WSJ: “Senator Rand Paul deserves credit for digging into the truth about the destructive Covid response and the effort by Dr Fauci to stifle dissent and hide the record.”
Dr Anthony Fauci Took Refuge Under the Fifth Amendment 111 Times — Beyond These Stone Walls
WSJ: “Senator Rand Paul deserves credit for digging into the truth about the destructive Covid response and the effort by Dr Fauci to stifle dissent and hide the record.” August 5, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae The above excerpt from The Wall Street Journal is from a July 30, 2026 lead editorial, “Dr. Fauci Takes the Fifth, Alas.” On May 6, 2020, I published a post at Beyond These Stone Walls entitled, “The Chinese Communist Party and the True Origin of Covid-19.” I became interested in the subject matter because for the previous month I had been gravely ill in prison and self-isolated in an effort to halt the spread of a virus that had devastated my immune response. There was no treatment whatsoever beyond my resolve not to pass it on to others. My friend Pornchai Moontri was here with me then and he had Covid as well. So did most of the prisoners who shared the space in which we lived. I was in my later 60s then, and at one point I thought I may not survive it, but obviously I did. …
At the end of July, 85 years ago in 1941, Father Maximilian Kolbe stepped out of line at Auschwitz. His gift of noble defiance has spread throughout the known world.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s Gift of Noble Defiance — Beyond These Stone Walls
At the end of July, 85 years ago in 1941, Father Maximilian Kolbe stepped out of line at Auschwitz. His gift of noble defiance has spread throughout the known world. July 30, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae Auschwitz 1941: After the so-called dinner, I was invited between Blocks 18 and 19 where some prisoners had gathered among whom were several priests … Our colleague, Kolbe, spoke of the Feast of Corpus Christi, of the great omnipresent God, and of our sufferings by which He was trying to make us ready for a better life. — A priest at Auschwitz, from Depositions of Fellow Prisoners, 1970, p. 34 + + + Pornchai Moontri once looked at the death chamber of Maximilian Kolbe and saw devouring jaws of evil. I saw that evil too, but choking on a brave soul’s noble defiance. The photograph in this post has deep meaning and significance for us. BTSW reader Lupe Gwiazdowski, on a tour of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, stood with her camera before the gaping maw of a prison window. She photographed …
A decade after the priesthood scandal broke the hearts of many Catholics and the optimism of many priests, Fr. James Valladares reminded us all of the gift of Hope.
Optimism: When Hope Springs Eternal — Beyond These Stone Walls
A decade after the priesthood scandal broke the hearts of many Catholics and the optimism of many priests, Fr. James Valladares reminded us all of the gift of Hope. July 29, 2026 by Father Michael P. Orsi with an Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae Introduction As most of the readers of this blog know, I was sent to prison with a life sentence in 1994 after refusing multiple plea deal offers to plead guilty in exchange for a one-to-two-year prison sentence. I would have been released from prison over 30 years ago had I actually been guilty, or at least willing to pretend so. It is the way more than 90 percent of trials in the United States are resolved in court. Those who gain their sense of Law and Order from the popular TV show of the same name are oblivious to the reality of this. I used to also be oblivious to what is today called “The Trial Penalty,” the implied threat that if you do not plead guilty you will spend the rest of your life in prison. The first decade of my life in …
A conversation between Father Gordon MacRae and his friend, a Modern Orthodox Jewish scholar, has something to add to the debate about preserving Latin in the Mass.
A Modern Orthodox Jew on Preserving Hebrew and the Latin Mass — Beyond These Stone Walls
A conversation between Father Gordon MacRae and his friend, a Modern Orthodox Jewish scholar, has something to add to the debate about preserving Latin in the Mass. July 22, 2026 by Seth Bader, J.D. with an Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae Introduction In the image above this post, Melchizedek, the Priest-King of Genesis 14, blesses Abraham with a sacrificial offering of bread and wine (The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek painted by Juan Antonio de Frias y Escalante in 1668, housed at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain). The affairs of Rome have not been the only source of heat throughout the world in recent weeks. The winds of war have reached hurricane force, and the rule of law and authority in both Church and State clashes against public sentiment. And the weather has not cooperated at all. It is about 105 degrees inside this place on the day I write. None of this has been comfortable. Back in 2021, I wrote a post entitled, “A House Divided: Cancel Culture and the Latin Mass…
On July 22 the Church honors Saint Mary Magdalene. History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerges from the Gospel a faithful, courageous and noble woman, an apostle to the Apostles.
Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb — Beyond These Stone Walls
History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerges from the Gospel a faithful, courageous and noble woman, an apostle to the Apostles. Within the Octave of Easter by Father Gordon MacRae As an imprisoned priest, a communal celebration of the Easter Triduum is not available to me. My celebration of this week is for the most part limited to a private Mass using the Roman Missal. Still, over all the years in which I have been writing for this blog, I have always agonized about Holy Week posts. I feel a special duty to contribute what little I can to the Church’s volume of reflection on the meaning of this week. Though I have little in the way of resources beyond what is in my own mind, I feel an obligation in this of all weeks to “get it right,” and leave something a reader might return to. So I have focused in past Holy Week posts not so much on the meaning of the events of the Passion of the Christ, but on the characters central to those events. In so doing, …
Father Gordon MacRae was accused and convicted in 1994 for crimes absolutely unsupported by evidence. MacRae got 67 years for refusing to lie. Let that sink in.
Oscar Hangover Special: Why “Spotlight” Is a Terrible Film — Beyond These Stone Walls
Father Gordon MacRae was accused and convicted in 1994 for crimes absolutely unsupported by evidence. MacRae got 67 years for refusing to lie. Let that sink in. July 14, 2026 by JoAnn Wypijewski Editor’s Note: This outstanding article by JoAnn Wypijewski was first published on February 29, 2016 at CounterPunch. It is republished here with permission of the author. + + + I don’t “believe the victims”. I was in Boston in the Spring of 2002 reporting on the priest scandal, and because I know some of what is untrue, I don’t believe the personal injury lawyers or the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team or the Catholic “faithful” who became harpies outside Boston churches, carrying signs with images of Satan, hurling invective at congregants who’d just attended Mass, and at least once — this in my presence — spitting in the face of a person who dared dispute them. I don’t believe the prosecutors who pursued tainted cases or the therapists who revived junk science or the juries that sided with …
‘Spotlight’ was a heavily biased film about The Boston Globe coverage of sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The problem with a spotlight is its narrowly focused beam.
Ten Years After The Boston Globe Spotlight Prostituted Journalism — Beyond These Stone Walls
‘Spotlight’ was a heavily biased film about The Boston Globe coverage of sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The problem with a spotlight is its narrowly focused beam. July 15, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae “prostituted — to use something valuable in a way that is not appropriate or respectable and especially in the pursuit of money.” — From Merriam Webster’s Dictionary + + + The Boston Globe’s pursuit of this story needed a floodlight and not a spotlight. I had a strange experience with the Globe’s coverage in this regard. In 2003 it carried a brief story about a Springfield, Massachusetts couple, Dominic and Briana Martin, who were arrested for a scam attempt involving an elderly local priest. The Martins engaged him in a series of emails about allegations of abuse and then threatened to make the allegations public unless the priest left a sum of money in a brown paper bag in the newspaper kiosk of a local restaurant. The frightened priest, who never had any kind of allegation against …
Fr Richard Drabik, MIC, my longtime spiritual director and friend who wrote the Preface to the Diary of Saint Faustina, passed into Divine Mercy on July 4, 2026.
Fr Richard Drabik Introduced Divine Mercy to Saints and Villains — Beyond These Stone Walls
Fr Richard Drabik Introduced Divine Mercy to Saints and Villains July 8, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae In April of 1993, my friend Father Richard Drabik and I both served on the staff of the Servants of the Paraclete Spiritual and Psychological Renewal Center for priests. Father Drabik was at the time preparing to go to Rome to concelebrate with Pope John Paul II the Mass of Beatification of Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska, now known as Saint Faustina, the Saint of Divine Mercy. Her Beatification took place on the Sunday after Easter that year, and Pope John Paul II decreed that henceforth that Sunday would be universally known in the Roman Calendar as Divine Mercy Sunday. Father Richard Drabik was formerly Provincial Superior of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. He wrote the Preface to the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska that has become globally famous. Just before leaving for her Beatification in Rome in 1993, Father Drabik stopped by my office to invite me to …
The United States of America was born on the Fourth of July in 1776. There is no greater tribute to this Land of the Free than the words of its National Anthem.
America Turns 250, but This Is Not the Twilight’s Last Gleaming — Beyond These Stone Walls
The United States of America was born on the Fourth of July in 1776. There is no greater tribute to this Land of the Free than the words of its National Anthem. July 1, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae I have been pondering what to write as the nation in which I write marks 250 years in existence on the world stage. All thoughts kept bringing me back to our National Anthem and a reflection on it that I wrote in 2023. This nation and the entire free world were finally emerging then from the global Covid pandemic. Perhaps I needed more time to write of this then because our very freedom had been on the chopping block in both Church and State. We had surrendered far too much. So in this post I want to further examine the National Anthem, all four stanzas of it, three of which most of us do not even know. And then finally I want to add a reflection by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who gave us some very candid and pointed thoughts about the nature of freedom and what we stand to lose if we …
The U.S. Catholic Bishops openly risk the trust of their priests to restore the trust of the rest of the Church while obfuscating the abuse crisis.
Opinion: The U.S. bishops missed an opportunity with changes to the “Charter”
Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, proposes revised procedures to address allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in Orlando, Florida, on June 11, 2026. (Credit: USCCB/YouTube/screenshot) The internet buzzed after the U.S. bishops consecrated the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Orlando on Thursday. June 11. Catholic news outlets and bloggers mostly raved enthusiastically, while the secular media propagated slightly more restrained summaries. Even President Trump weighed in, saying the action was a “poignant reminder that America has always been guided by the loving hand of God.” Kudos to the bishops for turning to God for help in troubling times for this nation. But we would do well to consider the many places in Scripture where the prayers of those who ignore the basic demands of justice are not heard by a Lord who hears the cries of the marginalized and forgotten. We …
The April 18, 2000 murder of Pornchai Moontri’s mother, Wannee, on the Island of Guam still cries to Heaven for justice. This new AI forensic review provides hope.
An AI Analysis of Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam — Beyond These Stone Walls
The April 18, 2000 murder of Pornchai Moontri’s mother, Wannee, on the Island of Guam still cries to Heaven for justice. This new AI forensic review provides hope. June 24, 2026 by xAI Grok Writing for The Wall Street Journal on November 7, 2025, Mike Cherney penned an insightful essay entitled, “A Campaign to Make Guam the 51st State Is Gaining Traction.” To help make the case, the author cites the geopolitical strategic importance of Guam: “As US competition with China intensifies, the Pentagon is building up Guam as a hub for its security strategy in the Pacific. It is upgrading bases, moving more troops to the island and building a multibillion-dollar missile defense system to guard against a possible Chinese attack.” I have long had a personal interest in the affairs of Guam as recent articles published on this site reveal. Hovering in the dim distance in the background of this important story about the political status of Guam is another story that impacts the public image of Guam …
A prayer was offered for a falsely accused priest at the London prison cell of St Thomas More, while on the Island of Guam, a former Catholic Inquisition is exposed.
The Eighth Commandment Has a Day of Reckoning on the Island of Guam — Beyond These Stone Walls
A prayer was offered for a falsely accused priest at the London prison cell of St Thomas More, while on the Island of Guam, a former Catholic Inquisition is exposed. June 17, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae Urgent Note from Father MacRae: I wrote this post in June, 2017. It is in part about something that happened on the Island of Guam. (Yes, we are back to Guam again!) Former Archbishop Anthony Apuron was accused in 2017 of sexual abuse dating back to the 1970s when he was a young priest in Guam. Please read the post, but most importantly please read the Addendum that I have included at the end, which now casts an entirely different light on the case against Archbishop Apuron. The truth will set you free, Scripture tells us, but when all statutes of limitation are abandoned, most of us may not live long enough for truth to be told. Archbishop Apuron did! + + + “Hear me out. You and your class have ‘given in’ — as you rightly call it — because the religion of this country means nothing to …
On June 13 the Church honors Saint Anthony of Padua, who taught early in life the importance of understanding Sacred Scripture.
On the Great Biblical Adventure, the Truth Will Make You Free — Beyond These Stone Walls
After long decline in religious interest and practice across much of the free world, publishers now report a phenomenal increase in new Bible sales since late 2024. February 26, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae “If you continue in my word ... you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” — John 8:32 For much of the last year, I had been reading news and opinion items about a coming “Great Reset.” No one seemed to actually know if it was real or what form it would take. Many thought it would be financial so rumors abounded about a vast reallocation of finances. Some of that may be happening more positively now with the DOGE endeavor to reallocate massive government waste. Others thought the reset would be social. Conspiracy theories abound linking it to the rise of Artificial Intelligence. I hoped the Great Reset might be spiritual. The anti-spiritual one came in 1968 and it was not great at all. Some called 1968 “the year we drank from the poison of this world.” I was 15 years …
After forty-four years of priesthood, thirty-two of them in the darkness of unjust imprisonment, my faith has been sorely tested, but I remain a priest in full.
In the Desert Wilderness of Prison, a Priest Meets the Devil — Beyond These Stone Walls
After forty-four years of priesthood, thirty-two of them in the darkness of unjust imprisonment, my faith has been sorely tested but I remain a priest in full. June 10, 2026 by Father Gordon MacRae Note from Father MacRae: My friend, Pornchai Moontri and I are indebted to Rebecca Virelles for her fine reflection on my life as a priest and prisoner published here last week. It caused me to reconsider this post about a demonic encounter first written in 2023. So much of the aftermath of that story has evolved, and new information has caused me to want to delve into it again. As Rebecca has described in last week’s post, Pornchai Maximilian and I have been on a road less traveled, and now we are far along that road. Your prayers, support and openness to the truth we tell have been the greatest Gospel witness for us. + + + In 1945, at the end of World War II and eight years before I was born, the film, Going My Way swept the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay …
On the Solemnity of Pentecost Father Gordon MacRae marks forty years of priesthood. Had a map of his life been before him on June 5, 1982, what would he have done?
Forty Years of Priesthood in the Mighty Wind of Pentecost — Beyond These Stone Walls
On the Solemnity of Pentecost Father Gordon MacRae marked forty years of priesthood. Had a map of his life been before him on June 5, 1982, what would he have done? June 1, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae + + + “When you were young, you fastened your belt and walked where you would; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will fasten them and take you where you do not wish to go.” The Resurrected Christ to Peter (John 21:18) + + + The few lines just below the top image on many blog posts are sometimes called a “meta-description.” Its purpose is to provide search engines like Google a summary of a post’s content in 164 characters or less (including spaces). Our meta-descriptions are not very useful in that regard because they are written with actual readers in mind and not search engines. Our Editor’s meta-description atop this post ends with a question: What would I have done forty years ago on June 5, 1982 if I had before me then a vision of my future life as a …
After 42 years of priesthood, 30 unjustly in prison, ‘The Whisky Priest,’ the central figure of Graham Greene’s best known novel, comes to my mind in darker times.
The Power and the Glory If the Heart of a Priest Grows Cold — Beyond These Stone Walls
After 42 years of priesthood, 30 unjustly in prison, ‘The Whisky Priest,’ the central figure of Graham Greene’s best known novel, comes to my mind in darker times. June 5, 2024 by Fr Gordon MacRae “You are sure to find another cross if you flee the one you bear.” — Anonymous Mexican Proverb + + + I was ordained to the priesthood on June 5, 1982, the sole candidate for priesthood in the entire State of New Hampshire that year. On the next day, June 6, 1982, I was nervously standing in a corner in the Sacristy as I prepared to offer my First Mass in Saint John the Evangelist Church in Hudson, New Hampshire. The church was packed with friends, family, and strangers from near and far. I was standing in a corner because the Sacristy was filled with my brother priests all vesting to join me for the occasion. I imagined they were watching me for signs that I might flee. I peered through the open sacristy door at the huge, anticipating crowd and my anxiety level was off the scales. I wished …
Marking 44 years of sacrificial priesthood, Father Gordon MacRae has been an instrument of Divine Mercy securing freedom for many wounded and imprisoned souls.
The Prison of Father Gordon MacRae and Pornchai Maximilian Moontri — Beyond These Stone Walls
Marking 44 years of sacrificial priesthood, Father Gordon MacRae has been an instrument of Divine Mercy securing freedom for many wounded and imprisoned souls. June 3, 2026 by Rebecca Virelles From the Editor: This Friday, June 5, 2026, marks the 44th anniversary of the ordination of Father Gordon MacRae. On this occasion, we have a guest author. Rebecca Virelles has been a regular reader for years. A while back, she interviewed me about BTSW, which resulted in my article, “From Arizona State University: An Interview with Our Editor.” She then wrote her insightful article, “A Voice for the Voiceless: Beyond These Stone Walls.” Recently, she has been reflecting on the literature of those unjustly incarcerated. Her aim is to make their lives and writings more accessible to new audiences. She has considered various saints and moral icons from history, and also Father Gordon MacRae and Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, whose lives are deeply intertwined. We have asked her to share with BTSW …