Edward McGlynn

Overview

Father Edward McGlynn (1837–1900) was the pastor of St. Stephen's Roman Catholic Church in New York City and, from 1886, Henry George's closest political ally and most controversial supporter. McGlynn counselled George to accept the 1886 labour nomination for Mayor of New York — George's son called the resulting acceptance letter, drafted after the consultation, McGlynn's "master stroke" — and his public backing of George's candidacy, in defiance of Archbishop Michael Corrigan's direct order, triggered a Church conflict that ran for a year: suspension during the campaign, removal from his parish in January 1887, and formal excommunication on 3 July 1887 after McGlynn refused a summons to Rome to answer for his land doctrines.[1]

The 1886 Campaign and the Church Conflict

Archbishop Corrigan had warned McGlynn in advance not to speak at a pro-George rally at Chickering Hall in October 1886; McGlynn spoke anyway — "as if he expected that night to be his last," by one account — and was suspended for two weeks days after the election.[1] When Corrigan then obtained a cable summons ordering McGlynn to Rome, he refused on health grounds (he had heart disease) and doubled down publicly: "I have taught and shall continue to teach... that land is rightfully the property of the people in common and that private ownership of land is against natural justice, no matter by what civil or ecclesiastical laws it may be sanctioned."[1] George championed McGlynn's case in the first issues of his new weekly The Standard, comparing the impending excommunication to the persecution of Galileo. The Archbishop removed McGlynn from St. Stephen's in January 1887 — his replacement took possession of the rectory in McGlynn's absence and later tore his name from the parish confessional — and Rome excommunicated him that July for defying the summons.[1] McGlynn maintained throughout that he remained a Catholic and a priest.

Reinstatement, December 1892. McGlynn continued preaching the single tax through the Anti-Poverty Society for five years under the ban. Pope Leo XIII eventually sent Archbishop Francesco Satolli to the United States as his representative; at Rev. Richard Burtsell's urging, Satolli asked McGlynn to submit a full written statement of his land doctrine. A committee of theologians at the Catholic University of America (Revs. Bouquillon, O'Gorman, Shahan, and Grannan) reviewed it and found "nothing contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church." McGlynn made a profession of adherence to the Church and the Holy See, reserved the right to keep expounding the single tax "at Cooper Union or elsewhere," and Satolli formally lifted the excommunication in December 1892 — Archbishop Corrigan, per George's account, was "completely flabbergasted" by Rome's reversal of his own condemnation.[1] George read the reinstatement as vindicating his own 1891 Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII, writing that the Church's highest authority had now "declared in the most emphatic manner that there is nothing in [single-tax doctrines] inconsistent with the Catholic faith."[1] McGlynn did not return to a parish until December 1894, when he was appointed to Newburgh, New York.[1]

The Anti-Poverty Society

In 1887 McGlynn became founding president of the Anti-Poverty Society, with George as vice-president, formed to carry the land question into New York's tenement districts through mass Sunday meetings; its first meeting at Chickering Hall on 1 May 1887 packed the hall and, per George's account in The Standard, ended with the crowd cheering the Lord's Prayer.[1] McGlynn campaigned alongside George in the 1887 New York State election on the United Labour Party ticket and remained a leading voice of the single-tax movement through the 1890s.

Later Life

McGlynn officiated at the 1895 wedding of George's daughter Jennie, and, after her sudden death in May 1897, conducted her funeral. When George himself died five months later, days before his second mayoral campaign was to conclude, McGlynn was among the clergy who spoke at his funeral service, praised for "the pulsing sympathy" of his eulogy.[1]

See Also

• Henry George — McGlynn's political ally and friend
• 1886 New York City Mayoral Election — the campaign that precipitated the Church conflict
• 1897 Mayoral Campaign — George's fatal second run, at whose central funeral McGlynn spoke
• Tom L. Johnson — fellow George backer in the same campaigns
• Anti-Poverty Society — the organization McGlynn co-founded and led
• The Life of Henry George (George Jr., 1900) — the primary source for this page

Sources

1. Henry George Jr. (1900), Life of Henry George, Third Period, Ch. VIII, IX, XIII, and XIV — public domain, reproduced on this wiki: life-of-henry-george — used for McGlynn's role in the 1886 campaign, the suspension and excommunication sequence (with directly quoted letters from McGlynn and Archbishop Corrigan's office), the founding of the Anti-Poverty Society, the December 1892 reinstatement by Archbishop Satolli, and his role at Jennie George's wedding/funeral and Henry George's funeral (A-claims for quoted correspondence and reported dates; a sympathetic filial biography favorable to McGlynn as George's ally, cited accordingly).