Biography
Father Michael Doyle was an Irish-born Catholic priest of the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, longtime pastor at Sacred Heart Church in South Camden, and one of the Camden 28 defendants. He was one of more than twenty defendants arrested in the early hours of August 22, 1971 during the FBI surveillance and capture of the Camden draft-board raid in progress. He spent brief pretrial detention after the arrest, and the case proceeded to trial in spring 1973 in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. On May 20, 1973 a Camden federal jury acquitted all 28 defendants on all counts — the first complete legal victory for the anti-war movement after dozens of Catholic Left draft-board actions. He went on to a 50-year ministry in South Camden focused on housing, food access, and immigrant rights. He died on November 23, 2022, age 88.
