On Thursday June 8, 2023 Fr. James Jackson FSSP entered a guilty plea to felony receiving of CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) in a Rhode Island Federal Court after his initial arrest in Providence, R.I. on Oct. 30, 2021. This “plea bargain” was the outcome of a lengthy legal battle between the United States Attorney (DOJ) and Fr. Jackson’s defense attorney John Calcagni III. During his indictment Fr. Jackson initially pleaded “not guilty” to the charges of the U.S. Attorney. The case was set to go to trial this June 20. As happens in the majority of DOJ cases this one ended in a plea deal under terms of what most fair minded persons would describe as a legal shake down. No surprises here. This is the way our criminal justice system routinely operates. Prosecutors string together a rambling laundry list of intimidating charges in order to get defendants to settle for some lesser violation and punishment. And since it’s extremely costly and time consuming to put together a defense, 95% of the time defendants will simply capitulate and plead guilty to reduced charges.

Because of Fr. Jackson’s position as a traditional Roman Catholic priest in the Latin Rite FSSP, this story generated a lot of interest. Along with much reporting, most of it negative, there came the inevitable avalanche of online chatter which included countless uncharitable comments, some verging on the scurrilous ─ most by self-professing Catholics who aimed their mud-balls at a priest of God! It should sadden any faithful Catholic that there are those of us all to ready and willing to turn on our own priests like dogs fighting over a piece of red meat. Many of those pundits portray Fr. Jackson as some sort of monster vis a vis Theodore McCarrick even though, in this particular case, a better comparison might be the patently unjust conviction meted out to George Cardinal Pell.

Catholics, even traditional ones, seem all too quick to forget their own history. Consider St. Joan of Arc who, if you recall, was condemned and executed for being a sorceress and an unrepentant heretic. During her trial she was utterly abandoned by the armies she had led to victory, betrayed by the King she had restored, and found guilty by an ecclesiastical court. 500 years later the same Church which had condemned Joan declared her a saint. Her case proves just how biased and unreliable contemporary judgments sometimes prove to be. History often judges things through a different lens than the one through which we are currently peering.