“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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/24/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 4/24/24

Pop Stars and Priests: Michael Jackson and the Credible Standard

The late Michael Jackson settled one abuse claim for $20 million but supporters maintain his innocence. A Catholic priest is ruined for life just for being accused.

The late Michael Jackson settled one abuse claim for $20 million but supporters maintain his innocence. A Catholic priest is ruined for life just for being accused.

April 24, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Daniel Kahneman died last month on March 27, 2024. Just as Beyond These Stone Walls was beginning, I was asked by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, to write an article for the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst. Published in July 2009, my article was “Due Process for Accused Priests.” It began with a revelation about the work of Daniel Kahneman, a noted psychologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in a phenomenon known as “availability bias.”

As a result of availability bias, humans tend to replace their beliefs with the crowd’s beliefs simply because a proposition has been repeated in the media and presented as widely believed. We are subjected to subtle cues of social pressure every day in marketing that convince many people to purchase things they don’t really need. We also face subtle cues and social pressure in the daily bombardment of news stories that cause many people to believe something based solely on its prevalence in the media. It is indeed possible that Michael Jackson and many Catholic priests became the subjects of classic, media-fueled availability bias.

In his 2011 bookThinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman laid out the foundations of what a stream of availability bias might look like:

“An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may lead up to public panic and large-scale government action. On some occasions, a media story about a risk catches the attention of a segment of the public, which becomes aroused and worried. This emotional reaction becomes a story in itself, prompting additional coverage in the media, which in turn produces greater concern and involvement. The cycle is sometimes sped along deliberately by ‘availability entrepreneurs,’ individuals or organizations who seek to ensure a continuous flow of worrying news. The danger is increasingly exaggerated as the media compete for attention-grabbing headlines. Anyone who claims that the danger is overstated is suspected of association with a ‘heinous cover-up’”

— Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, p.142

Does this not sound like exactly what has taken place in the early days of the priesthood crisis? In that arena, the “availability entrepreneurs” were composed largely of contingency lawyers and groups like SNAP, which I once exposed in “David Clohessy Resigned SNAP in Alleged Kickback Scheme.”

One of the conclusions of “availability bias” widely touted in the media is that statutes of limitation for lawsuits should be extended or discarded because it takes victims of sexual abuse many years or decades to come forward. The prison system in which I have spent the last 30 years houses nearly 3,000 prisoners. Estimates of those convicted of sexual offenses account for about 40 percent of them. This translates into a population of approximately 1,200 offenders in this one prison who stand convicted of sexual crimes, most true but some not. In addition to these 1,200 men, thousands more are currently on parole in New Hampshire as “registered” sexual offenders.

Only one among these thousands is a convicted Catholic priest, and if you have been paying attention at all, then you know that his conviction has been widely called into serious doubt. The thousands of other men convicted of sexual abuse are accused parents, grandparents, step-parents, foster parents, uncles, teachers, ministers, scout leaders, and so on, and for them the typical time lapse between abuse and the victim reporting it has been measured in weeks or months, not years — and certainly not decades.

My own diocese, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, in just the last month has provided a six-figure settlement to the accuser of a long deceased priest accused in a claim from 52 years ago. Even the lawyer involved admitted in a press report that “No lawsuit was filed because the alleged abuse happened outside the statute of limitations, but … it is important for survivors to come forward as part of the healing process,” which in this case involves a whole lot of money, forty percent of which goes to that attorney. In their own statement, Church officials said, “The Diocese of Manchester provides financial assistance to those who have been harmed, regardless of when the abuse occurred.” I live in a place with men some of whom have taken lives for far less money than that provided by my diocese to those who falsely took my reputation and freedom.

A simultaneous press release came under the title “Diocese of Manchester Adds to List of Clergy Accused of Sexual Abuse of a Minor.” Accuracy in language is important here. The press release continued, “The Diocese of Manchester added three priests to its list of clergy accused of sexual abuse.” Note that the usual term “credibly accused” is missing from these reports. Even that weakest of standards seems to have been discarded in favor of discarding priests who are merely “accused.” Ryan A. MacDonald wrote of the risks that such published lists pose to priests. His eye-opening article was, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.”

Pop Stars and Priests

I kicked a hornets’ nest some years ago when I wrote an article in response to a quote from actress Marlo Thomas who suggested in some published forum that the best American role model for middle school age boys might be singer Michael Jackson. I scoffed in my own response why the suggestion was ridiculous for many reasons, not least being the taint of sexual abuse claims against him.

Despite being acquitted in a criminal trial, Michael Jackson settled a single claim of sexual abuse for a reported $20 million, and untold millions settled other claims against him. When Michael Jackson died, he was celebrated as a cultural icon of the entertainment industry. In contrast, an American bishop, under pressure from a victims’ group, reportedly ordered the remains of a posthumously accused priest exhumed from a diocesan cemetery and reinterred elsewhere.

My point was not that I thought Michael Jackson was guilty. It was that for many fans the claims and sett1ements did not destroy his name. He was acquitted at trial, so if there was any evidence at all a jury did not find it persuasive. Some people conclude that, despite acquittal in a criminal trial, Michael Jackson’s multi-million dollar settlement of civil lawsuits was itself evidence of guilt. I’ll get back to that point.

Catherine Coy, a fan and advocate of Michael Jackson, sent a shot across my bow back then for suggesting any connection between settlements and credible accusations. I knew I was in for it when Ms. Coy began her message with “You, of all people …!” Actually, when Catherine Coy and I listened to each other, we came to a sort of detente if not agreement. In a 2005 article, “Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud” (Catalyst, Nov. 2005), I detailed the relationship between mediated settlements and claims against Catholic priests. Did Michael Jackson become vulnerable to the same media-generated shroud under which claims against priests were seen as “credible?”

Catherine Coy insisted that in spite of monetary settlements, Jackson had never had a “credible” claim of sexual abuse lodged against him. That statement might evoke a dismissive “Yeah, right!” in some corners, but not in mine.

Why did so many people presume the worst of Mr. Jackson? It certainly wasn’t evidence. It is more of a spontaneous response, and one that is very similar to what happens when priests are accused and maintain their innocence. This is the point predicted by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. The mere news media repetition of sordid stories about Michael Jackson and Catholic priests took on such prevalence in the news media that they became an unconscious bias against both. When the Catholic bishops of the United States refer to a 20-, or 30- or 40-year-old claim against a priest as “credible” they mean only that they have determined that both the priest and the accuser lived in the same community in the time period alleged.

Michael and I in The Wall Street Journal

Catherine Coy was right. I, of all people, should have seen the analogy instantly. Ms. Coy wrote “There isn’t a person alive who could have withstood the onslaught of lies, innuendo and slander that was heaped on Jackson for well over 20 years.” On that score, I beg to differ, but I see her point.

The very association of Michael Jackson’s name with the bizarre proclivity attributed to him may in fact be the result of media-fueled availability bias and not evidence. There is no doubt in my mind that I and many other priests have faced this same phenomenon. With no personal experience of the behaviors attributed to some accused priests, many Catholics simply adopted the point of view given them by the news media.

This does not mean that all the claims of sexual abuse by priests are false. The U.S. Bishops commissioned a formal study of the matter conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. There were really two waves in the scandal. The first was the revelations that priests were accused at the time alleged abuse happened in the 1960’s to the 1980’s, and then were quietly moved around to other parishes to avoid a public scandal. This was scandalous enough, and tragic.

The John Jay Report also revealed that a full seventy percent of the claims faced by bishops and dioceses in 2002 and following also alleged claims from the 1960’s to 1980’s, but those claims were not brought forward until 2002 when it became clear that Church institutions would settle because of the bludgeoning they took in the media. Those claims were propelled by the widely held belief that it takes victims decades to realize they were abused and report it. Lots of people now believe that, and entire states have passed legislation to accommodate that belief. However, as demonstrated in “Due Process for Accused Priests,” the “delayed reporting” principle is classic availability bias.

In June, 2005, just three months after Dorothy Rabinowitz published an explosive two-part analysis of the case against me in The Wall Street Journal, Deputy Editorial Page Editor, Daniel Henninger wrote a most interesting commentary as Michael Jackson’s criminal trial got underway (“Pushing the Envelope – Michael Jackson: A Freaky Culture’s Peter Pan,” June 3, 2005).

It was Daniel Henninger who first put into print what I hoped someone out there might grasp:

“[Prosecutor] Tom Sneddon may lose this case. If so, it will be because Mr. Jackson, like Kobe Bryant [and O.J. Simpson], was able to mount a defense equal to the accusatory powers of the state. Not everyone can do that. If Michael walks, I’ll wonder 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 steamroller.”

I do not at all begrudge Michael Jackson’s having had the means to mount a defense equal to the state’s prosecution of him. Whatever he spent defending himself, it was less than the state spent trying to put him in prison. At the same time, I thought Daniel Henninger’s comment about convicted priests was just and fair, but he missed an important point. I no longer have the letter, but I wrote to Mr. Henninger shortly after his 2005 editorial. This is the gist of what I wrote:

“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 Jackson’s battle would have been if twenty years passed between the alleged crime and the state’s prosecutorial steamroller 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 Jackson 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 most similarly accused Catholic priests.”

The Wall Street Journal

The aftermath of those articles in April, 2005 was most interesting. The accusers in the case against me — anxious to talk to the news media before receiving settlements — suddenly had nothing to say. one of my prosecutors had nothing to say. The other took his own life. The judge was quoted in a local news article saying, vaguely, “Review is a positive thing.” Then he took early retirement from the bench. The police detective who choreographed the case, reportedly offering bribes to potential accusers, had nothing to say and has since been exposed on a previously secret list of ethically challenged police.

After those WSJ articles about me, I expected an onslaught of defensive rhetoric from victims’ groups, prosecutors, and contingency lawyers, but it never came. The sole protest came from the most unexpected source. Father Edward Arsenault, my Bishop’s delegate and the man most involved in settlement negotiations in these cases, declared that I was found guilty in a court of law by a jury of my peers, and nothing else needed to be said. Father Arsenault denounced The Wall Street Journal and its writer as biased. Incredible!

A few years later, Msgr. Edward Arsenault was convicted of multiple counts of embezzlement, including charges of forgery and fraud, and sentenced to prison. He was subsequently dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis but now inexplicably has a new life and a new name: Edward J. Bolognini.

In 2005 just as the Catholic scandal was building up steam to rumble full speed ahead for a national contingency lawyer windfall, I did not expect that the world’s largest secular newspaper would publish so openly against the tide — or tidal wave — of typical media coverage of claims against priests while most in the Catholic media remained silent. With the exception of Father Richard John Neuhaus in First Things and The Catholic League in Catalyst, and the Catholic World Report, the Catholic media — on both the left and the right — continued to remain silent about false claims against priests brought for money, or, worse, they have used the clergy scandal for some agenda of their own.

And of Michael Jackson, writing in The Nation, (“The Love We Lost”), JoAnn Wypijewski wrote that

“Ordinary rules of judgment have been suspended” in this sound-bite culture of news that shapes most peoples’ views on sex and the accused:

“[I]t cannot matter that Michael Jackson was acquitted of child molestation, since he was frequently remembered in death as a pedophile… just as it cannot matter whether others who plead guilty to a sex charge really did it, or whether evidence to convict was nonsense, or whether the guilty served their time. They can never ‘pay their debt to society.’ Guilt is the presumption, forever.”

JoAnn Wypijewski went on to describe the case of the priest convicted in a trial in which the sole “credible” evidence presented to the jury was the mere fact that he is a priest — that, and a claim of repressed and recovered memory, the legitimacy of which is always questioned when the accused is not a priest. In an all-too familiar twist, that priest’s bishop added his own sound bite by administratively dismissing the priest from the priesthood just before the sham of a trial.

JoAnn Wypijewski also bravely wrote about me just as the fiasco film, “Spotlight” was receiving its Academy Award for Public Service. Her ground-shaking article was “Oscar Hangover Special: Why "Spotlight" Is a Terrible Film.”

After what has now exceeded $4 billion in total mediated settlements nationwide, the matter of false claims is the elephant in the sacristy that no one wants to talk about. At the same time, our beleaguered Catholic bishops present case after case as “credible” despite knowing exactly what that term means and does not mean.

The “credible” standard Catherine Coy applied to Michael Jackson is admirable and hopeful. Ms. Coy’s fair-minded attitude about Michael Jackson is the polar opposite of what is now applied to Catholic priests.

There is no mechanism whatsoever beyond preserved DNA or an admission of guilt that would serve as evidence that a priest accused from decades ago is guilty. There is no investigation technique that could determine the credibility of such claims. What makes most claims against priests “credible” is the fact that someone — not them — has paid money to an accuser. Nothing else. Catholics should take note of the efforts by Michael Jackson fans to revisit credibility despite financial settlements which, in the secular world, are merely designed to make the claim go away with no statement of culpability.

For my part, I can only remember the famous scene early in Michael’s trial during which he danced on the hood of an SUV outside the court to the wild cheers of fans. Michael sure was a strange guy, but the dance gave me pause. Having been through such a trial, I know its oppression. That dance was surely the act of a delusional man …

… or perhaps an innocent one.

Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Your comments are most welcome, but they are moderated, so they may not appear instantly. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls.

Due Process for Accused Priests, Catalyst, July 2009

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List

David Clohessy Resigns SNAP in Alleged Kickback Scheme

The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr Gordon MacRae

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/31/24 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 1/31/24

Finding Your Peace: Job and the Mystery of Suffering

The problem of evil and the pain of suffering plagued humanity from our beginning. How do we reconcile grace and hope in a loving God in the midst of suffering?

The problem of evil and the pain of suffering plagued humanity from our beginning. How do we reconcile grace and hope in a loving God in the midst of suffering?

January 31, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

On the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, ten days before Ash Wednesday this year, the assigned First Reading at Mass is from the Book of Job. It is Job’s lament against suffering, and the reading ends on a dismal note: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind. I shall not see happiness again.” Job 7:6-7

In the Book of Job, you will have to suffer along with him through a lot more of his lament until you come to God’s response many chapters later. As I read the lament I marveled at how much of it I can relate to. As I wrote in a post just a week ago, my days are often faced without obvious hope. But I also marvel at how much I can relate to God’s response to Job.

I wrote a science post in 2022 entitled “The James Webb Space Telescope and an Encore from Hubble.” Longtime readers of this blog know of my enthusiasm for Astronomy and Cosmology. If I were God — and thank God I am not — I would have framed my answer to Job just as God did:

“Who is this that obscures divine plans with such words of ignorance? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or shown the dawn its place? Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?”

— Job 38: 2,4,12,31

Job got the message. So did I, and it isn’t trite at all. The response of God was twofold: Number 1: I have a plan; Number 2: Trust in Number 1. It’s the trust part that I find difficult. His broader answer is found in all of Sacred Scripture as a whole. The Biblical characters are believers who take upon themselves the plan of God. They all suffer. Many suffer a lot. Their very lives are our evidence that there is a divine plan.

God takes the suffering of humankind seriously and personally. When He took our form, He suffered in every way we do, including the humiliation of rejection to the point of crucifixion and death. Remember His trial before Pontius Pilate when “The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’.”

Like me, many of you have, at one time or another in your life, found yourself upon the dung heap of Job.

The Most Dangerous Thing in Prison

While writing this post, I stumbled upon a scene in a TV drama. I’m not sure which one it was, but the scene was in a prison. A rough looking character had spent 20 years in prison on death row for a crime he did not commit. A younger man was telling him that his friends on the outside want to take up the death row prisoner’s case. “Tell them to stop!” the older man said. “Please don’t give me hope. The most dangerous thing in prison is hope.”

No doubt, that statement was perplexing for most viewers, but I readily understood it. It recalled some dismal feelings from a time when hope emerged in prison only to be cruelly shattered. The shattering of hope often feels worse than no hope at all. That’s the danger the prisoner was talking about.

For me, the shattering of hope began on September 11, 2001. Early that year, Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Wall Street Journal took an interest in my trial and imprisonment, and the evidence of fraud and misconduct behind them. For my part, gathering and photocopying documents from prison is a very difficult task, but over the course of that year, I labored to send reams of requested documentation to Ms. Rabinowitz. Then, just as the story grew into real interest, the forces of evil struck hard.

As you know well, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. Their collapse damaged many of the surrounding buildings including the editorial offices of The Wall Street Journal on Liberty Street just across the World Trade Center Plaza.

Months passed while The Wall Street Journal relocated its offices to 1211 Avenue of the Americas. In early January 2002, a letter came from a member of the WSJ Editorial Board. All was lost. We had to start over. But I believed at the time that I could not start over. It seemed an overwhelming task. Hope was crushed along with the towers themselves.

The loss of thousands of lives added great weight to that sense of hopelessness. I could not possibly confront my personal loss in the face of so much human tragedy caused by so much human evil. I will never forget the nightmare I had after receiving that letter. I was inside World Trade Center Tower One when the first plane struck. It was collapsing all around me. The nightmare was long, real, and horrifying. At the end of the dream I was still alive, but regretfully so. I have never been a person who sees the world in terms of himself. I tried to convey that in a post about the horrors of that day, “The Despair of Towers Falling, The Courage of Men Rising.”

I just had to wait a bit before my own courage would rise again. By the time I recovered the resolve to start over in 2002, the Catholic clergy abuse scandal erupted in Boston just a few months after 9/11 to become another New England witch hunt that swept the nation. This made my hope, and The Wall Street Journal’s effort toward justice a much steeper climb. It has always struck me that the two stories — the hijacking of the planes that attacked Manhattan and the Pentagon on 9/11, and the collapse of the dignity and morale of Catholic priests — both began in my hometown of Boston just weeks apart.

Sorrow Needs a Panoramic View

I cannot tell you how to suffer. I do not even know how myself. I can only tell you that, along with most of you, I do suffer. Perhaps that means something as a starting point. Maybe those who know sorrow feel at some fundamental level that reflection on the experience from someone who also suffers means more than a smug and smiling Gospel of prosperity from some TV evangelist.

I don’t mean to pick on TV evangelists and God help me if I judge them harshly, but I have a hard time reconciling the trenches of suffering with the Gospel of prosperity that some of them proclaim. No one in prison listens to Joel Osteen. His word is for the brokers, not the broken; not the broken-hearted.

A sanitized TV version of grace and glory feels nothing but empty and shallow against the real deep sorrow of the trenches. I found myself in one of those trenches, and, like Job on his dung heap, I was dragged there kicking and screaming at God for its injustice. For a long time, I have wondered what I did to deserve this trashing of my freedom, my name, and worst of all, my priesthood. I do, after all, have a King other than Caesar!

So does Peggy Noonan. She was a White House speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, and now she writes the “Declarations” column for The Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Edition. She is neck deep in the affairs of New York City and Washington, but she also has her finger on the pulse of that vast expanse of America that stretches from there to the Pacific.

Peggy Noonan’s January 27, 2018 column was entitled, “Who’s Afraid of Jordan Peterson?” Formerly associate professor of psychology at Harvard, Jordan Peterson has taught psychology at the University of Toronto for 20 years. Ms. Noonan wrote about a British TV report on his book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

She was intrigued because the interviewer was critical of Professor Peterson for his resistance to adopting the new orthodoxy of political correctness. Ms. Noonan summarized that the interviewer tried to silence his …

“… scholarly respect for the stories and insights into human behavior — into the meaning of things — in the Old and New Testaments. Their stories exist for a reason, he says, and have lasted for a reason: They are powerful indicators of reality, and their great figures point to pathways.”

Those Biblical pathways, it turns out, are always through the dark woods of sorrow. As I have written before, Sacred Scripture — the story of God and us — is filled with irony. The characters that populate the Biblical stories experience transformations born of suffering and sorrow.

Why we suffer is a cosmic mystery, but it is so even for God. As Saint Paul wrote, “He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). With trust, suffering takes on a meaning far greater than itself.

God Sees Facebook Too

If I were Job this is how I could frame my own lament:

“I spent the last 29 years in a dark periphery of my own called unjust imprisonment. Such a plight can cause a man to focus entirely on himself and his own bizarre fate. Those without hope here live in a prison inside a prison.”

I want to tell you about something that happened after I wrote a post entitled “Left Behind: In Prison for the Apocalypse.” It was about my friend, Skooter, who left this prison eleven years ago to face a life alone. Saint Mother Teresa once wrote that poverty does not mean just a lack of money, or food, or housing. The deepest poverty on Earth, she wrote, is to live life with no one who cares about us, no one to walk with us in suffering or sorrow.

I will always remember the day Skooter left us. From a distance, Pornchai Moontri and I watched him walk out the door carrying his life in two trash bags, but with no idea where, or to whom he would go. His life was missing the infrastructure that so many in Joel Osteen’s audience might take for granted.

Skooter was a young prisoner whom I taught to read and write. When he left prison, I never heard from him again except through a cryptic third party “thank you” from another young man who found himself back inside.

I did not know what happened to Skooter, nor did I know what exactly prompted me to write that post about him five years after he fell into silence. The silence was not his choice. When prisoners leave here, they are barred from contacting anyone left behind.

I do not know what prompted me to do this, but months after I wrote that post about him, I decided to try to find Skooter to see if he might like to read it. I called a friend, Charlene Duline in Indiana, a retired State Department official who became Pornchai Moontri’s Godmother in his Divine Mercy conversion. Charlene looked for Skooter on Facebook (using his given name), but the search yielded no result. A few days later, for reasons I do not know, I asked her to try again.

Now obviously, I have no access to Facebook but a past editor started a page for Beyond These Stone Walls. I have never even seen it so I don’t have a clue how Facebook works. I only know that my posts are shared there and that about 4,000 people “follow” them there. So while I was on the telephone with Charlene, she did the search again, but this time it yielded one result. I asked her to send a “connect request” from me. Within seconds, the acceptance came back with this message:

“G, is this really you? Is this possible?”

It seemed so bizarre that we were actually communicating in real time. Charlene sent Skooter a short reply telling him that she was on the telephone with me at that moment. Skooter sent back a number and asked me to call it. All the telephones in this prison are outside. So in the frigid cold, I called that number.

Skooter answered, and what he told me was astonishing. Skooter had been through a terrible dark night. After leaving prison at age 25, he struggled to build the life that he never had. He was alone, but he worked hard. Life was looking just a little promising and hopeful, then a cascade of dominoes began to fall.

Months before my sudden Facebook message reached Skooter, he lost his job. His boss in a small construction company was charged with some sort of corruption that Skooter had nothing to do with, but he was the collateral damage. Losing his job with no ability to plan was catastrophic. Paying rent by the week in substandard housing — a plight faced by so many former prisoners — Skooter then lost his place to live.

Everything he owned, which wasn’t much, ended up in storage. Then, unable to pay his storage bill, he lost even that. Living in a homeless shelter, Skooter went to a Christian food pantry for some help. He was asked for an address and he said he did not have one. He was told that he needs an address before they can give him food. Skooter roamed the streets and despaired.

Early in the morning after a sleepless night in the cold, he walked into the woods feeling totally defeated. He brought a rope. I’m sorry, but there is just no comfortable way to tell this. Skooter hanged himself from a tree. A hunter came upon the scene and cut down Skooter’s unconscious body, but he was still alive.

The hunter left Skooter on the ground and called the police from a highway rest area pay phone. Skooter was taken to a hospital where he had a 48-hour emergency commitment in the psychiatric ward. This is all dismal, but the rest shook me to the core. When Skooter emerged from this nightmare, he went to a city library to keep warm. He learned that he can use a computer there for free.

Feeling alone and discarded, the very poverty that Saint Mother Teresa described above, something compelled him to open a Facebook account. It was at that moment that I was on a phone from prison talking with Charlene when we searched for Skooter for the second time and there he was. Skooter told me that as he sat there wondering what to do next, my “friend request” appeared on his screen.

The photo of Skooter (above) was taken at a friend’s home at Christmas before his dark night brought him into a dark forest. I have been where Skooter was. I wrote of “How Father Benedict Groeschel Entered My Darkest Night.” Now I have entered Skooter’s darkest night, and from inside these prison walls I walk with him through his pathways of suffering and sorrow. No one could today convince Skooter that God has no plan.

So, where were you when God laid the foundations of the Earth? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or showed the dawn its place?

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Editor’s Note: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You might like these other posts cited herein:

The James Webb Space Telescope and an Encore from Hubble

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

The Despair of Towers Falling, The Courage of Men Rising

Left Behind: In Prison for the Apocalypse

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Ryan A. MacDonald 1/17/24 Ryan A. MacDonald 1/17/24

Detective James McLaughlin and the Police Misconduct List

The NH ‘Laurie List’ is a once secret list of police misconduct. Ex-Detective James F McLaughlin, who sent a priest to life in prison, now sues to get off the list.

The NH ‘Laurie List’ is a once secret list of police misconduct. Ex-Detective James F McLaughlin, who sent a priest to life in prison, now sues to get off the list.

Editor’s Note: Ryan A. MacDonald has published numerous articles on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church including, “Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest.” This is a necessary sequel.

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January 17, 2024 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Are you in favor of destroying the lives of Catholic priests under false pretense? If not, please read on. Catholic priest Gordon J MacRae is now in his thirtieth year of wrongful imprisonment after rejecting a 1994 plea deal offer to serve one to two years. I previously wrote at the link cited above about newly emerging evidence in the case. The Wall Street Journal boldly took up this matter in a series of articles by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz and noted civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate. Their work exposing this wrongful prosecution and police misconduct is collected at “The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr Gordon MacRae.”

Newly emerging evidence came to light with a revelation that the police detective who investigated and testified against Father Mac Rae was added to a previously secret list of officers with dishonesty or police misconduct issues. The list was held in secret by the New Hampshire Attorney General until a court ordered publication of the list in 2022. Detective James McLaughlin was added to the list for “Falsification of Records,” an incident or incidents that occurred in 1985, nine years before the 1994 MacRae trial. Because the behavior was known to state prosecutors at the time of the trial, they were obligated by Supreme Court precedent to report this to Father MacRae’s legal counsel before trial. They failed to do so.

This bombshell was first reported by someone at the New Hampshire Office of the American Civil Liberties Union which had been a plaintiff in a lawsuit that eventually made the “Laurie List” public. Father MacRae himself wrote of this development in “Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell.”

Police officers placed on the Attorney General’s list have the ability to challenge its publication by petitioning the courts to remove their names for cause. Former Detective McLaughlin filed such a petition so, pending a court hearing, his name was blacked out from the public list just hours after it appeared. New Hampshire courts have allowed officers on the list to file their petitions using “John Doe” pseudonyms. A hearing for McLaughlin — though not a public one — is likely to be scheduled early in 2024.

Not everyone is on board with the notion of a judicial system operating in secret. One judge, a former Senior Assistant Attorney General, has objected to the secret forum in which these removal petitions are being heard. (See “Judge: Laurie List Police Lawsuits Are Being Improperly Sealed”). Judge Will Delker’s published objection cites a fundamental precept of democracy that public officials must be accountable to citizens: “Court records are presumptively open to the public absent some overriding consideration or special circumstance. The party seeking to maintain court records under seal must demonstrate a sufficiently compelling interest that outweighs the public’s right to access.”

New Hampshire reporter Damien Fisher has managed to obtain, through Freedom of Information Act requests, some limited, heavily redacted evidence of the matters before the court in former Detective McLaughlin’s petition. He documented them in a December 18, 2023 article, “Laurie List Lawsuit Matches Former Well-Known Keene Cop’s Record.” To force a reporter to such lengths to obtain public information in public records turns the court system into a sham.

Covering Up for Police Corruption

There is a good deal more in the problematic and unconstitutional practices of Detective James F. McLaughlin than what is currently before the Court in his petition to be removed from the public accountability list, but the public is kept in the dark. Citizens should have an opportunity to address concerns about why his name should remain on that published list, but that is circumvented by secrecy. The public cannot learn the identity of the “John Doe” before the Court. Reporter Damien Fisher was only able to discern this from a careful examination of this particular “John Doe’s” petition.

Additionally, the public cannot obtain a Court date or docket number to have their concerns heard. As a result, pertinent evidence is prevented from coming before the Court. The court of public opinion is a different matter, but no citizen should have to appeal to it in order to obtain justice.

Though not a resident and citizen of the State of New Hampshire, I have researched its laws in regard to the conduct of police. The violations alleged against McLaughlin in the case of Father MacRae alone are many and great. No public entity has investigated these and judges hearing MacRae’s two appeals — a direct State appeal in 1996 and a Writ of Habeas Corpus in 2012 — resulted in rejection without hearing from any witnesses privy to said misconduct.

So if we cannot place it before the Court, we place it before you in the form of official excerpts of the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated, the very State laws that Detective McLaughlin has broken and for which he should be censured. Each is followed by signed Statements given to a former FBI official investigating this case, but in each case no judge has allowed the Statements or witnesses thereof to be heard under oath and on the record in any New Hampshire court.

RSA 105 : 19 — Reports of Misconduct by Law Enforcement Officers

For the purposes of this section, ‘misconduct’ means assault, sexual assault, bribery, fraud, theft, tampering with evidence, tampering with a witness, use of a choke hold, or excessive and illegal use of force.

1. STATEMENT OF STEVEN WOLLSCHLAGER (Alleging Attempted Bribery)

Introduction: Steven Wollschlager was a friend of accuser Thomas Grover. During Detective James McLaughlin’s investigations in 1988 and 1994, Mr. Wollschlager was interviewed. It is unknown whether the interviews were recorded. Wollschlager states that the interview reports misrepresented statements attributed to him that he never made. In a 1994 pre-trial interview, McLaughlin is alleged to have attempted to suborn Wollschlager to commit perjury before a grand jury with the suggestion of “a large sum of money.” Wollschlager reported being lured into agreement, but later recanted, refusing to testify before a grand jury:

“My name is Steven Wollschlager, DOB 12-7-1973. I give this signed statement at my own free will to Investigator James Abbott with no promises or bribes. I am willing to testify to the following statement to proceed in a court of law or otherwise under oath that I am giving facts and details to the best of my memory.

“I have had opportunities during several periods of my life to know Gordon McCrea (sic). Never in all our meetings or conversations was there any inappropriate talk of sex, sex for money, favors, or any other thing related to such.

“My first encounters with Gordon came when I was age 15 and using drugs. Gordon counseled me through Monadnock Family Counseling, maybe three sessions. During this time he also introduced me to some persons in the AA program. At this time there was never anything inappropriate going on, nor did I ever feel uncomfortable for any reason around Gordon.

“In 1988 while in rehab (which Gordon helped my parents get me into), I was interviewed by [Keene] Detective McLaughlin about Gordon. This detective did most of the talking — Did he ever do this or that? — asking me many questions as to whether or not anything inappropriate ever happened with Gordon against me. Never during this time did I say anything to any police officer that Gordon had done anything wrong towards me.

“Years passed and in 1994, before Gordon was to go on trial, I was contacted again by Keene police detectives McLaughlin and Collingworth. I was aware at the time of Gordon’s trial, knowing full well that it was bogus and having heard of the lawsuits and money involved, also the reputations of those who were making accusations. I agreed to meet with the above detectives after being told that I would be reimbursed for my time and gas money.

“Again during this meeting I mostly just listened to scenarios and statements being spoken to me by the police. The lawsuits and money were of greatest discussion and I was left feeling that if I would go along with the story I could reap the rewards as well.

“McLaughlin asked me many times if Gordon ever tried to come onto me sexually or offered me money for any sexual favors. He had me believing that all I had to do was make up a story about Gordon and I could receive a large sum of money as others already had. McLaughlin reminded me of the young child and girlfriend I had and referenced that life could be easier for us with a large amount of money.

“I knew the Grovers’ reputation as well as others involved, many of whom I went to school with. It seemed as though it would be easy money if I would also accuse Gordon of wrongdoing. I left that meeting after being given, I believe, $50, easy money like what would come from lawsuits against McCrae (sic). I was at the time using drugs and could have been influenced to say anything they wanted for money .

“A short time later after being subpoenaed to Court, I had a different feeling about the situation. I did not want to lie or make up stories. After speaking with the Clerk of Courts I was approached by another person. After telling this person that I did not want to be there and I stated Gordon had never done anything wrong towards me sexually or otherwise, I was told I could leave. This person seemed visibly upset that I had nothing to say.”

Signed: Steven Wollschlager October 27, 2008

2. STATEMENT OF DEBRA COLLETT (Alleging Witness Tampering and Tampering with Evidence)

Introduction: Ms. Debra Collett was Thomas Grover’s primary counselor in 1987 at Derby Lodge, a residential drug addiction treatment center located in Berlin, NH. In police interviews with Detective McLaughlin pretrial in 1993/94, Grover claimed to have revealed to Debra Collett that Fr. Gordon MacRae molested him in his teen years. Grover had previously been treated for addiction at Beech Hill Hospital in Dublin, NH in 1985, but his treatment was terminated when he was caught smuggling drugs to sell to other patients. Ms.Collett here reveals that Detective McLaughlin recorded his interviews with her, but neither a report nor the recordings were ever turned over to MacRae’s defense as required.

“I am Debra Collett, DOB 6-17-1952. I am making this Statement to James Abbott, Investigator for Gordon MacRae. My involvement leading to speaking with James Abbott was as Clinical Director at Derby’s Lodge in Berlin, NH. I was individual counselor for Tom Grover when he was a client at Derby Lodge.

“Thomas Grover never revealed to me that Gordon MacRae perpetrated against him. Mr Grover spent a great deal of time being confronted in treatment for his dishonesty, misrepresentation, and unwillingness to be honest about his problems. Thomas Grover did reveal that he had been perpetrated against sexually, but named no specific person except to say that his “step father” or “foster father” molested him. When asked if Thomas meant, “Mr. Grover,” Thomas replied, “yes, among others.”

“Thomas Grover presented as unwilling to join a group of other people who like himself experienced similar difficulties. Instead, he became angry, punched walls, flicked things, and slammed doors to evade and not address his issues.

“When it became evident that [the MacRae case] was going to trial, I was contacted by Keene Police Detectives Clarke and McLaughlin. They questioned me and I had several contacts with them.

“My experience was that neither presented as an investigator looking for what information I had to contribute, but rather presented as having made up their minds and sought to substantiate their belief in Gordon MacRae’s guilt. I experienced Detective Clark as the primary questioner. I was uncomfortable with his repeated stopping and starting the tape recorder when he did not agree with my answers to his questions and his repeated statements that he wanted to put this individual where he belonged, behind bars, that a priest of all people should be punished.

“I confronted Det. Clark about his statements and his stopping and starting the recording of my statement, and his attitude and treatment of me which seemed to include coercion, intimidation, veiled and more forward threats as well as being disrespectful. At that point, and in later dealings, I was overtly threatened concerning my reluctance to continue to subject myself to their treatment with threats of arrest. McLaughlin told me he would personally come to my home, drag me out of it bodily if necessary, and force me to appear in court and testify despite my information to him.

“My overall experience in interacting with these detectives was one of being bullied with their attitude of animosity, anger, and preconception of guilt regarding Gordon MacRae. They presented as argumentative, manipulative, and threatening via use of police power in an attempt to get me to say what they wanted to hear.”

Signed: Debra Collett 05-20-2008

3. STATEMENT OF LEO DEMERS IN A LETTER TO JUDGE ARTHUR BRENNAN (Alleging Witness Tampering and Suppression of Evidence)

Letter dated October 24, 2013:

“My wife, Penny, and I were present in the courtroom throughout most of the trial of Fr. Gordon MacRae. For all these years, I have had many questions about this trial and much that I’ve wanted to clarify for my own peace of mind. I learned recently that both a superior court judge here in New Hampshire and the NH Supreme Court declined to hold a hearing on the evidence and merits of a habeas corpus petition in this case. Now that state courts seem no longer to be involved, I feel more inclined to approach you on what has been bothering me, as you were the presiding judge.

“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 downturned mouth and gesturing with 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 a clear attempt to dupe the court and the jury. If the sobbing and crying were 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, 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? The jury was privy to none of this, to the best of my knowledge.

“Secondly, I was struck by the difference in Thomas Grover’s demeanor on the witness stand in your court and his demeanor just moments before and after outside the courtroom. On the stand, he wept and appeared to be a vulnerable victim. Moments later, during court recess, in the parking lot he was loud, boisterous and aggressive. One time he even confronted me in a threatening attempt to alter my own testimony during sentencing. …

“I simply believe that, like so many others, Mr. Grover and those coaching him have misled you and your court. You also seemed to rely heavily in your sentencing of MacRae on the investigation and findings of Det. McLaughlin. My wife and I had some firsthand experience with him and his tactics during his investigation. He was not at all interested in the facts or the truth. He attempted to use coercion and bullying tactics to get my wife and me to change the facts we presented to him, facts that did not support any of his preconceived ideas.

“We are not the only persons to have had this experience with him. I have read that Debbie Collett, Thomas Grover’s counselor, outlined in detail how she was threatened and coerced into altering her testimony. Another witness alleges that he was overtly bribed by this detective to accuse MacRae during that investigation.”

Signed: Leo Demers, August 24, 2013

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There is much more alleged of this detective that should come before a Court deciding on his public exposure on the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule or ‘Laurie List.’ As long as the Court allows Mr. James McLaughlin to appear as “John Doe” in any hearing regarding his appearance on the police misconduct list which is meant to be public, citizens are prevented from witnessing to the truth in this regard. None of the people mentioned here have ever been allowed to testify under oath about this detective. Now we know why.

This necessitates a Part 2 of this post, hopefully coming next week.

Meanwhile, please share this article. There is nothing more destructive of the cause of justice and the common good than the noise of too few and the silence of too many.

Pray for justice, and for the integrity of our justice system.

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Editor’s Note: We thank Ryan A. MacDonald for this newest chapter in a continuing struggle for justice. You may also be interested in these related posts:

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

New Hampshire Corruption Drove the Fr Gordon MacRae Case

Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Priest

The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr Gordon MacRae

**Keene, NH Det. James McLaughlin celebrates his 350th arrest as a sex-crimes crusader.**

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 11/8/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 11/8/23

From Dorothy Rabinowitz: ‘Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth’

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist inspired poetic justice for a wrongly imprisoned priest with some obscure poetry that left a giant footprint on world history.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist inspired poetic justice for a wrongly imprisoned priest with some obscure poetry that left a giant footprint on world history.

November 8, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Introductory Note: A few years ago I wrote a post to honor Veterans Day, and have reposted a link to it each year near November 11. History is important and if we ignore it we end up repeating it. In the photo above, US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in 1941 to discuss a possible American entry into World War II after the Nazi invasion of Europe cast the entire free world into darkness. Strangely, their final decision was prompted by their trading two obscure poems each delivering to the other a message about vital events in history. Winston Churchill’s message to FDR was a pivotal moment. It was recently sent to me by Wall Street Journal columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz who inspired hope for me in the tyranny of darkness I faced. This is that remarkable story.

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As most readers know, I work in a library and though it is technically a law library it still gives me access to a world of books. Some of what is available there is not very helpful and not exactly literary but I still try to keep classic literature from being discarded to make room for the junk that too many prisoners want to read, such as graphic novels and comic books. Graphic novels fly off the shelves while Les Miserables collects dust.

The library has a fairly large poetry section, but what most prisoners are looking for is not Robert Frost or T.S. Elliot. They scour the shelves for snippets of love poems to plagiarize for their letters to girlfriends, both real and imagined. Longfellow languishes on the shelf while Cowboy Love Poetry blazes happy trails through the prison mail room.

I had also been scouring the poetry section. After the struggle described in some of our posts — such as “Dying in Prison in the ‘Live Free or Die’ State” — I received one day a surprising message from Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal with the subject, “Thoughts Between Deadlines.” It set me on a course of self-assessment in the face of struggle when she wrote:

“Do you have access to Google for information seeking? This isn’t the kind of information that moves legal proceedings, but it is a great source of empowerment nonetheless. I would ask you to look up just the line, ‘Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth.’ It should bring up the poem, written by the Victorian poet, Arthur Clough, who never wrote anything in the least memorable, except this one whose powers were such that, a hundred years after it was written, Winston Churchill sent it to Franklin Roosevelt.”

With this, Dorothy Rabinowitz certainly had my rapt attention pushing all the buttons — history, literature, and irony — that would draw me into a course of discovery. Between 2005 and 2022, The Wall Street Journal published a series of four major articles about my struggle culminating in the most recent, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.”

In all that time, Dorothy maintained a rather stolid interest, more inclined to uncover and report the facts of a difficult and nebulous story than its implications far beyond just me. In all these years, this message from her was the first contact that went to my struggle for justice and not just the discernment of facts.

With no access to Google or the internet, it took a few days for Dorothy’s message to get to me along with the results of the search she recommended. By telephone, I asked a friend to conduct the search that Dorothy recommended. To my surprise it took us to a remarkable but obscure poem, and I will get back to that in a moment. But first, the remainder of Dorothy’s equally remarkable message:

“The year was 1941. The English stood alone. America was not yet at war, but FDR was doing all within his power to get aid to them. The world faced a Europe overrun with triumphant Nazi troops. FDR had just won his fourth term and sent his new personal ally, the very Republican he had defeated — a heroic internationalist, Wendell Wilkie, who had been the standard bearer for an entirely isolationist Republican party — with a personal message of support to Churchill.”

There is more to the message, which I will get back to in a moment, but what made it so fascinating for me was my admiration for both Churchill and FDR. By 1940, Nazi Germany under Hitler occupied Poland, France and much of Europe with terrifying speed while America slept. The Battle of Britain (a very fine historical film) made clear that Hitler could not defeat the British air and naval forces under Churchill. Back to that in a moment as well.

Readers may have heard or read recent articles about newly discovered information about Pope Pius XII and the Vatican during the Nazi terror in Europe in the 1940s. A lot of ink has been spilled suggesting that Pope Pius was “Hitler’s Pope.” It was a slur derived from commentary about his reticence to publicly condemn Hitler and the Nazi Party during the war. The new information recently divulged centered on an archbishop advising Pope Pius who became concerned that Germany was going to win this war and a slaughter would ensue. It could have been the end of the Catholic Church. So with Nazi troops on his doorstep, and the rest of Europe under siege, Pope Pius became extremely cautious. The Catholic bishops of Holland issued a public statement in German condemning the Nazi deportation of Jews who had become Catholics to Auschwitz and other death camps. In retaliation, the Nazis raided convents and monasteries in Holland arresting anyone with Jewish roots. One result was the execution of Edith Stein who is now revered as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. This is a story I told in “Saints and Sacrifices: Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein at Auschwitz.”

Poetic Justice

The origin of the term, “Poetic Justice” has been difficult to nail down. It appears to have been first used in the Sixth Century B.C. in reference to the Greek poet, Ibycus. His works were collected in seven books, of which only fragments survive. The manner of his death created a legend. Dying from an assault by robbers, the legend held, Ibycus called on a passing flock of cranes to avenge him. Near Corinth, one of the robbers saw the flock of cranes and cried out, “Behold the avengers of Ibycus!” His cry betrayed him and the cranes devoured him, a death described as “poetic justice.”

Dorothy Rabinowitz sent me the most stunning example of poetic justice in the modern era. Fears of Nazi domination of the Atlantic made it easier for Franklin Roosevelt to defy the American isolationists by increasing aid to Britain. When the U.K. depleted its financial reserves, FDR replaced them with U.S. funding for arms production. Under the “Lend-Lease” act of 1941, there were no terms for payback. Dorothy continued in her message:

“FDR’s message to Churchill included the Longfellow poem that ended, ‘Sail on, Sail on, O Union strong and great — humanity with all its hopes and fears is resting on thy fate.”

This, of course, sent me on a hunt for its source. I found it in a collection of poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow entitled, “The Building of a Ship” published in 1850. Remember that both FDR and Churchill had come to the realization that England alone held the fragile line against German invasion and global tyranny. Its collapse seemed just a matter of time. This epic poem sent by FDR to Churchill nearly a century after it was written concluded,

“Then too, sail on O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee, are all with thee.”

I can readily see why FDR sent this to Churchill along with his diplomatic message about US funding for arms production. The demonic shroud of darkness that Hitler cast over all of Europe 83 years ago placed the rest of the world in a state of hopeless terror. Dorothy’s message to me continued:

“Churchill had no trouble grasping the importance of the pledge in this American poem, and recited it in a 1941 address to Parliament. As a return message, he sent to FDR the British poem I am writing to you about. You will see why I thought of you when I read it. Read it in the face of all the silences and rejections of appeals to justice that you have seen.”

Dorothy’s message was printed and snail-mailed to me. As soon as I received it, I called a friend to search for the poem she refers to. Its author is the British poet, Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861). Educated at Oxford, he became a tutor there during the Oxford Movement. Also called “Tractarianism,” one of the chief leaders of the Oxford Movement was Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman. Newman and the other adherents of the movement challenged a common view that the English Reformation constituted a complete break between Rome and the Church of England. The movement began in 1833 when the British government abolished ten bishoprics in Ireland. The Oxford Movement’s adherents warned that the Church of England was abandoning the principles of the 16th Century Reformers by allowing the Church of England to be dominated by secular authorities.

The Oxford Movement proposed that the Church of England could be saved from secularism only through a return to its Catholic origins. This became wildly controversial in the Church of England when Cardinal Newman published “Tract 90” in 1841 in which he attempted to prove that the Anglican 39 Articles of Religion were not inconsistent with Roman Catholic teaching. As a consequence of the Oxford Movement being suppressed, several hundred English clergy left the Church of England to become Roman Catholic, including Cardinal Newman himself. It was at this time that Arthur Hugh Clough left Oxford in protest against the Church of England’s 39 Articles of Religion, a struggle that informed his poetry.

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

As Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in her message to me, Arthur Clough wrote little that was memorable except this one poem, “Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth.” A century after its writing, it had an oversized footprint on history. Here is the entire poem sent from Churchill to FDR:

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

Clough’s beautiful poem is a testament to the notion that whatever struggle we must take up and endure in this life, the struggle itself is worthy, even when what we fight against is unjust and impenetrable. This is sometimes difficult to see and accept, but what sort of person would I be if I did not struggle against injustice not only against me, but for all priests falsely accused for financial gain? Margaret Drabble, a poetry critic at Literary Hub wrote of the poem:

“This poem by Arthur Hugh Clough unfailingly brings tears to my eyes. It speaks of hope, and effort, and disappointment, and perseverance... The imagery is profoundly beautiful, and reminds me of the great beaches of my childhood, of Wordsworth’s immortal shore. I can feel those ‘tired waves, vainly breaking,’ and then the flooding fullness of the sea.”

Dorothy also described the poem in her message:

“Clough was unspecific in the references. There are references to military battles, but they are clearly only metaphors. Its imperishable eloquence is exactly the kind that fires resolve to win in the end, which I depend on, which we must all depend on. Read it, and let me know you found it.”

So, Dorothy, as you can see, I found it! “Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth” is now enshrined on my cell wall. As you have suggested, I read it in the face of all the silences and rejections of appeals to justice that I have seen. It is a vivid reminder, as it was for Churchill and FDR, that some struggles are much bigger than their mere protagonists. This struck home for me when a prominent writer — an author and Catholic deacon in Pennsylvania where the priesthood and Church have been much maligned of late — published this review of Beyond These Stone Walls:

“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, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

— Deacon David Jones

With that, Dorothy, I stopped being a victim of this struggle and became a warrior.

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Note From Father Gordon MacRae: Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, so, for America, the struggle was availeth after all.

Please share this post. Please watch and listen to Dorothy Rabinowitz in a five-minute WSJ interview on this story.

You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

Hitler’s Pope, Nazi Crimes and The New York Times

Catholic Scandal and The Third Reich: The Rise and Fall of a Moral Panic

November 11 is Veterans Day, a day set aside to remember all those who bravely risked much to win and defend our freedoms. Please honor them with me by sharing my post, “Veterans Day: War and Remembrance and the Cost of Freedom.”

May the Lord Bless you and keep you.

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

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

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

Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/30/23 Fr. Gordon J. MacRae 8/30/23

Why this Falsely Accused Priest Is Still in Prison

Why are some innocent defendants kept in prison? Attorney Harvey Silverglate unmasks the perversion of justice when judges give finality more weight than justice.

Why are some innocent defendants kept in prison? Attorney Harvey Silverglate unmasks the perversion of justice when judges give finality more weight than justice.

August 30, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Preliminary Note: I first wrote this post in 2018. The entire landscape of my own situation has radically changed since then. On October 9, 2022, famed Boston civil rights Attorney Harvey Silverglate penned an Op-Ed for The Wall Street Journal entitled “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.” He wrote of how any hope for my ongoing defense fell into silence for several years until early 2022. At that time, new evidence emerged that James F. McLaughlin, the Keene, New Hampshire police detective who choreographed the case against me in 1994 had been present on a secret list for police misconduct. The charge against him, which preceded my trial by a few years, was “falsification of records.” Since then a New Hampshire court has sealed his file and has, in a secret hearing, allowed his name to be removed from the public misconduct list. Others who have written of this matter have somehow uncovered other incidents of police misconduct by him including allegations of falsification of evidence, witness intimidation, destruction of tape-recorded evidence, and other examples of official dishonesty, all of which I have been accusing him of for the last 30 years. There are signs of an official coverup going on in New Hampshire, and until someone gets to the bottom of it, progress in my defense had once again fallen into silence.

Until now. Next week in these pages we will host an explosive Op-Ed by a Los Angeles documentary researcher who seems to have arrived, if not at the bottom line of what has actually gone on, then very near to it. She has described her Op-Ed as “the epic of all epic scandals.”

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In North Carolina in 1983, half brothers Henry Lee McCollum, 19, and Leon Brown, 15, were arrested and charged with a heinous crime, the rape, and murder of an 11-year-old girl. Public pressure to solve the case was intense. A lot of facts were overlooked because the police felt certain they had the right suspects. The two brothers were interrogated for hours on end, finally confessed, and then were sentenced to death.

But after an initial state appeal, the young men’s confessions were seen as coerced and vacated. They stood trial but were convicted again. Only the sentence changed. This time Henry Lee remained on death row while Leon, being still a minor, was sentenced to life in prison. Further attempts to appeal their case were rejected by judges citing the state’s interest in “finality,” a principle of law that often prevails over justice.

I often receive letters and comments from readers who may not know the history of my own attempts toward justice. The well-meaning comments suggest that I seek out the Innocence Project for assistance, or that I appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, or file a habeas corpus petition in the federal courts.

I know that these readers would have to plow through a lot of past material on this site to get a sense of how strenuously we have tried all of the above. The Innocence Project has saved many lives, but before taking a case it usually requires the existence of irrefutable DNA evidence that would exonerate a prisoner.

Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence

A conviction like mine is different. Because no crime ever actually took place — a truth that comes down to my word against an accuser’s word — there was no evidence and nothing to review except the accuser’s claims themselves. For reasons you might understand if you keep reading, emerging evidence of innocence, no matter how compelling, has so far been unable to prevail over the court’s interest in finality.

The sheer number of cases overturned with irrefutable DNA evidence do not seem to translate for judges into a concern that wrongful convictions are more common than they want to admit. Mistakes that are made when there is evidence do not compel judges to consider that mistakes are also made when there is none. How finality prevailed over justice in my own attempts at appeal was laid out in an important article by Ryan MacDonald, “A Grievous Error in Judge Joseph Laplante’s Court.”

The grievous error notwithstanding, Judge Laplante was not in error in his procedural handling of my habeas corpus appeal. He simply followed existing case law. One of the most egregious principles of law to come out of the United States Supreme Court in modern times was a 1993 decision in Herrera v. Collins.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in his majority opinion that “A claim of Actual Innocence is not itself a constitutional claim” that entitles a convicted defendant to federal habeas corpus relief. This also applies to death penalty cases. Actual innocence is not a bar to lawful execution.

Let that sink in. But first, back to half-brothers Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown in North Carolina: After being sent to prison for the heinous rape-murder charges, the two young men themselves became the victims of sexual and physical assaults.

In a bizarre twist, an older prisoner befriended them, stating his belief in their innocence. That prisoner, Roscoe Artis, had been convicted for a series of sexual assaults against women and was a suspect in at least one “cold case” homicide. It turned out that Mr. Artis believed in the innocence of Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown because he himself actually committed the crime for which they were in prison. He did not tell them this, however.

In 2014 — 31 years after being sentenced to prison — the case of Henry Lee, still not yet executed, was revisited by Sharon Stellato, an investigator for the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. She undertook a dogged pursuit of the actual evidence against them but found none. What she did find, however, was some DNA evidence from the crime scene that had never been tested.

It was enough — just enough — to overcome finality so a judge ordered it to be tested. It excluded Henry Lee and Leon from any involvement in the crime, and it convicted Roscoe Artis, the man who befriended and protected them in prison. It was also revealed that fingerprints found at the 1983 crime scene were not a match for either Henry Lee or Leon, a fact that the police never conveyed to defense attorneys. At ages 50 and 46, more than 30 years after they were sent to prison, Henry Lee and Leon were finally released.

Politics, Prosecutors, and Career Paths

About every other week or so, usually on a Friday afternoon, I am summoned to a prison office to open and sign for an item of legal mail. Anything sent to a prisoner that obviously comes from a court, a lawyer, or a law firm falls into this category. It simply means that unlike all other mail, the item is opened in my presence after I sign a log indicating that I accepted it.

Prisoners shudder when the P.A. system announces their names for legal mail. It is generally an omen of bad news for prisoners. Those who are guilty of their charged offenses — and yes, they are the vast majority — don’t mind so much. They expect little beyond the justice already meted out to them. But those who maintain their innocence brace themselves for a letdown, or another step toward bankruptcy, whenever their names are called.

It is one of the myths of prison that many prisoners claim to be innocent. The reality is just the opposite. Those who do so are taunted as “damn fools” by nearly all others. I spent my first few years here fending off a taunt by both prisoners and guards: ‘You could have been out of here in ONE YEAR if you took a deal? What an idiot!”

Much of the legal mail that I am summoned to pick up these days is from Harvey A. Silverglate, a well known civil rights and appellate defense lawyer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Silverglate is author of the book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (Encounter Books 2009).

The foreword of the book is by Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor and a colleague and friend of the author. Both Misters Silverglate and Dershowitz appear frequently in the Boston and national media, and I have followed them for years.

In his Foreword, Alan Dershowitz presents with clarity a crucial point that I have made many times. Mr. Dershowitz writes:

“Prosecutors in other countries are civil servants who do not pander to the people’s understandable wish to be safe from crime ... in the United States, prosecutors are not only elected ... but the job is a stepping stone to a higher office as evidenced by the fact that nearly every congressman or senator who ever practiced law once served as a federal or state prosecutor. Winning becomes more important than doing justice.”

— Three Felonies a Day, p. xxv

It is also an important fact that prosecutors routinely move on to political appointments as judges. Judge Joseph Laplante, who declined to hear any evidence or testimony in my federal habeas corpus appeal, had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning twenty years before his appointment to the federal bench. Judge Laplante had been prosecutor in the NH Attorney General’s office at the time of my trial and first State appeal, and likely knew of Detective McLaughlin presence on the secret list of dishonest police.

Judge Arthur Brennan, who presided over my 1994 trial, was personal legal counsel to then-Governor Judd Gregg (1989-1992) when he received a political appointment to a judgeship just months before my trial. Judge Larry Smukler, who declined to hear my State habeas corpus appeal, also declined to provide any biographical information about his career trajectory for the official New Hampshire Law Directory.

The Acknowledgements section of Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day is a virtual Who’s Who of many of the advocates for justice who have taken up my case. The names there include Dorothy Rabinowitz whose writings in The Wall Street Journal reopened my story in the important court of public awareness.

Also included there is Bob Chatelle, founder and president of the National Center for Reason and Justice which continues to feature my story and its appellate case files. Mr. Chatelle also hosts the Friends of Justice blog which links to many of my posts and has featured posts about my experience of justice.

Harvey Silverglate’s “Freedom Watch”

Mr. Silverglate, being a Massachusetts attorney, is not able to represent me in New Hampshire, but he generously sends me each installment in his series of articles called “Freedom Watch” published by WGBH News. I am most grateful for these informative glimpses into the inner function, and too often DYSfunction, of the criminal justice system. Mr. Silverglate has also long been a reader and supporter of Beyond These Stone Walls.

A recent article he sent was “When the Criminal Justice System Can’t Admit a Mistake: The James Rodwell Case.” He refers to this murder conviction as “a case that will not go away” because “too many people remain disturbed by the outcome.” Harvey Silverglate is one of them because …

[The] instinct that drives people to persevere when the system misfires is countered by the system’s self-protective reflex that makes it difficult to get judges to take a second, third or fourth look into a case, even when new and powerful evidence of a severe miscarriage of justice surfaces.”

This self-protective reflex, Mr. Silverglate says, has long roiled the justice system, producing “considerable disagreement between the two camps of judges — those who view finality as the ultimate goal, and others who deem justice to be paramount.” The central issue in the James Rodwell case, says Silverglate, is whether Mr. Rodwell actually committed the murder for which he has constantly maintained his innocence throughout 36 years in prison.

The sole evidence against him was the testimony of “two inmate thugs” who were treated favorably by prosecutors and police in exchange for their testimony. One of them claimed that Rodwell confessed to the murder while they occupied neighboring cells in a county jail where they were held pre-trial. Further, the district attorney’s office had since “lost” the entire file of its prosecution of this case.

Mr. Silverglate went on to describe the “remarkable display of clairvoyance” in a Superior Court judge who denied Rodwell’s latest appeal. The judge stated that “it is highly unlikely” that the ‘lost’ files contain evidence of prosecution deals afforded to inmate witnesses in exchange for their testimony.

This judicial clairvoyance struck a familiar note. When my own habeas corpus appeal came up against a wall of finality, Judge Joseph Laplante offered some clairvoyance of his own. While declining to hear from witnesses, including my accuser’s former wife, Judge Laplante attributed a motive for her to lie today about her ex-husband’s perjury: Thomas Grover was charged with felony domestic assault for punching her and breaking her nose before my trial — a charge conveniently dropped on the day my trial ended in a conviction.

Her bravely coming forward with the truth today was explained away by Judge Laplante who asserted that my defense could have called her as a witness at my 1994 trial, and could have tried to elicit the truth then. This assertion completely overlooks the fact that she may have been terrified of the man who had just broken her nose for questioning his truthfulness then. It is fascinating how all the credence afforded to victims of abuse and domestic violence is set aside when their testimony might right a judicial wrong.

Mr. Silverglate’s “Freedom Watch” article went on to describe some of the “far too many infamous cases where the indications are strong that justice misfired, but where the systemic preference for finality and the resistance to the confession of judicial error are strong.” One of these cases he cited is that against the Amirault family and the “witch trial” prosecution of them in the notorious Fells Acres Day Care Center case.

This story and others convey powerfully both the perversion of finality prevailing over justice and the perversion of justice when politics preside over a courtroom. In their book, Actual Innocence (New American Library, 2003) Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld describe how the doctrine of “finality” is an obstacle to justice:

“Only the criminal justice system exempts itself from self-examination. Wrongful convictions are not seen as catastrophes, but as topics to be avoided... Finality is a doctrine that can be explained in two words when it comes to innocence tests: willful ignorance... The Innocence Project and other advocates have spent hundreds of hours just arguing against ‘finality’ doctrines that are used to block inquiries that no fair person would resist.”

— Actual Innocence, p. 320

For Harvey Silverglate, Advocate for Justice, “The key question is whether judges, clothespins firmly attached to noses, will continue to pretend that justice was done.” None of the rest of us are given clothespins.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Please share this post, and please return here next week for the “epic of all epic scandals.” You may also be interested to see some new evidence added to our Important Documents in the Fr Gordon MacRae Case. It is the evidence that appellate judges have declined to hear.

Affidavit of Former FBI Special Agent James Abbott

Statement of Steven Wollschlager

Statement of Debra Collett

Statement of Leo Demers