The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae
“It seems to the soul in this night that it is being carried out of itself by afflictions . . . This night is a painful disturbance involving many fears, imaginings, and struggles within a man. Due to the apprehension and feeling of his miseries, he suspects that he is lost and that his blessings are gone forever.” (St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night, Ch. 9, 5, 7)
In his new book, Secular Sabotage (FaithWords, 2009), Catholic League President Bill Donohue wrote masterfully of the front lines of the culture war between the sacred and the secular. More than at any other time of the year, these two forces face off in the Christmas season in a culture seemingly at war with its own soul.
When I was a younger priest, the period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day always felt like a mixed blessing. The demands on a parish priest at Christmas are very great. A spiritual observance of Advent and Christmas is an exhausting challenge against an ever advancing tide of secular materialism.
We priests experience in the Christmas season both the hope of the Incarnation and the limits of our human condition. It’s a spiritually vulnerable time that can heighten the intensity of loneliness, the pain of personal struggles and alienation, the agony of loss. Christmas can bring with it a deeply felt awareness of suffering and shadow, of spiritual and emotional vulnerability. It’s a time when, for some, the spring of hope can feel a lot more like the winter of despair.
When I was asked to write for Priests in Crisis at Christmas, I felt very limited in scope. I was about to mark my sixteenth Christmas in prison. Frankly, Christmas in here is simply not what it is out there. It’s a time when the people around me suffer a great deal. Those with families and children are separated from them by impenetrable prison walls. Those who are alone have their loneliness magnified by the onslaught of Christmas imagery.
I set out to write something warm and fuzzy for other priests at Christmas, but, well, it just wasn’t coming. I kept being drawn to some unfinished business, something that has gnawed at me for seven years. Justice requires that I try to make some spiritual sense of it. Now is the time. What I am about to write may be very painful for some to read. Whether you are a lay Catholic, or a priest, deacon, or religious, if you are reading this, I beg you to read carefully and understand.
Seven years ago today, on December 29, 2002, a brother priest in my diocese took his own life. Father Richard Lower was 57 years old. He was a popular and very gifted – and giving – priest and human being. Father Lower had served Our Lady of Fatima Parish in New London, New Hampshire for the previous thirteen years, and he was much beloved by his parish family.
There was a lot that happened in Father Lower’s personal life over the preceding year. He had undergone his sixth painful back surgery. Then he developed septicemia for which he was hospitalized again. Father Lower’s mother died that November. These factors, and likely others that are unknown, left Father Lower physically, emotionally, and spiritually bereft to face the newest terror that was to enter his life two days after Christmas seven years ago.
NO CRUELER TYRANNIES
On December 27th, every priest’s worst modern nightmare was visited upon Father Richard Lower. He was informed by a diocesan official that a claim of sexual abuse had been lodged against him from thirty years earlier in 1972. Father Lower had never been previously accused. The accusation stood alone, but was enough – three decades later – to abruptly end a life of ministry and priestly self-giving.
Based on the single, uncorroborated thirty-year-old claim, Father Lower was informed that the police would be notified. In accordance with the “zero tolerance” policy of the U.S. Bishops’ new Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, he was suspended from ministry and told that he must immediately vacate the parish he had served for thirteen years.
As was every priest in the Diocese of Manchester, Father Lower was also painfully aware of an announcement from his bishop and diocese made just weeks earlier. In an unprecedented agreement between the Diocese and the State announced in December, 2002, the files and details of every accusation against any priest – regardless from however long ago – would be included in a vast public release of documents in March of 2003. Any privacy rights of the individual priests under canon or civil law were summarily discarded and waived by the signing of this agreement.
Two days after celebrating Christ’s birth with the parish community he loved and served for thirteen years, Father Richard Lower lived Christ’s scourging, and was about to live the Scandal of the Cross in a way for which he had no defense. Succumbing to the darkest night of his soul, this good priest, walking alone in the valley of darkness, took his own life.
Father Lower died without having either acknowledged or denied the 30-year-old claim brought against him. He died alone, apparently having reached out to no one. He left no note. A lot of people – including a number of priests – lamented that they could only imagine what Father Lower went through in those three days after Christmas.
I did not have to imagine anything. I knew exactly what he went through: the feeling of living in a vacuum, the sense of isolation, the feeling of powerlessness, the utter despair of never, ever being able to erase the scarlet letter indelibly marking the accused – guilty and innocent alike; the sheer impossibility of any defense after the passage of three decades; the overwhelming despair of exactly what Saint John of the Cross described in his Dark Night of the Soul:
“Due to the apprehension and feeling of his miseries, he suspects that he is lost and that his blessings are gone forever.”
Do you know what you were doing on any given day in 1972? Can you document your answer? If you’re a Catholic priest, you may have to, and your very life may depend on it. Innocent or guilty, what Father Richard Lower faced in those days after Christmas seven years ago is a hopelessness unlike anything one could imagine without going through it. It was for good reason that Dorothy Rabinowitz entitled her 2005 book about the power of false sex abuse claims, No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times.
In my prison cell a few days after Christmas in 2002, my eyes closed when I read the headline story. I knew Father Richard Lower. He was a priest I admired, and one of only three priests of my Diocese who ever wrote to me in prison.
Nine months before he was accused, Father Lower wrote to another friend lamenting the terror being visited upon other priests. When so many others looked away in silence, Father Lower wrote courageously to challenge the lack of due process and presumption of guilt when other priests were accused. From an April, 2002 letter of Father Lower to a friend:
“The minute a man is accused, he’s immediately suspended. He is forced to
leave his rectory within the hour. The result of this horrendous policy is that
the priest is seen to be guilty until proven innocent.”
With reference to his back surgery and other pressures, Father Lower reacted to the media attack that had so consumed the priesthood that year. In the same letter, he wrote:
“With all the bad press the Church has received lately, it is very difficult
to either work as a priest in public or even to recuperate as a priest …
As Always, the press has had a heyday with this topic and reported
things whether true or untrue. Because the Church did not handle
it properly in the past, they now have a policy of no tolerance …
Another fallout to the scandal is that a ‘witch hunt’ has begun.
It feels like all priests are suspects and no one can be trusted.
Please pray for us.”
After Father Lower’s tragic death, an official of the Diocese of Manchester acknowledged the truth of exactly what Father Lower-feared, but also defended the policy. In a local news article, Father Edward Arsenault was quoted thusly:
“In parish communities where priests have been put on leave,
parishioners already believe them guilty. I know there is some expense.
But I am confident that our policy is fair.”
TREASURE AND TRAGEDY
It has been documented that some twenty-five American Catholic priests have taken their lives after being accused. Some in the news media have implied that their despair is evidence of guilt. How sad and shallow.
People of justice and conscience have expressed concern that our use of the death penalty in criminal cases may have resulted in the execution of some innocent men. Given the hundreds of innocent men who have been wrongly imprisoned for rape and other crimes, then exonerated by retesting DNA evidence, the concern is justified.
But isn’t it just as likely that some innocent priests were on that list of twenty-five who lost hope? Isn’t it possible that what some of them despaired most was the apparent end of justice and fairness, the sheer impossibility of defending themselves? Believe me on this, accusations of sexual abuse are far more devastating for the innocent than for the guilty. I believe that others who have been falsely accused will corroborate this fact.
Absent clear and convincing evidence – and there has been none – I presume Father Richard Lower’s innocence. It’s what the United States Constitution bids me to do. It’s what the rule of law – both Church and civil – bids me to do, and it’s what the Gospel bids me to do. To presume anything else, absent evidence to the contrary, would belie a heart too jaded to claim to live justly and fairly, to claim to live the Gospel of Mercy.
After the tragic suicide of another priest, Father William Rosensteel, in June, 2007, Catholic columnist Matt C. Abbott published a powerful statement on www.RenewAmerica.com. It was from an unnamed supporter of Father Rosensteel:
“We need to remember how important a person’s good name is. To knowingly
harm a person’s reputation without cause and clear evidence is a serious violation of the
Eighth Commandment. The consequences of such violations are far-reaching and irreversible.
Even a priest who is known to be guilty of the crime of child abuse should not be
required to forfeit his life to satisfy attorneys, insurance companies, the media and plaintiffs.
How much more is this true of a priest whose ‘case’ has not yet been decided?”
(RenewAmerica, August 7, 2007)
As I held the local newspaper in my hand on December 30, 2002, with a headline declaring the scandal of a priest’s suicide, I would have given anything to be on that wooded path that day with Father Lower at what he feared was the end of all things he held dear. I now wish I had the means to write in 2002 what I am writing here. It may have saved this good priest’s life. Even now there is hope – for Father Lower and for us.
First, there’s a lesson to be learned. It’s especially important that priests and lay people reach out to priests burdened with the tyranny of decades-old claims of abuse. In “The Sacred Priesthood,” an essay for the Year of the Priest Father John Zuhlsdorf wrote:
“The sacred priesthood is the common treasure and responsibility of the whole Church.”
Doesn’t that treasure warrant the benefit of the doubt for priests accused? Doesn’t it call us to support them with our words, our prayers, our mercy, and – if needed – our forgiveness?
“Today, the Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives” (CCC 2283) recognizing that people who commit suicide suffer from anguish that can mitigate moral responsibility. I don’t think anyone can look justly at what happened to Father Lower and not see anguish there.
This Year of the Priest is a time to have hope for Father Richard Lower’s soul, and, from our practice of mercy, for ourselves. We owe it to him and other priests who lost all hope to assist them still with our prayers and Masses, with our Gospel mandate to be merciful. We owe it to our spiritual brothers and fathers in the priesthood to resolve to never again let another priest walk alone through the valley of darkness.
For my brother, Father Richard Lower:
“Softly and gently, dearly-ransomed soul,
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.
And carefully I dip thee in the lake,
And thou, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.
Angels, to whom the willing task is given,
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;
And Masses on the earth and prayers in heaven,
Shall aid thee at the throne of the most Highest.
Farewell, but not forever! Brother dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.”
John Henry Cardinal Newman,
Conclusion: “The Dream of Gerontius.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: To read Father MacRae’s regular posts and to familiarize yourself with his case, please visit These Stone Walls.
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Support Your Priest With These Resources
A couple of days ago, I received this wonderful prayer kit from Pray for a Priest:
These Chalice of Strength Booklets from Opus Sanctorum Angelorum are popular for prayer groups and other parish groups:
Finally, please revisit this post regarding Christmas Gifts for Priests
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A Special Request from Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
Pray for the souls of priests.
First, remember that you can gain indulgences on All Souls and the days following.
Second, 5 November is a first Thursday. You can gain a plenary indulgence during this year for Priests.
Third, would it not be a good idea in this Year for Priests, during the week after All Souls, for this 1st Thursday, to pray in a special way for the souls of deceased priests?
May I recommend that you bring this up with your parish priests, who might make pulpit announcements this Sunday?
If you are a blogger, would you post something on this?
Would you recommend this to your prayer groups, friends and family?
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Fr. Gordon MacRae on the Year for Priests
Fr. Gordon MacRae on the Year for Priests
Several hours ago or this evening, depending upon where in the world you are, the Holy Father will commence the Year of the Priest following First Vespers of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome.
We priests are all encouraged to join ourselves spiritually to our Holy Father and to the Sacred Heart of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose image we are ordained and in whose Heart we serve. The faithful are also encouraged to join our Holy Father as we begin this new year in the life of the Church, a year dedicated to the wounded and suffering Priesthood of Christ.
As we begin this year I want to thank the readers of Priests in Crisis, and those who read numerous other sites and have posted messages directed to me, a priest in prison. After 15 years in prison your messages may be saving my faith. Two weeks ago I was aware that the Year of the Priest was beginning on this date.
I read the news of our Holy Father’s announcement as though I was seeing it through a very dense cloud. It is inevitable that prisoners feel separated from the world. In the life of our Church I very often feel a deeply felt separation. In just a few short weeks since Pentecost, your messages and prayers have built for me a bridge to Rome upon which I can partake of the life of the Church again in a spirit of unity with all of you who are, in fact, the Church.
Your faithfulness to the teachings of the Church, to the Corporal Works of Mercy, and to the alienated among us have been an inspiration for me and I feel deeply touched by your prayers. On this Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus I will also pray for you.
With love and blessings,
Fr. Gordon MacRae
See Fr. John Zuhlsdorf’s commentary on:
Leave Year for Priests greetings for Father Gordon MacRae in the comments section below!
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Fr. John Zuhlsdorf: Christmas Gifts for Priests
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf on Christmas Gifts for Priests
This issue of taking care of priests is today a sore spot for me, and I am very glad the writer led with this.
I just read a story in the Italian press about a tragic death of a priest in Rome. An African priest, 30 years old from Zimbabwe, died alone in his room and he was not found until three days later. No one had bothered to check or find out why he hadn’t been to meals or where he was.
Dead alone in a house full of priests.
This does not surprise me in the least.
Once in Rome I was stuck in my room for days, feverish and completely unable, too weak, to get out of bed, probably with pneumonia. I was terribly ill. There was no phone in the room and that was before cellphones were omnipresent. Not a single person checked on me, even though I lived in a clerical house. Not. A. Soul.
There are a lot of priests who bear a profound sense of isolation. Of course many are extremely active and social and sought after by their own families and others, but many have little or no family. They effectively have no one. Even other priests.
So I say this not just for Christmastime, but for the whole year:
Don’t forget your priests.
Even small gestures toward them can make a difference.
Follow the Discussion
Please share this post.
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Fr. Daniel Coughlin: Catholic League Says Roll Call Smears Innocent Priest
Fr. Daniel Coughlin: Catholic League Says Roll Call Smears Innocent Priest
“Morton Kondracke, the executive editor of Roll Call, needs to extend an apology not only to Father Coughlin, but to the Catholic community as well for exploiting the issue of priestly sexual abuse.”
Follow the Discussion
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf’s Post and Commentary
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Catholic Therapists: A New Direction for Psychology
By now we’ve all heard the stories of whistle blower priests being bullied into checking into the diocesan-approved treatment center for “evaluation.” Or perhaps the seminarian or diocesan priest branded a sexual deviant, by the shrinks hired to screen him, for opposing women’s ordination or the Lavender Mafia. More recently, priests who have been falsely accused of misconduct and removed from ministry without due process find themselves bullied into the diocesan gulag for evaluation.
Here’s an entry from the Opus Bono Sacerdotii FAQ:
22. I have a priest friend who is looking for some counseling help, but he is scared to death to go to the bishop or any other brother priest, especially any one associated with the diocese. He, and I agree, is afraid that the minute you let the bishop or diocese in, he’ll/they’ll, remove the priest and his name will be disseminated all over the media and elsewhere. Furthermore, treatment centers are just as bad since they report to the bishop and are paid for by the diocese and I’ve heard some real sad stories about these places. Do you have any advice on him seeking counsel? Are there any good priest psychologists that can be trusted and are loyal to the teachings of the Church and the Holy Father?
There are very few priest psychologists/psychiatrists available. Many qualified Catholic mental health professionals help priests in this country. To find a Catholic therapist in your area who share your convictions in integrating the truths of the Catholic faith into their practice we highly recommend visiting www.catholictherapists.com.
Residential treatment is rarely indicated unless a priest is suicidal or severely incapacitated. We have priests go to psychologists from other parts of the country, take hospitality near a counselor’s center and participate in intensive 4 day per week outpatient psychotherapy. Also many priests are treated on the phone from different parts of the country and this has been very succesful. The most common conflicts in priests are those of loneliness, low male confidence, anxiety and mistrust. I’d recommend priests read the article our advisor Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons wrote in The Priest on resolving loneliness in priestly life which can be found at www.maritalhealing.com/ResolvingLoneliness.pdf.
It’s no wonder that many priests in crisis are apprehensive about seeking help for depression or anxiety triggered by the intense trauma of being falsely accused. Some commit suicide.
Follow Fr. John Zuhlsdorf’s commentary and discussion on the abuse of psychological screening by the Lavender Mafia to keep REAL MEN out of the Catholic priesthood:
Fr John Zuhlsdorf: Holy See on use of psychology in priestly formation
As Joe Maher mentioned in his FAQ at Opus Bono Sacerdotii (read about them here), the most common conflicts in priests are:
- Loneliness
- Low Male Confidence
- Anxiety
- Mistrust
joemaher(at)opusbono(dot)org
Fr. Joe’s Blog featured a great post referencing the gulags:
Retrospective on Clergy Child Abuse
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About
“The highest form of resistance is to give hope to those who have none.” ~ Adam Stephan Cardinal Sapieha to then Seminarian Karol Jozef Wojtyla
The Priests in Crisis blog site is a gateway to emergency resources for faithful Catholic priests in personal crisis.
A Catholic priest in the United States does not consistently enjoy due process nor civil rights when accused of wrong doing. In a matter of days or hours, a diocesan priest may find himself without his reputation, his home, his family, his livelihood, his liberty, and his hope.
“I know now that people are being a lot more careful about what they say. They [the bishops] are realising that the blogosphere and the internet, with the way the media is today, they know that they are going to be called to account for what they say or do.” ~ Catholic Herald Interview with Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
After reading From Scandal to Hope and listening to Our Lady and This Present Darkness by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR, I realized the role of the Catholic laity in helping its priests through this wintertime of the Church.
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Articles
Selected Blog Posts by Fr. Arthur Joseph
I believe the time has come to challenge Bishops, Priests, Laity, to look at the repercussions of the Dallas Charter and the abusive way in which priests are denied due process, the poisoned atmosphere where allegation becomes fact, where indeed, though not as visible as the one in Cuba, we have within the Church our own Gitmo. Throughout the world those priests condemned to life in this Catholic Gitmo numbers in the thousands. ~ Fr. Arthur Joseph
Living in the Catholic Gitmo: 1
Living in the Catholic Gitmo: 2 – A Three Day Reflection
Living in the Catholic Gitmo: 3 – A Blessed for those denied due process
Living in the Catholic Gitmo: 4 – A Post for Suffering Priests
Living in the Catholic Gitmo: 5 – Towards the Thin Place
Living in the Catholic Gitmo: 6 – Crawling Towards the Thin Place
Out of the Swamp of Darkness – scroll down
Administrative Leave Issues
The Civil & Canonical Rights of Roman Catholic Priests in Boston by Carol McKinley
Fr. Christopher Buckner Support Blog
Catholic League July/August 2009: Due Process for Accused Priests by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae
The Father Gordon MacRae Case Site
Priest sues bishop, fellow priests over harm to reputation by Rachanee Srisavasdi
Priest in Exile: Fr. Joe Baca & the Fresno Diocese
Now where do I go to get my reputation back? by Diogenes of Catholic Culture
Diocese says book by suspended Baraboo priest should be destroyed by Capital Staff Writers
On the Removal and Transfer of a Parish Priest by Auxiliary Bishop Porteous of Sydney
Fr. Eduard Perrone on Opus Bono Sacerdotii
“Nightline” Guilty of Injustice and Hypocrisy by The Catholic League
Helping Accused Priests is His Calling by Sue Ellin Browder
Ousted Priest Wages Battle to Clear Name, Return to Ministry by Gail Besse
Collared-Falsely: Not Every Priest is Rightly Accused by Rod Dreher
Accused Priests Given Unique Right of Appeal by Simon Caldwell
Fighting Back, Accused Priests Charge Slander by Sam Dillon
What to Do with the Priests in Chicago by Amy Welborn
Persecuted Priests: A Growing Problem in US by Mary Ann Kreitzer
Some Canon Lawyers Say Due Process Limited for Accused Priests by A. Bono
The Protection of the Canonical Rights of Priests by Msgr. Michael Higgins
Due Process for Priests by Walter R. Hampton, Jr.
Bishops Must Give Priests Due Process Says President of Priests” Council by Michael Kelly
Due Process for Accused Priests by Msgr. Harry J. Byrne, JCD
U.S. Cardinal Says Priests Are Denied Due Process by The New York Times
Priests Want Due Process by Gary Stern
Due Process for Priests? by Brian D. Sabin
Abuse Survivors Finding Peace
A Victim’’s Defense of Priests by Terry Donovan Urekew
True Healing from Abuse Starts in the Heart by John Everett
Loneliness
Identifying, Resolving Loneliness in Priestly Life by Richard P. Fitzgibbons
Reform of the Renewal
Liturgical and Sexual Abuses by G.C. Dilsaver, PsyD, MTS
Priests and the Importance of Fatherhood by Paul Vitz & Daniel Vitz
The Sacred Priesthood by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
The Gay Priest Problem by Fr. Paul Shaughnessy
Priestly Identity: Crisis and Renewal Part 1, Interview with Fr. David Toups
Priestly Identity: Crisis and Renewal Part 2, Interview with Fr. David Toups
The Real Reason for the Vocation Crisis Part 1 by Fr. Michael P. Orsi
The Real Reason for the Vocation Crisis Part 2 by Fr. Michael P. Orsi (See Pt. 4)
A Crisis of Saints by Fr. Roger Landry
The Priest: Icon of Christ, Enabler of Sanctity by George Weigel
