James Coyle

James Coyle (born March 23, 1873 in Athlone , Ireland , † August 11, 1921 in Birmingham (Alabama) ) was a Catholic priest in Alabama , who was murdered by a member of the Ku Klux Klan .

Coyle first attended Mungret College in Limerick, Ireland, and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1896 at the age of 23 . In the same year he moved to Alabama in the United States, where he worked in the port city of Mobile under Bishop Edward Patrick Allen . Coyle became a teacher and later principal at the McGill Institute for Boys. In 1904 Bishop Allen named Coyle pastor at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Birmingham, where he succeeded Patrick O'Reilly.

On August 11, 1921, Coyle was shot in the head by ER Stephenson, a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. Just hours earlier, Coyle had married Stephenson's daughter Ruth to the Puerto Rican Pedro Gussman after Ruth converted to Catholicism.

Stephenson then had to answer in an Alabama state court for the crime, where he was defended by five lawyers; four of them also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, which financed the defense. The defense, which initially asserted self-defense, finally pleaded insanity. Stephenson was also defended by Hugo Black , who later campaigned for the civil rights movement and became a Supreme Court judge. In fact, the jury approved Stephenson with a majority of one vote.

Coyle's grave in Birmingham Elmwood Cemetery bears a three meter high Celtic cross; his ashes were buried in the western forecourt of Saint Paul's Cathedral in Birmingham .

literature

• LT Beecher (September 1921) "The Passing of Father Coyle," Catholic Monthly , Vol. 12
• Helen McGough (Aug. 1, 1941), "Things I Remember about Father Coyle, His Death, Twenty Years Afterwards," Catholic Weekly .

Web links

• The Father Coyle Memorial Project