Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother charged with murdering her three young children, had become a rallying point for thousands of women who believed she was the true victim. During her trial, more than 300 women gathered outside the courthouse to support her. For these women, Clancy is the true victim of a patriarchal justice system that did not understand women’s needs, and an overburdened medical system that refused to properly treat the postpartum depression that allegedly led Clancy to kill her 8-month-old baby, her 5-year-old daughter, and her 3-year-old son.
Clancy admitted that she killed each of her children by strangling them to death with the stretch bands she once used for exercising. She was charged with murder, but her attorneys claimed that she was not responsible for the murders because of her impaired mental state. Her uniformly pink-clad supporters agreed and converged on the Plymouth, MA, courthouse like modern pilgrims in their matching bows and pink shirts designed to shape the emotional atmosphere around the courthouse and subtly sway the jury toward mercy.
While these women in pink certainly supported Clancy, it’s clear that many of these women came seeking something deeper than simply witnessing a trial. They will never acknowledge it, but many of them appear to have come for a sense of purpose, a feeling of belonging, and moral clarity in a world that no longer seems to provide it for them.
Their coordinated display of empathetic solidarity, replete with handmade signs stating “Believe” and “She Needed Help,” provides a textbook case of mimetic identification as they were attempting to imitate Clancy’s suffering—elevating her into a kind of martyr whose pain gave shape to their own diffuse anxieties. With sorrowful faces and tear-rimmed eyes, the women in pink appeared to mirror her grief, acting as if her pain were coursing through their own bodies.
In doing so, they ignored and eclipsed the three precious children whose lives she ended. The narrative redefined Clancy as the victim, but her children have been forgotten, just as the distraught father of these children, who discovered the lifeless bodies of his children—murdered by his own wife—has become invisible in this trial, except for the social media posts of a few unhinged celebrities who are trying to suggest that he actually killed his own children.
Fanning their faces with their homemade signs, the women in pink stood shoulder to shoulder in solidarity. Whenever the media camera lenses found them, they would drop their signs to raise their fingers in identical—and well-practiced—little heart gestures. On the many days that followed, the courthouse steps became a kind of pilgrimage site as the women, dressed in their coordinated pink outfits, became its worshipers. In some ways, these women became a mimetic congregation drawn to Clancy’s suffering as if it were a source of meaning in their own lives.
Over fifty years ago, the great Southern author Walker Percy (1916-1990) saw where we were heading: a culture slipping out of meaning and grasping for it in moments of tragedy and even in the strange exhilaration of hurricanes. In the 1975 collection of essays titled Message in a Bottle, Percy asked, “Why does a man often feel better in a bad environment? Why is a man apt to feel bad in a good environment… Why is the same man apt to feel good in a very bad environment, say an old hotel on Key Largo during a hurricane?” Percy’s fictional characters repeatedly discover that the very conditions meant to make life comfortable—safety, stability, and predictability—also hollow them out.
But in a hurricane or a crisis, we are suddenly called to pay attention. The world becomes alive again as people who have been just drifting through their days find themselves alert, even strangely happy. Percy’s hurricane theory is about seeking meaning. In an interview with Walter Isaacson published posthumously in 2015 in the New York Times, Percy recalled his theory of hurricanes and said that there is a “redemptive power of hurricanes…When a hurricane is about to hit, we no longer feel uncertain about our role in the world. Everyone is focused, connected, and engaged. We know what we’re supposed to do and we do it.” In his 1977 novel Lancelot, Percy applies his theory of the redemptive power of hurricanes. As Isaacson writes, “people help each other in catastrophes… they don’t feel good because they help each other. They help each other because they feel good. The hurricane blows away our alienation.”
Percy understood that we often feel most alive when life becomes most fraught. As Isaacson concluded, “Percy’s diagnosis was that when we are mired in the everydayness of ordinary life, we are susceptible to what he called the malaise, a free-floating despair associated with the feeling that you’re not a part of the world or connected to the people in it. You are alienated, detached.” In his first novel, The Moviegoer (1961), Percy’s emotionally volatile character, Kate Cutrer asks the question: “Have you ever noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? I remember at the time of the wreck, people were so kind and helpful and solid. Everyone pretended that our lives until that moment had been every bit as real as the moment itself and that the future must be real too.” As he put it in The Moviegoer, “Everydayness is the enemy…nothing breaks it—but disaster.”
These basic insights, I think, can be applied to the Clancy courthouse drama, which did not occur in a vacuum. It was simply the next mimetic formation in a recent three-part social media-driven sequence that began with the sacralization of Luigi Mangione, the 28-year-old man who shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside an investor conference in Manhattan on December 4, 2024. Mangione traveled to New York with a 3D-printed gun and stalked Thompson before ambushing him. Mangione developed an online following of supporters who presented him as a kind of anti-corporate avenger, projecting their own rage onto him against the healthcare system. Like Clancy, his court appearances drew crowds of admirers—especially young women who mythologized him—declaring their love for him.
The women in pink are yet another sign of a futile search for meaning through proximity to tragedy. The Clancy drama followed the same pattern as the Mangione murder, yet another Massachusetts murder trial that unfolded a few years earlier involving Karen Read, a Massachusetts woman charged in the violent death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe. Prosecutors claimed Read intentionally hit O’Keefe with her car, causing his fatal injuries on a snowy Boston night. And although she denied it, the evidence against her was strong. Yet, this did not stop the trial from becoming a kind of public theater. Crowds gathered daily outside the Massachusetts courthouse as the mostly female audience formed alliances, traded gossip, and performed their loyalty, as though Read’s trial was a communal ritual replete with livestreams, fan groups, alliances, and a rotating cast of courthouse regulars.
Providing a powerful model for the Clancy trial, Read’s female supporters also wore pink clothing, custom pink buttons, and ribbons to protest outside her Dedham, MA, courthouse. According to media reports, Karen Read personally suggested that her supporters wear pink when her defenders sought a unifying visual theme.
Percy provides a powerful framework through which to view this dilemma. When institutions fail to form us, when culture no longer provides purpose, people begin to crave the intensity of rupture. Disaster—and murder trials—become a substitute for meaning. We seek transcendence in tragedy. A murder trial feels more real than yet another ordinary Wednesday afternoon. It feels more authentic than a life lived in quiet comfort.
Percy’s insights anticipate our hunger for drama and apocalyptic narratives. This is because, at their core, so many people are starving for significance, meaning, and purpose. In a world where institutions have collapsed, many people, oddly enough, are craving catastrophe or disaster. In some ways, the courthouse crowds are more like a mirror that reveals what happens when institutions fail to offer purpose and when communal life disappears, enticing many to construct their identity from fragments of online narratives.
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I don’t see the big deal about Clancy murdering her three children. Women have been murdering their children by abortion in the MILLIONS since 1974.
And, of all hypocricies, Clancy committed her crime in that lunatic of a Commonwealth called Massachusetts where the Democrat legislature and governor just enacted a bill allowing women to murder their children right up until the time they are about to be born.
Let’s face it, Massachusetts is a place where it’s perfectly alright for women to murder their children. Everybody can be assured “sanctuary” in Massachusetts as long as they’re not the children of the women who live there; then it’s ok to murder them.
“the courthouse crowds are more like a mirror that reveals what happens when institutions fail to offer purpose and when communal life disappears, enticing many to construct their identity from fragments of online narratives…”
The continuing abdication of manliness among men and femininity among women is not due to “institutional” failure, unless the would-be positive influence of authentic religion is reduced to being one institution among others. Then again, the message of salvation for all that afflicts a human soul is precisely what many unmanly priests and prelates have been delivering for decades now.
More often than not, ideologues are what they are because they seek to avoid coming to terms with identifying failings in their own lives and need to explain evil in terms of other people. It is not only women who have had abortions, and who refuse to accept repentance, that seek to rationalize and justify a certain level of hatred of children for the sense of burden they create. It is all women and all men, who give support for the practice of exterminating the inconvenient and seek to purge their nagging repressed guilt by desperate attempts at political exoneration. A dying civilization protests divinely endowed responsibilities.
I’ll note, by contrast, as a veteran of about forty March for Life events in Washington every January, the most courageous identifiable group participating are the women who gather around the Supreme Court building holding their signs reading, “I regret my abortion.”
Thank you for going to the March all these years; your reward is in Heaven. Yes, the women who regret their abortions are the ones, in the vast majority of cases, who have faced that tragic event with the strength of Christ’s healing presence and have experienced the exquisite freedom found in Divine forgiveness. Those who refuse to repent, to admit they were wrong, endure a lifetime of sorrow. That sorrow and regret, though repressed, is never extinguished and leads to other destructive choices.
THIS TRIAL IS NOT REALLY ABOUT CLANCY IT IS ABOUT THE RULE OF LAW JOHN ADAMS OF MASSACHUSETTS SUPREME COURT JUSTICE JAMES WILSON FIRST PROPOSED AN HEGEMONY OF CHRISTIAN LAW IN OUR LAND OUR COURTS OUR WORK SPACE OUR COMMUNITIES ‘GOD’S LAW, NATURE’S LAW, NATURAL LAW’. MASSACHUSETTS JUDICIAL SYSTEM HAS DROPPED THIS FOR QUITE A NUMBER OF YEARS NOW. WHEN THE JUROR WAS THROWN OFF THE JURY IT BECAME APPARENT A DEEP DARK MOTIVE WAS INVOLVED THE WAR ON THE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST THE LORD AND ORGANIZATIONS OF THE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH ESPECIALLY THE HOLY ROMAN LATIN ORGANIZATION OF THE UNIVERSAL CATHOLIC PARISHES AROUND THE WORLD
What a sick narrative.
Such are the fruits of modernism…
I’ve no doubt that in the spiritual realm there is a connection between the law which was just passed allowing child murder up to birth, and the public support rallying to this murderess’s side. Why not extend the female franchise for child murder beyond birth! The devils, unlike most of our confused world, know what they are about and what they want to accomplish, and are always prepared for the next step. There is no shortage of useful idiots to help carry it out.
Yeah, the terrible twos and might as well extend that to the teens. Problem(s) solved.
I agree.
And all the women at the signing of the “OK To Murder Act” smiled and clapped. Seems that simply because we were born allows us to prevent someone else from being born – through murder. Birth Supremacy.
Good point…..we do sometimes miss that truth and shame on us for doing so…
No one’s aborting a Full Term baby. They’re, sadly, GIVING BIRTH to a child that’s most likely going to die from a fatal fetal anomaly. There are NONE, NADA, ZILCH, ZERO elective abortions at FULL TERM. EVERY SINGLE “ABORTION” at that stage is because the mother will die, the baby will die, or BOTH will die without intervention. Sorry to rain on your parade!
This is a common narrative and it could not be more wrong. A medical condition that requires killing the child to save the life of the mother DOES NOT EXIST. But yeah, keep trying to tug at the heartstrings of impressionable women and see where that gets you when you’re standing in front of the Big Guy. 75 million slaughtered children, the only truly innocent human beings deserving of every single protection we can give them, sickens me.
It is a very big deal. It is sad.
And we need to have better postpartum health dictates in order
The jury appears to be deadlocked. If a mistrial is declared, will the District Attorney go for another trial?
Why wouldn’t there be another trial? This woman murdered her three children. I think we can all agree that she should not be allowed to simply walk away from that with no consequences.
She can’t walk anywhere, right?
Fair point. She is in a wheelchair. Low flight risk.
You win the comments thread, knowall.
🙂
I think he was referring to “walk away scott free?” But murder then self murder is too frequent in society.
I’m not criticizing the court system in this country but it’s failing to mete out justice.
Many times it’s a technicality.
Women who commit infanticide/child murder often receive light punishments, if any. Yet there’s universal outrage against pedophilia. So killing a child is trivial but raping one is horrendous.
Yet if they find a parent negligent for living conditions say, they throw the book at them. If you neighbor thinks you’re not feeding your cat watch out!
As I suggest in my above comment, I’m a strong believer that selective and hysterical moral outrage is desperate compensation for living with concessions to moral weakness. Among the lies we tell ourselves is that the evil we do doesn’t compare to the evil others do.
.
False, Sandra Miesel. You can easily find that most mothers charged and found guilty of filicide receive a MINIMUM AVERAGE SENTENCE of 17 years.
“Making sense of the surreal storm of the support for Lindsay Clancy”
Not possible.
Some of these may be paid participants, at least the ones on-site. I remember those protesters at Columbia wouldn’t tell Fox why they were there, but to check with the relations booth down further. It was on a Friday evening, and they seemed a bit incensed the reporter interrupted their trucked in meal.
Maybe they got beamed by a golf ball sized hail and aren’t thinking clearly.
agree.
This article is suggesting but doesn’t link the craving of disasters with the justification of it.
Is there any moral person remaining in Massachusetts? As long as they have the Red Sox and abortion, they’re content. What we need is an “apostle to the BayState.”
Forget the gender wars, media circus, etc. Postpartum psychosis is one in a thousand, but trust me, it can happen.
Unfortunately, I am dealing with a dear friend’s case right now. It’s all hands on deck. She is a fantastic mother! We are all worn out. When healthy, she is very devout, fun, kind, energetic, charitable, etc. Her illness began to set in about a week or so after birth. She is convinced that she is in Hell, abandoned by God and constantly being attacked by devils. It’s worse psychosis than after her last childbirth, which was bad. (Note that this came out of the blue after her third was born. Her first two pregnancies had no complications). Understand that her psychosis is way beyond depression and risk of self-harm.
Praise be to God, a dozen friends are pitching in to help her husband. She cannot sleep without feeling attacked in dreams with her worst fears. She has massive mood swings, is constantly confused, has terrifying hallucinations, including commands to harm. Her doctors are trying. She has a host of new, experimental and complex drugs – all of which might be making the psychosis worse!
Please say a prayer for her and all of us trying to help.
All I can say about this tragic case on trial in Massachusetts is ”judge not.” (Matthew 7:1-2)
I’ve no doubt that postpartum psychosis is a real thing, just like other mad state and actions. One problem I have with much of the discussion even among Christians is that they leave out the real possibility, I would say likelihood, of demonic activity. This is not just a matter of chemicals in the brain, and can never be solved by adding new chemicals to the mixture (though sedatives, etc. may be necessary to stabilize the situation). In the depths of her mind she is being lied to, misled and frightened by demons. That is part of what is going on, in my opinion, and the failure of society to factor that in to our conceptualization of such things leave us without any fully sound way to deal with the phenomenon.
She may need to see an exorcist. Has anyone mentioned that in their observations of her situation?
Mental illness and spiritual oppression/possession can coexist.
No doubt. Body and soul torment.
Note that my friend is convinced that her experiences are all about demonic oppression. No one else thinks that is the only explanation: not her priest, family, caregivers, friends. She has classic symptoms of postpartum psychosis. And yet, I would not doubt that her affliction is of body and soul. When I go into that house, I am a big fan of Holy Water! If this is more than physical illness, she reminds me of the countless saints I have read about who occasionally get beat up by devils. Regardless, we plow ahead in love for her.
Pray and stay Catholic.
Would it be okay to offer a mass intention for the mentally ill?
Absolutely! And please!
Thank you for a truly Christian comment.
Dear Believer (as am I): Please do not regard my comments here as intended to be critical, for I offer this only (I hope) to be of possible biblical use to you. Your reference to Mt 7:1 is correct insofar as it refers to Our Lord’s admonition against judging souls or internal forums. We are, however, summoned to judge actions (John 7:24, 1 Thess 5:21-22; CCC 1786-1789, 2478), lest we salute or embrace what is profane or sinful. Your pastor can elaborate. I pray for you and the struggling mother about whom you wrote so charitably. God bless you. Very Respectfully, Deacon Toner
Agreed. And thanks for the prayers. Could all of you please keep the prayers coming. One thing I know: none of this is God’s fault!
God’s peace to all.
She seems a deeply unwell woman who had repeatedly asked for help and was prescribed a boatload of drugs by a psychiatrist who admitted to never having met Mrs. Clancy in person.
Whatever degree of responsibility she may or may not have had in her actions lifetime confinement in some sort of institution seems appropriate. I was reading about another case in New England where a mother had a psychotic break and killed her 3 children. Her forgiving husband reunited with her and they had 3 more children following her release from the psychiatric hospital. She went on to kill those children also.
Dis they try shock therapy?
I don’t know. The mother was suffering psychosis. Was shock therapy used for that?
The Mayo Clinic has a site on its web; for severe depression, treatment resistant depression, severe mania, catatonia & agitation and aggression in people with dementia. It’s done under general anesthesia and is referred to as “ECT.”
Women should not be entrusted with governance nor leadership. Repeal the 19th Amendment too, while we’re at it. Our society faces tough choices. This trial is revealing that a society that capitulates to women’s propensity to emotionalism and irrationality will destroy itself. Society needs to be led by masculinity. That’s why the Church restricts ordination to males.
Many reasonable points here, Sir; initially, voting was reserved for property owners which seems eminently sensible. I would add that not all women are ruled by their hearts or emotions, and that restricting women from voting might not last, due to protests and legislation. We have, of course, all read of crimes committed by men as well: not only out of jealousy but also simply out of the desire to commit evil, and that without a motive other than just enjoying killing. Regarding the Church, I hope that ordination of women will never happen; I dislike intensely seeing women serving at the altar, whether it be reading the scriptures or serving as altar girls or Eucharistic Ministers. (In fact, I do not like the concept of Eucharistic Ministers.) The Church is led by men and it must stay that way. The women must keep silent in the Church for proper decorum and tradition, and out of respect for the headship of the man under Christ.
We had a circuit judge who let a serious felon out on too low bail, which he was able to post and then he lost big in the next election because he lost most of the female vote.
Bishop Sheen remarked things were better when men ran the world and women ran society.
Ok, Donald that sounds like a great use of your time! How about you go ahead and lead the charge on these political campaigns? Do recall you’re gonna have to convince 51% of the population to vote for it in order to prevail in a democracy. Good luck with that too.
Well, Donald, following your logic, we should have taken men’s rights to lead or vote FOREVER ago. Men are only 49% of the US population yet are responsible for 73% of all crimes. Men are responsible for 81% of all violent crimes in the United States. 88% to 90% of persons arrested or convicted for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter (globally and in the U.S) ARE MEN.
WHITE men are responsible for over half of ALLLL violent crimes like AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS (70% white men!) & ALL MURDERS (46% WHITE MEN).
70% of all RAPES are committed by WHITE MEN. 97% OF ALL RAPES are committed by MEN.
MEN do the majority of crimes, actually. Percentages of all crimes committed by MEN:
Disorderly Conduct 71%,
Public Drunkenness 79%,
DUI 75%,
Crimes AGAINST FAMILY & KIDS 70%,
Drug Abuse 72%,
Sex Offenses (NOT RAPE or Prostitution) 94%,
Weapons Possession 91%,
Vandalism 77%,
Other Assaults 71%
Arson, Violent 79%
Arson, Property 64%
Aggravated Assault 77%
Rape 97%
Murder 88%
And, Familicide cases like this trial (or Family Annihilation) occurs about 1 every 5 days. 95% of those cases are committed BY MEN.
Ms. Hendershott’s analysis has some merit, because we want to try to make sense out of evil. I think that many, in fact the majority of the women who support her, are simply evil. The innocent children are of no concern to them. It is perverse to its core, and when the ruling comes down it will be to the detriment of all of us who love justice, mercy, and truth.
Abortion has opened wide the gates of evil, and there will be no end to the mire and filth that is stamped on the soul due to the murder of our most helpless and innocent, our children.
The woman who did the unspeakable to her own little children is evil. We all have that sin nature ready to spring up at any moment, and dead though it is in Christ, it is not removed from our hearts, so it must be crucified daily.
Christ alone has the remedy. He is the Truth. Without knowing Him, there is no end to the depth to which mankind can descend, and that is why the jury is deadlocked; she will probably be found to be not guilty by reason of insanity, will be committed to a psychiatric hospital for a period of several months or years, and then released.
A woman with as little mercy and love as you display is not a worthy example of a follower of Christ. It is entirely possible for a Christian to be concerned for the suffering of “perpetrators” as well as victims. Check out Luke 23:43.
Suzanne writes: “is not a worthy example of a follower of Christ”
Who the h*ll are you to be making judgments like that? I know there is a temptation for woke leftists to think they’re God but, I for one, want to disabuse you of that lunatic notion.
I am a well catechized Catholic. It is my duty to correct error and not stay silent. Check the Mass readings this week for more information.
Who appointed you Sarah’s confessor? Thanks for reminding us of the Bard’s injunction that the devil can quote Scripture to his own ends.
Sarah offered a thoughtful and coherent assessment of this unspeakably horrific serial killing, how “society” has been coarsened to excuse and accept the unacceptable. What is she supposed to do, offer some histrionic lament for this betrayal of the innocent, who should enjoy the protection of their mother, not fear strangulation?
You don’t want “love and mercy” you want a counterfeit- license for the perpetrator of a homicidal spree and yet you assault another poster as morally bereft with reckless abandon for daring to offer an opinion that doesn’t comply with yours, but is reasoned and objective, attributes that your posts invariably lack.
As a Christian it is my duty to correct error. Who appointed you my spiritual director?
“A woman with as little mercy and love as you display is not a worthy example of a follower of Christ.”
The master of projection at it again! No one is saying that we should not feel compassion for this situation. It is certainly terrible at every level. At the same time, no one is defending, excusing, or supporting her actions, as you seem to be doing. Check out John 8:44.
Having more sympathy for the perp than the victim makes no sense. Even the repentant robber on Calvary realized that.
That doesn’t mean you can’t try and reform the perp. There is sin in the world.
Bishop Sheen gave a talk on this once.
Proper sympathy for victims does not require you to vacate insanity defenses.
A lot of times I suspect insanity is rage on steroids, but I’ve never studied Psychology or Psychiatry.
Life in a highly urbanized, deracinated society fosters the isolationism of solipcism. If social media are one’s primary human contact, how real are others to one, except as a source for emotional outlet? Both Clancy and her children become mere instruments. And little in most of that population’s education or daily experience counters that attitude.
Interesting that there is no mention of men protesting this case. Why the gender difference? What is the opinion of the male population? What does this say about the place of gender in society today? How did we get here and what can we do about it? How as Christians do we treat this woman? What csn we learn from this and what do we need to do differently? Massachusetts is the second most populous state, what does this say about the Church? Seems to be many questions but few answers. Many strong opinions but where’s the truth?
Where was her husband during the 8 months since their last baby was born when she was suffering and sick? Did he not take her to doctors (no) did he even know her medications (no) did he try to get her help (not apparently). This was also not her first bout with PPD, just the worst. Why did he keep getting her pregnant? Couldn’t he keep continence for the sake of his wife’s health? Or did he just not care at all? It seems as if he completely emotionally abandoned her. Where is he now? He’s abandoned her again it would seem.
I read her husband has remarried.
Are you suggesting he should have better supervised and monitored his wife?
He should have been a better man and husband. Perhaps it would have saved his children.
She should have been committed; that’s a problem with our system these days they don’t want people institutionalized like on one who flew over the cukoo’s (sp) nest. But Nurse Ratchet at least was monitoring their drug usage along with television access. Now they’re homeless or worse
What specific deficiencies have you identified as judge and jury?
And both women and men, including pseudo-Catholic women and men, should be better human beings who are not making constant concessions to the culture of death, a poisonous mindset that influences the everyday responses that treats vulnerable life as commodities of convenience.
Suzanne Lee: you know for a fact she was married and living with her husband?
Yes. He claims he conveniently went to the store when she killed their kids. He came back to find them dead snd her lying in the snow after allegedly jumping out the window.
Suzanne Lee: what is your view on abortion?
“Yes. He claims he conveniently went to the store when she killed their kids.”
Patrick did it!
Even tried to cover it up by pretending he needed to know whether a generic version of Miralax was acceptable.
Only a man would have the strength and indifference to strangle the children in succession. That’s why he threw her out the window.
Her victimization was so thorough, she’s covering for him.
The same poster who wrote “A woman with as little mercy and love as you display is not a worthy example of a follower of Christ.”
Something tells me she has no idea constitutes a good man and husband.
at last a SOUND question to be asked!! thank you Susanne for your commonsense. Malvina
Except it’s not even a question, it’s a thinly veiled transference of responsibility.
Most married people expect that their spouse not strangle their children.
I don’t think there’s anywhere near enough information to assume the husband was doing anything worse than combining things like wishful thinking, stupidity, and being overwhelmed. There is GPS information placing him on the errands, exactly as he claimed to be.
Presumably the wife also knew about her history of PPD, and assented to having another child.
Someone else could carry the gps?
I appreciate Dr. Hendershott’s reference to Percy’s “Lancelot”, my favorite of his novels.
At the risk of sounding a little crazy, I wonder if this case (and other cases of child murder)’ involves temporary demonic possession. For someone to murder innocent children, you have to think of psychosis or demonic possession.
Pope Pius XIi thought that the Nazis were demonic. Given their monstrous crimes, he might have been right.
Yet on Schindler’s list that head honcho fell in love with Helen – pick and choose they were I guess.
William- I believe it is an established fact that Hitler and other high ranking party members were involved in the occult. You may well have a good point here. Psychologists have long debated the relationship of mental illness with demonic possession.
The high ranking officers and Hitler were on drugs much of the time as well; that’s one of the main reasons he started making such poor decisions; even when his generals protested. They were afraid to wake him when Normandy invasion was known and then his tactics were totally wrong and they realized too late about the deceit tactics by the Allies etc.etc…
Demonic is almost always used as a figure of speech. Mitigation exists, but God does not allow a total loss of will when performing demonic actions.
Professor Hendershott’s analysis, as usual, is trenchant, reminding religious readers of the lucidity of Proverbs: “Without a vision, the people lose restraint” (29:18—and of St. Paul’s similar and broader admonition in Romans 1:18-32). Now consider this challenging one-word analysis from Eric Voegelin: pneumopathology, by which he meant a society-wide sickness of the spirit, marked by repudiation of the transcendent. We might say, with Chesterton, that we do not know what we’re doing because we do not know what we’re undoing. Permit me to add just one more layer to this—the Hebrew word sedaqah says, in effect: There is a right way for a human being to stand in the world. In fact, that one Hebrew word, in its fullness, integrates Proverbs, St. Paul, Walker Percy, Voegelin, Chesterton—and Hendershott. Moreover, it helps to explain the sickness surrounding the Clancy trial and the recent Maura Healey signature on barbaric abortion law (also in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, about which, at this writing, nothing “medicinal”—I refer to excommunication—has been done, for Isaiah 58:1 is, evidently, not commonly read in chancelleries there).
Now please ask yourselves (as I must ask myself, as a deacon): how is this, once it’s finally and fully understood, to be preached, especially to low-information auditors? The names are erudite; the concepts, abstruse; the fair conclusions, abstract and utterly countercultural (precisely because our academic educational institutions certify and train but only rarely educate [taking us back to Prv 29:18]). So how, then, do we who bear the responsibility and sacred privilege of preaching manage to speak the truth in love at a time and in a place where “[j]ustice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:14)? The idea that “they glory in their shame” (Phil 3:19) lacks all progressive sensitivity—and is just plain old-fashioned. (We can’t have THAT!) We wait, in hopeful trembling, for the Parousia, at which time the Transcendent, at long last, will not be denied by haughty humanity.
Aside from the crowd psychology in Massachusetts, here’s a similar case from 1979 near my hometown: https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/crime/article32221029.html
I do recall a recent analysis suggesting that mob psychology (street demonstrations) is likely evidence of a form of “affectivity disorder” whereby the anomic population–quite apart from the immediate issue–craves the feeling of belonging to something (anything!) bigger than themselves, whatever it might happen to be.
Without judging the case itself, how many of the demonstrators are desperately trying to validate their own possible abortions?
“Without judging the case itself, how many of the demonstrators are desperately trying to validate their own possible abortions?”
Your leap of logic is breath taking!
It is not illogical to think that many of the demonstrators, while perhaps not consciously meaning to, are trying to justify their own abortions. This does mean they are evil; it means that they are trying to find a way to salve their own wounded conscience. Mr. Beaulieu has touched a nerve that few want to feel: the killing of children, whether in or outside the womb, is not only death for the innocent child but results in a damaged and torn soul for the mother, and any means for finding a degree of justification for her abortion is an attempt to ease that woundedness.
A repressed conscience by its nature is in constant active denial. Similar to your constant lapses in logical connections that are in denial of the abortions that you support.
Andrea Yates (Texas) drowned her five children in 2001; she was acquitted by reason of insanity.
Dena Schlosser (California) killed her three children in 2004; she was also acquitted by reason of insanity.
Susan Smith (South Carolina) drove her car into a lake with her two toddlers in 1994; she was convicted of murder.
The women represent a rupture with reality. They a livestreaming the mystery movie of the week in their heads. Now, I watch and read mysteries, from Classic to.midern. I also enjoy crying out “he/she did (or didn’t) do it!” And I love being right. But I know it is in no way reality. These screen-addicted harpies in pink have mentally left the planet some time ago and can no longer tell Truth from Screen. But thus is just one primates opinion.
Among corrections professionals, there’s an expression.
Men are incarcerated when they are stupid, women when they are dumb.
“Same Lindsay” is trending on SM.
If a man is dating/cohabitating with (I’m a realist) a woman foreseeing the possibility of marrying her or having children with her (again, I’m a realist) and she’s making hand hearts or wearing pink and he doesn’t bale ASAP, he’s a reckless idiot.
Peter writes: “Without judging the case itself, how many of the demonstrators are desperately trying to validate their own possible abortions?”
I would venture to guess that the vast majority of them have had at least one abortion.
Anecdotally, I worked for many years in a psych hospital where so many of the women were admitted for treatment of depression. I often wondered that if, on admission, every woman were asked the following questions what it would reveal;
#1. Have you ever been pregnant?
#2. If yes, how many times have you been pregnant?
#3. For each pregnancy, indicate how the pregnancy ended:
a. live birth
b. spontaneous miscarriage
c. pregnancy terminated by abortion (either by self or medical practitioner)
I think that the results would be very telling. .
As a vague comparison, for women in prison, about 50% had had abortions, while about 90% had been raped, or physically or sexually abused.
The 90% is about on par with the rates for men in prison. There’s also a survey of a couple Florida prisons indicating that 90% of the inmates had been involved in an abortion somehow or other AND felt guilt or shame or depression over it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the results from mental hospitals tracked with that.
Questions have suddenly, spontaneously erupted among some of us regarding demonic possession of Lindsay Clancy.
God does not allow Satan or his demonic auxiliaries to possess the human soul. What he does permit is the possession of the body and its faculties. If we notice in the many Gospel accounts the possessed are relieved and thankful, in the instance of the possessed by a demonic legion in the Gerasene region. Who after relief of his possession wished to be a disciple of Christ.
Nor is there marked evidence of possessed persons going on a murderous rampage. There are manifestations of violence, attacks, but not outright murders. However, obsession with the demonic is another matter.
Obsession involves willful consent to evil. That can be evident in extreme hatred, desire to torture as occurred among certain Nazis and Himmler’s SS. Also among the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. Ted Bundy was an instance of extreme demonic influence but not possession because the jury had abundant evidence of his freely willed consent.
In the case of Lindsay Clancy the Jury does not and should not consider spiritual, demonic cause or influence. The Jury has one dynamic to consider. The age old standard of determining guilt. Whether the defendant understood the difference between good and evil, wrongful behavior when she committed her act of killing her children.
Insofar as Anne Hendershott’s essay her response as well as the consensus, that the ladies involved are likely women’s rights advocates. Women who treasure their independence rather than the responsibility to nurture life.
Women treasure both just as men do.
Yes.
I don’t disagree with what you wrote except for two words. The first is “lady”. My mother is a lady. My grandmother was a lady. They are not.
The second is “independent”. My women of my mother’s generation, and especially my late grandmother’s were far more “independent” than any modern cubicle rat (male or female) trying desperately to finish some brief, project or report at 7:00PM, awaiting the latest round of “direction” from a hyperactive micromanager or rumored layoffs, which in typical corporate speak will be called “right sizing”.
Independence is autonomy linked with responsibility. They want autonomy without responsibility or accountability. They are entitled children who want a pony without worrying about the manure, oats or stable. ‘Autonomy without accountability equals anarchy’.
Have you ever seen the original Star Trek episode “Turnabout Intruder”.
No I wasn’t a trek fan. Although the use of the term lady does have the differentiation you make here. Independence also has a difference in context. The differences you note were common to British Linguistic Analysis philosophy.
Watch that episode. Roddenberry was a titanic nutjob, but even a stopped watch is right twice a day. He absolutely nailed something there. The exit velocity on that dinger was about 150.
Pitchfork, your analysis of the word lady presents further speculation on the title of this essay, “Making Sense of the Surreal Storm”.
Logical positivist A J Ayer would respond that the argument of making sense based on “a sense of purpose, a feeling of belonging, and moral clarity in a world that no longer seems to provide it for them” may be true but not empirically verifiable, and therefore literally meaningless.
Whereas the British school of Linguistic Analysis led primarily by latecomer Ludwig Wittgenstein verified the viability of the intellectual inference from the tangible to the transcendent.
What then is the verification principle for reasoning that transcends the tangible, if not that frame of mind motivated by principles of intellectual verification called Right Reason. Those truths [principles] that the intellect knows [when subject and predicate are grasped in one act of knowing], that is, apprehends to determine inference and causality within the physical.
Making sense therefore really means assuming reasonable inference from what is perceived in the tangible world.
“Wittgenstein”
Ah. Michael Patterson-Seymour’s favorite name drop after Elizabeth Anselm.
“…I thank you for the invitation to share with you, in this house of the peoples of Europe, some reflections that I hold dear as a son of Africa and as a pastor of the Catholic Church. I do not come to you with a ceremonial address, but with a question I consider decisive for the future of
our two continents: can we still understand one another? Do the words we use — “human rights”, “dignity”, “development”, “freedom”, “health”, “gender”, “family” — still mean the same thing for those who pronounce them in Brussels, in Strasbourg, in Kampala or in Conakry? Pope Leo XIV, receiving last January the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, uttered a sentence which I would like to set forth as the key to reading my whole reflection today. The Pope stated: “We need words to express once again, unequivocally, certain realities. Only in this way can an authentic dialogue, free of misunderstandings, resume”. He tells us that the crisis
we are going through — a geopolitical crisis, a crisis of rights, a crisis of multilateralism — is, at its root, beyond language: it is a crisis of the logos, of reason…”
European Parliament, SPAAK 5B1 Hall, Brussels
Wednesday, 15 July 2026
LECTIO MAGISTRALIS
by H.E.R. Card. Robert Sarah
One of my defining methods of determining intellectual hygiene is that the healthy use words to understand reality, the ill and ill-willed plasticize the construction of words to impose a their reality.
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Genesis 3:1
My fellow travellers: The court is there to decide whether or not this woman was guilty of murdering her children or not. One possibility is “Not guilty by reason of insanity.” If this verdict is handed down then she doesn’t go to jail but she is committed for psychiatric treatment until her mental condition improves enough to be released safely.
Other possibilities are: she is found guilty of murder and punishment applied. Lastly, she is found not guilty because examination of the facts dictate that verdict. In that case, she is released.
Let the law be what the law requires. If she is found guilty, the judge can exercise reasonable compassion (unlike many of our woke leftist judges who just release criminals back onto the streets arbitrarily).
As a university student in the late 1970’s, I attended Mass at the Newman Chapel. One of the chaplains was a nun who had been principal of a parochial school in NYC. One of the Catholic students committed a crime of passion in a neighboring state. The nun collected scores of character references for the young man and personally attended his trial. The only comment by the priest who headed the chaplaincy was, “Sr. N. isn’t happy unless there is a crisis.” The strange search for meaning in tragedy can affect religious people, too.
It really seems like half the country wants to string up anyone who has the temerity to suggest that temporary insanity is a legitimate legal defense, and the other half wants the most piddling excuse for child murder to be considered legitimate.
Neither is rational. If temporary insanity is to be ended as a legal defense, then end it for EVERYONE. No more slaps on the wrist for drunk guys who rape drunk women. No more recognition that the person on drugs really didn’t mean to cause a car crash and kill someone, or the differentiation between first and second degree murder and manslaughter. Treat it all as deliberate, intentional, and evil.
The person’s state of mind has been considered relevant to their guilt and the extent of it in English law back to the 13th Century, and in Jewish law long before that. Getting over-emotional about the horror of the deed and neglecting that fact isn’t any more praiseworthy than getting overcome by the horror of someone being severely punished for what she might not have been able to control and neglecting the pain of the victims.
“No more slaps on the wrist for drunk guys who rape drunk women”
I’m not sure that this happens with great frequency, especially in the post “believe all women” era.
While state laws vary, this is from a Wisconsin law firm: (Kirk OBear & Assoc)
Under Wisconsin law, alcohol or drug intoxication only serves as a defense to criminal liability if a person involuntarily becomes intoxicated and their intoxication either renders them incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong or negates the existence of a required state of mind. As a result, voluntary intoxication – willingly consuming sufficient quantities of alcohol or drugs to produce an intoxicated state – may not excuse a person from criminal liability for sexual assault.
This is from Oklahoma: (Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals)
“Voluntary intoxication is relevant to disprove the existence of a specific criminal intent and thereby the commission of the crime, but voluntary intoxication does not excuse the defendant from criminal liability for a lesser included offense which does not have such a mens rea requirement. As stated in R. Perkins, Criminal Law 889 (2d ed. 1969), “voluntary drunkenness is no excuse for an actus reus.”
The difficulty in comparing intoxication to mental illness comes from several attributes: First, that mental illness is involuntary, second that it is persistent, third that it isn’t readily observable to the untrained observer (being drunk produces an array of effects that can be observed) and fourth, it’s not measurable (there’s no equivalent to BAC) fifth, this is often a consideration where both perpetrator and the victim are intoxicated and so the issue of validity of consent is a significant matter.
Buckle up, because another woman (one intimately interested in the Clancy case) just killed her child, attributing diabolic attributes to the child.
You should try California, where “I was too drunk to know she didn’t consent” got the charges dropped on a rather high-profile case. That is textbook “My reason was impaired and I didn’t know what I was doing.” Admittedly, California’s “Believe all women” seems to be often followed by “and do nothing”.
Mental illness is involuntary, while drunkenness is voluntary, therefore laws penalizing people for drunk acts make rather more sense than laws penalizing people for insane acts. If we wanted to follow morality strictly, we would penalize people for getting voluntarily drunk whether they committed crimes or not, rather than for any crimes they committed after getting drunk. But that doesn’t seem entirely practical, so sticking with the same charge and reducing the sentence a bit is the general method.
The typical persistence and difficulty for untrained people to observe and measure mental illness is an argument for involuntary stays in mental hospitals, not for convictions and prison sentences.
I’ve seen mental illness in my family from decades of smoking dope. They don’t rationalize a given situation correctly anymore, if that makes sense. Their memories are also impaired.
“Voluntary drunkenness is no excuse for an actus reus”. This is also the standard Catholic position in the confessional on the responsibility of our actions if we drink excessively [or other substance abuse].
Reason informs us beforehand of our susceptibility to commit acts that we would otherwise avoid. And the reason why a drunk driver killing is always a serious charge [depending on which state] such as vehicular manslaughter, DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide.
“Reason informs us beforehand of our susceptibility to commit acts that we would otherwise avoid.”
Railroad operating rules always contain a rule that prescribes something on the order of this:
S. Safety; Following the Safe Course
Safety is of first importance. These rules provide for a safe and efficient operation. In case of doubt, the safe course must be followed.
Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Council (NORAC) Operating Rules 12th Edition 2024
The implied interpretation is that you cannot break one rule, such as failing to sound an appropriate horn signal, perhaps at a grade crossing. There’s uncertainty about motor vehicles obstructing the track and since “in a tie with a train, you lose”, you better hit the horn (and bell).
You break one rule, you automatically break General Rule S. It’s known as a “company rule” and can also be applied against otherwise unspecified acts that violate “common sense”.
Of course, it takes some experience to recognize when you should have doubt, and what the safe course is in a given situation.
I doubt that will ever happen. Despite strong public interest in the small number of murder cases involving temporary insanity defenses, it only succeeds occasionally. Even when a defendant is found not guilty by reason of insanity, he or she usually ends up being hospitalized indefinitely. So that suggests that many people are at lesstc doubful about this type of defense.
Going back to the specific subject of the article, I believe that perceptions of this case have been swayed by a group of ardent, very active online supporters who find Lindsay Clancy a particularly sympathetic figure, similar to what happened with Luigi Mangione. In recent years, there have been other women on trial for killing their children, but those women have not attracted supporters posting TikToks or standing outside the courtroom, nor do they get much media coverage outside of local markets. Why they support Clancy so vociferously, while taking little notice of other women in a similar situations, is hard to understand, but it seems significant to me.
Are they on a payroll, perhaps?
I would hazard to say most people know what they’re doing when they commit suicide, unless they’re on a lsd trip or something.
If she fed them anytime that day doesn’t that prove anything about her state of mind?
It’s fairly reasonable, generally speaking, to take a defense of “I was temporarily so crazy I didn’t know what I was doing and killed someone” as an indicator that the person is usually not entirely stable and might do it again, and accordingly, aquit them for the crime and commit them indefinitely. I believe that is what happened with Reagan’s attempted assassin, who was released from psychiatric supervision a few years ago.
I don’t think the courts are going to give up on the insanity defense, or the general applicability of a person’s state of mind, anytime soon. Nor should they. We have the resources to take it into account, and we prioritize not convicting the innocent, over convicting the guilty.
The large amount of support for this case rather than others is partly because post-partum psychosis is pretty rare. Part of it, I expect is along the lines of BLM, where supporters routinely ignored actual cases of injustice to loudly and violently pursue cases that did not merit it. Part of it could simply be a liberal media push to highlight conservative “law and order” types opposing a legitimate defense, generally without knowing the facts well enough to find out if it works here – women being among the few voting blocks mainly retained by Democrats.
Then anyone could get off on “temporary?” That’s crazy!
I’ve been on 3 juries and most of a defendant’s peers lack the hard or soft skills to make such a determination. They let you take “notes” which are hard to write fast enough and don’t even give you a black or white board to sum the facts in the crowded jury room. this is at least where I live. then you’re supposed to argue until the cows come home your point of view as far as reasonable doubt. the jury system is really not that good, unfortunately. and the pay is ridiculous!
This article misses the point:
this case is about justification of murder, not seeking meaning from life.
“Do not kill”
For article not comments to contain no reference to the ssris that committed the murder is a travesty.
SSRIs don’t kill people, especially adults. They simply don’t work that way neurochemically.
Excerpt: “But in a hurricane or a crisis, we are suddenly called to pay attention But in a hurricane or a crisis, we are suddenly called to pay attention”. PAY ATTENTION!!! INDEED!!
There is a statute in New York called the “Red Flag” law. It focuses primarily on crimes perpetrated by youths and the awareness or not of parents or guardians. We feel that the law is too weak and some parents can be legally responsible. Possible awareness of criminal activity by their children that should involve law enforcement is as follows.
>Not securing a gun in the home.
>Child is showing changes that involve violence.
>Unusual habits that include new, suspect friends.
I am seeking to amend the law to include the above.
Hendershott misses the plot with this one! Don’t write an Op Ed if you don’t actually understand the criminal justice system.
1st: Our judicial system operates under the premise of Innocent until Proven Guilty. The Commonwealth ABSOLUTELY had the obligation to prove with irrefutable evidence that Lindsey Clancy was guilty of murder.
2nd. Lindsey Clancy pled NOT GUILTY. At no point in time during the trial did she say that she committed the murders. Every statement that “she admitted it” was all here-say from third parties. It was testified that she had NO RECOLLECTION of what had happened and only confessed to her therapists after being told repeatedly by Patrick & by Police, that she had committed the crimes. People in psychosis and people who are drugged are easily susceptible to false memories being planted. That is evidenced in her attempt to recall the crimes to her therapist; where she detailed memories that NEVER happened. That therapist TESTIFIED that is a sign of false memories.
3rd. The defense did not state during this trial that she committed the murders. Her attorney QUOTED the Commonwealths charges against her.
4th. A request for a bifurcated trial was denied BEFORE this trial. Any stipulations made in that request ARE NOT EVIDENCE in the subsequent trial. Since that was denied, Reddington had to argue innocence as well as innocent by insanity at the same time.
5th. Be mad at the police department, who failed those children epically. Walking onto a scene with a woman near death, 3 children dead, and the only member of the family walking around, isn’t immediately suspect #1??? They failed to log or collect significant evidence. They failed to investigate further why PC’s timeline of events leaves his alibi with gaping holes of unaccounted time. Why were the clothes and shoes different at the first & second stops? How, for a man who WORKS IN TECH, was wifi out & the home cameras magically not working that night? Yet, in the CVS footage of PC, it appears that he’s actually looking at the home cameras while he’s in line…
All I can say is that I will pray for you and others who seem to demonstrate an unhealthy obsession with this case. Because there is nothing good about dwelling on such dark matters. Turn to the Lord and lay all of this at His feet.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Gayle King (on a podcast or similar) was apparently shocked to hear that the lone juror was a Black man. Can anyone confirm this?