Justice and the Rule of Law

I apologize for not posting in my blog for a while.  My life outside the Internet has been busy.  We had our Beginning of the year convivience last weekend and both work and family tend to keep me busy. 

At any rate, here are a couple of things that I would like to address.  In my previous post Guam's Connection On TSW, Father Gordon MacRae wrote about Pornchai Moontri.  He wrote a series of articles on Pornchai.  His second series is on The Pain of Suffering and the Power of Forgiveness.  It is an article worth reading.  There is power in forgiveness.  Pornchai was able to move on despite that he was raped and molested by his stepfather.  When the abused victim truly forgives the abuser, one will experience the power of healing.  Money can never heal.  Being a Christian means to forgive the person who has hurt you.  And when one has hurt another, one should ask for forgiveness....that is also what it means to be a Christian.  

If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15).  Therefore, Christ taught us to forgive those who sinned against us.  Forgiving those who have wronged us have more to do with ourselves than for the other.  It is for our healing and salvation. 

The third article in the series that Father Gordon MacRae wrote can be found here.  What caught my eye in the third article was Father Gordon's quote, which stated (the bold is mine): 

"Throughout the whole Kavanaugh affair the conclusion, voiced perfectly by Senator Susan Collins, is that it is a terrible betrayal of justice and the Constitution to equate being accused with being guilty.  Our bishops have practiced that very injustice for the last sixteen years (since 2002).  To be merely accused is to be summarily convicted, thrown out of ministry, separated from the whole, and no longer welcomed.  To be merely accused means that a bishop will release an accused priest's name to the public not only banishing him from the priesthood but branding him forever without investigation, without a defense, without a trial.  The Judge Kavanaugh affair taught the nation that such a horror is a return to the justice of 1692 in the Salem Witch Trials.  How can the Church up to the very top embrace this today?  It is far more Calvanist than Catholic.  The Puritans have never left America, and McCarthy is here to stay as well."  

We have seen this breach of justice against Archbishop Apuron and other priests.  In the Kavanaugh affair, we find that there were no corroborating witnesses.  The people whom Dr. Ford named do not support her story.  If there is anything the world can learn from this is that the rule of law should be followed.  It should be made clear that in a civilized democratic country, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 

Another quote from Father Gordon's article caught my eye.  This quote came from Pornchai, who was a REAL victim of sexual abuse:

"Father G showed me a letter to the editor in The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 21. It was from an 81 year-old woman who wrote that she was sexually assaulted at age 11.  She wrote: 'It is clear to me now as the night it happened.'  She wrote that for all these years every detail of this event is burned into her memory.  The problem is not that she could not remember. The problem is that she cannot forget.  That is my problem also. It is like a cross. My abuser was convicted of over 40 counts most with violence. I was 12 and 13 and every detail is burned into my memory.  I am now 45 years old. 

Then I look at Father G and some of the other priests accused. Some of the accusers say that they just remembered after 20 or 30 years. Father G's accuser said that he could not remember how he got there or why he kept coming back.  He said he 'repressed' the details. He was vague and was 13, then he was almost 16 but only after someone gave Father G's resume so he could get his dates straight.  The Church gave him $200,000 for this fraud with no evidence or corroboration to support any of it.  Everyone in the Church just accepted that he was guilty. I have lived in a prison cell with Father Gordon for 12 years and, so different from him.  I know too well the kind of person who would do these kind of things, namely, my abuser, Richard Bailey.  I'm here to say Father G is not guilty.

Does anyone wonder how it is that a falsely accused priest has been carrying not only his own cross, but mine too?  Just like Saint Maximilian Kolbe, he has been working to free a prisoner other than himself.

What our bishops and the news media and others have done to priests is a sin almost as terrible as sexual abuse.  Their civil rights are destroyed and their bishops just go along with it.  After all that happened to me, and all the evidence that has surfaced to support it, when Father G told me what a 'credible' accusation means for priests, I was sick over it.  How could a Church allow this?  

Father G not only helped bring my accuser to justice, but he also helped me show mercy when very few in our Church have shown any mercy to Father G.  The mercy Father G wants is actual justice.  I guess he would have more mercy if he was guilty because then he would have just gone along with everything and took the plea deal offered.  If he did that, we would have never met, and where would I be now?  He still teaches me and others what it means to be a Catholic with a heart for Christ."

Pornchai remembered his abuse and did not wait 20 or 30 years later.  He had told his story to a school nurse, a social worker, neighbors, and even to the police.  There were documented records of the sexual abuse from that time period.  Unfortunately, his story was ignored. You can read Pornchai's story of sexual abuse here. It is also interesting to note that although his story was ignored by the police, school nurse, and social worker one cannot file a lawsuit against these agencies for "cover-up."   

Regarding the case of Father Gordon MacRae and Richard Bailey (the rapist and child abuser), here are a few thoughts from Father MacRae.  You can read the rest in his article (the bold is mine):     

• Firstly, note that the case against Father Gordon MacRae and the case against Richard Bailey, Pornchai Moontri’s former stepfather, have striking similarities and differences. They are both from the same time period. Father Gordon MacRae’s case stems from allegations alleged to have occurred in 1983. There is, and has never been, any evidence or corroboration whatsoever to support the claims.

• The case against Richard Bailey is from 1985 to 1987 when Pornchai Moontri was 12-14 years old. Even though it was not prosecuted until 2018, the trail of evidence and corroboration extends all the way back to 1986 and includes police reports, school records, corroboration from friends and neighbors, reports from a school nurse, from social workers, from institutions – but nothing happened until Father MacRae began to write of this 30 years later on These Stone Walls.

• Father Gordon MacRae was convicted in New Hampshire of five felony counts of assault in the allegations of Thomas Grover, and was sentenced to 67 years after three times refusing a plea deal offer to serve one year.

• Richard Bailey was convicted in Maine of forty felony charges of violent sexual assault and was sentenced to 18 years probation. 

 Our justice system is not perfect and certainly needs improvement.  The attitude and behavior of our Church leaders is also lacking.  After all, the Presbyteral Council and Archbishop Hon branded Archbishop Apuron guilty and worked to oust him out from office without a trial.  According to the Pacific Daily News:

Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai has urged Pope Francis to remove Archbishop Anthony Apuron as head of the Archdiocese of Agana because of gravely serious allegations of sex abuse of altar boys.

I want you to know that I am in Rome to urge the Holy See to remove Archbishop Apuron as archbishop of Agana and to appoint a successor," Hon said in his two-page statement. "I can assure you that the gravely serious allegations against Archbishop Auron will continue to be dealt with by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which will hold a canonical trial. His Holiness, Pope Francis, is monitoring the proceedings.".........

Hon said he is reinforced in his efforts by the Presbyteral Council of the Archdiocese of Agana which has presented two letters - the first asking Apuron to resign and when that was unsuccessful, the second calling on the Holy See to remove him. 

Clearly, some of our priests and bishops cannot even follow the rule of law.   Achbishop Apuron has been found guilty of certain accusations, which the Vatican refused to reveal.  Despite the fact that the Vatican has not revealed what he was found guilty of, there were some people who ASSUMED that it was child sexual abuse.  However, several canon lawyers have expressed that the guilty verdict could NOT have been child sexual abuse.  See the story here.  Whatever it is, Archbishop Apuron has appealed his case.  We can only wait for the outcome, but most importantly....to wait while following the rule of law.