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4 • HARD, HARDER, HARDEST OF TIMES Let those who do not understand why the State should be responsible for the social and economic welfare of the citizens go to the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI. —detroit mayor frank murphy, March 24, 1932 When the Ku Klux Klan was still burning crosses on behalf of “the sacri‹ce of Jesus of Nazareth; the ›ames the light which the Savior shed upon the world,”one was reported in June 1926 near the newly established Shrine of the Little Flower Catholic Church in southern Oakland County. Within two months, the young priest at the Shrine told the few dozen families in his parish congregation that he would soon be broadcasting from their modest church altar every Sunday afternoon, and he gave the Klan’s presence as his motivation for taking to the airwaves. Catholics could not always brave the trek to church when they might be threatened by these white-robed and hooded enemies in their path, explained Father Charles E. Coughlin.1 Within ‹ve years, Father Coughlin would be broadcasting from a tall marble “Cruci‹xion Tower” erected at the front of the site where more construction was about to begin on a splendid new church to replace the original small wood-frame building. His sermons would be carried over an independent network of 27 stations around the country to an audience that numbered several million. If the local Klan gave Charles Coughlin a convenient rationale for his initial venture on the radio, the bold entrepreneurship and money around Detroit gave him the opportunity, and, ultimately, the times gave him the audience. New city buildings were climbing ever higher, scraping a Michigan sky that seemed without end to people standing in the right place in the 1920s and looking up. Farmers outstate, small-town merchants, and onetime miners in the Upper Peninsula were more accustomed to looking straight 99 ahead under a familiar cloud cover. As the decade of the twenties neared an end too many Michigan residents were on the edge, whether of betterment or despair. Then came the Great Depression, earlier and with more devastating consequences in Michigan than in most places. Less than two months into the Great Depression Father Coughlin would transform what had started as a religious hour into a program demanding economic reform. When the Depression grew worse rather than better, and people tried to make sense of it all, this Roman Catholic priest would muster one of the most remarkable grassroots movements to emerge during one of the nation’s most troubled decades. Although some found his in›uence astounding and others thought it dangerous, neither Coughlin nor his followers were all that remarkable in their place and time. Carpe Diem Coughlin was a newcomer to Michigan and the Detroit diocese in the twenties, one of those residents in the right place at the right time. The priest of Irish ancestry was part immigrant and part American. His father was an Irish-American Catholic who had followed work north to Canada, married a Canadian Irish Catholic, and there in Hamilton, Ontario, the couple brought up their only child Charles who was born in 1891. After attending the University of Toronto, Charles Coughlin joined the Basilian Order of priests in 1916 and taught history, Greek, literature, and drama at Assumption College, a boys’ high school in Windsor, until the Basilians were required by Canon Law to reorganize. He had already been assisting at various parishes in Detroit so now Coughlin chose to leave the Basilians and his classroom podium for the pulpit of a parish priest in Michigan. Perhaps he wanted to avoid the vow of poverty that Basilians would be adding to their vows of obedience and chastity. Without any doubt, the Detroit diocese represented a multitude of challenges and opportunities like few other places when the 31-year-old priest arrived to stay in 1923. Like so many other immigrants and migrants, once the priest made his choice he came to Michigan with the zeal of a convert. He quickly made a place for himself thanks to the expansive entrepreneurial climate where personal connections mattered and where risk takers were willing to try almost magical innovations. He caught the attention of Bishop Michael Gallagher during his ‹rst pastoral assignments. In the spring of 1925, Bishop Gallagher tapped him to establish a parish in suburban Detroit.2 100 • right in michigan’s grassroots [18.118.200.136] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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