UNITED STATES
These Stone Walls
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on April 25, 2012
My dear old friend, Jacquie Miles, now an avid reader of These Stone Walls from her Northwest Kentucky home, sent me this story a few weeks ago – sort of an “inside” joke:
A young man wandered into a Southern church during a healing service. The exuberant preacher invited anyone in need of prayers to step forward. The 20-year-old, thinking he had little to lose, walked up the aisle. “What can we do for you, son?” the preacher asked loudly. “I’m worried about my hearing,” the young man replied.
“Step right on up here!” shouted the preacher as his flock braced themselves for a miracle. The preacher placed his hand on the boy’s head and called upon the Lord to restore him body and soul and cast out every discomfort. After several minutes of the preacher’s ALLELUIAs and a chorus of shouted AMENs, the preacher stepped back from his subject. “How’s your hearing now, son?” the preacher asked loudly. “I don’t know,” said the young man. “It’s not ’til Thursday!”
The story was a big hit in my current locale where the only kind of hearing anyone ever worries about is the latter. If you read Ryan MacDonald’s brief “Special Report,” you know that I also have one to prepare for. I’m not sure when it’s coming, but it’s coming. It could be many months away. Justice at this level moves at a glacial pace. It takes a lot more effort and evidence to get a priest out of prison than to put one in these days. Catholic League president, Bill Donohue also wrote of these developments in a great editorial in the April issue of Catalyst entitled “Father MacRae’s Appeal.” Rill Donohue wrote:
“The website Of the National Center for Reason and Justice, (www.ncrj.org) provides all the legal information you need to make up your own mind.”
That must be true because there are some who don’t want you to read those documents and make up your own minds. Just last week, a friend read me a series of ugly comments posted by SNAP members denouncing my appeal. The comments were posted at the website of the Philadelphia Inquirer after a story about the ongoing prosecution/persecution of Catholic priests and Church officials there. I had not realized how much of a threat to the agenda of SNAP my own appeal might be until I read Ryan MacDonald’s report, “Why Do SNAP and VOTF Fear the Case of Fr. Gordon MacRae?” at his A Ram in the Thicket website.
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