Jackson wrote: “At table after one of [McCarrick’s] talks, one of the guys asked me what it was like to work with him. I responded simply that I could hardly stand to be in the same room with him; everything about him repelled me; I thought he was a creep. The seminarian took umbrage at this, thinking the bishop a fine fellow.”
McCarrick was protected by “very powerful American prelates who were experts at deflection,” Jackson wrote.
“They were extraordinarily deft at diverting any accusations or suspicions by such things as vigorously preaching and working to alleviate the hardship of the poor,” he wrote. “As to whether these efforts were truly beneficial to the poor can be disputed.”
Jackson returned to the same theme a week later, writing about what he called the atheistic mindset of many worldly priests and religious.
“Continuing with the question about the scandals from hierarchy and clergy in the One, True Church and to grasp how these men (and nuns) could do such things, we must face a dark truth that their conduct points to one thing especially, that these prelates, clergy and religious were, as a matter of fact, atheists,” he wrote.
“Yes, they were concelebrating Mass and blessing the pets and presiding at fundraising events with prayer, but deep down they were atheists,” he wrote. “In the lives of countless clergy and laity, a consistent and profound compromise with the world has resulted in Catholics being riddled with doubts that paralyze any growth in the interior life.”
Jackson resumed the discourse in the Oct. 24 bulletin.
“Continuing for a bit about the scandals, and using the case of Mr. McCarrick, the easy answer so clung to by many is the practice of mandatory celibacy. Just change the ‘rules,’ let the priests and seminarians marry, and poof, the problem of abuse goes away,” he wrote.
“Now God created us as sexual beings. We have a natural instinct and desire for the marital act. This instinct is powerful, put into us by our Creator, yet it has been damaged and distorted by sin,” he wrote.
“To address this instinct (and its distortion), dioceses and seminaries have turned to psychological examinations, background checks and various ways to address the damage done to young men from a culture saturated with pornography and video games, which are in themselves quite harmful to a vocation,” he went on.
“Training in Virtus or Safe Environment programs is mandatory. I don’t advocate the abandonment of these programs, but I do say that without a serious adherence to the Catholic Faith, and the pursuit of the interior life, they are of little value.”
Final reflections before arrest
Jackson’s last reflections appear in the Oct. 31 bulletin, which was available at St. Mary’s the weekend of his arrest. In it, he discusses “the golden mean,” which he says is when one “chooses the good over the convenient, the true over the plausible.”
“The loss of virtue and of the golden mean is at the heart of the crisis of faith we experience in the Church of our times,” he wrote. “Without faith, and without the corresponding virtue, the celibate state simply creates a class of professional bachelors who lead pleasant lives with good food and lodging and electronic entertainment but are locked into a depressive and lonely isolation devoid of any form of chaste intimacy.”
He cites the case of Father George Rutler, a New York priest and author who was charged with sexual assault and has since been exonerated.
“Add to this the grim statistic from CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) which claims that 85% of priests are not praying their Divine Office,” he wrote.
“And, if that were not enough, we have the phenomenon of a small but significant minority of men who are drawn to the seminary precisely because they are emotionally immature and psychosexually dysfunctional, and you get a Theodore McCarrick,” Jackson wrote.
“Such men who seek pleasure, comfortable living and amusements turn to minors who are just vulnerable enough to become pliant and coerced.”
The bulletins may also shed some light on Jackson’s whereabouts while authorities were monitoring a peer-to-peer sharing network that contained child sex abuse material.
In the Sept. 26 bulletin, Jackson wrote that he planned to leave for a monthly day of recollection that afternoon. According to the affidavit, a detective observed a computer or other device accessing the network on Sept. 26 at 5:32 p.m.
Jackson and St. Mary’s parochial vicar, Father Thu Truong, planned to travel to Nebraska Oct. 25-29 for a recollection and ordination.
Jackson was arrested later that week, on Oct. 30. He was released from custody on an unsecured bond Wednesday and will be allowed to live with a relative in Kansas pending the adjudication of his charges.
It was disclosed in federal court that Jackson has COVID-19 and won't return to Kansas until he recovers, Providence television station WPRI reported. He is scheduled to be arraigned on state child pornography charges Nov. 15.
Joseph Bukuras is a journalist at the Catholic News Agency. Joe has prior experience working in state and federal government, in non-profits, and Catholic education. He has contributed to an array of publications and his reporting has been cited by leading news sources, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America. He is based out of the Boston area.