In 1912, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “Went to Elgin to see Father McCann about a show for their Coliseum – a big street effect.”
Moses was referring to the Elgin Coliseum and Father John J. McCann of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Elgin, Illinois. The Elgin Coliseum had a seating capacity of 4,000 people, large enough to host a sizeable church event. It is likely that the big street effect was for the State Sunday School convention that summer.
St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Elgin, Illinois.
On May 24, 1912, the “Joliet Evening Herald-News” advertised the upcoming State Sunday School Convention at the Elgin Coliseum, drawing in thousands of church people over Memorial Day weekend (page 17). The three-day event included celebrity appearances and special programming pertaining to the instruction of children. The “Joliet Evening Herald-News” reported, “Special effort will be made to bring out features interesting to men and women both. The instruction of children of both sexes in matters that pertain to their future will be one feature of the convention.” The convention closed with a parade of Sunday School Workers on Memorial Day night. There were several bass bands and a chorus of several thousand children in attendance. For the parade, 5,000 Sunday school workers from all parts of the state took part in the march.
Father McCann was quite an interesting individual and somewhat of a controversial character by 1918. Much of the later drama surrounding Father McCann had to do with Bishop Muldoon.
In 1909 the “Joliet Evening – Herald News” included an article about Bishop Muldoon’s visit to Elgin, reporting, “Bishop Peter J. Muldoon of the Roman Catholic diocese of Rockford, was given an elaborate reception on his first official visit to the city. A parade of 1,000 persons, headed by a band, met the bishop at the station and escorted him to St. Joseph’s church where an informal reception was held, and then to St. Mary’s parish, where he was the guest of Father J. McCann until evening. At 8 p.m., the bishop addressed a public gathering at the Coliseum at which Mayor Fehrman, Representative Price, and others spoke” (9 May 1909, page 3). Quite the reception.
In 1918, however, Father McCann would make the news in regard to his defiance to the Bishop. It all started when newly appointed church trustees were refused access to the financial records. These same Trustees later called on Father McCann and demand that he relinquish all church records and property. They were driven off when shots were fired from the second story of his residence. Two days later, and injunction was announced, but Father McCann could not be found, as he and his brother were in Chicago. Bishop Muldoon then suspended Father McCann and announced that Rev. T. Gilbert Flynn would succeed him immediately, conducting the St. Patrick Day Service. A guard was even posted in the church on Saturday night to prevent Father McCann from conducting the service the next day. Father McCann’s response was to chase away the guard and barricade himself and his brother in the church.
The “Chicago Tribune” headline read. “Ram Door In, Seize Priest After Battle.” (Chicago Tribune, 18 March 1918, page 1 and 10).
The twenty-four hour siege of St. Mary’ Catholic Church ended when a dozen policemen and deputies forced the church doors open with a crowbar. Nine bullets, fired by the McCanns at the police, were later found embedded in the church door. When the police finally entered the church, Father McCann was in his vestments, kneeling in prayer while his brother stood guard. In the article, Father McCann claimed that he was a victim of personal spite on the part of a high church official, saying, ‘Muldoon will lose his purple before I lose my position” and he promised to sue for false arrest and trespass.
On March 19, 1918, the “Philadelphia Inquirer” reported:
“PRIEST DEFIES BISHOP
Elgin, Ill., Minister Refuses to Give Up Catholic Parish.
ELGIN, Ill., March 18 – “This Parish is worth $100,000 to me. It pays me $4,000 a year, or at a rate of 4 percent on $100,000. I won’t give that up without a fight. I am fighting for my life and shall defend myself to the finish.”
Defiance sparkled in Father John J. McCann, pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, as he announced his ultimatum to Bishop J. Muldoon, of the Rockford diocese today. The archbishop has been trying to oust Father McCann for some time as incompetent.
“I have been pastor at St. Mary’s for twenty years and up to two years ago was considered a friend to Bishop Muldoon,” continued Father McCann. “Envy is back of this.”
It is alleged that when officers appeared with a summons for
Father McCann yesterday the former were driven away with shots. Father McCann
said:
“I had no revolver and did not see one.”
The priest is to appear be in the police court here Wednesday on a warrant charging assaults and threats of bodily injury obtained by Rev. T. Gilbert Flynn, appointed as temporary pastor of the parish.”
The story and trial caused quite a sensation, with Chicago priests firmly on the side of McCann. Father McCann was charged with many things, from embezzlement to kidnapping and a secret marriage. One thing for sure, Father McCann was a poet who published under the pen name of Leo Gregory. In the volume, “The Kaiser and Other Poems,” issued in 1902, the following verses were from McCann’s “Not Hypocrite, but Human.”
“I have done wrong. Who has not?
But I have done some good;
And more of good than ill, I trust;
I did the best I could.
Was good I did the less sincere,
Because I failed in part?
Not hyprocrite, but human, friend,
Described the erring heart.
To be continued…
