First, Barnhardt Podcast #180 recorded after Jackson’s re-arrest last October for CP in Kansas City while awaiting trial in Rhode Island, which stuck a fork in any hopes that he wasn’t guilty, in the second half discussed the Jackson situation in detail, so that’s available.
Some notes:
1. He’s guilty. He has pled guilty to receiving CP in exchange for having the more serious distribution of CP charge dropped. But he was almost certainly distributing as well. Anyone who persists in “he was set up” or even worse that he’s some sort of living saint martyr is delusional and suffering psychological problems themselves due to the scandal, I suppose. Such people should be gently but very firmly corrected and disabused of their fantasies, if possible. Clinging to obvious untruths is not virtuous. It’s pathetic and very spiritually dangerous.
2. If you’re feeling bad or even guilty because Jackson had you completely fooled, join the club. He certainly fooled me. In fact, before his arrest, I would have put him on a rhetorical list of “there are at least a few straight priests left in this world…” as would almost everyone else who knew him. I use the word “straight” here and disqualify Jackson from being “straight” even though his kink was apparently the rape of female infants and toddlers. The term “straight” comes from “morally straight”, which if I’m not mistaken was a phrase used in the Boy Scout oath until recently. If there is one thing that Jackson is not, it is “straight”, even if there is no evidence of any same-sex fetish…yet. Jackson fooled EVERYONE. In fact, he fooled so many people, so thoroughly, for so long that I suspect he had some sort of preternatural backing. To be as much of a monster as he is and to operate as unflinchingly as he did seems humanly impossible.
3. One thing that a lot of us have learned from this sickening episode is that OSTENTATIOUS CLAIMS OF BEING A TECHNOLOGICAL LUDDITE BARELY CAPABLE OF USING A CELL PHONE is a somewhat common tactic of these men. While Jackson was claiming constantly that he couldn’t even manage to send or reply to simple emails (I have such claims from him via email from over a decade ago), or use a cell phone, he was actually extremely skilled and was doing stuff on the “dark web” that requires all kinds of know-how, and apparently thought he was so skilled that the Feds and CP squads couldn’t see him. Apparently they didn’t see him for years when he was in Colorado, AND he was so confident in his skills that he started trafficking in CP AFTER being released to his sister and brother-in-law’s home in Kansas City, Kansas. After he is sentenced in Rhode Island, if he lives long enough in prison before someone decides to expedite Jackson’s Particular Judgment appointment, prosecutors in Kansas City are waiting to throw the book at him.
4. Jackson had a brain tumor, and had had it for years – at least 15. Was it the tumor that compelled him to do these things? No, because Jackson operated at an extremely high level, writing a renowned book on the liturgy concurrent with the tumor and his crimes, while masterfully concealing his crimes.
5. I’d still REALLY like to hear from Jackson’s long-time parochial vicar and housemate, Joseph Hearty, who went from offering Masses across from PlannedParenthood, to leaving the FSSP and offering the Novus Ordo, to now being voluntarily laicized. But, Hearty may be completely unable to speak due to the Seal. If so, the Seal must ALWAYS be respected, and Hearty needs our prayers. I cannot imagine being put in that position, or the kind of evil that would leverage the Seal like that. But, it happens all the time in Rome as policy. When sodomites, both clerics and laymen, are put into close contact with a pious priest, they immediately confess to him, without any real intention of amending and reforming their wretched lives, and thus silence him forever. When names of certain people in Rome come up, some good priests who have spent time in Rome will change the subject FAST. One doesn’t have to be a rocket surgeon to know what’s going on. And remember, it’s mortal sin of the highest order for a priest to break the Seal in ANY WAY. Good priests are filled with holy fear of ever doing so. Never forget this. If you or I commit the sin of detraction, we can go to confession with true sorrow and purpose of amendment. Priests who break the seal… have to go through the Apostolic Penitentiary. It’s a huge, huge deal, AS IT SHOULD BE.
6. Jackson did adult catechism and convert instructions and received a LOT of people into the Church. He married a LOT of couples. He baptized a LOT of children. He gave Last Rites to a LOT of people. He heard a LOT of confessions. He offered a LOT of Masses and gave Holy Communion to a LOT of people, some people literally thousands of times. If anyone is worried that because it was Jackson who administered the sacraments or even convert instruction to them, that those sacraments are invalid – DON’T. This is called the heresy of Donatism, that is the notion that the validity of sacraments, including the offering of the Mass, can be invalidated by the state of the priest’s soul. They can’t, and here’s why, and Jackson exemplifies this perfectly: Jesus Christ would NEVER hold you responsible for something you could not possibly know. You could not have possibly known, or even reasonably suspected that James Jackson was literally one of the most evil men alive. How could you?
In fact, it is a testament to just how much Our Blessed Lord loves every single one of us that when Jackson stood at the altar, having done those things which he pled guilty to having done, and probably thinking about the next time he would do it, maybe within minutes after offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that Our Lord, knowing EVERYTHING, obeyed Jackson’s call at the consecration, and came down on the altar so that Our Lord could be close to YOU, and ME, and everyone else there present, and so that Our Lord could repose in the tabernacle of the church just off Littleton Boulevard so that he could be with, as St. John said, “the beloved disciple”, which is us. If that isn’t Infinite Love, then I don’t know what is.
7. If you can’t tell the difference between James Jackson and God, and you hold God responsible for James Jackson’s sins, then I dare say your relationship with Our Lord is so ridiculously superficial as to be non-existent. One of the most foundational aspects of of any relationship is… actually knowing who the person is, and that said person is a discrete entity, recognizable as being themselves and not someone else, MOST ESPECIALLY WHEN SAID PERSON IS GOD. James Jackson is not Jesus. Jesus is not James Jackson. Ergo, why in the WORLD would you conflate the two, or hold the Divine Person responsible for the acts of the human person? It’s almost like holding a child conceived in rape responsible for the rape itself and giving the child the death penalty…. Oh, wait. I believe it was St. Francis de Sales who said, “He who gives scandal commits murder, BUT HE WHO ALLOWS HIMSELF TO BE SCANDALIZED COMMITS SUICIDE.”
8. Pray, even just one Ave, for Jackson. Our Lord’s mercy is infinite. Jackson’s sins are MASSIVE, but not infinite. As he is being possibly slowly and painfully killed in prison, or if he dies naturally, rightfully despised by every person he has ever met, or have ever heard his ruined name, he might die shriven and contrite.
Well, that’s enough. I hope this helps.