08/12/2025
104 years ago today, Fr. James Coyle was murdered, shot in the head from point blank range as he sat on his rectory porch praying his breviary.
Fr. Coyle was born in County Roscommon, Ireland in 1873. He attended the American College in Rome and was ordained at the Lateran Basilica on May 30, 1896 at age 23. He arrived in Mobile, AL later that same year.
In 1904, Fr. Coyle was assigned as pastor at St. Paul in Birmingham. He would remain as pastor until his death in 1921. St. Paul would later be elevated to a cathedral when Birmingham became a diocese in 1969.
Fr. Coyle served the people of his parish faithfully and was a much beloved pastor. He was well-read and a dynamic speaker, and lovingly called his flock to attend Sunday Mass, love the Eucharist, and love the Blessed Mother. He also served as chaplain of the local council of the Knights of Columbus.
Birmingham was a young, fast-growing industrial city when Fr. Coyle arrived. There were many new jobs available and huge numbers of newly arrived immigrants poured into the city, many of them Catholic or Jewish from south and central Europe. A number of native Alabamians became alarmed at this influx, fearing that so many newcomers with their different ways would upset their Southern social order.
In addition, with the release of the movie “Birth of a Nation” in 1915, the Ku Klux Klan reemerged, now portraying themselves as champions of the United States and the American Way, which meant standing against foreigners, blacks, Jews, and Catholics. World War I had caused some Americans to be suspicious of foreigners and anyone who was different in any way and the K*K played on these fears. In Birmingham, with so many immigrants, an atmosphere of intense xenophobia and anti-Catholicism came to a fever pitch.
Amid these tensions, Fr. Coyle fearlessly and publicly defended immigrants, the Catholic faith, and the ability of Catholics to be good Americans. Like Bishop Fulton Sheen and Bishop Robert Barron after him, he was adroit at using the media available to him to catechize and to defend those under attack. Though Federal agents warned that death threats had been made against him, he did not back down.
A Methodist minister in Birmingham, Edwin Stephenson, and his wife, Mary, were the parents of an only daughter, Ruth. Stephenson was a member of the K*K and virulently anti-Catholic. He often called Fr. Coyle, “one of humanity's biggest enemies.” Stephenson and his wife did not keep either their ani-Catholic prejudices or his membership in the K*K a secret from Ruth. One Halloween, for a joke, Ruth even dressed in her father’s Klansman robe and hood, to which her parents responded with peels of laughter.
But, Ruth also observed parishioners going in and out of St. Paul’s and what she observed did not match what her parents told her. She decided to investigate Catholicism for herself and, when she was 18, was baptized into the Catholic Church. Stephenson, upon finding out, beat her. Ruth could not legally leave her father’s house until she was 21. But she could, if she was married. She accepted a marriage proposal from a Puerto Rican immigrant who had hung wallpaper in their house, named Pedro Gusman. On August 11, 1921, they snuck away to obtain a marriage license and were married at St. Paul’s by Fr. Coyle before the high altar.
About an hour later, Rev. Stephenson stepped onto the rectory porch, pulled out a loaded gun, and shot Fr. Coyle three times, including once in the head. Fr. Coyle died shortly after at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
It took nearly a month before a grand jury indictment was handed down. The K*K raised money for Stephenson’s defense and hired Hugo Black, future Klansman, U.S. Senator and Supreme Court Justice, to defend him. The judge was a Klansman. The foreman was a Klansman. Stephenson argued temporary insanity and was found not guilty.
Fr. Coyle was interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, though lately there has been some discussion of re-interring him at St. Paul Cathedral. Though no cause has yet been advanced to recognize his martyrdom or sanctity, it is devoutly to be hoped that soon he will receive the recognition he deserves.
Today the Father James E. Coyle Memorial Project exists to foster respect, justice, and peace among all of God’s children. Let us all work toward this goal, and follow Father Coyle’s last words, written in the Church Notice Book shortly before he died: “Give. Give until it hurts, then and only then there is sacrifice.”
americancatholichistory.org
