OUR COMMUNITY

26 | JUNE 16 • 2022 

N

ancy Gietzen needed 
to see if the plaque was 
still there.
She made her way to the 
foyer of the National Shrine of 
the Little Flower, the historic 
Catholic church and day school 
where the Jewish educator had 
been a substitute teacher for 
three years until she left after 
discovering how the parish 
had memorialized its founder, 
Father Charles Coughlin.
Sure enough, there it was, 
next to a glass case displaying 
the priest’s old chalice and 
vestments: “While Coughlin’s 
pastoral skills produced the 
splendid Shrine, his political 
involvement and passionate 
rhetoric opened him up to 
accusations of antisemitism.
” 
The wording she remembered 
was intact.
“It was really upsetting,
” 
Gietzen said. “‘
Accusations’ of 

being antisemitic? What are you 
talking about?”
The plaque was, to say the 
least, a mild way to describe 
the man who had been 
America’s most vocal wellspring 
of antisemitism during the 
Great Depression. On Father 
Coughlin’s nationwide radio 
show, which ran from 1926-
1940, he was a fearsome 
demagogue: parroting Nazi 
propaganda, telling his listeners 
that “international bankers” 
and “Jewish Communists” 
were plotting their demise, 
stating that the Jews deserved 
what happened to them at 
Kristallnacht and encouraging 
the growth of the Christian 
Front, a pro-Nazi Christian 
militia that plotted to overthrow 
the U.S. government by 
attacking prominent Jews. 
The proceeds from 
Coughlin’s media exploits 

(which included a political 
party and a fascist magazine 
called Social Justice) paid for 
the Shrine’s splendor, while 
ensuring that generations of 
Detroit Jews would stay far 
away from it.
Until now, that is. On May 
31, the Shrine held an event 
titled “The Jewish-Catholic 
Relationship: Past, Present and 
Future,
” a series of historical 
lectures co-sponsored by the 
Archdiocese of Detroit and the 
Detroit Jewish Community 
Relations Council/American 
Jewish Committee (JCRC/
AJC). Jews and Catholics alike 
filed into the pews to hear two 
academics, one Jewish and one 
Catholic, discuss the history of 
relations between the two faiths, 
most of it revolving around 
Catholic antisemitism. 
The choice of venue was 
deliberate.
“There’s so much polarization 
in our society, we need this 
reconciliation, in general,
” 
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive 
director of the local JCRC/AJC, 
told the Jewish Telegraphic 
Agency. “What’s more powerful 
than for Jews and Catholics 
to come together in Father 
Coughlin’s church?”
As a fairly new arrival to 
Detroit who lives in Huntington 
Woods, Lopatin said he felt he 

had the right “naivete” to mount 
an event at the church, inspired 
by the truth-and-reconciliation 
commissions formed in nations 
like South Africa and Rwanda 
following national traumas. 
Lopatin called the event a 
“truth and reconciliation” effort 
between Jews and Catholics 
— acknowledging the painful 
history of the past while 
breaking new ground. 
Shortly after Lopatin moved 
to Detroit and took his JCRC/
AJC position in 2019, the 
group held the first such 
event at a different church. 
A follow-up was delayed due 
to the pandemic, but there 
was interest from both parties 
in hosting an activity at the 
Shrine. Staff at the archdiocese 
said a Jewish outreach event 
had not been held there in 
three decades — not since 
1992, when the church publicly 
apologized for Coughlin’s 
antisemitism.
“Father Coughlin was a 
force to be reckoned with in 
the 1930s. Getting that place 
built was a feat,
” David Conrad, 
coordinator of interfaith 
relations at the archdiocese, 
told JTA. But, he said, “when 
you have to get our government 
and the Pope in Rome involved 
to shut down his views and 
his antisemitism, that’s a 

The Royal Oak church founded by 
antisemite Father Coughlin hosts an 
event on Jewish-Catholic relations.

Truth and 
Reconciliation

ANDREW LAPIN JTA.ORG

PHOTOS BY JEFF KOWALSKY

The Shrine of the 
Little Flower at 
Woodward and 12 
Mile was founded 
by Father Charles 
Coughlin, who 
had an antisemitic 
radio show in the 
1930s.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Detroit 
JCRC/AJC, with Monsignor Patrick Halfpenny of the 
National Shrine of the Little Flower

