Coughlin Silenced

Last week Most Rev. Edward Mooney, new Archbishop of Detroit, cracked down on his most famed priest, Rev. Charles Edward Coughlin, as had been predicted he might (TIME. June 14). To reporters Father Coughlin had said that Justice Black's appointment was a monument to President Roosevelt's "personal stupidity." had further opined that Catholicism and the C.I.O. are incompatible. Last week in his official Michigan Catholic, Archbishop Mooney expressed his regret for Father Coughlin's language, took issue with him on his reasoning. Two days later Father Coughlin announced that he was canceling his contract for 26 radio broadcasts which were to have begun October 31. Archbishop Mooney, he declared, had declined to permit the radio priest to publish a rebuttal to the Michigan Catholic statement. Said a spokesman for Father Coughlin: "It was quite apparent that Father Coughlin would be permitted only to talk platitudes that mean nothing; that he could not say what he thinks, but only what the Archbishop thinks."

Year ago Father Coughlin promised to stop broadcasting if Franklin Roosevelt were reelected, but the New Deal's landslide did not stop him. Last week it appeared that if the President could not padlock Father Coughlin's tongue a Catholic prelate could.

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