The sexual abuse scandal was real and hurt people. “Scandal” is the key word in that it pushed victims away from the Church they trusted and the wider public as well. It was not a failure of the Church founded and protected by Christ until the end of time, but rather sinful acts by individual members and poor judgment by others.

Enemies of the Church have used this scandal to diminish her influence to the great loss of many. The Church is hated for remaining true to Christ on moral issues such as abortion, divorce and homosexuality. Because of this, these enemies keep even decades old cases in the news while ignoring much more common sexual scandals outside the Church (e.g. Forgotten Study: Abuse in School 100 Times Worse than by Priests).

When a priest is merely accused of such crimes, whenever the claim has any possibility of being true (however remote), they have been quickly convicted by the media and subsequently by their influenced juries. Often these priests are abandoned early by their bishop and the alleged victim paid significant “damages”. This attracts many con-artists who could not care less about truth or the harm they cause on innocent priests and the Church. This has NOT been rare. You might be surprised how often it happens (ref e.g. False Accusations of Sexual Abuse Can Leave Lasting Scars, *FACT CHECKER* SNAP and the TRUTH About False Abuse Accusations Against Priests or Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories).

The reality for falsely accused priests is that they must prove their innocence more than the state must prove their guilt. Priests can be convicted on nothing more than the (well coached) claims of an alleged victim. You should find that shocking.

Falsely accused priests are strongly pressured to accept plea deals admitting their “guilt” in exchange for reduced charges and little or no jail time. If they accept this lie, the prosecutor chalks up another win, the media celebrates, another “proven” example can be used against the Church, and the “victim” goes on to claim their lucrative damages. This has happened many times.

Not all falsely accused priests will bend to follow this script. Some, despite the great risk, have had the audacity to insist on their innocence and fight all the powers arrayed against them. This usually ends tragically for them, resulting in DECADES of imprisonment for a crime they did not commit. A good example is Fr. Gordon MacRae, currently 22 years into his 67 year sentence (see my piece Throw away the key).

Imagine my surprise when Newsweek recently published a piece acknowledging that this happens. This is a fairly long piece (below is just a sample) on the recent Philadelphia cases in the headlines. It gives good insight to how such injustice happens.

(Warning:   the Newsweek text below contains graphic language.)

The sexual assaults of Gallagher allegedly occurred during the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 school years, when he was 10 and 11 years old. From the beginning, he told an incredible, lurid story, the details of which were often changing. When he first reported his abuse to two social workers for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on January 30, 2009, Gallagher claimed Engelhardt had accosted him after a 6:30 a.m. Mass. He said the priest plied him with sacramental wine and then anally raped him behind locked doors in the church sacristy in a brutal “ramming” attack that lasted from 7 a.m. until noon. After the rape, Gallagher claimed the priest threatened him, saying, “If you ever tell anyone, I will kill you.”

But Gallagher told Mechanick a different story, the same one he told a grand jury and at the criminal trial – that he and the priest had engaged in mutual masturbation and oral sex. Gone were the five hours of anal rape and Engelhardt’s threat to kill him.

Gallagher told the two archdiocese social workers that in the second attack Avery “punched him in the back of the head, and he fell down.” And when he woke up, “he was completely naked, and his hands were tied with altar boy sashes.” Gallagher claimed the priest then anally raped him, smacked him in the face and “made him suck all the blood off his penis.” When this vicious assault was over, Gallagher said, the priest threatened that if he ever told anybody, he would “hang him from his balls and kill him slowly.”

But when Gallagher talked to the police and testified before a grand jury, he dropped the punch in the head, as well as the claims about being tied up with altar sashes, smacked in the face and forced to suck blood. He also omitted the priest’s threat to “hang him from his balls.”

Instead, Gallagher said he’d engaged in mutual masturbation and oral sex with Avery and described a subsequent attack in which the priest forced Gallagher to perform a striptease.

Gallagher at first told the social workers that his third attacker, homeroom teacher Shero, asked him to stay after class and offered to drive him home. In the teacher’s car, Gallagher claimed, Shero punched him in the face, attempted to strangle him by wrapping a seat belt around his neck, performed oral sex on him and made Gallagher masturbate him.

Gallagher claimed that this attack took place in the parking lot of an apartment building near his home and that Shero told Gallagher if he told anyone, “I will make your life a living hell.”

But when Gallagher testified in court in 2013, he didn’t say Shero made him stay after class. This time, he said Shero pulled up across the street from a strip mall and offered him a ride home, and the attack took place in a parking lot. Gallagher dropped from this new version of his story the punch in the face, the seat belt wrapped around his neck and the threat to make his life a living hell.

It goes on like this. This fantastic, constantly shifting story without corroborative evidence (actually, there was evidence against it) was enough to send 4 good men to jail (where one priest died due to lack of medical care). It also made this con-man a multimillionaire. His lawyers did well too.

The whole article is worth your attention: Catholic guilt? The lying, scheming altar boy behind a lurid rape case.

Also interesting is Fr. MacRae’s comments on the Newsweek article at The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy on the Cover of Newsweek.

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.

Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin.

Whoever hates me also hates my Father. If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But in order that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without cause.’

John 15:18-25

Government costs a lot of money, in its administration and its programs for the common good. As Catholic citizens, we have a moral responsibility to pay taxes — to pay our “fair share.” This ever-popular topic is once again in the spotlight as we hear from presidential hopefuls during this tax season.

One of the most frequent uses of the phrase “pay their fair share” is in reference to the upper few percenters not doing their part. It often seems that these cries are loudest from those who are chronic beneficiaries of politically motivated government largess. Regardless, is it true?

YES! — but in exactly the opposite sense from what they mean…   the upper 20% pay 87% of federal individual income taxes — far more than their fair share — while almost half of all Americans pay NOTHING. This is exactly opposite of the general perception. Catey Hill has written about this recently for Market Watch:

An estimated 45.3% of American households – roughly 77.5 million – will pay no federal individual income tax, according to data for the 2015 tax year from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington-based research group. (Note that this does not necessarily mean they won’t owe their states income tax.)

Roughly half pay no federal income tax because they have no taxable income, and the other roughly half get enough tax breaks to erase their tax liability, explains Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

Despite the fact that rich people paying little in the way of income taxes makes plenty of headlines, this is the exception to the rule: The top 1% of taxpayers pay a higher effective income-tax rate than any other group (around 23%, according to a report released by the Tax Policy Center in 2014) – nearly seven times higher than those in the bottom 50%.

On average, those in the bottom 40% of the income spectrum end up getting money from the government. Meanwhile, the richest 20% of Americans, by far, pay the most in income taxes, forking over nearly 87% of all the income tax collected by Uncle Sam.

The article has more information along with interesting tables and graphs: 45% of Americans pay no federal income tax.

We have always loved the Girl Scouts. Many of us (including myself) have daughters who were (or are) scouts. Many of their moms were too. Who can forget the logistics of the cookie drive (we all have our favorite types of Girl Scout cookies too)? Most of all, we treasure the memories and Christian values learned and reinforced.

Unfortunately, many of us, while treasuring those memories, are living in the past. Girl Scouts USA of today is NOT the same organization it was a decade or two back. It is pro-abortion, radical feminist, homosexual affirming, transgendered, and more. Local troops can be sponsored by solid churches and led by faithful adults, but they can not fully isolate their girls from the influence of the organization. Note too, their very participation (and implied support) gives scandal. I have written about the “new” Girl Scouts in some detail before (see: Loss of Innocense).

The good news is that excellent alternatives such as the American Heritage Girls have arisen in response to the loss of traditional Girl Scouts. They are today what the Girl Scouts once were. They are what you remember the Girl Scouts being. Girl Scouts are increasingly replaced by these excellent alternatives in many of our parish families.

The bad news is how many people are still either unaware of the GSUSA problems or falsely believe “their girls” are protected. Even when the pastor is aware of the problems, it is often difficult for him to fight the battle for various reasons. This is a problem requiring the bishop’s intervention.

That is exactly what St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson recently did for his flock. Last Thursday he sent this thoughtful letter:

Dear Priests, Scout Leaders and Faithful of the Archdiocese,

For several years, the Archdiocese of St. Louis, along with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been investigating concerns regarding Girls Scouts USA (GSUSA). These concerns also extend to the parent organization of GSUSA, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). They include, but are not limited to:

1. WAGGGS’ continued promotion of contraception and “abortion rights” on behalf of its girl members, the majority of whom are minors.
2. Financial contributions from GSUSA to WAGGGS, based on number of registered GSUSA members.
3. GSUSA resources and social media highlight and promote role models in conflict with Catholic values, such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan.
4. Organizations that GSUSA promotes and partners with are conflict with Catholic values, such as Amnesty International, Coalition for Adolescent Girls, OxFam and more. This is especially troubling in regards to sex education and advocacy for “reproductive rights” (i.e. abortion and contraceptive access, even for minors).

In November of 2014, the Catholic Youth Apostolate issued a letter of concern to pastors and the faithful of the archdiocese regarding these issues. Since then, GSUSA and Girls Scouts of Eastern Missouri (GSEM) have tried to downplay and distance themselves from these issues; however, we continue to have more questions than answers. We have been in dialogue with these groups and have voiced our concerns on numerous occasions.

In addition, recent concerns about GSUSA and their position on and inclusion of transgender and homosexual issues are proving problematic. Our culture is becoming increasingly intolerant of a Catholic worldview regarding these issues. While Catholics are called to treat all people with compassion and mercy, we must at the same time be mindful of whom we allow to teach and form our youth and the messages they present. Because local Girl Scout troops are chartered with GSEM, not the parish, any authority on policy and teaching resides with GSEM rather than with parish leadership. In addition, given the fact that the Girl Scout program is a secular organization, they are not obliged to uphold the teachings of our faith.

For many years, Girls Scouts has been a valuable resource in teaching our young Catholic girls leadership skills and helping form them as Christian leaders. I know that we have many faithful Catholic Girl Scout leaders who make sure that these troubling elements of the Girl Scout program are not brought into the troops at our parishes. I wish to thank each of you for your time and commitment to building up the girls of our archdiocese into strong Catholic women of virtue and faith.

It is, however, becoming harder to assure these same results from the Girl Scout program. Girl Scouts is exhibiting a troubling pattern of behavior and it is clear to me that as they move in the ways of the world it is becoming increasingly incompatible with our Catholic values. We must stop and ask ourselves – is Girl Scouts concerned with the total well-being of our young women? Does it do a good job forming the spiritual, emotional, and personal well-being of Catholic girls?

Concerns are also continuing to surface with Boy Scouts of America (BSA). While the new BSA leadership policy currently offers some protections to religious organizations, I continue to wonder in which direction this once trusted organization is now headed.

In “Renewing the Vision,” the US Bishops’ framework for Youth Ministry, we read: “All ministry with adolescents must be directed toward presenting young people with the Good news of Jesus Christ and inviting and challenging them to become disciples” (page 10). While I am certain that many dedicated leaders are fulfilling this mandate within their troops, I continue to be concerned of messages at odds with our faith that our youth are receiving from GSUSA and the organizations that they partner with.

I take all of these concerns very seriously. Therefore, I am asking each pastor that allows Girl Scout troops to meet on parish property to conduct a meeting with troop leadership to review these concerns and discuss implementing alternative options for the formation of our girls. Our primary obligation is to help our girls grow as women of God. Several alternative organizations exist, many of which have a Catholic or Christian background. For more information on each of these organizations and a more detailed listing of ongoing concerns, please visit archstl.org/scouting. I ask that you carefully study each organization and strongly consider offering one of these programs in your parish instead of Girl Scouts.

Effective immediately, I am disbanding the Catholic Committee on Girl Scouts and instead forming a Catholic Committee for Girls Formation that will be charged with ministry to all girls in various organizations. While continuing to serve our Catholic girls involved in various scouting programs, this committee will also reflect our ongoing commitment to educating and forming all young women.

I am aware that many of our young women are active in Girl Scouts and any action taken against the organization affects them first. To aid in this process, the Catholic Youth Apostolate is available to offer assistance in helping your parish. They are continuing to strategize new Catholic formation programs to address the spiritual, emotional and personal well-being of all Catholic girls.

Know that you and the youth of our Archdiocese remain in my prayers.

More information is available on the Archdiocese of St. Louis website.