A Devil in the Desert for the Last Temptation of Christ

The Gospel according to St Luke tells the story of Jesus, revealed to be Son of God, led into the desert to be tested by the devil who does not give up easily.

February 21, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae

Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: If you were present at Catholic Mass for the First Sunday of Lent, then you heard the Gospel Proclamation about the demonic temptation of Christ in the desert. I have discovered much more to that story, and it is manifested here in a Church that still wanders in the desert. Lest we wander too far into the desert wilderness, please read on.

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In my estimation, one of the best movies about Catholic life in America taking a wrong turn has been deemed by some to be a bit rough around the edges. Robert DeNiro portrays Los Angeles Monsignor Desmond Spellacy, and Robert Duvall is cast as his brother, LAPD homicide detective Tom Spellacy in the 1981 film, True Confessions. The film is from a novel of the same name by John Gregory Dunne based on the famous Los Angeles “Black Dahlia” case of 1947.

DeNiro’s character, Monsignor Desmond Spellacy is a priest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the late 1940s at the epicenter of the power politics of a church beginning to succumb to the world in which it thrives. Amid corruption while being groomed to become the next Archbishop, the Monsignor nonetheless clings to an honest spiritual life just starting its inevitable fraying at the edges as he is dragged ever deeper into a tangled web of deceit.

Robert Duvall portrays his older brother, Tom Spellacy, an honest and dedicated — if somewhat cynical — L.A. homicide detective whose investigation of the murder of a prostitute brings him ever closer to the perimeter of an archdiocese circling the wagons. Charles Durning portrays the thoroughly corrupt owner of a large construction firm bidding for church building projects. Having just been awarded Catholic Layman of the Year by Monsignor Spellacy, he is also a suspect in the murder investigation that a lot of people want quietly swept under a rug.

Those wanting to influence and sideline Tom’s investigation come up with evidence — a photograph — that his Monsignor-brother also knew the murdered girl, but the photograph is entirely benign. Still, it’s enough to make a lurid case for guilt by association leaving Tom in a quandary about pursuing an investigation that will destroy his innocent brother’s career. The film ends with the case solved, but Monsignor Spellacy banished to a small parish in the California desert, his hopes for political advancement in the Church destroyed.

That the film — and the priesthood of Monsignor Spellacy — ends in the desert is highly symbolic. The image has ancient roots into our Sacred Scriptures, and especially into the Book of Leviticus. This book is comprised of liturgical laws for the Levitical priesthood reaching back to 1300 BC as Moses led his people through a forty-year period of exile in the Sinai desert. Some of the ritual accounts it contains are far more ancient.

In a recent Christmas post, “Silent Night and the Shepherds Who Quaked at the Sight,” I wrote that the troubles of our time are the manifestation of spiritual warfare that has been waged in the world since God’s first bond of covenant with us. Before that bond, we were doomed. Since that bond, reestablished by God again and again, there is hope for us. We remain oblivious to spiritual warfare to our own spiritual peril. We live in a very important time in God’s covenant relationship with us. The Birth of the Messiah and His walking among us are equidistant in time between our existence now in the 21st Century AD and Abraham’s first encounter with God in the 21st Century BC.

Our Day of Atonement Begins

The Gospel according to St Luke (4:1-13) is also set in the desert as the Day of Atonement begins for all humankind. Revealed in Baptism as the Son of God …

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil.”

— Luke 4:1

The scene has roots in an ancient ritual for the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16:5-10. Aaron, the high priest …

“Shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering .... Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the tent of meeting; and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat upon which the lot fell for the Lord, and offer it as a sin offering, but the goat upon which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the desert wilderness to Azazel …”

— Leviticus 16:5,7-10

This describes the ritual for purification known in Hebrew as Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement from Leviticus Chapter 16. The ritual reaches far beyond Moses into the time of God’s first covenant with Abraham some 2000 years before the Birth of the Messiah.

There are two goats mentioned in the ritual: One for sacrifice, to Yahweh, and the other — the one bearing the sins of Israel — is “for Azazel.” This name appears only in Leviticus 16 and nowhere else in Scripture. The name is believed to be that of a fallen angel and follower of Satan who haunts the desert wilderness. Some scholars believe Azazel to be the being referred to as “the night hag” haunting the desolate wilderness, in Isaiah 34:14.

The Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible called the second goat “caper emissarius,” (“the goat sent out”). An English translation rendered it “escape goat” from which the term “scapegoat” has been derived. A scapegoat is one who is held to bear the wrongs of others, or of all. The symbolism in the Gospel of Jesus being led by the Spirit into the desert to face the devil is striking because Jesus is to become, by God’s own design, the scapegoat for the sins of all humanity.

In the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent, Jesus is described as “filled with the Holy Spirit.” This term appears in only three other places in Scripture, all three also written by Saint Luke. In the Book of Acts of the Apostles (6:5) Stephen, “filled with the Holy Spirit” was the first to be chosen to care for widows and orphans in the daily distribution of food. Later in Acts (7:55) Stephen, “filled with the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God” as he became the first Martyr of the Church.

The witnesses who approved of the stoning of Stephen “laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58) whose radical conversion to become Paul would build the global Church.

Also in Acts (11:24) Barnabus is filled with the Holy Spirit as he founded the first Church beyond Jerusalem for the Gentiles of Antioch. The sense of the term “filled with the Holy Spirit” in Saint Luke’s passages alludes to the hand of God in our living history.

In our first Sunday Gospel for Lent, Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, “having returned from the Jordan,” is led by the Spirit for forty days in the desert wilderness. The Gospel links this account to His Baptism at the Jordan at which He is revealed as “Son of God.” This revelation becomes a diabolical taunt, and knowing that Jesus has fasted becomes the devil’s first temptation: “If you are the Son of God, turn this stone into bread.” Jesus thwarts the temptation, and the taunt with a quote from the Hebrew Scriptures (Deuteronomy 8:3), “Man does not live by bread alone (but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of God.”)

The symbolism is wonderful here. Like the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son — also from Luke (15:11-32) — God had two sons. In the Book of Exodus (4:21-22) Israel is called God’s “first-born son”:

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles which I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let my son go, I will slay your first-born son’.”

It was the fulfillment of this command of God that finally broke the yoke of slavery and caused Pharaoh to release Israel from bondage. But, as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Israel was not faithful and spent forty years wandering in the desert as a result of this son’s infidelity. In the Gospel of Luke, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity assumed the humanity of the first son, and was led by the Spirit into the desert to save us in the Second Exodus, our release from the bondage of sin and death.

Clerical Scandal and the Scandal of Clericalism

The second temptation is the lure of political power. In a single instant, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and said, “I shall give you all this power and glory for it has been handed over to me… all this will be yours if you worship me.” This has been the downfall of many, including many in our Church. Jesus again quotes from Scripture, “It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone” (Deuteronomy 6:13). This Gospel revisits the lure of political power immediately after the Institution of the Eucharist:

“A dispute arose among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves… I am among you as one who serves.”

— Luke 22:24-26

The Greek in which this Gospel was written used for the word “leader” the term “hēgoumenos.” Its implication refers especially to a religious leader. The Letter to the Hebrews (13:7) uses the same Greek term for “leaders,” and it is not their power which is to be emulated, but their faith to the extent to which they reflect Christ:

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

— Hebrews 13:7-8

Though it doesn’t generate the media’s obsession with sexual scandals, hubris and self-centeredness have been a far greater problem in our Church, and are the underlying catalyst for almost all other scandals, sexual, financial, and reputational. This culture has led Church leaders into the temptation of Earthly Powers, and too many have been eager participants. Some refer to this as “clericalism,” and in my opinion the best commentary on it was a brief article by the late Father Richard John Neuhaus in First Things entitled, “Clerical Scandal and the Scandal of Clericalism.”

The Payment of Judas Iscariot

Catholicism in America thrived when it had to earn its dignity. Once it became politically accepted, it went on in this culture to become comfortable, and its leaders (“hēgoumenos”) perhaps a bit too comfortable. Religious authority and the sheer masses of believers spelled political power. The pedestals upon which we stood grew in height with every clerical advance, and our bishops stood upon the highest pedestals of all with palatial trappings more akin to the courts of Herod and Caesar than the Cross of Christ the King, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It is no mystery why, as the height of our pedestals grew, so did our scandals. This is perhaps why Jesus offered to us the way to pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” It is because He alone could be led by the Spirit into the desert of temptation and emerge without dragging along behind Him the evil He encountered there.

As the last temptation of Christ unfolded in the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent, it is now the devil, in a final effort, who dares to quote and distort the Word of God. He led Jesus to Jerusalem, and to the parapet, the highest point of the highest place, the Temple of Sacrifice. And now comes his final taunt:

“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’.”

— Luke 4:9-11

This devil of the desert takes up the argument of Jesus, the Word of God, quoting Psalm 91 (11-12). The taunt to test God and “go your own way” is far deeper than the mere words convey. In Jerusalem, the devil will take hold of Judas Iscariot (Luke 22:3) leading to the trial before Pilate and the Way of the Cross. In Jerusalem, the powers of darkness, first encountered here in the desert, are mightily at work: “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luke 22:53)

The Church in the Western world has entered a time of persecution but thus far the institutional response — having traded the Gospel for “zero tolerance” in a quest for scapegoats to cast out into the desert to Azazel — does not bode well for the faith of a Church built upon the blood of Her martyrs.

Perhaps, as the Spirit leads us into this desert, it is our vocation, and not that of our leaders, that is essential. Perhaps it is not clerical reform that is needed so much as a revolution — a revolution of fidelity that can only be lived and not just talked about. We will not find the Holy Spirit in a revolution that manifests itself in blessing sin or in any politically correct acquiescence to same-sex unions and other moral distortions of our time. Those who abandon their faith in a time in the desert were leaving anyway, just waiting for the right excuse. To use the behavior of leaders to diminish and then abandon the Sacrament of Salvation is to cave to the true goal of Azazel. He could not lure Christ from us, but he can lure us from Christ and he is giving it a go.

The devil finally gives up in the desert scene of the Last Temptation of Christ in Luke Chapter 4. But the devil is not quite done. Luke’s Gospel tells that he will return “at a more opportune time.” Satan finds that time not in an effort to test Jesus, but rather to test his followers. He targets Judas Iscariot in the last place we would ever expect to find the devil: “Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light.”

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Please share this post to help place it before someone at a crossroads.

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.”

Justice in the Tribunals of a Banana Republic

A writer from a self-described Third World country has some challenges for justice in both Church and State and the road ahead for a falsely accused priest in prison.

“The justice of New Hampshire found the priest guilty through a process no less infamous than those seen in the tribunals of any banana republic.”

— Carlos Caso-Rosendi in “Behold the Man!”

By Fr. Gordon J. MacRae — November 16, 2022

Carlos Caso-Rosendi, an accomplished author and translator in Buenos Aires, Argentina, published the fine article linked above in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. It is a superb commentary on the state of justice behind the years I have spent in prison. It challenges both Church and State to live up to the reasons for their existence. Here is a compelling excerpt:

“Many of us in the so-called ‘Third World’ look up to the United States of America as a model for what the administration of justice should be. While it is true that the United States has managed better than other countries to balance the interplay of state powers, we also must admit that those virtues have been shadowed by grievous errors such as justification of slavery, segregation, and lately of murder by abortion.

“Today I present the case of an innocent man, Fr. Gordon MacRae, who has spent the last twenty[-nine] years in prison unjustly condemned in circumstances that would cause any Stalinist magistrate of the former Soviet Union to blush. Someone with a well-known criminal record accused Fr. MacRae, an American citizen with full rights. The justice of New Hampshire found the priest guilty through a process no less infamous than those seen in the tribunals of any banana republic.”

— “Behold the Man!”

Mr. Carlos Caso-Rosendi’s use of the term, “Third World” has an interesting origin. In politics and sociology, it’s the accepted designation for an economically depressed or developing nation. The term arose during the Cold War when two opposing blocs — one led by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union — dominated world power. The Third World consisted of nations with less developed economies affiliated with neither bloc.

The term, Third World originated with Marxist psychiatrist and political theorist, Frantz Fanon, but it was perceived as negative and not always accepted by the nations on which the designation was imposed. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union as a political bloc in the early 1990s, “Third World” remains in use to refer to economically developing nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

From the pillars of power in the United States, the justice systems of Third World countries are often chastised for being woefully unjust, but not a lot of self-reflection went into that perception. Even setting aside how I came to be where I have been for over 29 years, there is a Third World country existing just beneath my feet. It is the U.S. prison system.

I really don’t have another way to describe it. When it rains, the power goes out. When it snows, the power goes out, when it’s windy, the power goes out. The prisoner telephone system would not be the envy of any Third World country. Prisoners exist in an Internet vacuum, trapped behind an iron and concrete curtain of world ignorance. Citizens in the prison labor force earn the equivalent of about $2.00 per day. The people amassed at the U.S. Southern border are fleeing the political oppression and poverty of Third World nations, but none of them come here for our justice system.

I thank Carlos Caso-Rosendi for writing with candor and truth what he sees from beyond the borders of the United States. He is not alone in his assessment. The great theologian, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, also had a candid description of how I got here. In “A Kafkaesque Tale” he described it as the story of “a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

Voices Heard Round the World

I owe a debt of thanks to Pornchai Moontri for the moving post he sent us from Thailand. In 29 years in prison, I have barely ever shed a tear. I am stubborn. I just wouldn’t give the dark powers that sent me here the satisfaction of my grief. But when reading “Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand” during a phone call with our editor, I had to pause three times to hold back tears so I could proceed. Pornchai’s post was sad, hopeful, deeply moving, and brilliant. Please pray for the people of Uthai Sawan, Thailand. I can only imagine their sorrow. And please pray for all the rest of us that in our divisions we may be given the grace of perspective from stories like the one Pornchai told us.

And I extend my gratitude to Attorney Harvey Silverglate whose Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae” is also seen around the world. He was joined in October by David F. Pierre, Jr of The Media Report. They published a series of riveting articles in the past month at Beyond These Stone Walls and elsewhere while I just sat back and let them do all the work. I cannot thank them enough. Catholic League President, Dr. Bill Donohue also stood with me in October to publish a press release about these developments. The timing of these guest writers stepping forward was providential.

Now I need to be candid with you. I began the year 2022 with a new ray of hope, but as this year wound down I saw some looming clouds of possible defeat on the horizon. A revelation in Harvey Silverglate’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae” revealed that a court hearing was held in secret in New Hampshire and a judge agreed in secret to allow Detective James McLaughlin to be removed from the public list of officers found to have engaged in misconduct. Secret proceedings are just not a good look for a justice system fending off suspicions of corruption. It is in fact the look of what Carlos Caso-Rosendi describes as “the justice of a Banana Republic.”

That designation refers to a small country economically dependent on a single crop or a single product, often governed by a cabal of like-minded conspirators operating for their own benefit. The misconduct for which former Detective James McLaughlin stands accused has been central in the case against me. As a result, a lot of attention is being paid to Mr.Silverglate’s WSJ op-ed. Among the many affronts to justice covered in that article, Mr. Silverglate wrote:

“In a May 1994 lawsuit, Father MacRae alleged that Detective McLaughlin accused the priest of having taken pornographic photographs of one of the alleged victims. No such photos were ever found.”

There is more to it. Not only were such photos never found, but they were also never looked for. There was no effort whatsoever on the part of the detective to confirm or refute this allegation which came only from McLaughlin himself. There was a reason for that. He already knew it was a lie, and it was his own lie. It floated out there among several news articles about me until 2005. It was even cited by Judge Arthur Brennan as his justification for imposing 67 years in prison. Eleven years after my trial, McLaughlin finally admitted to Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal that “there was never any evidence of pornography.”

Even that did not stop Damien Fisher, a biased New Hampshire reporter with an agenda, from repeating the claim just months ago as though demonstrably true. Ryan MacDonald wrote a truthful rebuttal in, “A Reporter’s Bias Taints the Defense of Fr Gordon MacRae.” When police can invent evidence that never existed, when the news media can further propagate it long after it has been credibly debunked, what chance does a falsely accused man have in a New Hampshire court?

This is the sort of thing that had me feeling so defeated and had Carlos Caso-Rosendi comparing justice here to that of a banana republic. The justice system has become an ominous and oppressive trap for anyone wrongly convicted. When that trap covers up for the good ole’ boy secrecy behind which justice is being carried out here, how does one proceed?

Justice Unmoored from Truth

In light of all that has transpired and all that has been written, I have hard decisions to make. One of them is about hiring a New Hampshire attorney to challenge my convictions based on newly discovered evidence that the investigating police detective had a secret record of misconduct. The claims about him are taking shape and growing in number. One claim reported in local news media is that former Detective McLaughlin has erased tape recordings of statements from witnesses that do not support his bias. This is exactly what I have accused him of for the last 29 years .

I have recently been advised by a New Hampshire lawyer with expertise in this area. Her analysis was candid and I much appreciate it. The bottom line is that justice here will be yet another steep uphill and unpredictable climb. Detective McLaughlin has boasted of over 1,000 sexual assault arrests with a nearly 100 percent conviction rate due to his penchant for arranging lenient plea deals to boost his public persona. He has boasted of removing over 1,000 sexual offenders from the streets but the “removal” is only for a year or so. Guilty defendants gladly took his plea deals, but innocent defendants can only be conned or coerced into them.

Because of the extreme “success” of his actions and methods, Detective James McLaughlin has been widely hailed in some circles as a hero-cop. From the point of view of the justice department and judicial system, however, the growing evidence of his misconduct is a threat to the system itself. As a result — and it is a fact of the legal advice I have received — the entire system will be hell-bent on protecting the corrupt cop while sacrificing me. “They will flood you with motions and delays to bankrupt you,” I was told by a New Hampshire attorney, and that has indeed been my experience.

As a prisoner of 29 years (and counting) with no income beyond the $2.00 per day I earn in a Third World prison job, I do not have the resources for another legal challenge — and especially for another protracted and uncertain one. In 2012 when I raised funds for an appeal, New Hampshire judges simply declined to hear any new evidence or witnesses in the end. A past U.S. Supreme Court ruling left this to their discretion, but they did not seem to have any. The affidavit of the new investigator and the statements of the witnesses he uncovered are linked at the end of this post. You be the judge.

And then there is priesthood. I am likely the only imprisoned priest in the world who has not been simply discarded from the clerical state just for being deemed with the new designation of convenience for bishops, “unsuitable for ministry.” There is now in the U.S. a “Coalition for Canceled Priests” trying to assist priests who are thrown aside for far less cause than a prison sentence. I am innocent of the claims against me, but should I now be forced to trade priesthood for freedom? I cannot. Carlos Caso-Rosendi ended “Behold the Man!” with a burning question:

“Barabbas is gone,

Judas has received his thirty silver coins:

Behold the man, Gordon MacRae!

Bishops of the Church:

What do we do with him?”

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Editor’s Note: Read the affidavit of former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott and the statements of six witnesses from whom New Hampshire judges declined to hear.

Resistance: A Birthday in the Shadow of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On April 9, 1945 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was martyred for his resistance to tyranny. On April 9, 1953 another life began and resistance to tyranny has been its measure.

“When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

April 6, 2022 by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

This story has to begin with a recent event. On its face, it may not at first seem connected to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famed Lutheran pastor and theologian who was executed on the personal order of Adolf Hitler in 1945. The connection is subtle but real so bear with me. This, too, is about tyranny.

Many readers have reacted to a Linkedin article I wrote in early March, 2022, entitled, “Banned by Facebook for a True Story of Anti-Catholic Oppression.” The anti-Catholic oppression I wrote about was a well-documented true account that took place in Hitler’s Germany in 1937. I entitled it, “Catholic Scandal and the Third Reich: The Rise and Fall of a Moral Panic.”

But that was not the only anti-Catholic oppression. I shared that story with the 4,500 Facebook followers of Beyond These Stone Walls and in fourteen Catholic groups there such as the Knights of Columbus and The Catholic Writers Guild, both in which I have active membership.

Just as the post began to be widely shared by others in those groups, it was suddenly removed by Facebook with a statement that it, and the 14 copies I shared among Catholic groups, “violates Facebook Community Standards.” Minutes later, we received another message informing us that our account is now suspended and will be offline until a review takes place.

With the help of an editor, I immediately reviewed all of Facebook’s “Community Standards” and could not locate a single one that I had in any way violated. We then completed an extensive appeal using Facebook’s own format. Catholic League President Bill Donohue weighed in on this with a statement, sent to tens of thousands of Catholic League members, that this suspension was without cause and should be reversed. One week later, on March 14, we received this message from Facebook:

“Gordon J MacRae’s post is back on Facebook. We’re sorry we got this wrong. We reviewed your post again and it does follow our Community Standards. We appreciate you taking the time to request a review. Your feedback helps us do better.”

However, Facebook did not lift any of the restrictions imposed because of its staff’s alarming misreading of the post. We filed yet another appeal, but to date Facebook has remained unresponsive. I was thus barred from posting anything for the last month on my account and from sharing to any of the Catholic and Pro-Life groups to which we have contributed content over the last several years.

Mark Zuckerberg has testified before Congress that Facebook does not suppress conservative viewpoints. It has not suppressed the accounts of the Taliban, but it did suppress mine. Facebook recently suspended its “Community Standards” so that the people of Ukraine may express their honest thoughts about Vladimir Putin. In what world should Ukraine need Facebook’s permission to do that?

Facebook has stated that some of the restrictions on my account will remain in place until June 5, 2022. Ironically, June 5, 2022 is also the 40th anniversary of my priesthood ordination.

In the Shadow of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I will be 69 years old on April 9, 2022. I am not certain at what point in my life I learned that I was born on the same date on which Dietrich Bonhoeffer died. I was young, likely in middle school when I learned about the great Lutheran pastor-theologian and the fact that I came into this world eight years to the day after he left it. I have long known that Bonhoeffer was hanged on April 9, 1945 on the personal order of Adolf Hitler just as Allied Forces descended upon Berlin. This order was one of Hitler’s last acts before taking his own life.

Many years later, I was sent to prison on trumped up charges. It was the same sort of charges that Hitler tried to falsely pin on 300 Catholic priests in Germany in 1937. It was the story I told in “Catholic Scandal and the Third Reich,” the post that got me banned from Facebook. Ironically, it began with a quote that Facebook hated, but that we should never forget:

“The great mass of people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”

— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, (trans. “My Struggle”) 1937.

In prison, I developed a friendship, through correspondence, with Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, publisher and editor of First Things magazine to which I had long subscribed. Father Richard had been a celebrated Lutheran Pastor and theologian when he “crossed the Tiber” and was ordained a Catholic priest on September 7, 1991. His life was richly informed and influenced by two great men: Saint Pope John Paul II — who had become a friend to Father Neuhaus in this life — and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

In his famous monthly First Things column, “The Public Square” in 2008 in the June/July issue, Father Neuhaus wrote “Lives Lived Greatly.” It was, among other things, a tribute to some of the most influential persons in his life:

“This April was a time of remembering and gratitude. April 2 [2008] was the third anniversary of the death, on the Eve of Divine Mercy Sunday, of John Paul the Great. On April 4, forty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. ... And on April 9, 1945, just days before the end of the war, Dietrich Bonboeffer was hanged on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer’s writings and witness were a formative influence in my life, as in the lives of innumerable others .... Those were extraordinary April days. They were days of sorrow and gratitude. I count it a gift beyond measure to have known two of them as friends. The life of each awakens us to the possibilities of life lived greatly.”

What made that tribute so extraordinary for me was that one of those men, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, died as a prisoner. In an earlier April — April of 1943 — Bonhoeffer was arrested by the German Gestapo after informants tipped them off to a plan in which Bonhoeffer was involved to save the lives of Jews by smuggling them out of Germany to Switzerland. He was taken to the infamous Tegel prison where he wrote much of his classic prison journal entitled Letters and Papers from Prison (1953).

On July 24, 1944, the famous “Valkyrie” plot to assassinate Hitler went into action. That account later became a riveting film of the same name. The Valkyrie plot was the last of several such attempts on Hitler’s life, but the first in which the planted bomb actually exploded. Hitler lived, but a vast conspiracy to end his tyranny by ending his life was exposed. He ordered the arrest and torture of thousands, and one of those exposed by informants as a leader in another plot against his tyranny was the imprisoned pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The Last Station on the Road to Freedom

In February of 1945, Allied planes relentlessly began an aerial bombardment of Berlin in an effort to stop Hitler’s forces from overwhelming Europe. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was transferred from Tegel prison to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he remained for two months, and then to Flossenburg prison. As the Allied forces were advancing on Berlin to end Hitler’s tyranny, the unmoored fascist dictator issued an order for Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s immediate death by hanging. It was the morning of April 9, 1945, the Monday after Holy Week and Easter.

Bonhoeffer’s remains, like those of St. Maximilian Kolbe four years earlier, went up in smoke, his ashes mingled with those of the many Jews he once tried to save. But his writing — most of it from prison — survived him and survived death. When his writings were published they had a profound effect on the faith of the world. In the words of Eric Metaxas whose biography, Bonhoeffer, met wide acclaim,

“Bonhoeffer called death ‘the last station on the road to freedom.’ Bonhoeffer worshipped a God who had emphatically conquered death in Jesus Christ through the Crucifixion and Resurrection.” In Bonhoeffer’s own words ...

“How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether in our human fear and anguish, we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold if not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.”

Though a Lutheran pastor and brilliant theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a most profound regard and respect for the Catholic faith. In a February 23, 1944 letter to his friend, Eberhard Bethge written from Tegel prison, Bonhoeffer wrote:

“If you have the chance of going to Rome during Holy Week, I advise you to attend the afternoon Maundy Thursday service at St. Peter’s Basilica. The twelve candles are lit on the altar and put out as a symbol of the disciples’ flight, till in the vast space there is only one candle left burning in the midd1e — for Christ. After that comes the cleansing of the altar in preparation for Good Friday and Holy Saturday.”

“Lives Lived Greatly” was the last substantive piece of writing by Father Richard John Neuhaus before he succumbed to cancer in January, 2009. Besides Dietrich Bonhoefer and Saint Pope John Paul II, the life and witness of fellow Catholic convert, Cardinal Avery Dulles, a Jesuit and theologian at Fordham University, had a major influence on his life and mine. Cardinal Dulles preceded Father Neuhaus in death by just three weeks. A few months before his death, Cardinal Dulles wrote to me with a request that I “Take up a new chapter in the volume of Christian literature from those unjustly in prison.” He cited Dietrich Bonhoeffer as one whose life my own suffering in prison might emulate. I was shocked and filled with doubt.

In an earlier 2008 issue of First Things, Father Neuhaus wrote about me in an op-ed entitled, “A Kafkaesque Tale.” His urging, and that of Cardinal Dulles, became the catalyst for my own letters from prison in the form of this blog which began six months after their deaths. A decade later, in a review of Beyond These Stone Walls, another writer wrote a brief review that our editor published atop our Posts Page. I was shocked again, and again filled with doubt.

Whatever resistance I have to the tyranny of false witness, unjust imprisonment, and even being one of Facebook’s cancelled priests, is lived in the shadow of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But if I ever stepped into his shoes, it could only be to shine them. I could never be worthy to walk — or write — in such company.

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Notes from Father Gordon MacRae:

#Meta: A lot of Catholics, both the devout and the struggling, are among the two billion users of Facebook, but they cannot read this post unless you share it in my stead. Thank you.

#Consecration: After my post, “The Annunciation and the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine,” we posted the beautifully composed Act of Consecration Prayer at our Library Category page, “Behold Your Mother.”

#HolyWeek: In preparation for Holy Week, please walk the Way of the Cross with us through these special Holy Week posts from Beyond These Stone Walls.

David Clohessy Resigned SNAP in Alleged Kickback Scheme

David Clohessy, activist director of the Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), resigned after a SNAP employee sued citing a lawyer kickback scheme.

We do not have many headlines like this one at Beyond These Stone Walls. It has the look and feel of descending into tabloid journalism, but when the headline is true, there is just no higher road to take. This is a story that must be told.

And I am not the first to tell it. David F. Pierre, Jr., author of several books including Sins of the Press and host of TheMediaReport.com published a report entitled, “Lawsuit by Ex-SNAP Insider Exposes Lawyer Kickback Schemes.” And to the surprise of many, the left-leaning, usually SNAP-friendly National Catholic Reporter broke the story first in an by NCR Editor Dennis Coday, “Sex Abuse Advocacy Group SNAP Sued by Former Employee.”

One day later, The National Catholic Register carried the story by Catholic News Agency writer, Kevin Jones entitled, “Did SNAP Receive Kickbacks for Suing the Church?” All three versions of the story have been sent to me by multiple BTSW  readers who asked me to write about it. A week after these accounts emerged, SNAP’s longtime Executive Director, David Clohessy, has mysteriously resigned. This is a development of immense importance in the arena of Catholic Priests Falsely Accused, one of David F. Pierre, Jr.’s most revealing books.

I have an angle on this story that none of the other accounts have, and I’ll get back to that, but first the story itself. In a lawsuit filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Gretchen Rachel Hammond, SNAP’s former Director of Development, charged that she was terminated from her position after discovering what many have long suspected. The lawsuit alleges…

“… that SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys, and in exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to [these] attorneys, who then file lawsuits … against the Catholic Church. These cases often settle, to the financial benefit of the attorneys and, at times, to the benefit of SNAP, which has received direct payments from survivors’ settlements.”

The named defendants in the lawsuit are [the now-resigned] SNAP President Barbara Blaine, the now-resigned Executive Director David Clohessy, and “Outreach Director” Barbara Dorris who declined to comment for the NCR article. The lawsuit alleges that SNAP claims non-profit federal tax exempt status as an organization with the purpose of providing “support for men and women who have been sexually victimized by members of the clergy [with] moral support, information and advocacy,” while in reality it is a commercial operation “motivated by its directors’ and officers’ personal and ideological animus against the Catholic Church.”

Follow the Money

The lawsuit alleges that SNAP and its directors received substantial ‘contributions’ from the same attorneys to whom they refer clients, as much as 81 percent of SNAP’s annual budget in some years. In 2007, a full 38 percent of SNAP’s income for that year came from one “prominent Minnesota attorney who represents clergy abuse survivors.” That attorney is alleged to have provided $169,716 in kickbacks to SNAP in 2007, and $415,000 in 2008. The lawsuit claims that lawyers in California, Chicago, Seattle and Delaware also made major “donations,” some of them in six figures.

Former SNAP official Gretchen Rachel Hammond concludes in her lawsuit that “SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors — it exploits them.” She alleges that SNAP leaders ordered her “not to reveal to anybody that SNAP received donations from attorneys.” She also alleges that in 2011 and 2012, SNAP leaders “concocted a scheme to have attorneys make donations to a front foundation” to conceal “attorneys’ kickbacks” to the organization.

The lawsuit alleges a pattern of collusion between plaintiff lawyers and SNAP officials to maximize publicity for the purpose of fueling bigger payouts while SNAP “callously disregards the real interests of survivors.” It claims that attorneys gave SNAP the drafts of plaintiff claims and other privileged information to generate sensational press releases.

In 2009, at the invitation of Bill Donohue, I wrote a feature article for Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights entitled “Due Process for Accused Priests.” The article researched and exposed the practice of mediated settlements and SNAP’s demands to eliminate statutes of limitations for suing Catholic institutions — and only Catholic institutions — decades after civil laws allowed.

Up until that time, I had been spared SNAP’s pattern of public attack and character assassination, but my Catalyst article put me squarely on SNAP’s radar screen. Catholic writer Ryan A MacDonald — in “Why Do SNAP and VOTF Fear the Father Gordon MacRae Case” — quoted a comment by SNAP Director David Clohessy describing me as “a dangerous and demented man.”

On August 6, 2009, RenewAmerica.com writer Matt C. Abbott gave David Clohessy a soapbox for a rebuttal to my article which Mr. Abbott titled, “Imprisoned Priest, Clergy Abuse Survivor Clash.” Seeming to be in fear of the very exposure that the present lawsuit against SNAP now brings, Mr. Clohessy laid out a wildly false set of defensive statements and accusations: “The burden is on the victims, not the accused priests to prove these cases,” he wrote.

At the same time, Clohessy was well aware, and went on to describe, that the vast majority of the claims brought against priests are settled out of court with no findings of fact at all. Clohessy blamed this practice on the bishops who, he wrote, “insist on group settlements” because “they are scared to defend themselves in court.”

Clohessy knew very well that the machinery of making decades-old claims followed by financial compensation depended on asking few questions before writing lucrative checks. Still, he claimed that “many victims desperately want and could benefit from having their ‘day in court’ to expose not just their predator, but those who shielded and protected him.”

Now, according to Ms. Hammond’s lawsuit, it seems that David Clohessy’s annual salary and SNAP’s annual bottom line depended on keeping the machinery of blanket settlements going. In his landmark book, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused  David F. Pierre, Jr. described the quality of due process and distinguishing true from false claims in my own diocese:

“In 2002, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, faced allegations from 62 individuals. Rather than spending the time and resources looking into the merits of the accusations ‘Diocesan officials did not even ask for specifics such as the dates and specific allegations for the claims,’ New Hampshire’s Union Leader reported. ‘Some victims made claims in the past month, and because of the timing of the negotiations, gained closure in just a matter of days.’ ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ a pleased and much richer plaintiff attorney admitted.”

— Catholic Priests Falsely Accused, p. 80

Two of the reporters covering this story — Dennis Coday for the National Catholic Reporter  and Kevin Jones for Catholic News Agency — do a disservice to the cause of truth and justice in their reporting of it. They both refer repeatedly to SNAP’s (and the lawyers’) clients as “sex abuse victims” or “sex abuse survivors.”

It is true in some cases, of course, but it is true in most cases only if one accepts SNAP’s and the lawyers’ mythology that the claims against priests for which clients received blanket settlements were demonstrably true, and were measured and tested in some form of investigation. Most were not. Simply throwing money at an accuser does not constitute due process or a determination of truth. Some have been victims of little more than their own greed.

Pope Benedict’s ‘Crimes against Humanity’

SNAP successfully generated and manipulated a climate of outrage to fuel accusations and keep the money flowing. It was a climate few Catholic leaders had the courage to challenge, but one did. In his series of columns entitled “Scandal Time” in First Things magazine, Father Richard John Neuhaus tried to call upon American Catholics to put the brakes on the outrage fueled by SNAP:

“Priests, too, are to be deemed innocent until proven guilty. In the current climate of outrage, we need to be reminded of that truth again. … News reports claiming that a certain number of priests have been charged with abuse and that the claims were settled out of court must not be interpreted to mean that the priests are guilty. Some of them insisted and insist that they are innocent, but bishops were advised by lawyers and insurance companies that a legal defense against the charges would cost much more than settlement out of court.”

Scandal Time, by Richard John Neuhaus, April 2002

After Father Richard John Neuhaus published this cautionary statement, the bishops of the United States met in Dallas in 2002. Under the watchful eyes of a scandal hungry media, the bishops invited two “victim-activists” to address the conference that resulted in the Dallas Charter and the undoing of any priest accused. They were David Clohessy and SNAP president, Barbara Blaine.

SNAP’s national director, David Clohessy previously worked for over a decade for ACORN (Association of Community Organization for Reform Now), a group with aggressive, manipulative, and confrontational activism modeled after the tactics of 1960’s radical Saul Alinsky. Keeping the money flowing depended on creating and maintaining sufficient moral panic.

In August, 2011, the Catholic League published what should have been an explosive document if it had been given fair treatment in the news media. “SNAP Exposed” described in detail the ways David Clohessy and SNAP coached accusers in framing claims in order to maximize and manipulate media coverage.

One of the many egregious examples was SNAP’S recommendation for accusers and their lawyers to “display holy childhood photos” before news cameras adding, “If you don’t have holy childhood photos, we can provide you with photos of other kids that can be held up for the cameras.”

A month later, seemingly in retaliation for exposing the truth, SNAP co-opted a radically left legal activist group, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, to file a “Crimes Against Humanity” charge against Pope Benedict XVI with the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

And in seeming retaliation for my 2009 article, “Due Process for Accused Priests,” I became an unwitting pawn in the attack on the Pope. David Clohessy and the Center for Constitutional Rights used an untrue and thoroughly debunked claim against me to bolster the charge against Pope Benedict. In her courageous article “Oscar Hangover Special: Why ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film,” journalist JoAnn Wypijewski unmasked the shame of this tactic in her in-depth coverage of the film, “Spotlight”:

“The film’s advertisement for SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, … elides SNAP’s belief that wrongful prosecutions are a minor price to pay in pursuit of its larger mission, something the newspaper didn’t much concern itself with either as it collected its Pulitzer for service in the public interest; something even the Center for Constitutional Rights disregarded in 2011 when it joined with SNAP to file a grotesque brief to the International Criminal Court demanding “investigation and prosecution” of the Vatican for crimes against humanity.

“The CCR brief failed, but its unchallenged acceptance of accusations, anonymous complaints, prosecution arguments, grand jury reports, commission findings with no benefit of cross examination and no recognized rights of the accused is breathtaking, especially when one considers that CCR was simultaneously and courageously arguing on behalf of Guantanamo detainees …

“To CCR’s shame, Father MacRae is specifically mentioned in that brief, with respect to allegations of videotape (that is, child porn), which prosecutors threw in at sentencing but for which there is no evidence, according to the lead detective in the case cited by [The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy] Rabinowitz.”

When I learned of this grave injustice, I tried to write to the Center for Constitutional Rights — It seemed a prophetic sign that its headquarters is located at 666 Broadway in Manhattan — but there was never a response. I wrote of the final outcome of CCR’s shameful complicity with SNAP in a BTSW  post, “The International Criminal Court has Dismissed SNAP’s Last Gasp.”

Perhaps I was premature. SNAP’S last gasp now seems to be the current lawsuit by one of its own directors. David Clohessy has claimed that his resignation has nothing to do with the current lawsuit exposing SNAP’s alleged financial kickbacks from clients’ lawyers.

It now remains to be seen whether David Clohessy and SNAP will follow their own advice about out-of-court settlements, and allow this lawsuit to go to a full and open trial before a civil jury.

And perhaps a RICO investigation — the government’s acronym for Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations — might also now be in order.

As I come to the end of this post, it has just been announced that SNAP founder, Barbara Blaine, has also tendered her resignation. In her brief statement she insists that it has nothing to do with the lawsuit which she says has no merit “like all the other lawsuits” against SNAP. [See the report on David F. Pierre, Jr.’s TheMediaReport.com: SNAP Founder and President Barbara Blaine Now Resigns As Pressure Mounts From Multiple Lawsuits.]

Editor’s Note: David Clohessy and Barbara Blaine ultimately settled the lawsuit by Gretchen Rachel Hammond for an undisclosed amount after demanding and receiving a signed nondisclosure agreement.

A Struggling Parish Built an Advent Bridge to Thailand

Fr. Tim Moyle and the people of St. Anne Parish in Mattawa, Ontario took up an Advent sacrifice to support the refugee mission of Fr. John Hung Le, SVD in Thailand.

(Clockwise from upper left in the photos above: Saint Anne Church in Mattawa Ontario, Father Tim Moyle in Mattawa, Father Gordon MacRae in Concord NH, and Father John Hung Le SVD in Bangkok. All collaborating this season for an Advent of the Heart.)

December 1, 2021

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: In twelve years of writing behind these prison walls, this is our first co-authored post. Fr. Tim Moyle joins me here this week from the Diocese of Pembroke in Ontario, Canada with an Advent mission of sacrifice and hope.

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First Up, Fr. G: As 2021 began, I wrote “A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers,” a sort of review of 2020 from which we were all recovering and still are. In 2021, I thought our culture wars and politics could not get worse, but the long, slow descent of our culture seemed to have a will of its own. As Advent approached this year, I hoped for a more positive message to help us focus on the Birth of the Messiah instead of the demise of an opposing party.

Then, from out of the blue, came a message from Fr. Tim Moyle. Father Tim and I have never actually met, but we have a long acquaintance through our mutual, much-missed friend, the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, founder and former editor of First Things magazine. Fr. Richard was a prominent Lutheran pastor and writer when he crossed the Tiber to the Catholic faith. After the death of Fr. Neuhaus, Fr. Tim Moyle wrote in First Things of their first meeting at table with Father Tim’s bishop in “Canadian Summers” (April 2009). Here’s an excerpt:

“It soon became evident that Fr. Richard had not left his self-confidence back in New York. Bishop Windell offered, in compliment, his opinion that Richard’s entry into full communion and ministry within the Roman Church could well be the most significant conversion since John Henry Newman. Richard drew heavily on his ever-present cigar, then agreed that some people might be justified in holding such an opinion.

“I almost gagged. ‘How American,’ I thought to myself. His smug self-assurance rankled my Canadian sense of propriety. Then with a glint in his eye, a tilt of his head, he let out his breath with a hearty self-mocking laugh and a warm slap on my shoulder. I decided then that I wanted to get to know this American brother priest, as he was clearly a more complicated character than I had thought.

“As fate would have it, I did not have to wait long, for we discovered the next summer that we each inhabited the same island as cottage owners in the Ottawa Valley, a discovery that led to many evenings spent on each other’s front deck and Richard’s 19th Street home in New York. There I met luminaries such as Avery Cardinal Dulles, leaders in the fight for the cause of life.”

That was written in early 2009 just after the deaths of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and Cardinal Avery Dulles. I both laughed and cried when I read Father Tim’s tribute back then. Not long after in 2009, Father Tim wrote to me. In one or two of those deck conversations, my name had come up. Father Tim wanted me to know that my loss of the support of both Father Richard and Cardinal Dulles was only an illusion. Three months later, in July 2009, These Stone Walls began.

An Advent of the Heart in Mattawa

From Father Tim: One of the greatest gifts I received at the start of my priesthood was the opportunity to meet a brother priest from the Archdiocese of New York who vacationed each summer in a parish where I was stationed. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus became my mentor, confidante and close friend. He was also joined by Avery Cardinal Dulles in encouraging Fr. Gordon MacRae to take up the challenge of using unjust imprisonment as an opportunity to do God’s work.

Suffice it to say that if I have been even partly as successful as Father Richard and Father Gordon in ministering God’s mercy and love, I will stand proudly before Christ as my Lord and Savior come that day when I will have to give Him an accounting for the successes and failures of my own priestly ministry.

I now serve St. Anne Catholic Church in Mattawa, Ontario, a rural parish in the Diocese of Pembroke in one of the most idyllic and yet impoverished corners of Canada. Both the Diocese and the town of Mattawa stand astride the Ottawa River serving the Catholic communities on both the Quebec and Ontario sides of the valley.

In generations past, the Ottawa valley was one of the more prosperous areas of Central Canada due to the harvesting of timber from massive first-growth forests that covered the entire region. Alas, generations of unsustainable forestry practices ultimately resulted in that economic engine dying along with the disappearance of most of the wealth, jobs and prospects for those who remained.

Nonetheless, I have come to learn that one of the most important things that I can do as a pastor is to engender an understanding of our parish’s role as a small part of a global enterprise of faith, an understanding which illuminates the necessary vision that, while we may be poor by the standards of other Canadian communities, we are quite rich when compared to faith communities in some other parts of the world.

I strive to connect any parish I serve to a Third-World ministry. Before we call on the generosity of God and neighbors to support our repair projects, we demonstrate our willingness to be generous with others whose needs are far greater than our own. My previous parishes were thus connected with parishes and Catholic missions in Peru, India, and Costa Rica. We made a difference there before launching our building and repair projects.

People often ask me how it is that I find and choose these foreign priests and projects to help support. The only answer I can give is that it is entirely through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through chance encounters, I become aware, online or through a third party, of a Catholic/Christian initiative in dire need. It takes only a bit of time and research to ascertain the authenticity of the ministry and need before presenting it to the people I serve.

More from Father Tim: The Catholic Community at St. Anne’s Parish met this newest Advent project with heartfelt enthusiasm. We have decided to adopt the apostolate of Fr. John Hung Le, SVD, a priest of the Missionary Society of the Divine Word. Fr. John is assigned by his Order to assist Vietnamese refugees in Thailand.

Fr. John’s name should ring a bell for any regular reader of the writings of Fr. Gordon MacRae at Beyond These Stone Walls. It was Fr. John who first took in and sponsored Pornchai Moontri when he was deported to Thailand after a long ordeal in prison and ICE detention. It was from Fr. Gordon’s posts about the generosity and kindness to Pornchai during a most difficult adjustment that I was inspired to explore further this good priest’s ministry among Third World refugees, some of the poorest souls on the planet.

The people of St. Anne’s parish immediately recognized the goodness and necessity of this outreach that they have adopted. Various groups within the parish began to organize their own projects. The local French Catholic Secondary School also decided to adopt Father John and his ministry and have begun a bottle drive to raise funds. Other parishioners organized a series of small raffles and auctions of items purchased or donated by local merchants.

The parish council decided to also take up a special collection during each weekend of Advent for this important project. The very fact that all these initiatives sprang up spontaneously among not only our parish but also the good people of Mattawa is evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit to move hearts.

This project is galvanizing not only our parish community, but some of the wider community as well. These local acts of generosity are arising despite our own need would not have sprung into existence if not for the incredible ministry of Divine Mercy written about and exercised by Fr. Gordon MacRae behind those prison walls. His inspiring posts about Pornchai Moontri’s life and conversion have inspired us all. This has been a work of the Holy Spirit if ever I encountered one.

The Vietnamese Refugees of Thailand

From Father G again: In recent messages, Fr. John Hung Le, SVD has told us of how he has been very touched by the kind hearts, prayers and generous spirits of Fr. Tim Moyle and the people of St. Anne Parish in Mattawa in support of his ministry with the Vietnamese refugees. Father John knows well the plight of a refugee in a foreign land.

After the 1975 fall of Saigon, conditions for many South Vietnamese became dire. A young Vietnamese teen — the young man who would later become Fr. John Hung Le — was among those forced to flee. Tens of thousands a month took to the open sea in decrepit, overcrowded boats, seeking refuge in other Asian countries while hoping for resettlement in the West. On the world stage, the Communist regime was accused of trafficking in the lives of these desperate people, at times extorting hundreds or even thousands of dollars for allowing them to escape oppression and death.

With refugee camps throughout Southeast Asia filled to overflowing, several countries announced they would close their shores to the “boat people.” Some nations forced thousands back out to sea. This tragic situation brought forth calls for an international effort to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. A United Nations conference on the plight of refugees was held in Geneva in July, 1979.

Most of those entering Thailand from Vietnam today are migrant workers, however their lives and livelihood are once again threatened over the last two years by the global pandemic from which we have all felt pain. After his arrival in Thailand early in 2021, Pornchai told me that Fr. John needed to address a dental problem but he did not have the funds. I begged and borrowed a few hundred dollars to send him, but Pornchai later told me that Fr. John used it instead to buy rice for some families in far more desperate need. His Refugee Assistance Foundation struggles to support the basic needs of hundreds if not thousands of refugee migrant worker families put out of work in this pandemic.

I don’t think I have ever felt more pride and concern for a brother priest who sacrifices so much for others. From that point on, I have tried to set aside a third of any gift I receive to help support Fr. John who buys and delivers food and medical supplies. I send another third to Pornchai who lives under the daunting task of rebuilding his life after 36 years as a refugee of another sort. Here is a recent message to Father Tim and me received from Father John:

“I escaped Vietnam in 1979 and made it to a refugee camp in the Philippines where I spent three years. Thank God that I got through this journey. Today, I understand the life of the refugees here in Thailand, now made so much more complicated by the global pandemic. After my priestly ordination in 2004, I was sent to Papua New Guinea where I ministered to St. Anne parish in Dirma, Kundiawa Diocese for ten years. In 2014, I was sent to Thailand and was assigned to help Vietnamese refugees in Bangkok.

“I do not have a parish. I and another Society of the Divine Word priest rent a house [where Pornchai stayed for several months upon his arrival in Thailand]. I travel weekly to several villages and provinces where I borrow a church for Mass for the Vietnamese. Most are migrant workers who, for the last almost two years, have had little or no income due to pandemic lockdowns. I have recruited a few volunteers who help me beg, buy, collect, and deliver dried foods for migrant families to survive this long storm. When funds are available, we also provide needed medical supplies and small amounts of money for medical care. Thanks to Fr. Gordon and some of his friends who have sent funds, many struggling migrant families have been helped.”

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: I am humbled and inspired in the presence of Fr. Tim Moyle and Fr. John Hung Le. Father Tim was born in a small Northern Ontario mining community where he obtained his first university degree as a licensed clinical social worker. After working for several years in the fields of child welfare and children’s mental health, he took a leave to explore the insane idea that God may be calling him to priesthood. Though raised in a Catholic family, he had long since left his Catholic faith behind.

To his great surprise during and after seminary training, he discovered for the first time in his life a sense of being whole and complete. He put aside plans for a career in politics to live the priesthood of Jesus Christ and bring the Gospel to others.

Father Tim Moyle blogs at Where the Rubber Hits the Road.

The website for Father John’s Refugee Assistance Foundation has a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/tuongtrotinan

Please consult our “Special Events” page for information on how to help me support the work of Father John Hung Le, SVD and our other work of mercy: helping Pornchai Moontri reclaim his life.

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“O Come, O Come Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice, Rejoice, O Israel,

To thee shall come Emmanuel.”

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