COUGHLIN, CHARLES EDWARD

Charles Edward Coughlin. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Priest, radio orator; b. Hamilton, Ontario, Oct. 25, 1891; d. Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Oct. 27, 1979. The only child of Thomas and Amelia (Mahoney) Coughlin, young Coughlin graduated in 1911 from St. Michael's College, Toronto, receiving a degree in philosophy. In September 1911 he joined the Basilians (Congregation of Priests of St. Basil) in Toronto and was ordained on June 29, 1916, in St. Basil's Church, Toronto. From 1916 to 1923 Father Coughlin taught at Assumption College in Sandwich, Ontario, while also assisting at the college chapel and St. Agnes Church in Detroit. In 1923, he left the Basilians and was incardinated into the Diocese of Detroit under Bishop Michael J. Gallagher. In May 1926, he was assigned to Royal Oak, Michigan, to establish a new parish dedicated to St. Therese of the Child Jesus, the "Little Flower," who had been canonized in 1925. In order to raise funds, Coughlin negotiated his first radio program, which was aired on Oct. 17, 1926 over WJR in Detroit.

WJR remained his sole outlet until the fall of 1929 when he added WMAQ, Chicago, and WLW, Cincinnati, and in 1930 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) carried the program nationally. At first he confined himself to religious topics, but in 1930 he began to attack the injustices of American capitalism, using the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI to support his views. CBS officials soon became alarmed at the inflammatory nature of his talks and eased him off the air in April of 1931. Undaunted, Coughlin immediately formed his own network of stations. At the peak of his popularity he had a listening audience estimated at between 10 and 40 million. By 1934 he was employing 150 secretaries to handle mail and donations.

Deeply touched by the plight of the unemployed and angered that President Hoover did so little to help them, he supported Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Coughlin became disenchanted with the New Deal in 1934 and formed the National Union for Social Justice with a 16-point program of social reform. In his Nov. 11, 1934 broadcast, he promoted the NUSJ as a group "to organize for action, if you will: to organize for social united action which will be founded on God-given social truths which belong to Catholic and Protestant, to Jew and Gentile, to blacks and whites, to rich and poor, to industrialist and laborer." He broke completely with Roosevelt in 1935 and organized the Union Party in 1936 with Congressman William Lemke as his candidate for President. He also launched a weekly newspaper, Social Justice.

After Bishop Gallagher died in 1937, Father Coughlin was frequently at odds with his new superior, Archbishop (and later Cardinal) Edward mooney. He became increasingly controversial, both over the air and in the pages of Social Justice. By 1938, he was openly anti-Semitic, going so far as to publish the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Social Justice. In that same year Father Coughlin came under the influence of Father Denis Fahey, CSS (1883–1954), an eccentric Irish theologian whose writings were openly anti-Semitic. Coughlin began a regular correspondence with Fahey and frequently quoted from Fahey's books on the radio and in the pages of Social Justice.

Father Coughlin was forced to give up broadcasting in 1940 when he refused to comply with the National Association of Broadcasters' new rule barring all "controversial" speakers unless they agreed to appear on a panel with speakers presenting divergent views. He continued to publish Social Justice, despite the opposition of Archbishop Mooney. Even after Pearl Harbor (1941) he consistently denounced the Roosevelt administration and America's ally, Great Britain. In the spring of 1942 a District of Columbia grand jury investigated Social Justice as a seditious publication. For the sake of wartime unity, President Roosevelt and his attorney general, Francis Biddle, arranged a behind-the-scenes deal with Archbishop Mooney: Father Coughlin would be silenced in return for the government dropping all legal action against him. Archbishop Mooney called in Coughlin on May 1, 1942 and ordered him to cease all public pronouncements on non-religious issues. Father Coughlin agreed and continued to serve as pastor of his large parish at Royal Oak until he retired in 1966. He faithfully kept his bargain with Archbishop Mooney and never again entered the public arena.

Bibliography: c. j. tull, Father Coughlin and the New Deal (Syracuse 1965). s. marcus, Father Charles E. Coughlin: The Tumultuous Life of the Priest of the Little Flower (Boston 1973). a. brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression (New York 1982). m. c. athans, "A New Perspective on Father Charles E. Coughlin," Church History 56 (June 1987) 224–235.

[c. j. tull]