“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
— Deacon David Jones
Psychotherapists Helped Send an Innocent Priest to Prison
Psychotherapists who capitalize on moral panic and enlist junk science to help send innocent people to prison should be held personally and professionally liable.
Psychotherapists who capitalize on moral panic and enlist junk science to help send innocent people to prison should be held personally and professionally liable.
August 23, 2023 by Ryan A. MacDonald
From the Editor: Ryan A. MacDonald is a frequently cited columnist, and an occasional contributor at Beyond These Stone Walls. Among his standout articles is “Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest.”
On September 23, 1994, Rev. Gordon MacRae, a New Hampshire Catholic priest, was convicted of raping a male counseling client more than a decade earlier. At the time of Fr. MacRae’s trial, accuser Thomas Grover was 27 years old. His core testimony was simple. Grover stated that, in 1983, he sought MacRae out for counseling for his drug addiction in the months preceding his 16th birthday. He claimed that during each session he was berated, made to cry, and then forced to submit to oral sex in a Church rectory office. His claim that these events occurred during counseling sessions enhanced the charges to five counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault. When asked by defense counsel why Grover, at almost age 16 — being 5’ 11” and weighing in excess of 180 pounds — would return from week to week after having been raped, Grover answered, “I don’t know — I repressed it.” When the defense pressed for an explanation, Grover said, “I had out of body experiences; I don’t remember how I got there.”
During this remarkable testimony, a woman in the spectator section of the court was taking copious notes. She wasn’t with reporters in the press section. When defense counsel approached her during a break, she identified herself as “a student interested in the trial.”
Following Thomas Grover’s testimony, the prosecution was permitted to call to the stand an expert witness, Leonard Fleischer, Ed.D., whose role was purportedly to “educate” the jury about Child Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and “delayed reporting.” His description of PTSD included a reference to “out of body experiences” even though, as a witness, Leonard Fleischer was not allowed to be present during Thomas Grover’s testimony. During the trial, however, Fleischer was seen in a restaurant with the “student” who had been taking notes during Grover’s testimony. From all appearances, he had planted a surrogate in the courtroom to hear what he was not allowed to hear. Thomas Grover also testified that between ages 15 and 27, he was treated in six drug abuse treatment centers, the first being Beech Hill Hospital in New Hampshire. Leonard Fleischer then testified that he had once been a therapist at Beech Hill Hospital, and “in my experience 70% to 80% of the males who had been treated at Beech Hill Hospital were sexually abused.”
On appeal, the State conceded that this uncorroborated statistical testimony by this “expert” witness should not have been allowed. The state appellate court agreed, but determined that it was “harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt.” In the book, Actual Innocence, Innocence Project founder Attorney Barry Scheck described “harmless error” as “the process by which judges excuse the misconduct of police and prosecutors.” In post-trial interviews with jurors, several stated that their verdict was swayed solely by the expert witness testimony.
One juror said she voted for guilty because she watched the defendant carefully during the trial, “and he did not appear to be remorseful.” The jury never heard that this trial came after MacRae’s rejection of the State’s plea offer of a sentence of one to three years. He rejected this offer twice before trial and again following Thomas Grover’s testimony. After the trial, he was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to a term of up to 67 years — more than 20 times the maximum of the State’s proffered deal.
After receiving $200,000 settlement from the Diocese of Manchester in 1996, Thomas Grover relocated to Arizona. He is pictured here about three years after the MacRae trial.
Now Pauline Goupil, M.A.
Far more troubling was the role played in this trial and its aftermath by psychotherapist Pauline Goupil, M.A. As defense counsel Ron Koch (pronounced “Coke”) stood at the defense table to cross-examine Thomas Grover, Mr. Grover turned in protest to the judge. This 27-year-old, 220 lb. man, no stranger to the criminal justice system, complained that he did not want to look at the defendant during the trial and therefore could not answer Mr. Koch’s questions if he stood in the middle aisle by the defense table. In apparent disregard of the Constitutional right of defendants to confront an accuser at trial, Judge Brennan ordered defense counsel to cross-examine Thomas Grover from a position in the court as far from the defendant as possible.
Later, during a break in the trial, PBS-TV official Leo Demers and his wife Penny approached the defense attorney. The issue, they said, had nothing to do with the lawyer standing near the defendant. They pointed out the presence of a woman seated with spectators on the center aisle. They reported seeing that woman influence Thomas Grover’s testimony using hand signals. They pointed out that defense counsel had been blocking Grover’s view of her when he was standing near Father MacRae during cross examination.
Mr. and Mrs. Demers claimed that when defense counsel asked Mr. Grover to explain to whom he first brought his sexual abuse claims, the police or a contingency lawyer, Thomas Grover looked directly at the woman seated at the center aisle at which point she gestured with her index finger over her eye and down her cheek. Grover then began to sob uncontrollably on the stand, causing the judge to declare a recess. Leo Demers pointed the woman out, and defense counsel approached her.
The woman identified herself as Pauline Goupil, M.A., Thomas Grover’s therapist. The defense approached the bench, the jury was dismissed for the day, and Pauline Goupil was ordered to the stand. Ms. Goupil testified that she had been retained by Thomas Grover at the behest of contingency lawyer, Robert Upton, to counsel Grover throughout the trial and keep him “clean and sober.” Ms. Goupil stated that she had a practice specialization in treating victims of sexual abuse and assault.
For an entire afternoon, Pauline Goupil, M.A. testified about her role, and vehemently protested defense attempts to obtain her file. Pre-trial, the defense moved for copies of all Thomas Grover’s treatment records, but received none of them despite Grover's claim that he had been treated for his drug addiction six times. The defense was never told of Grover’s on-going treatment with Pauline Goupil.
In the end, the judge ruled that he would conduct an in-camera review of Ms. Goupil’s treatment file which she was ordered to produce the next day. She was then barred from the court for the remainder of trial. The presence of Ms. Goupil, and the matter of her giving Grover hand signals during his testimony, was never heard by the jury and the defense counsel did not move for a mistrial.
Pauline Goupil’s file was submitted the next day for in-camera review by Judge Brennan. In it was a letter from Ms. Goupil to Thomas Grover in which she chastised him for not showing up for her sessions, and assured him:
“I have good news. Jim [Keene, NH sex crimes detective James F. McLaughlin] told me that MacRae is being offered a plea deal he will have to accept. So there will be no trial. We can just move on with the settlement phase.”
Neither the letter, nor Pauline Goupil’s coaching of Thomas Grover’s testimony ever became known to the jury.
Several years after this trial, but before his retirement from PBS and WGBH Television in Boston, Leo Demers wrote a personal letter to retired Judge Arthur Brennan:
“My wife and I were present in the courtroom throughout most of the trial of Fr. Gordon MacRae in 1994. For all these years, I have had many questions about this trial and much that I have wanted to clarify for my own peace of mind ... . We saw something in your courtroom during the MacRae trial that I don’t think you ever saw. My wife nudged me and pointed to a woman, Ms. Pauline Goupil, who was engaged in what appeared to be clear witness tampering. During questioning by the defense attorney, Thomas Grover seemed to feel trapped a few times. On some of those occasions, we witnessed Pauline Goupil make a distinct sad expression with a down-turned mouth and gesturing her finger from the corner of her eye down her cheek at which point Mr. Grover would begin to cry and sob on the stand. The lawyer’s questions were never answered.
“I have been troubled about this for all these years. I know what I saw, and what I saw was clearly an attempt to dupe the court and the jury. If the sobbing and crying was not truthful, then I cannot help but wonder what else was not truthful on the part of Mr. Grover. If he was really a victim who wanted to tell the simple truth, then why was it necessary for him and Ms. Goupil to have what clearly appeared to be a set of prearranged signals to alter his testimony?”
Back at the 1994 trial, once Pauline Goupil’s role in the case was known, Thomas Grover was put back on the stand. He testified that Ms. Goupil arranged for him to be drugged before his testimony, and that was why he could not remember specifics. Thomas Grover claimed that part of the residual effect of the abuse he suffered was chronic unemployment due to his emotional state. He was asked by defense counsel how — since he could not hold a job — could he afford weekly therapy with Ms. Goupil. Grover stated, “She worked something out with my lawyer. She’ll be paid after the settlement.” Earlier in his testimony, Grover denied having any awareness of plans to sue the Catholic Church.
The next morning in the court, Judge Brennan cited a local Keene Sentinel news article reporting that Thomas Grover appeared confused and inconsistent on the witness stand. Judge Brennan came up with a shocking remedy for this. When he summoned the jurors back into the Court, he instructed them to “disregard inconsistencies in Mr. Grover's testimony.”
Pauline Goupil had just three years earlier obtained a B.A. in psychology from “The School of Lifelong Learning.” She then received an M.A. in counseling from Antioch College in Keene, NH where the state’s expert witness in this trial, Leonard Fleischer, Ed.D., was a faculty member and Ms. Goupil’s mentor.
Shortly after Father MacRae was sent to prison, some of the witnesses in this trial spotted Ms. Goupil in the prison’s visiting area. She was visiting her son who in 1989 was convicted at age 19 of multiple charges of serial rape for which he is serving a lengthy sentence. Her son’s convictions came just a few years before Pauline Goupil began a practice specialization in treating victims of sexual assault.
Two years after Gordon MacRae’s criminal trial, Pauline Goupil offered extensive testimony in a lawsuit against the Catholic Church brought by Thomas Grover and his brothers. Her testimony was in support of Grover’s attempt to defeat the state’s three-year statute of limitations on tort actions by claiming, successfully, that the statute of limitations should begin to toll only when a victim becomes aware he was injured and makes a causal connection with abuse.
Toward that end, Pauline Goupil testified with a whole lot of information and documentation that was not part of the treatment file that she was ordered by Judge Brennan to hand over in 1994 for in-camera review.
In her renewed testimony for the lawsuit in 1996, she testified that Thomas Grover’s particular version of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused him to “suppress” all emotional awareness of the abuse he suffered, and caused him to forget many crucial details of that abuse until his pre-trial treatment sessions with her. From the 1996 testimony of Pauline Goupil, M.A.:
Q: Now, one of the ways that a person avoids trauma is inability to recall important aspects of the trauma?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: That’s not true in Tom’s case is it?
Ms. Goupil: Yes, it is true.
Q: Didn’t he tell you all about this trauma?
Ms. Goupil: He told me some incidences of trauma, but there were some details that were very relevant that I heard when I was sitting in court that he had never spoken with me about that he could remember. One of the symptoms of [PTSD] is that the person forgets information that is really quite relevant to the trauma.
Q: How do you know that he forgot these things?
Ms. Goupil: The point [is] that a person who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder will forget relevant information, meaning that it’s relevant to the trauma that they experienced, but they will remember irrelevant information.
Q: Tom remembered this trauma, isn’t that right?
Ms. Goupil: Parts of the trauma.
Q: Is it fair to say that, as you understand it...that he did not forget any aspect of what happened to him that he had reported to you?
Ms. Goupil: He did forget some aspects of what happened to him.
Q: No. That he had reported to you.
Ms. Goupil: Your questions are very complicated.
Q: All right. Let me start again... . It was apparent that he had always remembered the things that he told you?
Ms. Goupil: No, that is not apparent.
Q: Okay. Tell me. Did he say, “I just remembered these.”?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: And what did he say that he just remembered?
Ms. Goupil: I can’t tell you any specific memory because all the memories are just sort of there, but he would come into a — I can’t name a particular session — I would have to consult the file — where he would say...you know, something happened and I just remembered it.
Elsewhere in the 1996 lawsuit transcript, Pauline Goupil testified about her diagnosis of Tom Grover:
Q: ... Now did you review your records in the time that you were away about the number of visits that you had with Tom?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: ... And what’s the total number?
Ms. Goupil: Twenty-eight.
Q: And those sessions each lasted about an hour in the usual course?
Ms. Goupil: Fifteen minutes.
Q: And the diagnosis you made was when? At the end of the line? At the beginning
Ms. Goupil: At the beginning. It usually takes two or three sessions to make an assessment.
Q: You said you gave him a dual diagnosis?
Ms. Goupil: Yes.
Q: One thing I heard was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Ms. Goupil: Uh-huh.
Q: The other problem?
Ms. Goupil: Substance abuse. In remission.
Q: ... So, now we’re talking about PTSD, and you’re diagnosing it with regard to someone who has had a sexual experience.
Ms. Goupil: That’s correct... . In 1980 PTSD was taken out of the battlefields and brought into the battlefields of persons who have been abused because the symptomatology was very obviously similar to people who were returning from war.
Q: ... Would you say psychotherapy is an art, science, or both?
Ms. Goupil: My degree is a Master of Arts so I guess it’s probably an art.
Author’s note: During an ongoing investigation of this matter by former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott, both Thomas Grover and Pauline Goupil declined to be interviewed or to answer any questions regarding this matter.
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Editor’s Note: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also be interested in these related posts by Ryan A. MacDonald.
The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud
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 the image for live access 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.”
Truth Seekers Are the Prophets of Every Troubled Time
In a time of darkness, lies and death cling to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Do not let go. Let Him shine His Light within you and on the world through you.
St. Dionysius the Areopagite | George E. Koronaios
In a time of darkness, lies and death cling to Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Do not let go. Let Him shine His Light within you and on the world through you.
By Dionysius the Areopagite
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Dionysius the Areopagite came to believe in the truth of the Resurrection (Acts 17:34) while others only mocked. The author of this post is recently retired from a distinguished career as a scientist in U.S. government service.
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In “The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence,” Ryan A. MacDonald recounts an exchange he had with a prominent Catholic author, whom he does not identify. He had asked the author to take a look at the trial and imprisonment of Father Gordon MacRae. The man told him: “I don’t share your belief in Father MacRae’s innocence. I just don’t believe a judge and jury would sentence a priest to life in prison with anything less than clear and compelling evidence.” This reminds me of the principle Adolf Hitler presented in Mein Kampf
“The great masses of the people ... more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one.”
— Adolf Hitler
This author might accept that the justice system sometimes gets it wrong in small ways, that there might be a little corruption. Had Father MacRae been sentenced to a few years in prison, he might have considered looking into the case. But we live in America, the greatest nation in the world, with the best justice system in the world, he surely thinks. There can be no big corruption in the justice system, no horrific corruption. He blindly trusts the system.
Father MacRae lost his freedom because the truth of the case was totally suppressed. Instead of truth there was the fabrication of Detective James F. McLaughlin. There was the testimony of the accuser, Thomas Grover. He testified that on five weekly counseling sessions Father MacRae violently sexually abused him. When asked why he kept going back he replied that he repressed the memory of it all while having a weekly “out-of-body experience.” The accuser cried under much of the cross examination, which the judge quickly deflected protecting the accuser whom he had predetermined was a victim. There was also the dismissal of inconsistencies in the accuser’s testimony. Judge Arthur Brennan told the jury to “disregard inconsistencies in Mr. Grover’s testimony.”
But there was no testimony of the accused, Fr. MacRae. Then there were two appeals, which were summarily dismissed. The last one precluded any further appeal. The publication of the “Laurie List,” a list of police officers with founded credibility problems, included Detective James F. McLaughlin due to “falsification of records” in a case prior to Fr. MacRae’s trial. The required disclosure of this to the defense never happened. At no time in the trial nor in the appeals was there any minimal attempt to search for the truth.
We know about the truth of this case because there were people who cared about the truth and investigated the case following the facts to wherever they led: Dorothy Rabinowitz, Harvey Silverglate, Ryan A. MacDonald, former FBI Special Agent James Abbott, journalist Joann Wypijewski, Catholic League President Bill Donohue, The Media Report’s David F. Pierre, Jr. and others. These Truth Seekers all concluded that the Fr. MacRae case was a gross miscarriage of justice.
I have sketched the case of Fr. MacRae to point out that it was total suppression of the truth, and complete fabrication of the case that led to the preposterous outcome of sentencing an innocent priest to life in prison. It is a big lie. And “the great masses of people more easily fall victim to a big lie” (in this case believing Fr. MacRae is a criminal) “than to a little one,” according to that great master liar of the 20th Century, Adolf Hitler. It is ironic, but no coincidence, that in his closing argument before the jury in the Fr. MacRae trial, prosecutor Bruce Elliot Reynolds compared Fr. MacRae to Adolf Hitler. This is what happens when a case is brought before a court with no supporting evidence. The void must be filled with outrageous rhetoric.
In the 29 years since then Truth Seekers have shined light on the truth and on how evil this case was. Our unnamed writer is among the great masses, not to be counted among the Truth Seekers. Any rational, fair person who reads all the evidence of wrongdoing in suppressing the truth is convinced of the innocence of Fr. MacRae. The unnamed writer’s blindness to the truth probably had no effect on his job, or his health, or his life. (God knows the effect on his soul.) Blindness to the truth in other matters has grave consequences to the blind one.
Christ Healing the Blind by El Greco | Metropolitan Museum of Art
I Want to See — Mark 10:51
Big lies perpetrate great evil. The last three years since Covid have been dreadful — loss of life, loss of health, loss of jobs, loss of freedom, confusion, pain, much suffering. We want it to stop. We see evil all around — and we see goodness. But is what we see real or fabricated?
In the case of Father MacRae the fabricated evil is that he is a criminal who deserves to lose his freedom for the rest of his life. Instead, Truth Seekers revealed the total disregard of the justice system for truth and justice. The system criminally railroaded Fr. MacRae, and attacked the freedom of every citizen, of the Church, of Priesthood. This was the real evil in this case. Should we question what we see? Or should we blindly trust some authorities?
Test everything; hold fast what is good.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:21
Before Covid many had chanted, “My body, my choice.” Then came the Covid mandates, and some were chanting, “My body, my choice.” But the earlier chanters did not approve. As Judge Arthur Brennan would say, Disregard the inconsistencies. After the horror of the Holocaust, the Nuremberg Code set principles for the practice of human experimentation. Chief among them is that consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. The so-called vaccines and boosters are experimental; they fall under the Nuremberg code. Yet the mandates completely obliterate this code. Has the door been opened to new atrocities?
When this global pandemic began the logical thing would have been to gather the very best physicians and scientists to work out how to proceed. Instead, they were cancelled. Sacrificing much they have worked feverishly to save lives, and they have seen how all the actions the government has taken contradict fundamental medical principles. They are Truth Seekers at a time when there is an overwhelming effort to suppress truth. [24, 11, 13, 16]
As the Covid pandemic has unfolded more people have realized that there is a real evil that is different from the uncensored, fabricated evil. Jews have often taken great offense when the word Holocaust is used to describe other atrocities. Holocaust survivors, who have faced great evil before, now recognize what is going on as a Holocaust. They are among the Truth Seekers of today. [31, 3, 22, 14]
I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.
— Psalm 34:4
The past three years have been awful. Fear has been used to lock down, to control, to censor, to divide. As we listen to the Truth Seekers we find that the real evil is much worse than we thought. We can become even more fearful. But like never before this is a time to cling to Jesus. “Fear is useless, what is needed is trust.” Luke 8:50
In the uncensored, fabricated evil, it seems that the worse is almost over. The lockdowns are gone. Most people are not wearing masks anymore. It seems that normalcy may be coming back. Could reality be different? In Nazi times many people were saved. They escaped before being taken to concentration camps. But most of those taken to camps died. Are there concentration camps now?
Violating the Nuremberg code and with much coercion people were injected, outside physical concentration camps. Most people did not die soon after. Some did. Now people are dying in unprecedented numbers — people of all ages, many young healthy people, healthy athletes, many suddenly. And many people are getting very sick. The official story, the corporate story, is that this has nothing to do with the injections. [8, 2, 1, 25, 16]
I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
— John 14:6
Does truth matter? Consider the case of Father MacRae again. It can be described by two contrasting views: the ‘criminal’ view of the justice system, and the ‘victim’ view of the Truth Seekers. Looking at these two views, the author with whom Ryan A. MacDonald tried to discuss Father MacRae’s case, did not seek the truth. He choose the ‘criminal’ view because he blindly trusts the system promoting this view. Other than his spiritual life, the choice did not affect him.
Does truth matter in this other case? Two views describe the time in which we live. The ‘protection with loss of freedom’ is the view that the authorities are protecting us during a pandemic that started three years ago, and this requires the loss of some freedoms. The contrasting view is the ‘genocide’ view; plans began much earlier than three years ago, and the loss of freedoms is a way of implementing a depopulation plan.
In this case, if after considering the evidence for both views, you decide that the real view is ‘protection with loss of freedom,’ you learn to live with less freedom accepting that it is the only way you can be protected at this time. If, however, you decide that the ‘genocide’ is the real view, you might not want to cooperate with a system that is trying to kill you. You are not a casual observer. Your life and your freedom depend on being able to see which is the real view. [20, 23, 25, 26, 13, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 3, 7, 9]
Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”
— Mark 10:51
Photo | Wilf’s Wine Press
Without Me You Can Do Nothing — John 15:5
Many of us see much evil around us. Evil is attacking so many things, at so many levels, at different scales. Does it make any difference which evil we confront first? Or is there a more global, more fundamental, more horrifically diabolical evil than the rest? One that if not stopped the others would not matter any more. The references below are a sampler of the work of Truth Seekers who are working tirelessly to save the world, to open the eyes of the rest of us.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness!
— Isaiah 5:20
Critically examine the evidence these Truth Seekers present. Ask Jesus to help you see what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil. The sacredness of life has been attacked for a long time. The combination of technology and loss of freedom gives rise to an unprecedented evil in which our resources, our bodies, even our consciousness will be controlled by others. What is at stake is our national sovereignty and our individual sovereignty. [21, 4, 14, 33]
In Nazi times people were saved before being taken to concentration camps. Once in a camp most did not survive. In these times, if we fail to resist this monstrous, evil attack we will all succumb to it. The time is late, but there is still something we can do. If we remain casual observers unwilling to discern the true evil that is encompassing us, we do not have a chance.
The Truth Seekers of our time suggest some actions we may take to protect ourselves, and resist the evil that is upon us.
Treatments: The best doctors in America, in collaboration with others around the world, developed treatments to prevent and deal with the aftermath of Covid. If you have taken any injections, do not take any more. There are protocols for Covid (prevention, early treatment, long Covid, hospital treatment, post-vaccine recovery), and RSV and the flu. [12]
Cash vs Digital Ids: There is a rush to implement Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). If this succeeds, each of us will have a digital identity, and we will be living in a digital concentration camp. To try to resist this, use cash as much as possible. [4]
One World Totalitarian Government / WHO “Treaty:” The World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a global pandemic treaty. The Administration is committed to the accord. Though it would be a treaty Congress will not be consulted. Many have looked at the details and see the end of national and individual autonomy. [6, 5, 21, 19, 27, 28, 29, 33] James Roguski has emerged as the foremost expert on the two proposals being pushed by the WHO, which he discusses in [32]
We are in Lent, a time of prayer and fasting:
“Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking off every yoke?”
— Isaiah 58:6
But how can we break any yoke if we do not see it? And how can we see it if we pray not constantly?
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
— John 15:5
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Three years ago, early in 2020, I wrote a post about the burgeoning pandemic of Covid 19. My post rejected the Chinese Communist Government’s explanation of its origin. The CCG claimed, and still claims, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated by natural means through an animal sold at the Wuhan, China open market. I laid out a case for why this is likely not so, and why it is much more likely that the virus escaped from inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology where gain-of-function research and other experimentation was being conducted since 2013. This week, a classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress concluded, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a Wuhan laboratory.
If the Chinese Communist Government had been transparent from the beginning, the world may have had a better response to this pandemic. But please remember: China is by force the People’s Republic, but Covid is by no means the people’s pandemic. The good people of China had nothing to do with this.
Please revisit my post, which lays out in stark prose all the dangers described by our guest writer in this week’s post when a system of government adopts the protection of itself over the protection of its people. Please read “The Chinese Communist Party and the True Origin of Covid-19.”
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McCullough, Peter, “Dr. McCullough US Senate Dec 7, 2022 More Pandemic Deaths after Vaccines Rolled Out,” 12/07/2022.
McCullough, Peter, “Bradford Hill Criteria for Causation Met: COVID-19 Vaccines Cause Death by Dr. McCullough,” 12/22.
Mercola, Joseph, “WHO Pandemic Treaty: What It Is, Why It matters and How to Stop It,” 05/10/2022, The Defender.
Nass, Meryl, James Corbett, “WHO Sneak Attack,” 01/15/2023, CHD.TV.
Nevradakis, Michael, “Exclusive: WHO Proposals Could Strip Nations of Their Sovereignty, Create Worldwide Totalitarian State, Expert Warns,” 01/13/2023, The Defender.
“Pfizer — Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement in Its History,” 09/02/2009, United States Department of Justice.
Sharav, Vera, “Never Again is Now Global,” 02/03/2023, CHD.TV.
“Urgent WHO Discussion w/ Special Guest James Roguski, hosted by Maze Love,” 11/11/23. [audio begins about two minutes into the recording]
Wood, Patrick M., “Exclusive with Patrick M. Wood,” 05/16/2022, CHD.TV.
Yeadon, Michael, “Former Pfizer VP Calls For Accountability From Ex-Big Pharma Colleagues,” 11/03/2022, CHD.TV.
Yeadon, Michael, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., “Former Pfizer Vice President Dr. Mike Yeadon Speaks Out,” 05/25/2021, CHD.TV
From the Editor: After reading this post, a reader sent us a link to a 10-minute video by Law Professor Francis Boyle related to the content of this post: Francis Boyle: The WHO’s Plan to Be a Global Dictator.
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 the image for live access 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.”
A Catholic Priest 27 Years Wrongly in Prison in America
On the Feast of St Padre Pio, Fr Gordon MacRae marks 27 years of wrongful imprisonment amassing tools for coping mentally and spiritually with life's unjust wounds.
Father MacRae being led to prison, September 23, 1994
On the Feast of St Padre Pio, Fr Gordon MacRae marks 27 years of wrongful imprisonment amassing tools for coping mentally and spiritually with life’s unjust wounds.
September 22, 2021
Note from the Editor: The title for this post was inspired by a 2019 article at LinkedIn by Fr. James Valladares, Ph.D. entitled, “A Catholic Priest 25 Years Wrongly in Prison in America.” It was written by Father Valladares from excerpts of his acclaimed book on priesthood cited below. Still in prison two years later, this version is written entirely from the perspective of Fr. Gordon MacRae as his 27th year in prison comes to an end.
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Wounds from the Church
As most readers know, I was convicted and sent to prison on September 23, 1994, the same day the Church honors Padre Pio, a great saint whose shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo is the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. Padre Pio was canonized by another saint, Pope John Paul II, on June 16, 2002 at the height of the Catholic sex abuse scandal as it emerged out of Boston and spread like a virus.
For fifty years, Padre Pio bore the visible wounds of Christ on his body. He also bore the less visible wounds of slander and false witness inflicted from inside the Church. On several occasions in his life, his priestly ministry was suspended because lurid and ludicrous accusations were hurled at him from unscrupulous critics, many of whom were Church personnel. It was because of this, and some uncanny threads of connection, that Padre Pio entered our lives and became a Patron Saint of Beyond These Stone Walls. This is an account last told in 2020 in “Padre Pio: Witness for the Defense of Wounded Souls.”
In 2012, Australian Catholic priest, psychologist, and author, Fr. James Valladares, Ph.D., published a widely acclaimed book, “Hope Springs Eternal in the Priest1y Breast” (iUniverse). It cites a good deal of my own writing on the subjects of sacrifice, suffering, and priesthood. I am not at all worthy of this citation that appears on his "Acknowledgments" page:
“Fr. Gordon MacRae — an extraordinarily heroic priest with indomitable courage, unrelenting tenacity, unwavering patience, and Christ-like magnanimity who personally reflects what Pope Benedict XVI confessed: ‘All of us [priests] are suffering as a result of the sins of our confreres who betrayed a sacred trust or failed to deal justly and responsibly with allegations of abuse.’”
I don’t know about any of that, especially the part about “unwavering patience.” (Maybe Pornchai, writing from Thailand will weigh in on that.) Anyway, the book extensively cites the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal whose three major articles on my trial and imprisonment took this story out of the darkness of one-sided suppression. It also cites the work of Ryan A. MacDonald, most notably his investigative journalism compiled in “Truth in Justice.”
However, the cryptic statement of Pope Benedict cited by Father Valladares above needs clarification. The Pope’s reference to “the sins of our confreres who betrayed a sacred trust” needs no explanation. His further statement referring to those who “failed to deal justly and responsibly with allegations of abuse” is broader in scope. Fr. Valladares understood it to refer to some in the Church who tried to remedy one injustice by inflicting yet another. Some bishops went far beyond what has been required by the rule of law and also acquiesced to demands of the media and others with an agenda by publishing lists of priests deemed “credibly accused” but without basic due process of law.
Before my trial in 1994, for example, a past bishop of my diocese wrote a press release declaring me guilty of victimizing not only my accusers, but the entire Catholic Church. Two years ago, twenty-five years into my unjust sentence, a subsequent bishop joined the mob with stones in hand by publishing anew such a list with the stated goal of “transparency.” A year later, that same bishop was himself accused in a case that on its face is “credible” according to the standards bishops have used against priests.
The claims against Bishop Peter Libasci are alleged to have taken place in 1983, the same year as the claims against me. His defense is being handled by a law firm that most priests could never afford. But as I have documented in the post linked below, I believe the claims against him to be untrue and unjust. I was criticized for defending my bishop after my own name appeared on his list, but I am not looking for the mob approval my bishop was apparently looking for. I wrote of the injustice he faces in “Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo.”
Detective James McLaughlin celebrates his 350th arrest.
Wounds from the State
I cannot bring myself to rehash the litany of false witness and official misconduct that sent me to prison on September 23, 1994. I just read a report by the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE). It reveals the disturbing fact that in more than half of the cases overturned with new evidence revealing that the person in prison did not commit the crime, misconduct by prosecutors or police was the primary cause. (See Dale Chappell “Report Shows Official Misconduct Responsible for More than Half of Exonerations.”)
In the cases of many falsely accused Catholic priests, however, misconduct usually has a different outcome. There is never any “planted evidence,” but there is usually a lot of money in play as accusers become plaintiffs in civil lawsuits. Money is often an enticement to corruption and false witness. In many of these cases, no actual crime was ever committed 20, 30, or 40 years earlier when claims were alleged to have occurred.
In the Exonerations Report, sex offenses constituted the second highest category of wrongful convictions. Exonerations in that category encompassed a wide range of official misconduct including police threatening defendants and witnesses, falsified forensic evidence, police not pursuing exculpatory evidence, and police lying under oath. All of this was in the background of my trial and is documented in “Wrongful Convictions: The Other Police Misconduct.”
Many people ask me why I am still in prison when others have come forward with evidence and testimony that casts doubt on the integrity of my conviction. I believe that the most important factor in my continued imprisonment is that the officer behind it has scored convictions via lenient plea deals in over a thousand cases of suspected sexual abuse. Lenient plea deals bolstered his conviction rate without totally destroying the defendants for life. As most readers know, I was offered such a deal in 1994 which would have had me released from prison by 1996 had I actually been guilty or willing to pretend so.
Reversing a conviction based on Detective James F. McLaughlin’s malfeasance in my case may have the unintended consequence of reopening a thousand others that he was involved with. It would have required moral courage and judicial integrity on the part of the judge, a former federal prosecutor who declined a hearing in my habeas corpus appeal. Judges rely on a procedural ruling giving state courts a right to finality. No judge has ruled on the evidence or witnesses that have arisen in the years since my trial. No judge has ever even heard the evidence or witnesses.
This raises a hard truth about our justice system. Guilty defendants are inclined to accept lenient plea deals while many innocent defendants cannot or will not. I am one of them. As a result, many guilty defendants spend far less time in prison than innocent ones. You have already seen a glaring example.
As a direct result of my writing about the horrific crimes perpetrated against Pornchai Moontri when he was brought to America against his will at age 12 in 1985, Richard Alan Bailey was found and arrested in Oregon. Due to extensive evidence, he pled no contest to forty felony charges of sexual assault in the State of Maine in 2018. He was sentenced to 18 years probation and never saw the inside of a prison. In nearby New Hampshire, I refused a one year plea deal and faced trial with no evidence. I was then sentenced to 67 years in prison. Let that sink in.
The Prophet Jonah: A Final Chapter
But none of this addresses what I intended to be at the heart of this post that marks those 27 years. There is nothing I can do to secure justice or freedom for myself. And there was nothing I did do to bring about my loss of them. But there was a lot I could do to secure justice and restore freedom for one whose path on this journey from Jerusalem to Jericho crossed with mine.
I did nothing so grandiose as the conversion of Nineveh, but through the Grace of God I became a necessary instrument in the conversion of Pornchai Moontri who once was lost and broken and now lives free in the light of Divine Mercy. In a September 10 telephone call to him in Thailand on his birthday, his first as a free man, he told me that his deliverance from both prison and his past could not have happened without me. I do not regret paying that ransom. I today believe this to be the purpose for what I have endured.
In my recent post, “The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner,” I wrote about the Seventh Century BC Prophet Jonah and why much of the Book of Jonah is today considered to be a parable. I did not want to detract from the hopeful outcome of that story, so I held its final chapter until now. Its last chapter also took place in Nineveh, but in our time and not Jonah’s.
Though the story of Jonah and the Great Fish is a parable, the Prophet Jonah was a historical figure honored by all three of the great monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. When Jonah was sent by God to the ancient city of Nineveh in the Seventh Century BC, it was the capital of the Assyrian Empire in its time of glory. Nineveh was a center for commercial trade routes on the Tigris River in what is now northern Iraq, just opposite the modern city of Mosul. Nineveh was established in the Neolithic period more than 8,000 years ago, and inhabited almost without a break until about 1500 AD.
In the centuries before the Prophet Jonah was sent to Nineveh, the city was known as a religious center, but it fell far away from its religious roots. The city honored the Assyrian goddess, Ishtar, a goddess of healing who somehow was transformed by the time of Jonah into a goddess of war. The Assyrians built the city with broad boulevards, parks and gardens, and a magnificent palace of more than 80 rooms.
Today, Nineveh is reduced to two large mounds beneath which are the ruins of a city once thriving. The mounds are called, in Arabic, “Kuyunjik” and “Nebi Yunus” which means “place of Jonah.” In ancient times, a massive tomb in honor of the Prophet Jonah was built in a Sunni mosque in Nineveh on the site of an Assyrian church where the remains of Jonah were thought to be buried. This part of the city was revered by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The Tomb of the Prophet somehow managed to survive intact until just a decade ago. After standing for over a thousand years, the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah was blown up and destroyed in 2011 by the fundamentalist Islamic group, al Qaeda.
The Taliban had been doing the same thing in Afghanistan. Islam was preceded there by Buddhism which was eventually eclipsed by Islam and driven out around the Seventh Century AD. In the Sixth Century AD, Buddhist monks carved into a cliff side the world’s largest statue of Buddha. Standing at 180 feet, it survived for 1,500 years before it was blown up by the Taliban in 2001. It was destroyed at about the same time the Taliban harbored Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda while the September 11, 2001 assault on the United States was planned.
I bring all of this up now because witnessing in my own recent lifetime the demise of people, places, and things once held sacred by many people has had an outsized impact on me that some might find perplexing. Why would I care so much about the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah or a 1,500 year-old gigantic stone Buddha? No matter who these monuments ultimately served, they arose from the hearts and souls of a people. When religious icons are destroyed by evil intent, so is the spirit of those people.
Catholicism and the cancel culture assault on the priesthood now risk this same fate. That risk is manifested most in America over just the last two decades. This threat does not come from the Taliban or Islamic State — though they may be poised to take advantage of the vacuum of hopelessness left in its wake. The terrorism behind this threat is called “apathy.”
If the priesthood and the Mass fall away, it will have as its primary cause the agendas of a few and the silence of too many.
We have witnessed in just recent years a chronic disparagement of the priesthood even from Pope Francis and our bishops, a canceling of a widely reverenced ancient form of the Sacrifice of the Mass, a handing over of the Church’s patrimony to the Chinese Communist government, a disparaging of our Church and faith as a “non essential service” by secular authority, a rampant capitulation to that by some bishops, a failure to defend the sanctity of life and the sanctity of the Eucharist, and a Catholic President who believes in neither.
This is why the Taliban despise us and judge us to be “Infidels,” which means exactly what it implies: “A people of little faith.”
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From a Homily of Padre Pio
“Why does is there evil in the world? Listen closely to me. There was a mother who was embroidering on a small weaving frame. Her young son was seated in front of her on a small low stool watching his mother work. But as he watched, he saw only the underside of the weaving frame. And so he said, ‘But Mother, what are you doing? The embroidery is so ugly!’ So his mother lowered the frame to show him the other side of the work, the good side with all its colors in place and all the threads in a harmonious pattern. That is it. Have you seen what evil is like? Evil is the reverse side of that embroidery and we are all sitting on a small stool.”
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: I want to thank readers who have consulted our Special Events page to assist our friend Pornchai in the daunting task of rebuilding his life. As you know, he was taken from Thailand at age 11. On his September 10 birthday this month, he had a touching reunion with his cousin who was eight when they lived together and is now 45 and an officer in the Royal Thai Navy. They met on September 10th for a birthday celebration at the Gulf of Thailand.
You may also wish to review the related posts linked herein:
Padre Pio, Witness for the Defense of Wounded Souls
Wrongful Convictions: The Other Police Misconduct