Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Archdiocese of Detroit Takes Issue with Coughlin’s Responsibility For”social Justice”

April 21, 1942
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Personal responsibility for the policy and contents of “Social Justice” was assumed today by Father Coughlin, in a public statement issued here, “if the magazine is ‘clearly seditious’ as Attorney-General Biddle states.”

Coughlin’s declaration prompted the Chancery office of the Catholic Arch-diocese of Detroit to make public a letter sent by the radio priest to the Arch-bishop of Detroit last year in which he wrote: “I will not be responsible for “Social Justice” magazine beyond the issue of the date of May 27.”

In making this letter public, a spokesman of the chancery emphasized that “no priest of the diocese has asked or received permission to contribute to “Social Justice” and no priest has been authorized to associate himself in any capacity with its publication or circulation-or to the knowledge of this office has actually done so.”

Attorney General Biddle announced that he will call both Coughlin and the nominal editors and publishers of “Social Justice” to Washington to testify before the Grand Jury probing such newspapers and magazines.

Criminal prosecution of Coughlin was also demanded today by the Civil Rights Federation here as a necessary correlation to banning “Social Justice” from the mails. In a letter to Attorney General Biddle, the federation, which represents 300 Michigan church, farm, labor and civic organizations with more than 500,000 members, demanded “criminal prosecution of the man who has openly admitted responsibility for this seditious publication-Charles E. Coughlin.”

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement