Edward McGlynn (September 27, 1837 – January 7, 1900), American Catholic priest and social reformer, was born in New York City of Irish parents.

When McGlynn was thirteen years of age, Archbishop Hughes, a family friend, and his pastor, Father Jeremiah Williams Cummings, arranged for him to attend the Urban College of the Propaganda in Rome.

[3] He was appointed chaplain of St. Joseph's Military Hospital at McGowan's Pass on the former grounds of Mount St. Vincent's Academy in Central Park, and retained this position until after the end of the Civil War in 1865.

"[1] After a time he began to feel that life was made a burden "by the never-ending procession of men, women and little children coming to my door begging, not so much for alms as employment."

To conservatives, George's philosophy that the economic value derived from land, including natural resources should belong equally to all residents of a community, bordered on socialism.

About four years previously, Cardinal Simeoni, prefect of the Congregation of the Propaganda, had directed the authorities of the Archdiocese to compel McGlynn to retract his views on the land question as opposed to Catholic teaching.

On September 29, 1886, Archbishop Corrigan forbade him to speak on behalf of Henry George's candidacy at a public meeting scheduled to take place on October 1 in Chickering Hall.

[5] On November 27, 1886, Archbishop Corrigan issued a pastoral letter, published in the New York Freemen's Journal, condemning theories that would violate an individual's right to private property.

A copy of a letter Gibbons sent to the Propaganda in February 1887 opposing condemnation of the Knights of Labor wound up published the following month in the New York Herald.

In February, Cardinal Gibbons, who was concerned about maintaining episcopal authority and happened to be in Rome, sent word to McGlynn's canonical advocate, the Rev.

[6] Holding that he had been guilty of no stubborn resistance and unaware that the reply made on his behalf by Burtsell had never reached the Pope, McGlynn, claiming ill health, refused to obey the order, and the excommunication became effective on July 4, 1887.

For more than five years following this censure he defended the Single Tax doctrine at the Sunday afternoon meetings of the Anti-Poverty Society, which he had founded with George in March 1887 and of which he was the first president; he also made a tour of the West and virtually declared himself an unbeliever in the supremacy of the Pope.

In 1892 Pope Leo XIII sent Archbishop Francesco Satolli to the United States as papal legate with instructions to review the McGlynn case.

This, combined with the assurance of four professors at the university that McGlynn's Single Tax views were not contrary to Catholic teaching, led Satolli to lift the excommunication on December 23 and reinstate him in the ministry the next day.

That evening he spoke at Cooper Union before an immense and enthusiastic gathering, not uttering a word of regret for his actions, instead declaring that he intended to continue advocating Single Tax doctrines; he then delivered a traditional Christmas sermon.

In his description of this event shortly afterwards, McGlynn reported that the Pope had said to him, "But surely you admit the right of property," and that he had answered in the affirmative as regards "the products of individual industry."

In the years following his restoration to his priestly functions he frequently spoke at Single Tax meetings and made it quite clear that he had not been required by the Pope to retract his view on the land question.

A passage in the Pope's 1891 encyclical, Rerum novarum, reads: "The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether.