The Famous Anti-Semitic Radio Priest


Father Charles Coughlin started preaching on the radio in the early 1930's to raise some money for his Detroit parish. His radio station owner suggested he branch into politics. His broadcast audience was thought to 30 million when the entire U.S. population was only 120 million.

He comes to mind just now after demagogue and liar Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News. Father Coughlin broadcast the same kind of material and had an audience far larger than Carlson's. Carlson doesn't like trans people. Coughlin hated Jews.

The Pope during WWII would not condemn Hillter's treatment of the Jews. Some priests hide Jews and save their lives. At the top of the Catholic Church, however, there was a lot of "let's see who wins the war before we take sides." An anti Jew priest like Coughlin would not have been out of place. 

Today's version of Caughlin are the priests who rant and rave against abortion. Instead of being against the Jews they are against women and rights for women. The more things change the more they stay the same. The priest I wrote about some weeks ago, Priests for Life, is a modern day Caughlin. 

The Christian faith as "a force for good" is actually a mixed bag of good and bad. In that way, it is not some sovereign body leading society toward good ends but is merely a reflection of society at any given time. There is no good reason to believe it is either better or worse than the rest of society. Certainly, it does not deserve to be treated with more respect, or less respect, than other groups who organize for other reasons.

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