Catholic Campaign

On Sept. 11, Scripps-Howard's San Francisco News printed an item saying that a Roman Catholic priest with a woman companion had pleaded guilty, in a Medera, Calif. court, to drunken driving. Other San Francisco papers passed up the story.

When a News reporter called Monsignor Harold E. Collins, secretary to San Francisco's Archbishop John J. Mitty, to check the spelling of the priest's name, the Monsignor said: "No one in San Francisco has ever used a story like that."

Later, he called back and asked the News to lay off.

The News printed the story, and 10 days later reported the priest had paid a $250 fine.

Last fortnight, at a meeting of a Catholic-laymen's club, Monsignor Collins requested members to boycott the News and tell their friends that the News was antagonistic to the Church. Archbishop Mitty himself urged his Catholic clergy, gathered for a semiannual conference, to point out to their parishioners the "antagonistic" and "bigoted" attitude of the News, and to keep pointing it out until the News recognized the well known weight of the Church.

The Archbishop also declared that, if this course of action failed to get results, he would write a letter to be read from every pulpit in the diocese, condemning the News.

By week's end, the churches in the diocese had withdrawn their ads from the News's Saturday church page.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.