"RADIO PRIEST"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22515, 4 September 1936, Page 11

"RADIO PRIEST"

VATICAN'S EEBUKE POLITICAL BROADCASTS IMPROPRIETY ALLEGED' By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received September £l, 5.35 p.m.) VATICAN CITY, Sept. '2 The official organ of the -Vatican, Osservatore Romano, censures the American "radio priest," Father Coughlin, whose broadcast addresses on political questions havo attracted much attention. The paper denies that the Vatican informed the Bishop of Detroit that it approved of Father Coughlin's activities. The Holy See, says Osservatore Romano, respect all liberties, but also all proprieties. The orator sins against elementary proprieties when he attacks persons who represent the social authorities, with the evident danger of shaking, in the multitudes, the respect they owe to the authorities themselves. His impropriety is all the greater when the speaker is a priest.

Father C. E. Coughlin, who was born in Canada of American parents in 1891, was educated at Toronto University and became a priest in 1916. After several years of work among the working classes Father Coughlin began to address meetings on political questions. His favourite objects of attack have been Wall Street and financiers in general, and he has gained a large following among the poorer classes. When he began speaking over the radio the response was remarkable. In many quarters his influence has aroused serious alarm and appeals ha.ve been made to the Vatican to stop his campaign. In the financial crisis of 1933 Father Coughlin was a prominent supporter of President Roosevelt. He advocated the redistribution of wealth, and he started the National Union cif Social Justice, in which he claimed to have enrolled 8,500,000 people by 1935. It has been said that he would be able to sway 16,000,000 votes at the coming Presidential elections. e»s