Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Fr. Gordon MacRae: The Truth Will Set You Free (If Someone Prints It!)


From Father Gordon Macrae:
..The Jesuit weekly news magazine, America has devoted much space to Catholic scandal, even giving a platform to the extreme views of Marci Hamilton who has championed the causes of SNAP and some contingency lawyers. Meanwhile, America editors have consistently ignored developments in my case. Even my occasional letter to the editor in response to its one-sided articles has been ignored. We published one, “A Letter America magazine would not publish,” under “Commentary” here on These Stone Walls. I recently wrote asking that my subscription to America be cancelled. Even that was ignored.
Editors at Commonweal magazine, on the other hand, at least had the grace to respond to a news development in my regard that was sent to them. In an e-mail response to writer, Ryan MacDonald, a Commonweal editor bluntly wrote, “We will not be covering the story of Father Gordon MacRae.” So be it. At least now we know, and I can stop this incessant barking.

I am fortunate to have the attention of a few Catholic writers who join me in my exasperation with the Catholic news media. Both David F. Pierre of The Media Report and Ryan A. MacDonald of A Ram in the Thicket have told me that they think it is an important news story that evidence now shows that a Catholic priest in America has been falsely accused and wrongly held in prison for eighteen years. However, getting someone in the Catholic press to write about this new evidence has been an incredibly frustrating ordeal.

David Pierre’s recent book, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused, has a chapter detailing information on the case against me – information that for some unknown reason has been omitted from almost all other accounts of this case. Father James Valladares’ new book, Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast, devoted about a third of its content to coverage of my case and These Stone Walls. However, reviews of both books are conspicuously absent from the pages of too many Catholic newspapers now trumpeting sordid and distorted headlines like the ones described above in a Catholic magazine.

On February 20, 2012, David Pierre published a news story at The Media Report entitled “Exclusive Report: Alarming New Evidence May Exonerate Imprisoned Priest.” David Pierre spent many hours doing something he knew most in the news media would not bother to do. He poured over hundreds of pages of new investigative documents about my trial and new appeal now published at the National Center for Reason and Justice, a wrongful conviction organization that endorses and helps sponsor my defense as well as These Stone Walls.

David Pierre submitted his summary of my new appeal and its new evidence to most of the secular news outlets in New England that had been covering the story of accused priests. Predictably, most of them ignored it. One commendable exception, however, was the news team at WMUR-TV News in New Hampshire which aired a factually truthful news report (which takes a few moments to load if you click on it)...  (continued)

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