-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
Encylopedia of American Scandal
George C. Kohn�1989
Facts on File
ISBN 0-8160-1313-6
-----
Father COUGHLIN: once America's No. 1 Fascist
In May 1942, authorities of the U.S. Government, acting with the archbishop of
Detroit, moved against the pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower, in Royal
Oak, Michigan, depriving him of his avocation. From his archbishop, he
received a choice: cease writing and other non-religious activities or be
defrocked. The government gave no choice; acting under provisions of the
Espionage Act of 1917, it stripped his magazine Social Justice of its mailing
privileges. In both cases, the grievance against the Reverend Charles Edward
Coughlin was the same: sedition.
Had the federal authorities been so inclined, a second charge could have been
leveled: treason. Both before and during World War II, Father Coughlin had
been America's most vocal backer of Europe's fascistic governments, our
wartime foes.
Coughlin had not always been seditious and unpatriotic. Ordained in 1916, the
Ontario-born priest had only one enemy: Marxism. He had been imbued with
theories of Social Catholicism during his seminary training, and he believed
that Catholic principles in economics could save the common man. But he went
beyond these precepts; impressed by the Vatican's signing of concordats with
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Francisco Franco, he mistakenly believed
that these dictators had the approval of the Church. They therefore deserved
his support, for all were in conflict with Marxist-Leninist principles.
Augmented by his tendency to regard himself as a consummate politician and an
infallible historian as well as his egocentrism, Coughlin's misconception grew
into the making of a full blown scandal.
Good looking, with a rich, melodious voice, Coughlin was soon well on his way
to popularity and success.
The first "radio priest" in America, Coughlin opened the purses of his
listeners so effectively that between 1926 and 1929 he had been able to pay
for the building of the million-dollar Shrine at Royal Oak; at their 1935
peak, his broadcasts were heard from Maine to California. More than a hundred
clerks were paid to process his mail.
Impressed by the response to his Sunday sermons, Coughlin's bishops
indulgently permitted him to dedicate his programs to the defeat of socialism
and bolshevism. His audience grew. He attracted many with his populist
concepts, but failed to understand that many of his listeners were the
disgruntled and underprivileged from the lower and middle classes, who agreed
only emotionally with his harangues against big business, big government,
bankers, and internationalism. They liked him for his decisive style and his
choice of targets, but were unconcerned with his intellectual rationales.
Inspired by the approval, Father Coughlin began to act as if he knew all the
answers and as if all the answers were his. With the approval and imprimatur
of his bishop, he began to offer ill-digested history and economics; he blamed
the Depression on the Versailles Treaty, accepted the theory that all
"international banking conspiracy" continued the economic slump, and saw
Prohibition as a capitalist plot. With no well-informed individuals to destroy
his illusions, and with constantly growing approval from his listeners, he
began to go father awry.
He berated President Herbert Hoover for his ineffectuality, and at first
backed Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the motto "Roosevelt or ruin." But when
President Roosevelt rejected his plan for a monetary program based on silver,
and when his speculations in silver with Shrine funds were discovered,
Coughlin felt himself double-crossed. After 1934, when he began his National
Union for Social Justice and attracted a new audience with its magazine, he
consistently attacked President Roosevelt. He even began a third political
party, the National Union, to oppose Roosevelt in 1936. Its failure to elect
its candidates did not affect his exposition and promulgation of his own
ideas.
These ideas gradually became outspokenly fascistic. Coughlin suggested a
corporate state like Mussolini's, crudely attacked Roosevelt as Communist-
influenced, openly promoted American fascists, and accused the Congress of
Industrial Organizations, a major labor union, of being "Red." Even the
Vatican expressed its embarrassment with him.
Father Couglin, however, is remembered more for his attempt to keep America
neutral after 1939, his opposition to the Lend-Lease program, his attacks on
the British as effete, his defense of fascism as a valid opposition to
Marxism, his glorification of the fascist dictators, his literal translations
of German propaganda, his unremitting attacks on Jews as the creators and
backers of Communism, and his advice to Americans after 1941 that they should
be prepared to surrender. He is recalled for applauding, if not creating, the
Christian Front or "Christian Klan," which terrorized New York Jews with the
approval of the Brooklyn archdiocesan newspaper The Tablet and the non-
interference of any Church prelates. New York had become a laboratory of
carefully developed fascistic experimentation.
Coughlin approved of all this. Evidence of disapproval and criticism made him
compare his personal suffering from opponents to that of Jesus Christ on the
Cross. Even after the FBI seized his papers, he continued to speak and write
hate literature.
The actions of 1942 stopped him cold. Further legal action would make him a
marytr; further resistance would make him a fool. Accepting the inevitable,
Father Coughlin devoted himself quietly to his pastoral duties until his
retirement in 1966, 13 years before his death.
pps. 74-75
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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