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Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front
The forgotten history of American terrorists who, in the name of God, conspired to overthrow the government and formed an alliance with Hitler.
On January 13, 1940, FBI agents burst into the homes and offices of seventeen members of the Christian Front, seizing guns, ammunition, and homemade bombs. J. Edgar Hoover’s charges were incendiary: the group, he alleged, was planning to incite a revolution and install a “temporary dictatorship” in order to stamp out Jewish and Communist influence in the United States. Interviewed in his jail cell, the front’s ringleader was unbowed: “All I can say is—long live Christ the King! Down with Communism!”
In Nazis of Copley Square, Charles Gallagher provides a crucial missing chapter in the history of the American far right. The men of the Christian Front imagined themselves as crusaders fighting for the spiritual purification of the nation, under assault from godless Communism, and they were hardly alone in their beliefs. The front traced its origins to vibrant global Catholic theological movements of the early twentieth century, such as the Mystical Body of Christ and Catholic Action. The front’s anti-Semitism was inspired by Sunday sermons and by lay leaders openly espousing fascist and Nazi beliefs.
Gallagher chronicles the evolution of the front, the transatlantic cloak-and-dagger intelligence operations that subverted it, and the mainstream political and religious leaders who shielded the front’s activities from scrutiny. Nazis of Copley Square is a grim tale of faith perverted to violent ends, and a warning for those who hope to curb the spread of far-right ideologies today.
On January 13, 1940, FBI agents burst into the homes and offices of seventeen members of the Christian Front, seizing guns, ammunition, and homemade bombs. J. Edgar Hoover’s charges were incendiary: the group, he alleged, was planning to incite a revolution and install a “temporary dictatorship” in order to stamp out Jewish and Communist influence in the United States. Interviewed in his jail cell, the front’s ringleader was unbowed: “All I can say is—long live Christ the King! Down with Communism!”
In Nazis of Copley Square, Charles Gallagher provides a crucial missing chapter in the history of the American far right. The men of the Christian Front imagined themselves as crusaders fighting for the spiritual purification of the nation, under assault from godless Communism, and they were hardly alone in their beliefs. The front traced its origins to vibrant global Catholic theological movements of the early twentieth century, such as the Mystical Body of Christ and Catholic Action. The front’s anti-Semitism was inspired by Sunday sermons and by lay leaders openly espousing fascist and Nazi beliefs.
Gallagher chronicles the evolution of the front, the transatlantic cloak-and-dagger intelligence operations that subverted it, and the mainstream political and religious leaders who shielded the front’s activities from scrutiny. Nazis of Copley Square is a grim tale of faith perverted to violent ends, and a warning for those who hope to curb the spread of far-right ideologies today.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 2021
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1056 people want to read
About the author
Charles R. Gallagher
3 books11 followersCharles R. Gallagher is Associate Professor of History at Boston College. His book Vatican Secret Diplomacy won the John Gilmary Shea Prize from the American Catholic Historical Association.
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September 13, 2021
That's an eye catching title, particularly when the cover flap confirms that it is referring to Boston's Copley Square. I am interested in the story of a ring of dangerous Nazi spies operating out of Copley Square Hotel.
This is a history of The Christian Front organization in Boston from the late 1930s through 1943. It was an anti-sematic, pro-Nazi group lead by Francis Moran. Moran was born in Boston. He joined a seminary to become a Catholic priest but then dropped out. He then had a variety of dead end jobs.
In the mid 1930s Moran began to follow and support Father Coughlin, the right wing radio agitator. Coughlin was vehemently anti-communist. He was also an anti-Semite who believed that Communism was a Jewish movement. His term was "Judeo-Bolshevism". Moran fairly quickly became the leader of the Boston branch of The Christian Front, a group inspired by, and loosely affiliated with, Coughlin.
Gallagher emphasizes the Catholic roots of this movement. The Christian Front was a particular Catholic doctrine that all Christians should unite to battle the forces of atheism. Another doctrine that motivated this movement was the idea of the "Mystical Body of Christ". All baptized Catholics were part of that body. An attack on any Catholic was an attack on all Catholics. The killings of Catholics in Spain, Mexico and Russia by Communists were attacks on all Catholics and they must be answered.
Boston's Irish community was a fertile recruiting ground for The Christian Front. The Front opposed an alliance with England and favored supporting the Nazi's against the Russian Communist. The anti-English policy resonated with the traditionally anti-English opinions of most Boston Irish. There was also a significant history of anti-Semitism in Boston's Irish community which predisposed it to the Front.
Gallagher traces Moran and the front in great detail. It seems, despite some rhetoric by Gallagher, that the Front had little impact. Moran managed to organize public meeting with hundreds of people at places like Hibernian Hall in Dorchester and the Dudley Street dance hall but the group had no real impact on politics. No elected official ever courted or accepted their support. They never won an election. They were never able to organize any big march or public demonstration. Most sensible people seemed to have considered them cranks.
Gallagher does establish that by 1941 Moran had become an agent of the German Nazi Government. The German consul to Boston, Herbert Scholz, recruited him to serve as a German agent. Gallagher shows a weird episode where Moran suddenly started lobbying for the US Army to adopt one particular type of rifle. It turns out that this was part of a German plot to favor that rifle because they had captured all of the plans for it.
Gallagher shows the FBI and other Federal agencies bumbling around Moran. His mail was read. He was under surveillance. He was reported on, but nothing happened. The Police Commissioner of Boston arrested him, seized some of his publications and then let him go. Gallagher says it was a publicity stunt.
This is an archival history. Gallagher has done very impressive work finding and analyzing public records, Government dossiers, British and German espionage documents, FBI surveillance records and the huge amount of documents produced from FOIA requests. He seems to make sensible judgments and inferences from his reading of the documents.
As a Boston person, I would like to have heard more about the Bostonians who supported The Christian Front. Who went to the meetings? Are any of them still around? Where they life long anti-Semites? Did they regret their involvement? What was it like to be a member of the audience at one of these meetings? Of course, I am doing the entirely unfair thing of criticizing an author for writing the book he wanted to write rather than the book I wanted him to write.
The movement petered out in 1943. Moran went into the army. Because of his background he was put in a squad for politically suspect soldiers. When he was discharged he drove a taxi for a while and then got a job at the Boston Public Library, ironically in Copley Square, as a reference clerk. He died in West Roxbury in 1971. Gallagher apparently did not attempt to interview anyone who knew Moran from 1943 to 1971.
Gallagher notes several themes from this story that are still relevant. Moran's rhetoric and his ability to convey anti-Semitism without explicitly saying it, are techniques still in use. The Governments pervasive but ineffective surveillance of domestic extremist still persists. It seems however that there is no real direct link or connection between today's right wing religious extremists and The Christian Front the way the current racist organizations are direct descendants of the KKK.
I noted one odd thing. In reading the acknowledgements at the end of the book I noticed that Gallagher thanked "my Jesuit Community of St. Mary's Hall at Boston College". A second's Googling confirmed that Gallagher is a Jesuit priest. He is typically referred to as "Charles Gallagher S. J." Neither the cover, title page, author bio nor the introduction mention that he is a Jesuit priest.
This book is focused on the theological and specifically Catholic basis of the The Christian Front. There is much discussion of the connection between the Church hierarchy at the local Boston level and at the Vatican level. I would have found it helpful to know that Gallagher was discussing these issues from the position of a Jesuit priest. If I was reading a book on controversial issues in the US Army I would want to know if the author was a member of the Army.
I am not arguing that a priest can't write an objective history of issues involving the Church. I am saying that it is fair to the readers to let them know when an author has an interest in the institution being discussed. It also would have lent more credence to Gallagher's discussions of fine point of Catholic theology to know that he was trained in the subject.
This is a history of The Christian Front organization in Boston from the late 1930s through 1943. It was an anti-sematic, pro-Nazi group lead by Francis Moran. Moran was born in Boston. He joined a seminary to become a Catholic priest but then dropped out. He then had a variety of dead end jobs.
In the mid 1930s Moran began to follow and support Father Coughlin, the right wing radio agitator. Coughlin was vehemently anti-communist. He was also an anti-Semite who believed that Communism was a Jewish movement. His term was "Judeo-Bolshevism". Moran fairly quickly became the leader of the Boston branch of The Christian Front, a group inspired by, and loosely affiliated with, Coughlin.
Gallagher emphasizes the Catholic roots of this movement. The Christian Front was a particular Catholic doctrine that all Christians should unite to battle the forces of atheism. Another doctrine that motivated this movement was the idea of the "Mystical Body of Christ". All baptized Catholics were part of that body. An attack on any Catholic was an attack on all Catholics. The killings of Catholics in Spain, Mexico and Russia by Communists were attacks on all Catholics and they must be answered.
Boston's Irish community was a fertile recruiting ground for The Christian Front. The Front opposed an alliance with England and favored supporting the Nazi's against the Russian Communist. The anti-English policy resonated with the traditionally anti-English opinions of most Boston Irish. There was also a significant history of anti-Semitism in Boston's Irish community which predisposed it to the Front.
Gallagher traces Moran and the front in great detail. It seems, despite some rhetoric by Gallagher, that the Front had little impact. Moran managed to organize public meeting with hundreds of people at places like Hibernian Hall in Dorchester and the Dudley Street dance hall but the group had no real impact on politics. No elected official ever courted or accepted their support. They never won an election. They were never able to organize any big march or public demonstration. Most sensible people seemed to have considered them cranks.
Gallagher does establish that by 1941 Moran had become an agent of the German Nazi Government. The German consul to Boston, Herbert Scholz, recruited him to serve as a German agent. Gallagher shows a weird episode where Moran suddenly started lobbying for the US Army to adopt one particular type of rifle. It turns out that this was part of a German plot to favor that rifle because they had captured all of the plans for it.
Gallagher shows the FBI and other Federal agencies bumbling around Moran. His mail was read. He was under surveillance. He was reported on, but nothing happened. The Police Commissioner of Boston arrested him, seized some of his publications and then let him go. Gallagher says it was a publicity stunt.
This is an archival history. Gallagher has done very impressive work finding and analyzing public records, Government dossiers, British and German espionage documents, FBI surveillance records and the huge amount of documents produced from FOIA requests. He seems to make sensible judgments and inferences from his reading of the documents.
As a Boston person, I would like to have heard more about the Bostonians who supported The Christian Front. Who went to the meetings? Are any of them still around? Where they life long anti-Semites? Did they regret their involvement? What was it like to be a member of the audience at one of these meetings? Of course, I am doing the entirely unfair thing of criticizing an author for writing the book he wanted to write rather than the book I wanted him to write.
The movement petered out in 1943. Moran went into the army. Because of his background he was put in a squad for politically suspect soldiers. When he was discharged he drove a taxi for a while and then got a job at the Boston Public Library, ironically in Copley Square, as a reference clerk. He died in West Roxbury in 1971. Gallagher apparently did not attempt to interview anyone who knew Moran from 1943 to 1971.
Gallagher notes several themes from this story that are still relevant. Moran's rhetoric and his ability to convey anti-Semitism without explicitly saying it, are techniques still in use. The Governments pervasive but ineffective surveillance of domestic extremist still persists. It seems however that there is no real direct link or connection between today's right wing religious extremists and The Christian Front the way the current racist organizations are direct descendants of the KKK.
I noted one odd thing. In reading the acknowledgements at the end of the book I noticed that Gallagher thanked "my Jesuit Community of St. Mary's Hall at Boston College". A second's Googling confirmed that Gallagher is a Jesuit priest. He is typically referred to as "Charles Gallagher S. J." Neither the cover, title page, author bio nor the introduction mention that he is a Jesuit priest.
This book is focused on the theological and specifically Catholic basis of the The Christian Front. There is much discussion of the connection between the Church hierarchy at the local Boston level and at the Vatican level. I would have found it helpful to know that Gallagher was discussing these issues from the position of a Jesuit priest. If I was reading a book on controversial issues in the US Army I would want to know if the author was a member of the Army.
I am not arguing that a priest can't write an objective history of issues involving the Church. I am saying that it is fair to the readers to let them know when an author has an interest in the institution being discussed. It also would have lent more credence to Gallagher's discussions of fine point of Catholic theology to know that he was trained in the subject.
October 13, 2022
Charles Gallagher's Nazis of Copley Square is one of many recent books fleshing out the American fascist groups of the '30s and '40s. In this case, Gallagher tackles the Christian Front, a far-right, mostly-Catholic militia group based in Boston and New York, inspired (though not directly led) by the infamous Father Charles Coughlin and directed by a combination of hoodlums and respectable Catholic citizens. Gallagher's book delineates the political-religious beliefs of these groups, combining staunch Catholic anti-communism (stoked by the Spanish Civil War and suppression of the Catholic Church in Mexico), anti-Semitism (still official Church doctrine of the time) and "Mystical Body" theology, along with Anglophobia common among their mostly Irish members. These groups were no minor footnote, as other historians would have it; Gallagher spends time unwinding the January 1940 arrest of the Brooklyn "Sports Club" for stockpiling bombs and heavy weapons for a coup d'etat (an incident I've discussed here), also connecting Father Coughlin (via Smedley Butler) to an effort at raising a filibuster army to invade Mexico, then to "settle" Franklin Roosevelt. But the more proximate threat were to Jews, liberals and others in Boston and New York, where Christian Front thugs engaged in anti-Semitic violence before and even during World War II. Worse, their leaders (especially Francis Moran, their articular Boston organizer) often consorted with the German government, disseminating Nazi propaganda and battling American interventionists.
Much of the Christian Front's apocalyptic rhetoric about "Judeo-Bolsheviks" and liberal subversion will ring a bell to modern readers. Similarly, one might find frustrating parallels in the seeming reluctance of authorities to prosecute, or even take seriously these groups: the Brooklyn plotters were acquitted while the press treated their hoarding of machine guns and pipe bombs as a light-hearted jape, while Moran could openly boast of his ties to the German government even during the war. But Gallagher doesn't insist upon modern parallels: rather, he shows how Fronters were activated as much by militant Catholicism and fervid immigrant patriotism as much as admiration for Hitler or Franco (indeed, Moran often denounced Hitler's violence, exasperating his Nazi contacts). And the book also spends time on those, like journalists Arthur Derounian (author of the classic expose Under Cover) and Frances Sweeney (a Boston investigator who, Gallagher argues, was also an asset of British intelligence) who exposed and fought the Front at great risk to themselves. Its a sobering tale of ideological warfare, demonstrating yet again that groups relegated to the political fringe and historical endnotes often lurk closer to the mainstream than we'd like to think.
Much of the Christian Front's apocalyptic rhetoric about "Judeo-Bolsheviks" and liberal subversion will ring a bell to modern readers. Similarly, one might find frustrating parallels in the seeming reluctance of authorities to prosecute, or even take seriously these groups: the Brooklyn plotters were acquitted while the press treated their hoarding of machine guns and pipe bombs as a light-hearted jape, while Moran could openly boast of his ties to the German government even during the war. But Gallagher doesn't insist upon modern parallels: rather, he shows how Fronters were activated as much by militant Catholicism and fervid immigrant patriotism as much as admiration for Hitler or Franco (indeed, Moran often denounced Hitler's violence, exasperating his Nazi contacts). And the book also spends time on those, like journalists Arthur Derounian (author of the classic expose Under Cover) and Frances Sweeney (a Boston investigator who, Gallagher argues, was also an asset of British intelligence) who exposed and fought the Front at great risk to themselves. Its a sobering tale of ideological warfare, demonstrating yet again that groups relegated to the political fringe and historical endnotes often lurk closer to the mainstream than we'd like to think.
May 2, 2022
On one level, this is a blow-by-blow history of the pro-Fascist Catholic organization the Christian Front, in its New York and Boston phases, and in its degeneration from self-righteousness and a misguided concept of patriotism to an attempt to overthrown the Roosevelt administration--and from mere antisemitic rhetoric to outright exterminationism.
Father Gallagher shows how the anti-Jewish riots in Boston in 1943 directly resulted from the more genteel orations of people like Francis Moran. He sketches biographies of Moran and many other influential Nazi sympathizers who have, purposefully, been forgotten by the Church and the Irish American community to which he belongs. It's storytelling with an appeal to memory.
On a second level, this book shows how Germany and Great Britain saw U.S. public opinion as battlefield to fight over during WWII, both before and after the U.S. actually entered the war. This is a tale of spy vs. spy. On the German side, isolationism and justified resentment of the British Empire were sappers' tools to undermine U.S. sympathy for the Allies. On the British side, finding Irish Catholics like Frances Sweeney who would speak up against antisemitism and the Nazis from a religious progressive point of view was key.
And that leads to the third level of the book, possible the crux of it all. Gallagher makes a damning case that when Catholics like Moran attacked Jews and Communists and defended Nazis, they were making a legitimate case, founded in Catholic doctrines widely held at the time.
Father Gallagher shows how the anti-Jewish riots in Boston in 1943 directly resulted from the more genteel orations of people like Francis Moran. He sketches biographies of Moran and many other influential Nazi sympathizers who have, purposefully, been forgotten by the Church and the Irish American community to which he belongs. It's storytelling with an appeal to memory.
On a second level, this book shows how Germany and Great Britain saw U.S. public opinion as battlefield to fight over during WWII, both before and after the U.S. actually entered the war. This is a tale of spy vs. spy. On the German side, isolationism and justified resentment of the British Empire were sappers' tools to undermine U.S. sympathy for the Allies. On the British side, finding Irish Catholics like Frances Sweeney who would speak up against antisemitism and the Nazis from a religious progressive point of view was key.
And that leads to the third level of the book, possible the crux of it all. Gallagher makes a damning case that when Catholics like Moran attacked Jews and Communists and defended Nazis, they were making a legitimate case, founded in Catholic doctrines widely held at the time.
*The doctrine of Catholic Action made it seem as if lay Catholics could operate in the political world with inerrancy and impunity, as long as they had some priestly blessing. Father Coughlin, the "Radio Priest," was merely the best-known endorser of right-wing populism at the time. Boston had its home-grown versions.*The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ stated that the entire Church and its members were Jesus' avatar on earth, and that attacks on its ability to operate freely were the same as crucifying Jesus all over again. It was only a step from that doctrine to the theory of "Judeo-Bolshevism": that communists were all secular Jews who were doing what (according to certain Christian teachings) their ancestors had done. From there, it was clear that Nazis who attacked Jews but allowed churches to operate were the lesser evil.
Gallagher is asking his fellow Catholics in particular, and his fellow Christians in general, to confront the ways that their beliefs have led to horrendous consequences. He is asking us all to pay attention to the possible resurgence of these beliefs in different forms.
The book is powerful. My caveat is that too often, the author repeats what antisemites believed without refuting it. He may think that these slanders and slurs are too absurd to need explicit rejection. As a Jew, I know that nothing is too absurd to be believed, and his book brilliantly illustrates that. I wish he had taken the time to say, "This was a lie."
December 22, 2021
Interesting book when describing the History but Gallagher's linking 1939 Boston to today's Trump got in my way. I was reading Herbert Butterfield's essay "The Whig Interpretation of History" in tandem with this book and would encourage Gallagher to read it too. His History of the Copley Square crowd would have been far better had he followed Butterfield's advice to write History with less reference to the present.
August 27, 2022
Dense at times and it took a long time to get to the meat of the story. Well worth reading as its lessons apply today.
March 13, 2022
Back and forth, back and forth, not nearly enough true unknown history.
July 28, 2022
A member of my dissertation committee wrote this! It’s a fascinating story along with one that illuminates various odd corners of history with academic chops, a rare combo. I know a fair amount about the history of fascism, and I knew very little about the Christian Front- and nobody knew some of the stuff Charlie, as I know him, uncovered before he published it.
The Christian Front was, basically, the street instantiation of the vision of American Catholic fascists like Charles Coughlin, a sort of radio-based catholic Glenn Beck figure for the thirties. Catholic meatheads flocked to Coughlin’s message and sought out conflict with the many enemy figures Coughlin pointed them to: communists (also a growing movement in the thirties), liberals, Jews. It was a weird moment in Catholic America, and here we’re mostly talking Irish Catholics though Italians, Poles etc come up sometimes too. Catholics were sort of outsider-insiders. They had been around for long enough, had dense enough populations especially in northern cities, and done enough of the assimilationist things — Charlie especially emphasizes Catholic participation in the American effort in the First World War — that they felt some ownership in Americanism. But this period saw the rise of an Americanism that was explicitly anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant, as exemplified by the resurgent KKK of the twenties, and a crippling economic depression. Perhaps it looked like they were, to borrow a line from a guy Christian Fronters wouldn’t have liked, assimilating into a burning house.
None of the Fronters say that- they’re all flag-waving Americans, even when they’re actively undermining American war efforts as some of them would go on to do. If nothing else, it’s hard to say what exactly an American Catholic anti-Americanism would look like… they’re hardly going to secede… in any event! The Christian Front became a thing on the scene, especially in New York and Boston, brawling with leftist groups, making speeches back when street corner speechifying was a big deal. There was already a custom of neighborhood conflict that you could paste an ideological skin on to.
One thing about eras of ideological ferment — the thirties, the sixties, right now — is that they allow nerds, goons, and pedants to take the things they’d do normally and dream of expanding them in terms of scope and importance. The brawls between Irish and Jewish kids suddenly aren’t just scraps between poor ethnics stuffed like rats into overcrowded cities, but part of some global conflict between Christianity and judeo-bolshevism; your clique of nerds and weirdos that you met in college aren’t just free-standing public assholes but a revolutionary vanguard. You can see why Christian Front people would think they could get real big, real fast. They had a deep well of American hatred and ignorance to tap into, and the classic fash assurance that the cops and the military are with them. So when a few got too big for their britches and started stealing and training with National Guard weapons, they were as surprised as anyone when they got pinched by the FBI.
The prosecution of the New York Christian Fronters has two main points of interest. The first is how the American Catholic establishment, both the actual church itself and politicians aligned with it, moved heaven and earth to get across two things: the Christian Front was no real threat; and that they had nothing official to do with the Church. Both are funny claims, true in some ways, but more revealing of how people in power understood political violence in this period than anything else.
The Christian Front was extremely unlikely to overthrow the American government, like Hoover’s FBI informants caught them saying they wanted to. That the FBI insisted on going after them for this — and not, say, for their many plans to indiscriminately attack Jewish targets, in the idea this would bring about a communist uprising that the Front would then help their pals in the police and the army repress — speaks to their priorities. Fascists are right that cops share a lot of their views (with soldiers, it usually depends on the makeup of the service in question). What they get caught up on is a powerful police service usually sees street fash as cats paws, at best, and have no intention of taking orders from them. Hoover’s FBI was quite strong- perhaps not as professional as it would eventually become, but Hoover felt no need to bend the knee to any would-be fuhrer. They don’t care that much if you bash up people they don’t like- they do care if you overstep, make more work for them.
The “are they Catholic?” part also has interesting historical questions attached. Charlie is a Jesuit along with being a historian, and an expert on the history of American Catholicism. In the fine Jesuit tradition, he does not evade intellectual responsibility: the Fronters were deeply invested in two Catholic doctrines that are either unpopular or officially derogated now, but were big deals at the time. One is the idea of the “mystical body of Christ,” that all Catholics are part of one body, and an injury to one is an injury to all, and to God. The other is “Catholic action,” which held that even if lay Catholics doing good works in the world couldn’t formally lay claim to the mana of the apostolic succession like priests could, they could claim to be doing the church’s work and deserve some kind of institutional recognition as such. Sometimes, these ideas inspired charity or even solidarity. Other times, they inspired fascism. American Catholics couldn’t claim to be systematically oppressed by the time the thirties came around, but as part of a “mystical body” with Russian, Mexican, or Spanish Catholics catching hell from leftists, they could take “Catholic action” and lash out at the supposed oppressors, and this usually meant Jews.
So, the church fathers and their political friends could tell the truth- no bishop made the New York Christian Front plan to bomb Jewish community centers. But they were wrong to say that the Front had nothing to do with Catholicism. The FBI flubbed the prosecution of the New York Front leaders, but they went relatively quiet after that. Much of the action, in the Front and in the book, shifted to Boston. In characteristic Boston fashion, the leader was less of a street orator and more of a pedant and a sneak. What Francis Moran’s plans lacked in outward violence compared to his New York comrades, they made up for in ambition and sly interweaving with existent community practices in the Boston area.
Francis Moran was a failed priest and failed businessman, a classic smart underachiever. If you think those sorts are bad now, throw in growing up in the urban overcrowding and sexual repression of the Catholic American milieu at the time and you’ve got Moran. He got into the Coughlin movement and found a talent for organizing and public speaking. He made the Christian Front into a local organizing force, getting at least implicit nods from big politicians like James Curley. He, like the New York Fronters, was lucky in his choice of prosecutors, bumbling Irish-American political cops who more than half agreed with him about Jews and leftists.
The war was probably the worst thing to happen to all of these little fash chieftains, and before it happened, before even aligning with Hitler, they wanted to make sure no such thing happened. In fact, this was a substantial part of their appeal. It’s a historical tragedy that the American people almost learned a lesson from the First World War — don’t let the British gull you into winning their stupid imperialist wars for them — just in time for the one time in history when that lesson was, in fact, invalid. A lot of people were slow to pick up that Nazi Germany was a different beast than the Kaiserreich (and yes, I get the latter was no picnic either, I’m a socialist), didn’t want to believe it. And of course, plenty thought that the Nazi program sounded good. But once the war was on, it was pretty hard to sustain American patriotism — which all of the fash groups, then as now, lay at least some claim to — while supporting other fascists, to say nothing of the massive expansion of police power that came with.
One of Charlie’s big discoveries is that Moran was working with the Nazi consul in Boston, a creepy SS intellectual named Herbert Stoltz. There were limits to what Gallagher could find or what Moran could provide- it mostly looks like Stoltz cultivated Moran as a potentially useful asset to sow discord in an important population center, should the US go to war. It seems that both the FBI and antifascist researchers — led by an indefatigable Irish-American Catholic leftist, Frances Sweeney — had at least some evidence that this was the case, but were unable (or, perhaps, in the FBI’s case, unwilling) to bring Moran down, especially after the Boston cops muddied the waters. Moran might have passed on intelligence, but more than anything it looks like Stoltz valued Moran as a political actor, a counterweight to pressure for America to join the war on the British side, and to spread a mood of defeatism and general shittiness that would make America less effective if it did jump in.
Charlie also discovered that the Nazis weren’t the only foreign intelligence agency active in Boston at the time. British intelligence also funded political groups to bring America into the war, precisely the sort of thing Moran and others crowed about. The British intelligence and foreign policy establishment were especially worried about Irish-Americans impeding the political campaign for intervention and possibly the war effort itself. They set up Irish American groups to try to counter groups like the Christian Front, with little success. Frances Sweeney got her start working for an MI-6-funded front group, though she continued pursuing Boston fascists well after the British got what they wanted, American involvement in the war, and gave up funding local antifascism.
Likely Moran’s most lasting legacy — he left politics in the forties, never recanted, and lived out his days as a reference librarian at the Boston Public Library — was his work to radicalize the already extant antisemitism of the Boston Irish. This, more than anything involving the war, is what local antifascists like Frances Sweeney were fighting hard to abate. There was serious antisemitic violence in Boston in 1943, as mostly Irish-American gangs coordinated attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions, aided and abetted by the largely Irish Boston Police Department, and ignored by the largely Irish-American political leadership of the city. Evidence Charlie dug up, including statements Moran made to FBI and antifascist infiltrators, suggests that Moran worked hard from underground to encourage this violence to go from the endemic condition of urban life to serious, planned assaults. Things only cooled down once the national media started paying attention.
One of Moran’s last recorded political statements was that he thought the returning veterans of the war would join him in sorting out “the Jewish problem.” Perhaps this is why he felt comfortable taking the heat off the Boston burner after the riots in 1943. It didn’t quite work out that way for him. But in other respects, Moran accomplished a good amount of what he set out to. He helped sew antisemitism into the fabric of twentieth century Catholic life in the area, and helped make a pigheaded authoritarianism a prime expression of Boston Catholic identity, especially among the Irish. It might sound like the community didn’t need much help with that, and there’s truth to that crack. But the twentieth century put a lot of pressure on the circuit between bigotry, conservatism, and ethnic identity in the US, and things could have gone a different way. What Moran showed was that you could get away with a lot, as a white bigot, through sly cultivation of publicity and politicians, playing that half-blind wrestling ref that is mainstream liberalism for all that it’s worth.
What this reminded me of was, in part, the fascists I fight here, but more the population base they seek to reach: those sullen pasty faces in the suburbs, the progeny of the mobs Moran once moved, feeling that glowering itch to stamp out anything or anyone who would make the world better than a bad night at one of their shitty sports bars. It’s up to us to disconnect the circuit between their resentments and the ability to harm others, once and for all. This book doesn’t show us how, or purports to, but it’s a fascinating read with some unfortunate contemporary resonances. *****
The Christian Front was, basically, the street instantiation of the vision of American Catholic fascists like Charles Coughlin, a sort of radio-based catholic Glenn Beck figure for the thirties. Catholic meatheads flocked to Coughlin’s message and sought out conflict with the many enemy figures Coughlin pointed them to: communists (also a growing movement in the thirties), liberals, Jews. It was a weird moment in Catholic America, and here we’re mostly talking Irish Catholics though Italians, Poles etc come up sometimes too. Catholics were sort of outsider-insiders. They had been around for long enough, had dense enough populations especially in northern cities, and done enough of the assimilationist things — Charlie especially emphasizes Catholic participation in the American effort in the First World War — that they felt some ownership in Americanism. But this period saw the rise of an Americanism that was explicitly anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant, as exemplified by the resurgent KKK of the twenties, and a crippling economic depression. Perhaps it looked like they were, to borrow a line from a guy Christian Fronters wouldn’t have liked, assimilating into a burning house.
None of the Fronters say that- they’re all flag-waving Americans, even when they’re actively undermining American war efforts as some of them would go on to do. If nothing else, it’s hard to say what exactly an American Catholic anti-Americanism would look like… they’re hardly going to secede… in any event! The Christian Front became a thing on the scene, especially in New York and Boston, brawling with leftist groups, making speeches back when street corner speechifying was a big deal. There was already a custom of neighborhood conflict that you could paste an ideological skin on to.
One thing about eras of ideological ferment — the thirties, the sixties, right now — is that they allow nerds, goons, and pedants to take the things they’d do normally and dream of expanding them in terms of scope and importance. The brawls between Irish and Jewish kids suddenly aren’t just scraps between poor ethnics stuffed like rats into overcrowded cities, but part of some global conflict between Christianity and judeo-bolshevism; your clique of nerds and weirdos that you met in college aren’t just free-standing public assholes but a revolutionary vanguard. You can see why Christian Front people would think they could get real big, real fast. They had a deep well of American hatred and ignorance to tap into, and the classic fash assurance that the cops and the military are with them. So when a few got too big for their britches and started stealing and training with National Guard weapons, they were as surprised as anyone when they got pinched by the FBI.
The prosecution of the New York Christian Fronters has two main points of interest. The first is how the American Catholic establishment, both the actual church itself and politicians aligned with it, moved heaven and earth to get across two things: the Christian Front was no real threat; and that they had nothing official to do with the Church. Both are funny claims, true in some ways, but more revealing of how people in power understood political violence in this period than anything else.
The Christian Front was extremely unlikely to overthrow the American government, like Hoover’s FBI informants caught them saying they wanted to. That the FBI insisted on going after them for this — and not, say, for their many plans to indiscriminately attack Jewish targets, in the idea this would bring about a communist uprising that the Front would then help their pals in the police and the army repress — speaks to their priorities. Fascists are right that cops share a lot of their views (with soldiers, it usually depends on the makeup of the service in question). What they get caught up on is a powerful police service usually sees street fash as cats paws, at best, and have no intention of taking orders from them. Hoover’s FBI was quite strong- perhaps not as professional as it would eventually become, but Hoover felt no need to bend the knee to any would-be fuhrer. They don’t care that much if you bash up people they don’t like- they do care if you overstep, make more work for them.
The “are they Catholic?” part also has interesting historical questions attached. Charlie is a Jesuit along with being a historian, and an expert on the history of American Catholicism. In the fine Jesuit tradition, he does not evade intellectual responsibility: the Fronters were deeply invested in two Catholic doctrines that are either unpopular or officially derogated now, but were big deals at the time. One is the idea of the “mystical body of Christ,” that all Catholics are part of one body, and an injury to one is an injury to all, and to God. The other is “Catholic action,” which held that even if lay Catholics doing good works in the world couldn’t formally lay claim to the mana of the apostolic succession like priests could, they could claim to be doing the church’s work and deserve some kind of institutional recognition as such. Sometimes, these ideas inspired charity or even solidarity. Other times, they inspired fascism. American Catholics couldn’t claim to be systematically oppressed by the time the thirties came around, but as part of a “mystical body” with Russian, Mexican, or Spanish Catholics catching hell from leftists, they could take “Catholic action” and lash out at the supposed oppressors, and this usually meant Jews.
So, the church fathers and their political friends could tell the truth- no bishop made the New York Christian Front plan to bomb Jewish community centers. But they were wrong to say that the Front had nothing to do with Catholicism. The FBI flubbed the prosecution of the New York Front leaders, but they went relatively quiet after that. Much of the action, in the Front and in the book, shifted to Boston. In characteristic Boston fashion, the leader was less of a street orator and more of a pedant and a sneak. What Francis Moran’s plans lacked in outward violence compared to his New York comrades, they made up for in ambition and sly interweaving with existent community practices in the Boston area.
Francis Moran was a failed priest and failed businessman, a classic smart underachiever. If you think those sorts are bad now, throw in growing up in the urban overcrowding and sexual repression of the Catholic American milieu at the time and you’ve got Moran. He got into the Coughlin movement and found a talent for organizing and public speaking. He made the Christian Front into a local organizing force, getting at least implicit nods from big politicians like James Curley. He, like the New York Fronters, was lucky in his choice of prosecutors, bumbling Irish-American political cops who more than half agreed with him about Jews and leftists.
The war was probably the worst thing to happen to all of these little fash chieftains, and before it happened, before even aligning with Hitler, they wanted to make sure no such thing happened. In fact, this was a substantial part of their appeal. It’s a historical tragedy that the American people almost learned a lesson from the First World War — don’t let the British gull you into winning their stupid imperialist wars for them — just in time for the one time in history when that lesson was, in fact, invalid. A lot of people were slow to pick up that Nazi Germany was a different beast than the Kaiserreich (and yes, I get the latter was no picnic either, I’m a socialist), didn’t want to believe it. And of course, plenty thought that the Nazi program sounded good. But once the war was on, it was pretty hard to sustain American patriotism — which all of the fash groups, then as now, lay at least some claim to — while supporting other fascists, to say nothing of the massive expansion of police power that came with.
One of Charlie’s big discoveries is that Moran was working with the Nazi consul in Boston, a creepy SS intellectual named Herbert Stoltz. There were limits to what Gallagher could find or what Moran could provide- it mostly looks like Stoltz cultivated Moran as a potentially useful asset to sow discord in an important population center, should the US go to war. It seems that both the FBI and antifascist researchers — led by an indefatigable Irish-American Catholic leftist, Frances Sweeney — had at least some evidence that this was the case, but were unable (or, perhaps, in the FBI’s case, unwilling) to bring Moran down, especially after the Boston cops muddied the waters. Moran might have passed on intelligence, but more than anything it looks like Stoltz valued Moran as a political actor, a counterweight to pressure for America to join the war on the British side, and to spread a mood of defeatism and general shittiness that would make America less effective if it did jump in.
Charlie also discovered that the Nazis weren’t the only foreign intelligence agency active in Boston at the time. British intelligence also funded political groups to bring America into the war, precisely the sort of thing Moran and others crowed about. The British intelligence and foreign policy establishment were especially worried about Irish-Americans impeding the political campaign for intervention and possibly the war effort itself. They set up Irish American groups to try to counter groups like the Christian Front, with little success. Frances Sweeney got her start working for an MI-6-funded front group, though she continued pursuing Boston fascists well after the British got what they wanted, American involvement in the war, and gave up funding local antifascism.
Likely Moran’s most lasting legacy — he left politics in the forties, never recanted, and lived out his days as a reference librarian at the Boston Public Library — was his work to radicalize the already extant antisemitism of the Boston Irish. This, more than anything involving the war, is what local antifascists like Frances Sweeney were fighting hard to abate. There was serious antisemitic violence in Boston in 1943, as mostly Irish-American gangs coordinated attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions, aided and abetted by the largely Irish Boston Police Department, and ignored by the largely Irish-American political leadership of the city. Evidence Charlie dug up, including statements Moran made to FBI and antifascist infiltrators, suggests that Moran worked hard from underground to encourage this violence to go from the endemic condition of urban life to serious, planned assaults. Things only cooled down once the national media started paying attention.
One of Moran’s last recorded political statements was that he thought the returning veterans of the war would join him in sorting out “the Jewish problem.” Perhaps this is why he felt comfortable taking the heat off the Boston burner after the riots in 1943. It didn’t quite work out that way for him. But in other respects, Moran accomplished a good amount of what he set out to. He helped sew antisemitism into the fabric of twentieth century Catholic life in the area, and helped make a pigheaded authoritarianism a prime expression of Boston Catholic identity, especially among the Irish. It might sound like the community didn’t need much help with that, and there’s truth to that crack. But the twentieth century put a lot of pressure on the circuit between bigotry, conservatism, and ethnic identity in the US, and things could have gone a different way. What Moran showed was that you could get away with a lot, as a white bigot, through sly cultivation of publicity and politicians, playing that half-blind wrestling ref that is mainstream liberalism for all that it’s worth.
What this reminded me of was, in part, the fascists I fight here, but more the population base they seek to reach: those sullen pasty faces in the suburbs, the progeny of the mobs Moran once moved, feeling that glowering itch to stamp out anything or anyone who would make the world better than a bad night at one of their shitty sports bars. It’s up to us to disconnect the circuit between their resentments and the ability to harm others, once and for all. This book doesn’t show us how, or purports to, but it’s a fascinating read with some unfortunate contemporary resonances. *****
May 29, 2023
American entanglement with Christian Nationalism goes much farther back into history than I realized. This book chronicles the players and plots of foreign propaganda, Christian theological influence and American homegrown terrorism around the uncertainty of communism and American participation in WWII.
This book get weighty at times with dates details and overlapping threads but is well researched dive into a historical story that could look pretty familiar to observers of American politics and society today.
This book get weighty at times with dates details and overlapping threads but is well researched dive into a historical story that could look pretty familiar to observers of American politics and society today.
Read
March 7, 2025A stunning (despite being or perhaps because it is so little known) history book about what seems at first glance to be a straight up fascist group of antisemitic militants in New York and Boston in the 1930s and 1940s. This extraordinary and richly researched account uncovers the activities of the "Christian Front," which had an impact disproportionate to their small numbers. Most importantly for me, it also analyzes the ideology behind that movement in great detail -- showing that for Charles Coughlin and Francis Moran, antisemitism was entirely compatible with Catholic theology. Indeed, according to their twisted world view, the obvious-to-them inevitable enmity between Catholicism and communism and the equally obvious-to-them (but -let there be no mistake about this - utterly fallacious) natural alliance between Judaism and Bolshevism (the Judeo-Bolshevist lie) made antisemitism a necessity. These are not likable characters. One does learn about brave Frances Sweeney, who died at 36 of rheumatic heart failure and still managed in her short time on earth to stand up heroically to Catholic antisemitism in Boston. That she was, unbeknownst to her, financed by British espionage networks trying to convince Americans to support a war against Hitler's Germany does not diminish her own integrity.
This is a very detailed and nevertheless readable account that will interest anyone who would like to know more about this unknown chapter of US history.
This is a very detailed and nevertheless readable account that will interest anyone who would like to know more about this unknown chapter of US history.
October 17, 2021
This is a damnable book on all levels. I first read about in a review in the Sunday Globe. I wish that there was a greater level of interest in this book. Catholicism. Anti-judaism. Suborning the ideals of Christianity with the evil of National Socialism--Nazi....The weddness of Irish Hatred of Englishism because of past practices of English horrors against the Irish. Treason. Aiding and abetting foreign agents against your own country. One person revolutionary is another person political hero. This country was founded on revolution...contesting the right of Mother/Father English the right to dictate what can and cannot be done. None of the characters in this book win the Epinard of Grace award. The investigators...the agents german and irish....American politicians ..the religious right-left-center all dawdled in their own way. Its funny this book was the born because of the antics occurring in Washington. Violations of the Foreign Agent act have always occurred. What the author fails to mention that these behaviours were the preceptors of what occurred in the Joe McCarthy years.. Again I say this is a damnable book. I just wish more people would read this book. Its stunning in its breadth and scope.
February 16, 2022
Delving into the stories of events and people that have had an important impact -- for good or for ill -- but that have been forgotten or willfully ignored, is one of the most important jobs for historians. In this book Charles Gallagher digs up so many details and background incidents, it's almost hard to follow. It's not that Father Charles Coughlin has been forgotten; nor has the Christian Front disappeared from historical accounts of Boston and New York in the years surrounding World War II. But what had never been exposed -- at least not to me -- is how and why Coughlin's disciples, especially Francis Moran of Boston, were so successful for so long with their support of Adolf Hitler. Charles Gallagher digs deep and explains it all very well.
May 19, 2023
Perhaps you have listened to the podcast, "Ultra", produced by Rachel Maddow, which looks at the espionage and sabotage program in the United States in the lead-up to WWII. If not, you should. If you have already been there, you will know about this book on the seditious Nazi collaboration with Catholic Irish-Americans in Boston (the so-called Christian Front) in the period from 1939 - 1944. The author has done an excellent job of researching and describing the events and personalities of that Nazi project, and particularly the role played by Catholic theology and by prominent Catholic clerics, including the infamous Father Coughlin, in promoting violent anti-Semitism and outright sedition among the flock. Gallagher also makes the connection between the right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism, and violent sedition of the Christian Front and the recent instances of violence by racist extremists in the events in Charlottesville and the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
We might add the 1863 draft riots in New York City, for another significant and infamous example, showing that violent racist sedition has been a repeating theme in our culture. Having grown up myself in an Irish-American and Catholic family, I look at this history with a sense of shame and concern. What is it about our culture that breeds such atrocious behavior? Why does the Church so often end up siding with or quietly accommodating the fascists?
Frances Sweeney, who offered brave and effective resistance to the anti-semitism and pro-fascist sedition of the Christian Front in Boston, is the hero of the story for me, and a reminder of the remarkable power for good of even a single courageous, determined, and resourceful individual. On the other hand, the Christian Front reminds us all that, after two thousand years, the people who claim most ardently to be followers of Jesus the Christ are as likely to engage in racist violence and anti-democratic sedition as any atheist - perhaps more likely. It turns out that it is not so hard to turn religion into an engine that moves us to hate and kill, even a religion that calls us to love one another, even our enemies.
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We might add the 1863 draft riots in New York City, for another significant and infamous example, showing that violent racist sedition has been a repeating theme in our culture. Having grown up myself in an Irish-American and Catholic family, I look at this history with a sense of shame and concern. What is it about our culture that breeds such atrocious behavior? Why does the Church so often end up siding with or quietly accommodating the fascists?
Frances Sweeney, who offered brave and effective resistance to the anti-semitism and pro-fascist sedition of the Christian Front in Boston, is the hero of the story for me, and a reminder of the remarkable power for good of even a single courageous, determined, and resourceful individual. On the other hand, the Christian Front reminds us all that, after two thousand years, the people who claim most ardently to be followers of Jesus the Christ are as likely to engage in racist violence and anti-democratic sedition as any atheist - perhaps more likely. It turns out that it is not so hard to turn religion into an engine that moves us to hate and kill, even a religion that calls us to love one another, even our enemies.
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February 17, 2023
I listened to Rachel Maddow's podcast, Ultra. The author of Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front, Charles R. Gallagher was a contributor to one of the episodes. This book follows one of the threads of Maddow's podcast, the Christian Front, particularly in Boston.
As Hitler rose to power, there were some in the US that admired him and wanted the US to follow his example. They felt that Nazism was a strong force against the godless communists (and, sub rosa, the Jews). The German government encouraged these movements in hopes of keeping the US out of the war. This book focuses on Charles Moran of the Christian Front in Boston, the support provided by the German Consulate in Boston, and by the misses of authorities to contain him. This is a fascinating story that has echoes in the present.
The book is somewhat academic and my Kindle copy was in need of better editing, but very much worth reading to understand US history.
As Hitler rose to power, there were some in the US that admired him and wanted the US to follow his example. They felt that Nazism was a strong force against the godless communists (and, sub rosa, the Jews). The German government encouraged these movements in hopes of keeping the US out of the war. This book focuses on Charles Moran of the Christian Front in Boston, the support provided by the German Consulate in Boston, and by the misses of authorities to contain him. This is a fascinating story that has echoes in the present.
The book is somewhat academic and my Kindle copy was in need of better editing, but very much worth reading to understand US history.
December 11, 2025
This book makes me annoyed at people. And possibly the author. And it inspires a bunch of questions. In particular, what about the environment in the 1930's and 1940's inspired such a strong A vs B situation in local, national and world politics. (Specifically, fascism v communism.) Why weren't other viewpoints available - or more specifically, why weren't there other approaches more predemoniant?
The book clearly written by a historian - it is loaded with facts and people and more facts and more people. And if you read it in spurts, rather than all in one sitting, it is easy to get lost in the plethora of characters in this book.
Amazingly, most of the action happens over the course of a year or two, though the author has to backtrack in time and jump forward where relevant.
Given the title, I was expecting more of a major conflict or culmination of all the action, but it felt somewhat anti-climatic. Yes, there was anti-semitic violence in Boston associated with the main character/organization of the book, but it seemed to be tacked on at the end and not a major part of the story.
And of course, the whole point of the book is that no one really remembers that the Christian Front and Francis Moran even existed - even though the influence and their kind of thinking seems to have survived even to the present day.
The book clearly written by a historian - it is loaded with facts and people and more facts and more people. And if you read it in spurts, rather than all in one sitting, it is easy to get lost in the plethora of characters in this book.
Amazingly, most of the action happens over the course of a year or two, though the author has to backtrack in time and jump forward where relevant.
Given the title, I was expecting more of a major conflict or culmination of all the action, but it felt somewhat anti-climatic. Yes, there was anti-semitic violence in Boston associated with the main character/organization of the book, but it seemed to be tacked on at the end and not a major part of the story.
And of course, the whole point of the book is that no one really remembers that the Christian Front and Francis Moran even existed - even though the influence and their kind of thinking seems to have survived even to the present day.
September 29, 2023
I grew up Catholic, and, from college to my mid-30s, I faithfully attended church every day. In my late 30s, I joined the Episcopal church. I’m currently unchurched.
(If I could point you to a turning point in my faith journey…..)
In 1917, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to 3 little children in Fatima, Portugal. She warned these children of the horror of Communism.
Fatima never appealed to me. (Apparitions are not dogma, and no Catholic is obliged to believe in them.)
I once asked a priest, “Why did Mary warn about Communism, not the Holocaust?”
He replied that Communism is the greater evil and Communism could take over the world. (Apparently, Hitler was content to stay within Germany’s borders?)
Gallagher explores anti-Semitism in New York and Boston in the 1930s and the embrace of Hitler from the pulpit. Anti-Semitism was fueled by fear of Communists.
These priests misinterpreted Catholic theology to justify their bigotry.
Gallagher stresses that the Mystical Body and deicide beliefs are no longer accepted in the Catholic Church.
Lay Catholics (notably, a woman) were horrified that Christ was manipulated into hatred of Jews and battled against anti-Semitic former seminarians and priests.
This was the best part of the history.
Words are important and, often, precede violence.
Overall, though, as with many other topics, Ken Burns explains it better.
(If I could point you to a turning point in my faith journey…..)
In 1917, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to 3 little children in Fatima, Portugal. She warned these children of the horror of Communism.
Fatima never appealed to me. (Apparitions are not dogma, and no Catholic is obliged to believe in them.)
I once asked a priest, “Why did Mary warn about Communism, not the Holocaust?”
He replied that Communism is the greater evil and Communism could take over the world. (Apparently, Hitler was content to stay within Germany’s borders?)
Gallagher explores anti-Semitism in New York and Boston in the 1930s and the embrace of Hitler from the pulpit. Anti-Semitism was fueled by fear of Communists.
These priests misinterpreted Catholic theology to justify their bigotry.
Gallagher stresses that the Mystical Body and deicide beliefs are no longer accepted in the Catholic Church.
Lay Catholics (notably, a woman) were horrified that Christ was manipulated into hatred of Jews and battled against anti-Semitic former seminarians and priests.
This was the best part of the history.
Words are important and, often, precede violence.
Overall, though, as with many other topics, Ken Burns explains it better.
April 28, 2022
Detailed account of the Christian Front in Boston about 1938-1943. The sadness is the way Jewish Bostonians were treated by Irish youths and adults. The bad guy is Francis Moran, helped by a Nazi diplomat who died free in his homeland. The good gal is Frances Sweeney, subsidized in her laudable efforts by the British Intelligence. Others may complain that the author displays too much of his research, but his background digging is most helpful. I wish he had reported on the switch from William Cardinal O'Connell ("Gangplank Bill") to Richard Cushing in 1944. I believe that Cushing did not tolerate anti-Semitism.
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Until I read this book, I did not realize that the doctrine of the Mystical Body and the top-down shape of Catholic Action could be easily misused.
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I also wish he had mentioned "The Death of an American Jewish Community" by Hillel Levine and Lawrence Harmon, at least in a footnote.
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Until I read this book, I did not realize that the doctrine of the Mystical Body and the top-down shape of Catholic Action could be easily misused.
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I also wish he had mentioned "The Death of an American Jewish Community" by Hillel Levine and Lawrence Harmon, at least in a footnote.
September 4, 2022
I did not finish Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front by Charles Gallagher, a on fiction work from 2021. I hoped when I started this book that it would illuminate the anti Communist hysteria and the phenomenon of rabid radio commentators like Fr Coughlin in the 1930’s. I was slightly deceived that the book would focus on Boston area activities’ maybe it did but I gave up. There are some comparisons that can be made between America of the Thirties versus America of today with media types manipulating “the story” to serve their interests. This book goes into excruciating detail the philsophical extremism of some members of the Catholic Church including priests and laity to combat the Communist threat, going so far as to cozy up to Nazi’s (long before their horror was fully known). I found the book dwelled on minor players and details unimportant to the big picture; a missed opportunity to compare to the turmoil of our times.
March 18, 2024
Gallagher tells the story of the Christian Front which operated in the late 30s to the early 40s. Headed by Francis Moran the group subscribed to the Judeo-Bolshevist myth, believing that Jews were all involved in Communist conspiracies. Receiving support from influential Catholic priests such as Father Coughlin of radio fame, the group spread anti-Semitism and attempted to keep the US out of World War II in so far as they viewed fascism as a bulwark against Communism. Moran in fact was a propaganda agent working for the German ambassador to the US.
While the history of the group is interesting in itself, it also provides a strand in the history of contemporary Christian Nationalism. In that sense the book provides insight into a troubling aspect of our current politics. (I gave the book 4 stars rather than 5 because I thought the presentation and narrative were not as well organized as they could have been. It’s really about a 4.5.)
While the history of the group is interesting in itself, it also provides a strand in the history of contemporary Christian Nationalism. In that sense the book provides insight into a troubling aspect of our current politics. (I gave the book 4 stars rather than 5 because I thought the presentation and narrative were not as well organized as they could have been. It’s really about a 4.5.)
January 25, 2023
Pretty remarkable.
We Americans had lots of Nazi sympathizes, many or most of them associated with the Catholic church, and law enforcement was to inept to realize they were Nazi agents!
The focus of the text is on the Christian Front, based in New York and Boston; the former was virtually terrorist, and the latter more "intellectual." And Francis Moran, the head of the Boston branch, was an agent of SS officer Stoltz.
My "objection" to the book is that the author saw more conspiracies, influences by, for example, the Communist Party and/or British intelligence. While they may have had some influence, like our own intelligence services would have on our rivals, I doubt that the influence was that formidable.
It's an element of our own history that's important to note, and its based on today's US anti-Semitism which seems to be picking up steam.
We Americans had lots of Nazi sympathizes, many or most of them associated with the Catholic church, and law enforcement was to inept to realize they were Nazi agents!
The focus of the text is on the Christian Front, based in New York and Boston; the former was virtually terrorist, and the latter more "intellectual." And Francis Moran, the head of the Boston branch, was an agent of SS officer Stoltz.
My "objection" to the book is that the author saw more conspiracies, influences by, for example, the Communist Party and/or British intelligence. While they may have had some influence, like our own intelligence services would have on our rivals, I doubt that the influence was that formidable.
It's an element of our own history that's important to note, and its based on today's US anti-Semitism which seems to be picking up steam.
May 29, 2023
This book offers valuable research bringing to light a little-known story about the Christian Front, a primarily Catholic right-wing group active in 1930s and 40s New York and Boston. The author argues convincingly that the Christian Front organized both laity and clergy motivated by anti-Communism and Antisemitism. The Front became involved in efforts aimed at undermining the U.S. government and plotting terror to prevent U.S. entry in the war against Nazi Germany. The book has compelling narratives and arguments to show Catholics with flawed moral reasoning following complicated theologies, since discredited, while losing focus on the teachings of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. The author connects this history to recent events where religion is invoked to support authoritarianism, fascism, and militarism.
August 8, 2024
This is a painstakingly researched examination of a largely forgotten chapter in the history of right-wing extremist groups in the United States.
Gallagher analyzes the roots of Catholic antisemitism, locating its origins in the false charge of deicide leveled against the Jewish people. In tracing how Catholic anti-Judaism married antisemitic Nazi tropes about “Judeo-Bolshevism”, he demonstrates how easily some people in New York City’s and Boston’s Irish Catholic communities came under the sway of a Catholic organization pushing vile theories — with priestly backing.
Add to the mix Nazi espionage activities in the US as well as Irish Catholic anti-British sentiment which precluded supporting America’s entry into World War 11 and you have a narrative that reads at times like a thriller. Sadly though, this story is all too true.
Gallagher analyzes the roots of Catholic antisemitism, locating its origins in the false charge of deicide leveled against the Jewish people. In tracing how Catholic anti-Judaism married antisemitic Nazi tropes about “Judeo-Bolshevism”, he demonstrates how easily some people in New York City’s and Boston’s Irish Catholic communities came under the sway of a Catholic organization pushing vile theories — with priestly backing.
Add to the mix Nazi espionage activities in the US as well as Irish Catholic anti-British sentiment which precluded supporting America’s entry into World War 11 and you have a narrative that reads at times like a thriller. Sadly though, this story is all too true.
July 9, 2022
(3.5 stars) When we look back at WWII, the current mythology doesn’t allow for much divergence from America being all-in. The Nazis always were and always will be evil. Yet, there were segments of America that were very sympathetic to the Nazi aims. Hence there was the Christian Front, a far right Catholic organization that came to be anti-Semitic, anti-Roosevelt and pro-Nazi. The US kept tabs on them, but it gained a strong following, especially in Catholic Boston. Even after the war started, the Christian Front, with the help of Nazi operatives, still maintained influence in the US. They were eventually stopped, but the idea of using religious affiliation to espouse anti-Semitic, anti-US views, is still a part of the US system today. A tough read, but overall solid.
January 22, 2023
I wanted to like this book more. The subject matter is fascinating and it is clearly researched to the hilt. There is so much primary material the author was able to draw on, it was sometimes hard to keep track of all the characters and vignettes. The closing pages of the book were eloquent and poignant connecting these events in the 1930s and ‘40s to the reemergence of fascist movements and Christian nationalism in the world today - inside and outside the U.S. I would have loved for the author to explore those themes in greater detail.
I was disappointed to come across more than a dozen typos - words that were either missing or doubled in a sentence - which really took me out of the reading experience. Hopefully those can me remedied in future editions.
I was disappointed to come across more than a dozen typos - words that were either missing or doubled in a sentence - which really took me out of the reading experience. Hopefully those can me remedied in future editions.
December 10, 2023
This is a very interesting book. It helps to know something of the period. Stanley Payne's book on "The Spanish Civil War" would be a good book to read before reading this. Imagine... Catholics in American taking the side of Catholics in Spain against the Communists during the 1930s? Seems like a commonsense position to take, doesn't it? But wait! The evil Nazi Hitler was supporting the Catholics in Spain! and so was the evil fascist Mussolini! So these Copley Square Nazis must have been on the wrong side, right? or were they? America and the Soviet Union were backing the Communists at the time. And the takeover of America by Communism had already begun.
July 13, 2024
He takes forever to get around to what they did and it comes down to one guy gassed up a couple people to beat up Jewish people, a thing Boston people have NEVER needed any inducement (google Mark Wahlberg Vietnamese Man Blind) to do. He seemed to be an active Nazi who WANTED to overthrow the government and managed to do nothing despite all the cops being either incompetent or open nazis on his side. There is a good bit at the end about how all of this (including nazi cops) is the more things change the more they stay the same, abetted by liberal pieties and enforced historical amnesia about what a wonderful place America is and Americans are.
July 31, 2024
It truly pains me to say this because I WANT to be able to say this book is amazing, given that it was written by a clergyman and NOT a writer.
But in truth I'm afraid I must report that this book is dry, LONG, and rather difficult to get through. I gave up at the 2/3 mark, a rare thing for me.
And this information is presented much better in any of several other media.
I'm SUPER grateful that father Gallagher wrote this book, as it served as primary source for some of that other material, but unless you yourself are a serious historical scholar doing research I can't recommend this book for a casual or even casually studious read.
But in truth I'm afraid I must report that this book is dry, LONG, and rather difficult to get through. I gave up at the 2/3 mark, a rare thing for me.
And this information is presented much better in any of several other media.
I'm SUPER grateful that father Gallagher wrote this book, as it served as primary source for some of that other material, but unless you yourself are a serious historical scholar doing research I can't recommend this book for a casual or even casually studious read.
October 18, 2022
The author has, I think, two reasons for writing this book. First to illustrate a movement in US history few people know. Second to show what happens when a little -known but important episode in our history is ignored. His point is that most historians do not spend time on this Christian antisemitic facist movement because it is deemed too insignificant to be taken seriously. Unfortunately that ommission enabled a similar movement to return to the forefront. Unfortunately this is not written in a manner that captures the reader's attention. A bit of a slog.
December 21, 2022
This is an attention-getting title for those of us in the Boston area. And it is, in fact, about Nazi sympathizers in the 1930s and 40s in Boston, specifically Irish Catholic Nazis. They were often disciples of Father Charles Coughlin, an antisemitic priest with a radio show. It's an interesting topic, but the writing style is very dry. One interesting historical figure the book introduced me to, though, is Frances Sweeney, a Catholic journalist who fought AGAINST antisemitism- I'd be interested to read a whole book on her, but I don't think there is one.
March 10, 2023
I came to this book after hearing the author interviewed on Rachel Maddow's podcast, Ultra. I was interested in doing a deep dive into some of the issues regarding Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. during WWII that were raised in the podcast. This book didn't disappoint; it is a well-researched and written volume that describes in great detail the Christian Front in Boston before and during WW II. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in the topic, or more broadly, the rise of right wing groups in contemporary society.
November 9, 2023
Gallagher’s recounting of this lost American history is thorough, detailed and well documented. It’s is also an enjoyable and easy read in a troubling subject. Given the current political and social environment we find ourselves in America in 2023, his book presents the opportunity for us be aware of our history, recognize the ways it is repeating itself today (and it is) and to be able to respond more effectively (hopefully) today than we did in the past.
Truly a book for our time.
Prof. James H. Andrews
Truly a book for our time.
Prof. James H. Andrews
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