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