- This article is about a murdered priest, for James Coyle the software programmer, see Mystic BBS. Mystic BBS is a Bulletin board system software program started in 1994.
Father James Coyle (March 23, 1873 — August 11, 1921), a Roman Catholic priest, was murdered in Birmingham, Alabama. Events 1174 - Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose, is elected Bishop of Glasgow. Year 1873 ( MDCCCLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 2492 BC - Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founder of the Armenian nation Year 1921 ( MCMXXI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1921 calendar of the Gregorian calendar Birmingham (ˈbɝmɪŋhæm is the largest City in the US state of Alabama and is the County seat of Jefferson County. His interment was located at Elmwood Cemetery. Elmwood Cemetery is a 412- Acre (167-hectare Cemetery established in the 1880s (as Elm Leaf Cemetery on the western side of Birmingham in Jefferson
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Biography
Life
Coyle attended Mungret College in Limerick and the Pontifical North American College in Rome. Mungret College, situated 3 miles west of Limerick, Ireland, near the village of Mungret was a Jesuit Apostolic school and a lay Secondary Limerick (pronounced /ˈlɪmrɪk/ Luimneach in Irish) is a city and the county seat of County Limerick in the Province of Munster The Pontifical North American College is a Roman Catholic educational institution in Rome. He was ordained a priest in Rome on May 30, 1896, aged 23. Events 1416 - The Council of Constance, called by the Emperor Sigismund a supporter of Antipope John XXIII burns Jerome of Prague following Year 1896 ( MDCCCXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year
He sailed later that year, with fellow priest, Father Michael Henry, to the port of Mobile, Alabama and served under Bishop Edward Patrick Allen. Bishop Edward Patrick Allen ( March 17, 1853 – October 21, 1926) was a Roman Catholic Bishop and the fifth Bishop He became an instructor, and later rector, of the McGill Institute for Boys. McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, located in Mobile Alabama, is a private co-educational high school operated by the educational system of the Roman Catholic In 1904 Bishop Allen appointed Coyle to succeed Patrick O'Reilly as pastor of the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Birmingham, where he was well-received and loved by the congregation. Year 1904 ( MCMIV) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year starting on The Cathedral of Saint Paul &mdash informally known as Saint Paul's Cathedral &mdash is the Mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Birmingham in
Assassination and aftermath
Father Coyle was shot in the head on the porch of St. Paul's Rectory on August 11, 1921 by Methodist minister and Klansman E. R. Stephenson. This article is about the former denomination For individual churches of the same name see Methodist Episcopal Church South (disambiguation The Methodist Reverend E R Stephenson was a minister of the now extinct Methodist Episcopal Church South and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The murder occurred only hours after Coyle officiated at a secret wedding between Stephenson's daughter, Ruth, and Pedro Gussman, a Puerto Rican who had met Ruth by doing work for Stephenson at his house and had been a customer of Stephenson's barber shop. Puerto Rico (ˌpwertoˈriko officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ("Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico" {{lang-en|"Associated Free State of Puerto Rico"}} Before the wedding, Ruth converted to Catholicism.
Stephenson was subsequently charged with Father Coyle's murder in an Alabama court. The Ku Klux Klan paid for the defense, a team of five lawyers (four of whom were Klan members). Ku Klux Klan ( KKK) is the name of several past and present secret domestic terrorist organizations in the United States, generally in the southern states that are The case was assigned to the courtroom of Judge William E. Fort, a Klansman. Hugo Black, a future Justice of the Supreme Court (who would become a civil rights champion), defended Stephenson. Hugo LaFayette Black (February 27 1886&ndashSeptember 25 1971 was an American politician and jurist. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary.
The defense was soon switched from a self-defense plea to an insanity plea. Stephenson was acquitted on only one vote of the jury. Gussman was accused of being African American, although had Gussman been black the wedding would have been invalid under Alabama law at that time. One of Stephenson's attorneys responded to the prosecution's assertion that Gussman was of "proud Castillian descent" by saying "he has descended a long way".
The outcome of the murder trial for Father Coyle's assassin had a chilling impact on Catholics, who found themselves the target of Klan violence for many years to come. . Nevertheless, by 1941, two decades later, a Catholic writer in Birmingham would write ". Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. . . the death of Father Coyle was the climax of the anti-Catholic feeling in Alabama. After the trial there followed such revulsion of feeling among the right-minded who before had been bogged down in blindness and indifference that slowly and almost unnoticeably the Ku Klux Klan and their ilk began to lose favor among the people. " (McGough - 1941)
References
- Garrison, Greg (August 20, 2006) "Burial site set for priest Klansman killed in '21", The Birmingham News. The Birmingham News is the principal daily Newspaper for Birmingham Alabama, United States, and the largest newspaper in Alabama.
- Beecher, Mrs. L. T. (September 1921) "The Passing of Father Coyle", Catholic Monthly, vol. #12
- McGough, Helen (August 1, 1941) "Things I Remember about Father Coyle, His Death, Twenty Years Afterwards", Catholic Weekly.
External link
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