This is How You Smear a Good Priest! Bring Back Fr. Escalante!

New Revelations in the Father Escalante Saga

Blue Ridge Leader 10 hours agoOur Towns, Top News0 Comments

By Valerie Cury

In November of 2018, Father Ronald S. Escalante, Pastor of Saint Francis de Sales Church in Purcellville, was placed on administrative leave by the Catholic Diocese of Arlington.

Falsely Accused: The Trial of Gordon MacRae

Money is a big motivator and I have no doubt that there were innocent priests caught up in the horrendous sex abuse scandals because somebody saw a cash cow and hired an unscrupulous lawyer to milk it. Just make an accusation and get the payoff. Unfortunately, an accusation of sex abuse was often all it took to ruin a priest's reputation and bishops were quick to throw the accused under the bus to divert attention from their own cover ups.

The idea that an accusation equals guilt flies in the face of our legal system of presumed innocence, but in many dioceses an accusation was all it took to get a priest booted and a diocese to make a payout jeopardizing the investigation and determination of guilt. How many innocent men were caught up amidst the guilty? How many never got a fair hearing in court?

Fr. MacRae certainly seems to be one of them. Reading his story is shocking and sad. Dorothy Rabinowitz who wrote about Father in 2005 just published an updated article in the Wall Street Journal. Check it out here and the original story here. And you can also read Fr. MacRae's writings at These Stone Walls.

How Many Priests Are Living Under a Cloud of False Accusations?

The hatred for the Church is widespread and vicious. While some priests did deplorable things and should be punished, what about the priests falsely accused for a single alleged act 30 years ago? Can anyone seriously doubt that there are false accusations? David Pierre, Jr. certainly doesn't and he's written a book to connect the dots between venal lawyers who hate the Church and are looking for an easy cash cow and false sex abuse allegation. You can read more about it by clicking on the link below. And pray for priests, both the guilty and the innocent.

A Book Every Priest Needs to Read: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused

Another Reason to Respect Ken Cuccinelli

Ken Cuccinelli really believes the law is about justice, so when new DNA evidence showed another man committed the crime that jailed Thomas Haynesworth, he went to bat for the imprisoned man. Read the excerpt from the Washington Times article below and click on the headline for the full story. It's well worth your time.

Keene: Justice delayed shouldn’t be justice denied
Exoneration of the innocent is a paramount act of conscience

Last week, the mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (exonerate.org) hosted a lunch to honor two very different men. One is black. The other is white. One has served 27 years in Virginia prisons for crimes he didn’t commit. The other is Virginia’s chief law enforcement official.

Their story began one evening in 1984, when 18-year-old Thomas Haynesworth went to a Richmond store to buy sweet potatoes for his mother. He’d never been in trouble, but as he left the store, a rape victim spotted him, called the police and mistakenly identified him as her attacker. Mr. Haynesworth was quickly arrested, jailed, tried, convicted of raping three women, sentenced to 84 years, hustled off to a state penitentiary and promptly forgotten....


Fortunately for Mr. Haynesworth, Mr. Cuccinelli is one attorney general who believes that while our criminal justice system works pretty well most of the time, it isn’t perfect. “We have to remember” he told his audience last week, “it was designed by human beings and is staffed by human beings, who sometimes make mistakes.” This simple and obvious fact, he argues, means those working within the system have an obligation to keep in mind the possibility that mistakes might be made and do all they can to rectify them when they occur.

Do You Ever Wonder How Many Priests Are Falsely Accused and Innocent?

There's something drastically wrong when a single fifty-year-old unsubstantiated accusation can get an 80 year old priest removed from ministry. The bishops' willingness to sacrifice their priests on the altar of expediency to cover up their own irresponsibility is shameful!

The Exile of Father F. Dominic Menna and Transparency at The Boston Globe