During the past month the members of St. Paul’s parish and, indeed, all the Catholics of the district, have been so stricken with grief, have received such a test of their Christian patience and fortitude as, pray God, may come no more to us personally or collectively while this earthly trial lasts. Deep in the hearts of all who revere simple goodness and loyalty to an ideal was Our Priest who for seventeen years went about among us doing good. We shall not dwell upon the deep damnation of his taking off being still too desolated for expression. Our purpose is to give here a plain account of some momentous hours, and how we bore our grief to help us pay a fitting tribute of respect to our revered dead. In this Catholic Monthly*, so associated with his personality we wish to preserve for ourselves and our children and our children’s children a simple record of events, and, as many as space will permit, of the tributes of affection an respect that poured in from every direction.

We shall take the account of events from the daily press as far as possible. The story is between the lines, and that is where the deepest truth always is. It is a fitting tribute to Father Coyle, for it shows that his influence among us triumphed gloriously, and caused us all to behave as befits our high calling as followers in the One whose blessed sign is the Cross. The Catholic attitude is the outstanding truth in these weeks. All the rest is indeed Sound and fury signifying nothing. They have killed all they could kill of Father Coyle, and God has already comforted us with a vision of how little that really is. His tragic taking off has only underscored the simple gospel that he was forever expounding by word and example. If the words were written in fire they could not be burned more indelibly into the hearts if the Catholics of this district: Blessed are you when men shall revile you an persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you for my sake: rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven….Yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service….But these things have I told you that when the time shall come ye shall remember that I told you of them.

On that beautiful summer evening Father Coyle was sitting alone in the porch of his Breviary when he fell by the bullet of an assassin. He was in St. Vincent’s hospital in seven minutes, thanks to the remarkable expedition of the LigeLoy Ambulance Department. The finest medical skill of the city was at his service almost instantly, but he lived only long enough to receive the Final Sacrament of the Church, the Holy Mother whom he had served all his life, and then his soul drifted peacefully out of the turbulence that we call life. When the news of their calamity that had befallen us was spread through the Catholic population, hundreds hurried to the hospital, to the parsonage, hoping against hope that the sheer finality of the message would be reversed. When all hope was gone the crowds quietly dispersed, and that night of grief and prayer in a thousand homes is an invisible bond between us forever.

The first mass at six-thirty the next morning with Father Brady as celebrant will long live in the memory of the members who heard it. A fine moment in the life of St. Paul’s will be forever associated with the youthful priest, so soon to follow his revered friend. The solemnity of the requiem mass forced upon the consciousness the finality of the thing that had happened to us. The church was tense with emotion at the final requiescat in pace. The following is a paragraph from an article contributed to the Birmingham News by one present:

The priest left the sanctuary, the lights were extinguished. It was over- the first gesture of the church as she followed her faithful child with wistful tender eyes of pity. The kneeling company did not stir; and then the young priest walked from the sacristy to the alter rail, breaking the poignant silence. His eager young face was full of grief, for the dead man was his dear friend as well as his mentor and guide. He had dined with him last night and had been in conversation with him five minutes before the tragedy. He tried to recall to his mind and to ours the attitude of spirit with which Father Coyle met life, how simple and entire had been his conformity to the will of God; how sincerely he had tried to follow the shining Great Example; how he should expect his friends to honor him now; how would he wish us to behave in this crisis. Then the thing happened that so often happens if we were not too dull to notice it-Father Coyle’s whole life and character were poured into the words: God forgive them, for they know not what they do. It seemed infinitely right, infinitely like Father Coyle that the first mass for the soul of Father Coyle should end as it did, in an earnest, sincere prayer that God in His infinite compassion would have mercy upon the wretched creature guilty of the blood of this just man.

All day long Friday the Church was filled with silent, prayerful people, and in the late afternoon in a deep hush the casket was borne to the steps of the alter, before which Father Coyle had reverently moved during so many years. There the body lay in state until it was carried to its resting place on Sunday afternoon. During the hours it remained in the Church, thousands filed by the casket which had for a guard of honor young men from the Knights of Columbus and the Yupka Club. The simple dignity of these splendid youths, one at the head, the other at the foot of the casket, will remain a part of the picture never to be forgotten.

On Saturday morning at nine thirty, the Solemn Pontifical Mass of Our Right Reverend Bishop Edward P. Allen of Mobile officiating, assisted by many members of the clergy. Many of the clergy who were unable to attend the services on account of distance, sent condolences by long distance telephone and by telegram. The following is the account of Bishop Allen’s sermon from the Age-Herald: Father Coyle was a zealous and devoted missionary and afterwards a successful professor and rector of McGill Institute, one to whom the students could look up and whose wise direction they could follow. I felt that he would make a worthy successor of the late Father O’Reilly. In this, I have not been disappointed.

He came up here somewhat reluctant to give up the literary work that he was engaged in, but to him the voice of his superior was the voice of God. He came up and all can see that his labors have been successful. He labored and preached the word of God in season and out of season, visiting the sick, instructing the little ones of the poor and needy and afflicted. He especially labored to bring the people to the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary which was offered first by our Divine Lord at the last supper. This sacrifice looked forward to the bloody sacrifice of Calvary which was to take place, the following day, and every sacrifice of the mass since then looked back to the bloody sacrifice of Calvary. Thru this sacrifice the merits of Christ’s passion and death are applied to the souls of men for their sanctification and justification. Hence, Father Coyle’s anxiety to bring the people to Mass and to induce them to receive in the Mass, the body and blood of our divine Lord.

When I first visited Birmingham 25 years ago, I was pleased beyond measure, not only at the cordial greeting extended to me by the members of my own flock, who looked upon me as the one sent by the Vicar of Christ, to rule, guide and direct them, but as I was also gratified beyond measure at the kindly, cordial greeting extended to me by our non-Catholic brethren. Their broad-minded sympathy, their outspoken liberality and cordiality pleased me beyond measure. I found this generous, kindly sympathy in old Birmingham an even under Frank O’Brien when greater Birmingham was coming into being.

This sentiment continued down until greater Birmingham was accomplished, until, in fact, 1915.