Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Stone Walls and the Falsely Accused

“There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.” Bill Donohue, Catholic League President

Psalm 141:7 Deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. [8] Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the just wait for me, until thou reward me.

Before I happened upon the blog, These Stone Walls, it never occurred to me that there were priests in prison who had been falsely accused of sexual abuse. Who knew? (That's a rhetorical question!)

It is utterly unthinkable that people would "cash in" on the Church's misery of the sex abuse scandal by laying claim to hundreds of thousands of dollars by lying about being sexually abused by a priest. But that's exactly what happened to Father Gordon MacRrae. His story has been well documented in the sixteen years Father has spent in prison. Had he confessed to guilt, he would have been out in less than three years. But Father MacRae maintains his innocence, doing penance in prison since 1994 for crimes he did not commit.

I urge you to read this post. I urge you to read These Stone Walls. It is authored by Father MacRae from his prison cell, though he has never seen his own blog. He types the posts on a typewriter from his prison cell, and sends them by mail to a friend who scans the posts to send on to Australia for publishing, complete with graphics. Father MacRae only gets to see the posts after his friends print them out and mail them to him.

Please pray for the falsely accused. Please pray for Father Gordon MacRae.

5 comments:

Daily Grace said...

Thank you for this post. I read "These Stone Walls" and my heart just broke.

I will do my part to spread this story around, as well as pray & fast for this situation and others like it.

God bless.

Thank you too for your recent visit to my blog. For some reason I couldn't get your comment to post. Computers often do crazy things.

paramedicgirl said...

Daily Grace, thanks for stopping by. When I read These Stone Walls, my heart broke, as well. I never imagined there were priests in prison falsely accused by those wishing to cash in on the sex abuse scandal.

I read one of Father MacRae's entries where he quoted his fellow prison inmates as saying the public who doesn't believe people would railroad a priest for money are gullible, because they (the inmates) who are there for murder killed for a lot less than what these accusers received from Church coffers.

kam said...

Thanks for the eye-opener. Will pass this on...k

Shirley said...

I'll put his blog on my sidebar.

Paul said...

Wow. Just wow. And I know these false accusations have to be far more prevalent than the media is letting on. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.