. justice system for the establishment of one-size-fits-all norms such as “zero tolerance” and “one strike and you’re out.” Then the same bishops, in a media panic, imposed those same standards on their priests.

But none of it ever applied to accusations against bishops, a reality that Father Landry described as “a double standard that profoundly affected their relationship [with priests].” While deliberating adoption of the Dallas Charter, the bishops removed the word “cleric,” which could have included bishops, and replaced it with “priests and deacons.” Now 51% of priests report that they do not have confidence in their bishop while 70% report a lack of confidence in bishops in general.

In a 2019 apostolic letter, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, Pope Francis addressed some of the disparities with mixed results. Father Landry points out that investigations of bishops, even in allegations of past sexual abuse, “seldom involve the draconian measures experienced by priests.”

I have written of a glaring example in my own diocese. Citing a desire for “transparency,” and with no one pressuring him to do so, my bishop proactively published in 2019 a list of the names and status of 73 priests of this diocese who had been “credibly” accused over fifty years. Most are deceased. Weeks later, a New Hampshire Superior Court judge barred publication of information from a grand jury investigation which was the source for most of the Bishop’s list. Ryan MacDonald wrote of the reasons for that in “Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm On the Priesthood.”

Months after publishing his list, my bishop was himself accused in a civil lawsuit in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York. He was unjustly caught up in the political fallout of former New york Governor Andrew Cuomo who generated the claims when he signed into law an exemption window in which old time-barred accusations can be brought forward after the statute of limitations had run. I defended my bishop in a widely read post, “Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo.”

Conservative Priests Face Greater Scrutiny

I mentioned above that I would revisit one finding of this report — that younger priests experience more stress than older priests. A separate research report on Catholic priests by the Austin Institute has documented that younger priests tend to be more conservative and traditional than older priests. That bears out from observations of our readers who find this distinction to be a positive development. Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Vatican Correspondent Francis X. Rocca reported on this in “Catholic Ideological Split Widens” (Dec.19, 2022):

“U.S. Catholic bishops elected conservative leaders last month, continuing to resist a push from Pope Francis to put issues such as climate change and poverty on par with the bishops’ declared priority of opposing abortion.”

The bishops appointed by Pope Francis tend to mirror his priorities. His recent elevation of San Diego Archbishop Robert McElroy, a leading liberal among U.S. bishops, to the College of Cardinals is an example. There is thus a growing disparity in liberal vs. conservative views as newly appointed bishops are more liberal while priests newly emerging from U.S. seminaries are more conservative and traditional.

Since the 1980s, successive annual ordinations have grown more conservative. Each successive 10-year grouping in the ordained priesthood supports Church teaching on moral and theological issues more strongly than the one before it. Those ordained after 2010, as a whole, are most conservative. When seminarians and younger priests do not have their views of the Church and Catholic practice affirmed, stress develops and increases. Younger U.S. priests represent a generation disillusioned with ideas of progress and religious pluralism, and the abandonment of the Church’s prolife charism in favor of topics like climate change.

This leaves a widening chasm between Pope Francis, his Episcopal appointments, and younger priests in the United States. The Catholic Project study also reveals that almost 80% of priests ordained before 1980 approve strongly of Pope Francis while only 20% of those ordained after 2010 share that view. Is their priestly interest in respect for tradition a plague upon the Church?

Or is it the whispering of the Holy Spirit?

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: This brief essay from American Thinker by Attorney Franklin Friday is perhaps the best commentary on the future Church after the death of Pope Benedict XVI, and not only because I am in it. Please read and share this timely article: No Easy Road for Men of God.

You may also be interested in these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Once and Future Catholic Church

Forty Years of Priesthood in the Mighty Wind of Pentecost

The Credibility of Bishops on Credibly Accused Priests

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm On the Priesthood

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One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. The site has a real-time live feed of its Adoration Chapel with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. We invite you to spend some some time before the Lord in a place that holds great spiritual meaning for us.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

The Duty of a Priest: Father Frank Pavone and Priests for Life

In a bombshell report, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life and the most visible pro-life priest in America has been dismissed from the priesthood by Pope Francis.

December 18, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: In a bombshell report that I learned of only today it seems that Fr. Frank Pavone, Director of Priests for Life and the most visible pro-life cleric in North America has been dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis. At this juncture, the dismissal is both inconceivable and unexplained. Fr. George David Byers wrote of it with some attachments today.

I plan to postpone further comment on this troubling development for pro-life Catholics until there is further clarification from Rome, if ever. Of interest, I wrote this post about Fr. Frank Pavone and his struggles eleven years ago. Much that I described in this post has now come to pass. I have never been more sorrowful for being right. Please pray for Fr. Pavone and Priests for Life.

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For about a year now, Beyond These Stone Walls has had a link to Priests for Life, one of the strongest and most vocal pro-life organizations with oversight from the Catholic Church. So when news began to circulate that Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life since 1993, was “recalled” to his diocese — the Diocese of Amarillo — I paid attention, as did many.

Before commenting on the justice or injustice of what has occurred to date in this matter, however, I must comment on the context. It has become clear to me even from behind these stone walls that not all is as it seems. Generally, a matter such as this would generate some dialogue within the Church, perhaps even in the Catholic media, but that would be the extent of its interest. This matter between Father Frank Pavone and Amarillo Bishop Patrick Zurek, however, has also become fodder for comments in the secular media providing fuel for the speculation and controversy now surrounding Father Pavone.

What exactly is the controversy? Father Frank Pavone has been recalled to his diocese, the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, by his bishop. Father Pavone has been neither suspended nor disciplined for any cause. A Catholic News Service account included some clarification of this by Msgr. Harold Waldow, Vicar for Clergy in the Diocese of Amarillo:

“Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, remains a priest in good standing in the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas. … Msgr. Harold Waldow told CNS that Bishop Patrick J. Zurek only suspended Father Pavone’s ministry outside of the diocese because the well-known pro-life priest is needed for work in Amarillo.”

— Catholic News Service, Sept. 14, 2011

But there remains some taint upon Father Pavone. This matter between a priest and his bishop has become a matter of public dispute, and that itself is a violation of Father Pavone’s rights under Church law. After writing a letter to the nation’s bishops describing his suspension of Father Pavone’s ministry outside his own diocese, the bishop reportedly released the letter publicly. That seems to be what sparked their differences thrusting this matter into a public forum, but without any clear allegation of wrongdoing.

Brian Fraga wrote an informative article about this in Our Sunday Visitor (“Pro-life priest ‘baffled’ by bishop’s shutdown,” OSV, October 2, 2011). He cited the broad support that has emerged for Father Pavone including from the Priests for Life Board of Directors, from the National Pro-Life Council, and other corners. Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Rev. Martin Luther King and a staunch pro-life advocate, has released a powerfully supportive statement about Father Pavone and Priests for Life.

I have believed from the outset that the hype about all this has little to do with Father Frank Pavone and Bishop Zurek. It has to do with Priests for Life and its vocally Catholic pro-life stance. There is an agenda out there — an agenda with tentacles that have reached deeply into the arena of Catholic life — that would be encouraged by the diminishment or outright destruction of the Church’s pro-life ministry. In this entire matter, it is not only Father Pavone whose reputation is on the line. It is also the Church’s pro-life stance, consistently undermined by those who want compromise with a secular agenda in the culture war.

The demise of Priests for Life would be a great trophy for that agenda. I am no conspiracy theorist, but I can’t help notice that this story is unfolding nationally just as a Presidential Primary is taking shape, and the culture war is gearing up for battle.

Resisting Secular Sabotage

In a chapter entitled “Self-Sabotage: Catholicism” in his book, Secular Sabotage (Faith Words, 2009), Catholic League President Bill Donohue pointed out that dissent in the Church’s pro-life ministry is not as simple as some trendy left-wing Catholics promoting abortion. Very few people of even the remotest Christian persuasion actually promote abortion as a societal good. What Bill Donohue pointed out was something much more subtle. There is a growing consensus among left-wing Catholics that the Church has simply lost the battle for life and should just move on.

Please note here that I do not use the term “left-wing Catholics” in any derogatory sense. I spent much of my life and ministry squarely in that camp. So did Father Richard John Neuhaus and Cardinal Avery Dulles, two exemplary Churchmen to whose memory we have dedicated Beyond These Stone Walls. Their drift to the right is far more a story of their embracing the great adventure of orthodoxy to the Magisterial authority of the Church — an authority that took precedence for them above any trendy political ideology.

My own drift away from the left followed their same example. It marked the official end of my adolescence that the life of the Church took precedence over my own sometimes highly misinformed publicly dissenting points of view.

Part of the agenda among the more radical wing of the Catholic left has been to get about the business of removing any Magisterial authority from our faith experience. The goal is to  carve out a distinctly American Catholic church with identifiably American Catholic values that mirror the now disintegrating American wing of the Church of England, the Episcopal church. But that’s a whole other blog post for some other day — such as next week, perhaps.

It’s time for American Catholic liberals to see and admit that their own views and causes are being hijacked by this radical wing. For them, organizations like Priests for Life are seen as an anachronistic hindrance to social progress. A nice little scandal undermining Priests for Life would be most welcomed in some circles right about now, not least among them some purportedly Catholic circles.

But there isn’t a scandal. Father Frank Pavone has not been accused of anything, though I do worry about his extreme vulnerability. There are agendas at work even in our Church that would be bolstered by the destruction of Father Pavone, his career, and his reputation. That fact must be a part of the equation as Catholics evaluate this story. Father Frank Pavone first was a target long before he was a suspect.

I have a personal example of how this works right here at Beyond These Stone Walls. For over two years now, BTSW has presented the views of a priest claiming to be falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned. So much of what I have written has been in direct confrontation with the agendas and claims of victim groups like SNAP and Catholic “reform” groups like Voice of the Faithful. Some of my postings about the Catholic League report, “SNAP Exposed” have been confrontational. My three-part series, “When Priests Are Falsely Accused” made a very controversial case for why accusers should be named. Nothing flies in the face of the cult of victimhood like that particular point of view.

But very few people disagreed with me or attacked these statements and positions. At first, I wondered if these controversial posts were even noticed, but then I learned they were widely disseminated. Even the Spanish-language news network, Univision, posted links to “When Priests Are Falsely Accused” on their website, as did National Public Radio and many international secular sites. Very few people disagreed with me or attacked these posts.

The very worst attack — though a rather wimpy one — was a one-line comment from SNAP director, David Clohessy. Commenting on the Spero News version of my BTSW post, “Due Process for Accused Priests?” David Clohessy called me “a dangerous and demented man.” Maybe he didn’t read “Sticks and Stones: My Incendiary Blog Post on Catholic Civil Discourse.”

But in contrast to the lack of any real attacks on Beyond These Stone Walls was a barrage of nasty e-mail attacks when I posted a clearly pro-life article, “The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Civil Rights and the Right to Life” last January. I got clobbered. Some of the messages called me all sorts of names, denounced Beyond These Stone Walls, and denigrated those who assist me as its editors. It was perfectly okay with these people if I remind Catholics that some priests are falsely accused and some Americans are wrongly imprisoned. But how dare I use a Catholic blog to post a reasoned and thoughtful defense of the Catholic Church’s pro-life position and why it should not be compromised?

So that’s it then. I can write that a lot of men and women have committed fraud by falsely accusing Catholic priests of decades-old abuses. I can write that some of our bishops have been unwittingly complicit in this fraud and have left their priests vulnerable by blindly settling virtually every claim. I can even write that some of the purported “victims” are in fact criminals who should have their names and their claims exposed before any real due process and justice can take place. Not many on the left or right had much to say in response to any of that. But when I wrote about why abortion is a basic civil rights issue, some Catholics called me a “predator priest who should be silenced by the Church.” One writer called for prison officials to confiscate my typewriter.

It all reminded me of a troubling conversation I had with a prisoner two years ago. He was a career criminal; a gangster, a thief and a thug, who came to my  door one day. “I have a question,” he said:

“Can you explain to me why all these Catholics can say they are protecting children when they scream about 30 or 40 year old claims of child abuse, but then have nothing to say about the fourteen million American babies sacrificed in abortions in just the last decade?”

It’s a hard question for which I have no answer. But I explained to him that no one in our Church will call him a gangster, a thief, or a thug unless he asks a question like that too loudly.

This was when I really came to admire Father Frank Pavone. I became aware of how visible the target on his back really is. As I wrote two weeks ago at the end of “Thy Brother’s Keeper,” I bow to Father Pavone’s faithful witness to both the truth and to his duty as a priest which is to preserve both his obligations and his rights under Church law. The bottom line is that anyone who thinks his bishop is going to protect his rights has not been paying attention in the last ten years.

Bishops as Prosecutors

I cannot speak to the internal disagreements between Father Frank Pavone and Bishop Patrick Zurek. I know none of the details. But I can speak in a broader sense of the necessity for any priest in the current climate to preserve his rights under Church law. I can only relate some of what transpired with my own bishop in a canonical proceeding to shed light on some of what may be happening behind the scenes in the Diocese of Amarillo.

Father Pavone came under recent attack in some circles because his bishop scheduled a personal meeting which Father Pavone declined to attend. There were some people — some very well intentioned — who saw in this some shades of culpability on the part of Father Pavone, using it to cast suspicion on his own transparency and desire to cooperate with his bishop.

It is likely, however, that Bishop Zurek has declined to allow a meeting to take place with Father Pavone’s Canonical Advocate present. I do not know this for certain, but I have read that Father Pavone’s Canonical Advocate has requested mediation in this matter between Father Pavone and his bishop. It was apparently on the advice of the Advocate that Father Pavone declined to meet without his Advocate or a mediator present. Both Father Pavone and his Canonical Advocate, Father David Deibel, J.D., J.C.L. have come under some public fire for this.

Church Law insists that any priest in a canonical forum has a right to advocacy. I stand by what I wrote in “Thy Brother’s Keeper’:

“I bow also to Father Pavone’s resolve to protect his rights under the higher authority of the law of the Church, for the [Dallas] Charter makes one thing clear now: Some bishops will neither protect nor respect those rights.”

I speak from experience. Throughout the last decade of attempting to defend myself before both a court of law and a court of public opinion, I have also had to simultaneously defend myself against a one-sided effort by my bishop to bring about a canonical dismissal from the priesthood with no defense whatsoever offered by me. Throughout this process, my bishop has steadfastly refused to meet or even converse with my Canonical Advocate regarding the matter of preserving my rights under Church law.

Far worse, when my bishop learned that I am seeking an opportunity to bring forward a new appeal of my conviction, my bishop hired his own lawyers to conduct a secret evaluation of my trial to present in Rome and circumvent my own efforts to defend myself. He has repeatedly refused to share with me or my Canonical Advocate the findings of that secret assessment.

My bishop has acted throughout in the role of a prosecutor, but it’s even worse than that.  In America, prosecutors are required to turn over to the defense the nature of charges and any evidence that supports them.  When I tried to assert my rights under Church law in this matter, my bishop responded with silence and has remained silent ever since.

I believe I could safely say that every organization formed on behalf of priests to assist in protecting their rights under Canon Law would now state that no priest in even a hint of an adversarial circumstance with his bishop should ever agree to a one-on-one meeting without his Canonical Advocate present. It would not only be foolish, it could be destructive. It would be akin to a prosecutor demanding to meet privately with a defendant without his lawyer present.

As the priesthood crisis became critical in 2002, Cardinal Avery Dulles gave bishops and priests a clear reminder of their rights and obligations under Church law.  His fine article, “The Rights of Accused Priests” is reprinted under “Articles” on Beyond These Stone Walls. Given these rights and obligations, I admire that Father Pavone is determined to resolve this matter in unity with his bishop. No bishop can in justice order him or any priest to set aside his rights under Church law.

Complicating my own comments on this matter is the fact that Father Frank Pavone and I have the same Canonical Advocate in the person of Father David L. Deibel, J.D., J.C.L. who has broad training and experience in both civil and Church law. He, of course, has not discussed the Father Pavone matter with me at all. He is an accomplished professional motivated by the law and an impeccable set of ethics.

But Father Deibel has come under some highly unjust fire because of his advocacy for me. Some have used this to try to impugn his reputation and undermine Father Pavone’s own canonical defense. In truth, Father David Deibel was the sole Church official to appear at my trial and sentencing over seventeen years ago. He traveled from California at his own expense to do this. At the time I was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to 67 years in prison, Father David Deibel was one of only two people in that courtroom with the moral courage and personal integrity to speak the truth, despite knowing that there was a price to pay for it. Father David Deibel was one of the heroes in my case, and the extent to which this is true will very soon be placed into public view. There is a lot more to come in this regard, and it is indeed coming.

Meanwhile, the Church owes Father Frank Pavone the right of defense — and respect, support, and encouragement for his tireless voice on behalf of those who have been denied one. Click here for Father Frank Pavone updates.

Bishops, Priests and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Pope Francis promulgated Vos estis, a law applicable to bishops. Previously, if a bishop was accused of a canonical offense, only the Pope could bring him to task.

Recently, behind the scenes at Beyond These Stone Walls, people have been working to restore and update Father Gordon MacRae’s older posts and save them in multiple categories in the Library at BTSW. One of the categories is Catholic Priesthood where this post, I expect, will find its permanent home. One such article was “Goodbye, Good Priest!” It was an updated reflection on the story of Father John Corapi, posted anew without any notice or fanfare. Nonetheless, it received more than 6,000 visits and 3,700 shares on social media in the first 24 hours after it was posted. This happened even before Fr John Zuhlsdorf — the famous Fr Z — posted a link to another blog informing readers that Fr Corapi, thanks be to God, had reconciled with his religious order several years ago and has been living a quiet life of prayer in one of its community houses. Fr Z’s post was “If you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

We had not heard about Fr Corapi for many years. His, we thought, was one of the many forgotten tales about priests, guilty, or even merely accused, of horrendous sins, whose cases often were treated with little regard for human, civil or canonical rights or due process. Fr Gordon and I were commenting that, being reminded of Fr Corapi, we realize that we have not progressed very far in the last twenty years. What Fr Gordon and I see now is that Father Corapi’s case was a small seed planted in our collective psyche that has germinated, now affecting all priests.

When the sexual abuse scandal exploded in the American press in 2002, many bishops were faced with the reality that their predecessors had known about sexual abuse of minors by priests and handled it in a way that was seen as pastoral at the time but which failed to meet today’s expectations. Back then, accused priests were shuffled off for psychological treatment, reassigned on the advice of the medical professionals to new parishes for a fresh start; sometimes they reoffended, or quietly retired to live in peace with their consciences. Even though the Vatican quietly had promulgated new laws in 2001 to deal with the crime of sexual abuse of a minor among some other of the more serious offenses in the Church, in the wake of the Boston Globe’s 2002 exposé, bishops threw up their hands and said to the Vatican, “My predecessor did this; you have to help me get out of this mess!”

And so dawned the era of the Dallas Charter. In the face of unrelenting public pressure and criticism, the Church, beginning in the United States but soon almost everywhere, began to treat allegations as proven crimes, to treat priests like chattel, to put money over preaching the Gospel. The Dallas Charter ushered in an era that means one strike and you’re out, and, in fact you don’t even have to prove that it was a strike: credibly accused quickly became the operative expression. In effect, the first decade of the 21st century witnessed the Church take on the notion that the priesthood was more disposable than it ever had been before. It was a reaction of fear.

Soon after, file upon file was sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) as bishops scoured their personnel files for any priest previously accused of sexual abuse. Even though the case had been dealt with already, according to the pastoral plan mentioned above, current bishops were looking for Rome to revisit the case and, it was expected, remove the priest permanently from ministry if not the clerical state itself. The caseload became so heavy that the CDF had to notify bishops that a deadline was being set after which no historical cases could be submitted. Apparently, someone had forgotten to inform everyone involved that law, especially penal law, cannot, in justice, be applied retroactively.

So far, we have only been talking about accusation of sexual abuse of minors. Fr John Corapi was never accused of that. He was accused of sexual misconduct, perhaps even concubinage, with an adult woman among supected financial misdeeds. In the heat of the abuse scandal, his case was being treated as if the Dallas Charter applied, which it did not. Father Corapi realized that he would never be treated according to the canon law of the Church. He knew he was considered guilty; nothing was going to change that, so he walked away. It is a sad commentary on the Church that such a gifted man was driven to near despair, that Church officials could be so indifferent to basic tenets of justice and due process. But that’s where we were.

Jump forward several years. In 2019, Pope Francis promulgated Vos estis, a set of laws applicable to bishops. Prior to those laws, bishops were directly responsible to the Pope alone. If a bishop was accused of a crime, like sexual abuse of a minor, only the Pope could bring him to task. Canon law assumes that people with authority in the Church, like bishops, are not saints, but at least God-fearing men seeking virtue. In fact, canon law only really works when that’s the case. People like Theodore McCarrick, the former Cardinal and Archbishop, got away with his misconduct for so long because a lot of bishops are not God-fearing men. McCarrick was relieved of his clerical obligations in 2019 and is now a layman.

With everything the Pope has to do, he certainly does not have time to micro-manage the lives of 5,000 bishops. The problem, becoming apparent, was that not only priests were being accused. The ravenous press and hysterical crowd were not satisfied. Bishops were next on the hit list. Hence, Pope Francis set up a system whereby bishops are now accountable for their own misconduct, even historical accusations from when they were yet priests. They are accountable, as well, for how they handle, as bishops, accusations of sexual abuse of minors by priests subject to them. With Pope Francis’ new legislation, the Congregation for Bishops is authorized to investigate accusations made about bishops in much the same way that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was authorized in 2001 to do the same regarding priests. This is new territory and bishops are clearly anxious.

Guilty Merely for Being Accused?

Since the promulgation of Vos estis, several bishops have been removed from office or disciplined in some way: Bishop Richard Malone, emeritus of Buffalo; Bishop Michael Bransfield, emeritus of Wheeling-Charleston; Archbishop Henryk Gulbinowicz, emeritus of Wroclaw, Poland; Bishop Michael Hoeppner, emeritus of Crookston to name just a few. It’s a new world out there since 2019. What bishops have done to priests since 2002 is now being done to them.

“ The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”

— Matthew 7:2

Pope Francis, in Vos estis, expressed his wish that bishops conferences set up confidential reporting mechanisms such that people who know of misconduct committed by a bishop could safely report it knowing that action would be taken to investigate. The Canadian bishops conference announced a few weeks ago just such a mechanism. Anyone can now call a confidential line, or submit an online report, to a third-party agency which will receive the information and, in turn, pass on a report to the appropriate bishop. That bishop, in receipt of the report, will consult the Congregation for Bishops on how to proceed. Whatever else it is, and it is many things, this move is a lot of virtue signaling. Nothing guarantees that the report will be taken seriously. The only certainty is that a secular third party is being paid to receive and pass on information.

There is no real transparency to the procedures that are used to investigate a bishop — and I’m not arguing there should be, in this or any investigation of a priest — it is not evident that such things belong to the realm of public knowledge. Instead, we must trust that what is being done is just and legal — there’s no sense having a code of law in the Church if it means nothing or is not going to be used. Unfortunately, the Church’s track record in this regard leaves us with very little trust. With these new initiatives, nothing says that the bishop reporting to Rome about his brother bishop will not convince the Vatican that the allegation is unfounded or exaggerated. And, to be fair, understand that the Vatican has to trust the bishop consulting them. If they can’t, how is the Vatican to know and what is it supposed to do? We’re back to the headline: “Needed: God-fearing men trying to live lives of virtue.”

Now that bishops are being held to the same standards, or lack thereof, they have become hypervigilant of their priests, or, rather, of their own reputations. Virtue signaling abounds: bishops are tough on clerical misconduct. Now, not only accusation of sexual abuse of a minor leads a bishop to remove a priest from ministry, but, indeed, any misconduct whatsoever. That was the seed planted by Father Corapi’s case. Anything done by a priest that is going to cause publicity, or a lawsuit, is now treated in the same way as an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. A priest is put on so-called administrative leave, his faculties are removed, he is not allowed to perform any priestly ministry except the celebration of Mass in private, which means alone.

This is all done, they say, just like they did in the early 2000’s, pro bono ecclesiae — for the good of the Church. This is being done by bending the law to the point of breaking. What priest, especially if he is guilty of something, is going to challenge his bishop’s abuse of the law. Priests who have been accused of misconduct, not involving minors, are now being removed from ministry under the guise that they are not suitable for assignment because of their misconduct, even though that misconduct may have been adjudicated and punished already — justly or not is another question. Bishops go so far as to encourage the priest to petition for laicization. The bishop can’t force a priest out of the priesthood because whatever he is alleged to have done doesn’t warrant such a punishment. But the bishop doesn’t want to be responsible for the ‘unassignable’ priest for the rest of his life, nor does he want to continue paying the priest.

Check any “Policy for Cases of Misconduct” published by a diocese. Many of them have clauses that say a priest found guilty of misconduct will never minister in the diocese again. Of course, such clauses are not allowed by canon law. No one questions what procedures will be used to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused priest. But what looks good is the policy itself. The Church has gone tough, not just on abusing minors, but on any misdeed. Try to find a definition of misconduct, or a list of behaviors that is classified as misconduct — you won’t. Vague is good: it allows those in authority to cite the law while interpreting it as they wish. Those are the parameters we are operating within today.

Fear and panic, there’s the problem. Instead of turning to Christ, we look to the world for our sense of self-worth as a Church. Are we held to impossible standards by the world? Yes. Does the world despise us because the Gospel preaches something counter-cultural? Yes. Are they going to sue us for every penny we own? Probably. Jesus told us, “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). The Church certainly has made mistakes in the last half-century or more. One of the biggest ones was turning a blind eye to immorality, especially sexual immorality among clergy and the faithful. In its zeal to be pastoral as a way of opening up to the world — a mantra of Vatican II — she failed to enforce her laws, or use her laws to bring justice and transparency to cases of crime and misconduct. The way out of this mess is not more laws, not more father turning on son and brother on brother tactics reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The answer is to read and heed the Gospel.

“For They Do Not Practice What They Preach” (Matthew 23:3)

In July 2013, Pope Francis was questioned about a Monsignor whom the Holy Father had appointed to a Vatican office. The Monsignor, according to reports, engaged in homosexual activity several times. The press wanted to know from the Pope how this person could be assigned given his past. Pope Francis came out with his now infamous line, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” The press, to this day, wildly misinterprets what the Holy Father said, namely, that someone who was seeking the Lord with good will, i.e., repenting of past sin and seeking the right path, ought not to be judged by us. The rationale behind that is nothing other than the whole Christian message: Christ died so that all of us sinners could be redeemed. The Pope was saying, in essence, that someone could be a very sinful person, but repentance is always possible. Furthermore, he was pointing out that someone’s sinful past does not necessarily disqualify one from working in the Church — to be sure, sometimes it does, but not always. How would any of the apostles survive as priests or bishops in today’s climate?

In our Lord’s day, the religious leaders were worried about the popularity of Jesus. They didn’t want the people, the mob, to turn against them. In the end, it was they who, in the midst of the mob, told Pilate that they had no King but Caesar. It was they who instigated the mob’s choice of Barabbas over Jesus. The mob can be a frightening place when we have lost sight of Heaven. Jesus Himself was confronted with a mob. When they brought to Him the woman caught in adultery, the mob was after Him, not so much the woman who had been caught flagrantly in sin. They wanted to trip Him up about the law. Jesus was uncowed by their bullying. He didn’t lash out at the mob; rather, he showed them mercy by His retort, “Let anyone who is without sin, cast the first stone.” He gave the mob room to see its error. The Gospel of John (8:3-11) points out the seemingly insignificant detail that Jesus looked down so that they could walk away while saving face.

At the same time, Jesus healed the woman, wounded by her own sinfulness and maltreated as a pawn by the mob. He sends her off, with the consolation of “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again” (John 8:11). Our Lord showed that the mob, the world, CAN learn the truth about sin and redemption. He showed her that compunction was enough to receive mercy and the need to learn from one’s sins. He did not tell her not to pay attention to the Pharisees — in fact, in another place Jesus warned the people, “Obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Matthew 23:3). He didn’t say they were not qualified for the job as Pharisees because they were sinful. He also told her to learn from the mercy she received and to put aside her sinfulness. All of that is an important meditation for us because little mercy is being shown priests.

When I think of Father Gordon MacRae and the injustice he is enduring with such equanimity and grace, I am reminded that God’s grace is still active in this messy world. Beyond These Stone Walls is a visible sign of grace, allowing Father Gordon to preach from his pulpit, his unjust imprisonment, to make so many aware of the reality of injustice even in the Church. He and this blog are a sign of grace, a sign that such corruption is not a reason to turn against God or His Church but to work even harder to bring about a community of God-fearing men trying to live lives of virtue.

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Fr. Stuart MacDonald is a priest of the Diocese of St Catharines, Canada. Ordained in 1997, he is a graduate of McGill University, St. Augustine’s Seminary and the Pontifical Gregorian University where he earned a licentiate in Canon Law. In addition to being pastor of various parishes, he has worked as a judge and defender of the bond for the Toronto Regional Marriage Tribunal and as an official for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Holy See. He is the author of several published articles on Canon Law and the priesthood. His most recent post for BTSW was “On Our Battle-Weary Priesthood.”

You may also want to read and share these related posts:

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

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

Walking Tall: The Justice Behind the Eighth Commandment

Amid reports on scores of men wrongly imprisoned, a California FBI investigator’s study concludes that at least half the claims against Catholic priests are false.

“IF YOU LET ‘EM GET AWAY WITH THIS, YOU GIVE ‘EM THE ETERNAL RIGHT TO DO THE SAME DAMN THING TO ANY ONE OF YOU!”

That memorable line was delivered with blunt force by actor Joe Don Baker portraying the famous anti-corruption sheriff, Buford Pusser, in the 1973 film, “Walking Tall.” Buford stood shirtless before a packed courthouse, the lacerations of his brutal scourging by local thugs still glistening with blood, while a corrupted judge pounded his gavel charging Buford with contempt. The entire courtroom, and the viewing audience, also gasped with contempt, but their contempt was not for Buford Pusser.

A part of me was hoping that Cornelius Dupree, Jr. would shout something similar to Buford Pusser’s declaration early this month as he stood before cameras in front of a Dallas courthouse with Innocence Project founder, Attorney Barry Scheck. Cornelius Dupree has now been free for a decade, to the extent a man can be free after 31 years in prison for a sex crime he had nothing to do with. During those 31 years he passed up two opportunities for parole because they required that he admit to being a sex offender. Cornelius Dupree served more time for a crime he didn’t commit than any of the 41 wrongfully convicted and exonerated prisoners in Texas alone since 2001.

20-year-old Cornelius Dupree was arrested for the crime in 1979, and sentenced to 75 years in prison. In 2004, he was set to be released on parole until he refused it again because it required that he submit to a sex offender treatment program which in turn required an admission of guilt. The 20-year-old turned 51 in prison before being exonerated and released.

I have also been forced to pass up parole, and for the same reasons.  I would have to enter a required program and openly admit guilt not only to crimes charged, but to everything I have merely been accused of.  I would not even be eligible for that program until about the age of 80, forced to recall fictitious events alledged to have occurred when I was in my twenties.  This is a story I wrote about in “Why this Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison.”

On a national scale, only two other exonerated men spent more time in prison than Cornelius Dupree. Jamie Bain was one of them. He walked out of prison after serving thirty-five years for a rape crime that DNA evidence proved he did not commit and had nothing to do with. These two men are among hundreds exonerated nationwide after being wrongfully imprisoned for sexual offenses. 

Cornelius Dupree exonerated after 31 years in prison.

Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions

The National Center for Reason and Justice is a Boston-based organization formed to defend those wrongfully convicted of such crimes.  NCRJ exists not only to sponsor a defense for the wrongly convicted but also to educate the public about the great damage done by wrongful convictions, not only to the individual wrongly sent to prison, but to the justice system itself.  NCRJ sponsors my defense despite the fact that to date no judge would agree to hear the evidence or witnesses.  The NCRJ maintains a page entitled, “Father Gordon MacRae.”

If you don’t think this is really a problem, spend some time at the site of the National Center for Reason and Justice. I think this site will convince you. Why should you be concerned about this? Well, Buford Pusser provided THAT answer. I woke up one night in prison muttering his very same words. I think the court I was standing before was the court of public opinion, and it wasn’t my body that was lacerated, but my name and my priesthood and the entire Church.

In 2004, a report was published under the title, “Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions.” It examined 328 cases of exoneration including 120 sexual assault exonerations. In 90 percent of those cases, defendants were convicted based on misidentification of witnesses. Many of the wrongful convictions — about 25% of them — involved coerced confessions or “plea deals” because the accused had little or no hope of acquittal, or lacked the resources to fight the claim. 

This happens in too many cases against Catholic priests.  When I was accused, my Diocese issued an immediate press release declaring my guilt so that financial settlements could begin negotiations.  In 2002, when the bishops adopted the Dallas Charter, this became standard operating procedure.  Any priest accused in America is now barred from presenting himself as a priest and immediately banished from Church property, often without income, in claims that are usually decades old.  This is an important reality.  In a 2003 column in The Wall Street Journal, Deputy Editor Dan Henninger commented on accusations against pop star Michael Jackson:

“… Mr. Jackson, like Kobe Bryant, was able to mount a defense equal to the accusatory powers of the state. Not everyone can do that. When Michael walked, I wondered if any of the many convicted Catholic priests similarly charged were in fact innocent but found guilty because they couldn’t push back against the state’s relentless steam roller.”

A little time spent at The National Center for Reason and Justice will demonstrate that “relentless steam roller” really does characterize exactly what happens when state prosecutors try a case of sexual abuse or sexual assault without actual evidence. And when the defendant is either a pop star or a Catholic priest, all eyes are on the prize for prosecutors. Just consider my response to Dan Henninger in the Wall Street Journal :

Michael Jackson is acquitted.

“As a priest without the means to push back in equal measure to Michael Jackson, I must point out some factors you overlooked. Imagine how steeply uphill Michael’s battle would have been if twenty years passed between the alleged crime and the state’s prosecutorial steam roller rumbling into action for a trial.

“Imagine the state having to prove nothing while Michael Jackson’s defense tried in vain to prove that something alleged to have happened two decades earlier never happened at all. Then imagine Michael struggling to proclaim his innocence while the institution he served denounced him and his attempts to defend himself, seeking only the path of least resistance to settle with his accusers and rid themselves of liability at the expense of due process.

“Imagine all of this, and you will have captured the scene faced by many similarly accused Catholic priests.”

A Measure of Truth

David F. Pierre, Jr. is author of a new book, The Greatest Fraud Never Told: False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church. David Pierre is also host of The Media Report. Some years ago, David Pierre forwarded a link to an article of his on The Media Report entitled: “Special Report: Los Angeles Attorney Declares Rampant Fraud; Many Abuse Claims Against Catholic Priests are ‘Entirely False.’” The report was described as a “bombshell” in David Pierre’s article. It was also sent to me by several BTSW readers.

The report cited in David Pierre’s article was submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Attorney Donald H. Steier who compiled his investigation along with the aid of a retired F.B.I. agent working with him. His stunning conclusion was:

“About ONE-HALF [emphasis his] of the claims made in the clergy cases were either entirely false or so greatly exaggerated that the truth would not have supported a prosecutable claim for childhood sexual abuse.”

What is most stunning today is how little the Church and the news media have considered the weight of that report.  David Pierre also cites in his newest book (page 27) Wall Street Journal writer Dorothy Rabinowitz, who commented in 2005 on the nature of the case against me:

“People have to come to understand that there is a large scam going on with personal injury attorneys, and what began as a serious effort has now expanded into a huge money-making proposition.”

— Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ

As I prepared for trial in 1994, trial-by-media was already underway in its condemnation of the accused. Any person who has faced false accusations in a public trial will tell you of the role played by the media in stacking the deck against him. As I proceed in my reading of the Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell, now exonerated and sadly deceased, abuse by media of his due process rights is a central factor.  It is all horribly, even traumatically familiar to me.  But Cardinal Pell also provides a model for sacrificial suffering and the faith and trust necessary to endure.  For that, I am thankful to him.

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You may also like the related links that appear in this post:

Why this Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison

The Greatest Fraud Never Told by David F. Pierre, Jr.

And for a doubly sad cautionary tale of real victimization but misidentification and wrongful conviction:

For The Lovely Bones Author Alice Sebold, Justice Hurts

Please share this post!

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