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POPSA Brave and Honourable Catholic Priest Against these baseless accusations, Father Coyle defended the faith and the Order, becoming a lightning rod for attacks. Federal agents warned Bishop Edward Allen of Mobile, Ala., of threats against Father Coyle’s life and of plans to burn his church to the ground. Then, on Aug. 11, 1921, Rev. Edwin R. Stephenson, a Methodist minister and Klansman, stepped onto the porch of St. Paul’s rectory with a loaded handgun. About an hour earlier, Father Coyle had officiated the wedding of Rev. Stephenson’s 18-year-old daughter, Ruth, to Pedro Gussman, a Catholic migrant from Puerto Rico. Like many other Klansmen, Rev. Stephenson despised Catholics. When he learned that Father Coyle had married his daughter to Gussman, he was livid. He shot the priest in cold blood, and Father Coyle died within minutes. The man that murdered Fr. Coyle was aquited. The trial judge was a Klan member.
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