A Teacher’s Worst Nightmare, by Michael Gallagher

A Teacher’s Worst Nightmare, by Michael Gallagher  is an article from These Stone Walls, that Father Gordon MacR
ae writes.  It is about the arrest of a teacher and the mental, emotional, and financial anguish he went through until he was exonerated.  Deo Gratias.

LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT: A TSW CHRISTMAS CARD

Father Gordon Macrae's latest post on TSW is his Christmas card to us. LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT: A TSW CHRISTMAS CARD   This is my favorite part:

I am forced by circumstance to live in a place with men who are banished, not just from home and family and freedom, but too often also from hope. Some with even the darkest pasts have come into the light to thrill us with their stories of grace and true repentance and conversion. You have read of several in these pages and there are other stories yet to come. For some of these wounded men become saints, I am not fit to fasten their sandals.

We live East of Eden, a place from which the Magi of the Gospel saw a star and heard good news, the very best of news: Freedom can be found in only one place, and the way there is to follow the Star they followed. If you follow These Stone Walls, never follow me. Follow only Christ.

My Christmas card to you is this message, a tradition of sorts behind These Stone Walls. My small, barred cell window faces due West so my gaze is always out of the East. On this cold and gray December day, the sun will soon be setting behind the high prison wall, glistening upon its razor wire like tinsel. I sit in this spot every Christmas eve to watch its final descent behind the wall that is my view of the world at Christmas for the 21st time.

I offer this moment for you, for TSW readers the world over, and I offer for you this prayer, “Lead, Kindly Light,” my favorite verse from the newly canonized Saint John Henry Newman:

• Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
  Lead Thou me on;
  The night is dark, and I am far from home;
  Lead Thou me on.
• I was not ever thus,
  Nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
  I loved to choose and see my path,
  but now, Lead Thou me on.
• I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
  Pride ruled my will: Remember not past years.
  So long Thy power hath blessed me,
  Sure it still will lead me on,
• O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent,
  Til the night is gone,
  And with the morn those Angel faces smile,
  Which I have loved long since,
  and lost awhile.

Crime and Punishment on the Solemnity of Christ the King

If you're a follower, as I am, of These Stone Walls, then you know the story of Father Gordon Macrae and Pornchai Maximilian Moontri. Crime and Punishment on the Solemnity of Christ the King 

 Well, Max is getting out.  Sadly, that's good news.  Click on the link to read what I mean.

Dying Alone

"I came in alone.  I'll go out alone."  Many same this, especially "lifers."  People doing life in prison often reflect on their death.  I guess everyone does.  I know I do.  I've had a few serious illnesses and wondered if that was how I was going to die.  But dying in prison really is a lonely proposition.  Of course, there's no family around you and there's a good chance you won't even have friends around to support and pray for you.

This article by Father MacRae describes the fear.  http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/darryll-bifano-currency-debt-mercy/

I'm glad to see hospice come into the prison system.

The Whole Truth

Father Gordon MacRae asked bloggers to share his post on his blog, "These Stone Walls."  Father MacRae is a falsely accused priest who is trying to clear his name.  On this particular post, he rails against the movie Spotlight.  He actually liked the movie but they needed to mention some other views and people.  Spotlight is only one side of the story.  To know the other side, you really need to read some of these journalists.

 That’s the problem with a spotlight. It casts its beam in one place while all the corruption beyond its singular focus remains in the dark.

It’s not easy for people in the media to stand up to those among their peers who are honored for biased distortions. There are journalists for whom the truth is its own reward, journalists who write the truth even when prevailing political correctness tries to silence them, even when it means they will sacrifice a Pulitzer, or an Oscar. The truth means more to them than the approval of their peers. These are the true guardians of integrity in journalism, and, though my voice is small, I honor them here. Please join me in this by sharing this post, and these stand-out contributions against the tide:

• Ryan A. MacDonald for “A Grievous Error in Judge Joseph LaPlante’s Court” (These Stone Walls, 2016)
• JoAnn Wyijewski for “Oscar Hangover Special: Why ‘Spotlight’ Was a Terrible Film” (CounterPunch, 2016)
• William Donohue for “Travesty of Justice” (Catalyst, 2014)
• Ralph Cipriano in Newsweek for “Catholic Guilt? The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy Behind a Lurid Rape Case” (Newsweek, 2015)

Everybody Please Give A Little

Will everybody please give a little?  I mean just that, $ 5 or $ 10.  If everybody could do that then the publishing of These Stone Walls for Father Gordon MacRae will continue.  The Consecration to the Immaculata is included also.  Go to Fund me, and find it in your heart to contribute.  Not much, just a litle.  

Can You Help Father Gordon MacRae?

If your a regular reader of my blog, you've read many posts about Father Gordon MacRae.  Gordon MacRae is a priest who has been wrongly convicted.  With help from Suzanne Sadler, Father MacRae publishes a blog entitle These Stone Walls.  Suzanne posts what Father telephones or mails to her.  Suzanne has been doing this for five years--for free.  She would like to update her publishing equipment.  Can you help?  Can you spare $ 10?  How about a prayer? Have you ability to spread the word (email, blog, FaceBook, tweet)?

I beg you to find room in your heart to help Father Gordon MacRae.  He's been in prison for over 20 years.  That's more than enough.  If you can donate, please click here.

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.

Another Step for Father Gordon MacRae

Perhaps, you've read my posts regarding Father Gordon MacRae, before, here and here.  In short, he's a wrongly convicted priest, who's been in prison for 20 years, for something that never happened.  He could have been out, if he had pled guilty, but he's not.

Another turn of events has occurred.  The National Center for Reason and Justice has just announced a new federal court appeal, on behalf of Father MacRae.  This is a major step aimed towards freeing Father MacRae.

I can't explain it better than this excerpt from the post by Ryan MacDonald on These Stone Walls.

I am once again pleased to write about a major step in the effort to free Father Gordon MacRae, a priest of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire now in his twentieth year of unjust imprisonment. In a memorable quote in “The Trials of Father MacRae” in The Wall Street Journal last May, Pulitzer-prize winning author and columnist, Dorothy Rabinowitz summed up an appeal to state courts to overturn the unjust 1994 sexual assault convictions of this falsely accused priest.

“Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents.”

That “perversion of justice” continued when New Hampshire state courts rejected this appeal without a hearing on its merits, its new evidence, or its documentation of gross ineffective assistance of counsel in the 1994 MacRae trial. In an upcoming guest post onThese Stone Walls, I plan to write in more candid detail of that perversion of justice from documents I have recently obtained in this case.

But first, some hopeful news. The National Center for Reason and Justice, a Boston-based organization that reviews claims of wrongful conviction and now sponsors the appellate defense of Father Gordon MacRae, has announced a new federal court appeal. Attorney Robert Rosenthal, lead counsel for the defense, has written an extensive new habeas corpus petition filed in the United States District Court in Concord, New Hampshire seeking to overturn the conviction of Father MacRae. We urge readers to review this appeal brief published by the NCRJ and here at These Stone Walls.

Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus

Memorandum

It was the readers of These Stone Walls that made this step possible. In my last guest post here last October I wrote, “For Fr Gordon MacRae’s Appeal to Move Forward, Help is Needed.” Readers stepped up admirably to help meet expenses to ensure the continuation of this case.

But now we must ask your help in expanding this effort to raise funds and to promote justice. The drafting of this extensive new appeal and its hundreds of pages of exhibits has exhausted all available resources and left the defense of Father MacRae in debt for the first time since it began. At the conclusion of this post, I will list once again the ways readers can help. We are deeply grateful to those who already have.

It may also help a good deal if readers would circulate a link to this post by sharing it on your social media networks, among your contacts, and in comments on other blogs and websites. We need to generate awareness of this case and the importance of justice not only for one falsely accused priest, but for the priesthood itself. We must together promote the mandate of the global Catholic Church to be a mirror of justice. Just two days before writing this post, I read the following in a weekly Catholic newspaper by a prominent Catholic writer:

“I hate to say it, but there really is no way to defend any of these guilty priests or their enablers anymore. The priest sex abuse scandal has been responsible for so much of the brutal criticism and fracturing of the modern day Catholic Church. We have been shamed. We have been put in a very difficult position as lay Catholics where we face scorn and ridicule…”

Who could disagree? I can’t! However I also happen to know first-hand that many accused priests are not guilty. The scorn and ridicule we face as Catholics will only be magnified – in this life and in the next – if the justice we see meted out is not marked by mercy, and especially by truth.

And the truth is that the Church is not just an easy target for the slurs of detractors, but she is also an easy target for lawyers and false claimants looking to score a windfall. This aspect of the scandal is seriously neglected – even by the Catholic press – because organized victim groups stand ready to trumpet their cause and demean the Church whenever the legitimacy of a decades-old claim is questioned.

As a result, bishops have been bullied into silence and unquestioned settlements. They have also been bullied into discarding our priests, ignoring their due process rights under Church and civil law, and into casting adrift the accused without due process. Justice itself has been the most abused victim in this tragedy for the Church.

By once again exposing the truth of “The Trials of Father MacRae,” Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal presented compelling reasons to revisit this case, not only for the integrity of the justice system, but for the integrity of the Church as a mirror or justice.

To paraphrase a well known Gospel parable, Father Gordon MacRae was beaten by robbers and left on the side of the road in our Church. No amount of Catholic shame over the sex abuse scandal can justify passing him by on that road, not by us, not by his bishop and diocese, and not by the global Church. We of good conscience, with truth and justice in our hearts, cannot allow the injustices visited upon this priest to stand.

Please read at least the Introduction to Attorney Robert Rosenthal’s new brief, and please share this post with others.

Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus

Memorandum

HOW TO HELP

As listed on the “Contact” page of These Stone Walls there are four ways you can be of help, and I urge you to spread word of this information by sharing this post with your social media and online contacts. Here’s how to help:

LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: A legal fund has been established to accept gifts applied directly to legal costs that are ongoing in this case. As we now begin the process of preparing appeals to the federal courts, available funds have been seriously depleted, and continuance of this effort depends on assistance. Checks in any amount to this fund should be made out to Fr. Gordon MacRae and mailed as follows:



Friends of Fr. Gordon MacRae


P. O. Box 863


Hampton, NH 03842-0863


e-mail: TheseStoneWalls2@gmail.com

TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS: The National Center for Reason & Justice (www.ncrj.org) has fully examined the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae. Its Board of Directors and wrongful conviction specialists voted unanimously to provide fiscal sponsorship of his ongoing legal defense. What this means is that this fine organization lends its name to this appeal for funds, and will accept tax deductible contributions earmarked for legal expenses in this appeal if they meet the criteria.

Please consult www.ncrj.org/donate/ for instructions on how to make a tax deductible donation earmarked for the Fr. Gordon MacRae case. If you wish to donate to the NCRJ, please indicate in the “memo” line on your check that you wish to apply the funds to the Fr. Gordon MacRae case. If you also wish to apply for a tax deduction, you should indicate so in a cover letter. That address is:

National Center for Reason & Justice


Re: Fr. Gordon MacRae Defense 



P.O. Box 191101 

Roxbury, MA 02119-1101



Website: (www.ncrj.org)

THE PAYPAL LINK available on the top right corner of These Stone Walls is active, and it provides an opportunity for online gifts in any amount. If you take advantage of the Pay Pal link, please include an e-mail instructing us on whether you prefer your gift to be used for legal expenses or the support of These Stone Walls.

A SUPPORT FUND is also established to accept assistance in support of These Stone Walls and the special circumstances in which Father MacRae must write and publish. This includes costs for domain and hosting fees, postage and typing supplies, and daily telephone costs from prison to edit and manage These Stone Walls and hear and respond to messages. Remember that as a prisoner, Father MacRae has no Internet access so all messages must be read to him by telephone. Checks to this support fund should be made out to Fr. Gordon MacRae and mailed as follows:

Fr. Gordon MacRae


P.O. Box 205
 Wilmington, MA. 01887-0205


Email: gjmacrae@gmail.com

And remember, you can also help enormously by posting links to These Stone Walls on other blogs, social networks, and to your own contacts. This is most important. (See Social Media Buttons Below)  And you can also pray, without doubt the most powerful intervention available to us.

Once again, please review Attorney Robert Rosenthal’s new federal appeal on behalf of Father Gordon MacRae. Let us hope together for justice.

Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus

Memorandum

Vote for These Stone Walls

Dear Reader,

These Stone Walls is a blog by a falsely accused priest who has been in prison, in New Hampshire, for almost twenty years.  He would have been released, long ago, if he had said he was guilty.  But Father Gordon MacRae is not a liar.  The truth is the only truth.  He blogs by sending his post to a friend who runs the blog, These Stone Walls, for him.  It's not as easy as it sounds.  Father types on a cantankerous old typewriter.  Note, not a word processor, nor an electric typewriter.  He balances that typewriter in his cell, somewhere (toilet? cot? floor?).  But the message gets through.

Father MacRae's blog has been nominated in the yearly contest, My Favorite Catholic Blog.  I'm praying that his blog wins, to call attention to the injustice being done to him.  Please click on this word link, and vote for These Stone Walls.  You can vote, once a day, every day, until the Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19.

Thank you.
Faith

http://catholicism.about.com/library/bl-readers-choice-awards-best-catholic-blog.htm

Pornchai's Plea

If you don't follow the blog These Stone Walls, you should. The author is an incarcerated priest, Father Gordon Macrae. Recently, he posts abut Pornchai Moontri. Pornchai lived in Thailand until he was 11. He never went to school there, so he doesn't know how to read and write in Thai. He doesn't remember how to speak Thai, for that matter. But there's a good possibility that he may be deported there--not knowing anybody, nor having a prospects of employment, nor a place to live...the basic necessities. He doesn't know the language, anymore.

Can anyone help him?

Pornchai Moontri is incarcerated also. Please read his story, especially about his conversion. It would be ideal if some Thai religious affiliated group took him under their wing. He needs contacts to help him in Thailand, if and when he's deported. He speaks English well. He can read English and write, but he's much more fluent in math. He is excellent with his hands. He loves to do detailed carpentry. This schooner is an example of his work. He makes ships, boxes, statues, etc., and sells them. He really would be an asset, any where.

Any ideas, suggestions, or offer of help, please contact http://www.thesestonewalls.com/contact/