“Catholic Journalism with its Sleeves Rolled Up”

Today also marks the death of Patrick F. Scanlan (1894-1968), longtime editor of the Brooklyn Tablet. Born in Philadelphia, he studied for the priesthood before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. In 1917 he took a temporary position as managing editor of Brooklyn’s diocesan newspaper. The job lasted 51 years. During those years Scanlan became famous as the most vehement anticommunist in the American Catholic press. He also became famous for his opposition to anti-Catholicism in any form, and a distrust of expanded governmental power. Scanlan believed that Catholics were still outsiders in America and must remain militantly united against a hostile Protestant establishment. “Between the Church and a football team,” he wrote in 1929, “there is an analogy. Both have to fight.” One editor called Scanlan “Catholic journalism with its sleeves rolled up.”

By 1930 Scanlan, like most Americans, was more concerned about the economy than about anti-Catholicism. In 1932 he supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and his promise of a New Deal for the American people. But his distrust of big government won out in the end and he became one of FDR’s leading Catholic opponents. At this time he also became a big supporter of the controversial Father Charles Coughlin, whose radio broadcasts devolved into an ugly anti-Semitism by the end of the thirties. Scanlan never indulged in the kind of blatant anti-Semitism as the priest did, but he never gave up his support of Coughlin.

Even as America allied with Russia during World War II, Scanlan couldn’t divest himself of his anticommunism. After the war, when anticommunism took on a bigger role in the Cold War, Scanlan was in his glory, a major supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy right to the end. By the 1950’s, however, larger changes were taking in place in both Church and society, changes over which Scanlan had no control. Scanlan always publicly supported Vatican II, but privately he had strong misgivings about ecumenism, liturgical changes, and a greater openness toward the modern world. Nor was he able to deal with changes in the Church, which he felt was becoming too liberal. In June 1968, Scanlan retired to Long Island, where he died in 1983.