Francis Spellman

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For high schools of the same name, see Cardinal Spellman High School (disambiguation). For the weightlifter, see Frank Spellman.

Cardinal,
Archbishop of New York
Spellman in 1946
Church
ArchdioceseNew York
AppointedApril 15, 1939
InstalledMay 23, 1939
Term endedDecember 2, 1967
PredecessorPatrick Joseph Hayes
SuccessorTerence Cooke
Other post(s)
  • Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo
    (1946‍–‍1967)
  • Ordinary/Apostolic Vicar for the United States Armed Forces
    (1939‍–‍1967)
Orders
OrdinationMay 14, 1916
by 
St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
Previous post(s)
Education
MottoSequere Deum
(Follow God)
Ordination history of
Francis Spellman
History
Episcopal consecration
Consecrated by
John Joseph Thomas Ryan
March 25, 1966
Edwin BroderickMarch 8, 1967

Francis Joseph Spellman (May 4, 1889 – December 2, 1967) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. From 1939 to his death, he served as the sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York.

Spellman previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston in Massachusetts from 1932 to 1939. He was created a cardinal in 1946.

Early life and education

Stained glass window donated to St. Mary's Church, Clonmel by Cardinal Spellman in memory of his grandfather Patrick Spellman.

Francis Spellman was born in Whitman, Massachusetts, to William Spellman and Ellen (née Conway) Spellman. William Spellman was a grocer whose own parents had emigrated to the United States from Clonmel and Leighlinbridge, Ireland.[1] The eldest of five children, Spellman had two brothers, Martin and John, and two sisters, Marian and Helene.

Spellman attended Whitman High School because there was no Catholic school in Whitman. He enjoyed photography and baseball; he played first base during his freshman year of high school until suffering a hand injury. Spellman later managed the team. After his high school graduation, Spellman in 1907 entered Fordham University in New York City . He graduated in 1911 and decided to study for the priesthood. He was then sent by Archbishop William O'Connell to study at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.[2]

Spellman suffered so badly from pneumonia that the college administrators wanted to send him home to recover. He nevertheless remained at the college and managed to complete his theological studies.During his years in Rome, Spellman befriended future Cardinals Gaetano Bisleti, Francesco Borgongini Duca, and Domenico Tardini.[2]

Priesthood

Spellman was ordained a priest at the Sant’Apollinare Basilica in Rome by Patriarch Giuseppe Ceppetelli on May 14, 1916. [3]Upon his return to the United States, the archdiocese assigned Spellman to pastoral positions at parishes.[4] Cardinal William O'Connell, who had earlier sent Spellman to Rome, described him as a "little popinjay." He later said, "Francis epitomizes what happens to a bookkeeper when you teach him how to read."[5] Spellman served a series of relatively insignificant assignments.[vague][6]

After the United States entered

US Navy, but his application was personally rejected, twice, by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt
.

O'Connell eventually assigned Spellman to promote subscriptions for the archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot.[7] The archbishop named him as assistant chancellor in 1918 and archivist of the archdiocese in 1924.[8]

After Spellman translated two books written by his friend Borgongini Duca into English, the Vatican in 1925 appointed Spellman as first American attaché of the

Vatican Secretariat of State in 1925 in Rome.[9] While serving in the Secretariat, he also worked with the Knights of Columbus in running children's playgrounds in Rome. Pope Pius XI raised O'Connor to the rank of privy chamberlain on October 4, 1926 .[9]

During a trip to Germany in 1927, Spellman established a lifelong friendship with Archbishop

International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, and helped reform the Vatican's press office, introducing mimeograph machines and issuing press releases.[13]

Episcopal career

Auxiliary Bishop of Boston

On July 30, 1932, Spellman was appointed

consecration on September 8, 1932 from Pacelli at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Archbishops Giuseppe Pizzardo and Francesco Borgongini Duca acted as co-consecrators.[2] Spellman was the first American to be consecrated a bishop at St. Peter's.[14] Borgongini-Duca designed a coat of arms for Spellmans that incorporated the explorer Christopher Columbus' ship, the Santa Maria. Pius XI gave him the motto Sequere Deum ("Follow God").[15]

After his return to the United States, Spellman took up residence at

St. John's Seminary in Boston. He was later made pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Newton Centre; there he erased the church's $43,000 debt through fundraising. When Spellman's mother died in 1935, Massachusetts Governor James Curley, Lieutenant Governor Joseph Hurley, and many members of the clergy, with the exception of O'Connell, attended the funeral.[16]

In the autumn of 1936, Pacelli came to the United States, ostensibly to visit several cities and be the guest of philanthropist Genevieve Brady. However, the real reason for the trip was to meet with President Roosevelt to discuss American diplomatic recognition of Vatican City.[1] Spellman arranged and attended the meeting at the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park, New York.[17]

Spellman became an early friend of

Edward Kennedy.[13]

On Pacelli's trip to the United States, he, Kennedy and Spellman attempted to stop the vitriolic radio broadcasts of Reverend Charles Coughlin. The Vatican and the apostolic legation in Washington wanted him silenced, but Coughlin's superior, Bishop Michael Gallagher of Detroit, refused to curb him.[18][19] In 1939, Coughlin was finally forced off the air by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Archbishop of New York

Archbishop Spellman giving communion during a visit to the Fifth Army in Italy 1944

After the death of Pope Pius XI, Pacelli was

elected as Pope Pius XII. One of his first acts was to appoint Spellman as the sixth archbishop of New York on April 15, 1939. He was installed as archbishop on May 23, 1939.[3] He was painted twice in 1940 and again in 1941 by the artist Adolfo Müller-Ury. Spellman inaugurated first regularly-scheduled Spanish language masses in the archdiocese at St. Cecilia's Parish in East Harlem.[20]

In addition to his duties as

apostolic vicar for the U.S. Armed Forces on December 11, 1939. Over the years, Spellman celebrated many Christmases with American troops stationed in Japan, South Korea, and Europe.[21]

During his tenure in New York, Spellman's considerable national influence

Catholic Charities
that is attended by prominent national figures.

After his appointment as archbishop, Spellman also became a close confidant of President Roosevelt.[21][25]During World War II, Roosevelt asked Spellman to visit Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in 1943, 16 countries in four months.[26] As archbishop and a military vicar, he would have greater freedom than official diplomats."[13] During the Allied campaign in Italy, Spellman acted as a liaison between Pius XII and Roosevelt in efforts to declare Rome an open city to save it from bombing and street fighting.[27]

Cardinal

Styles of
Francis Spellman
Reference style
His Eminence
Spoken styleYour Eminence
Informal styleCardinal
SeeNew York

Pius XII created Spellman as

Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the consistory of February 18, 1946.[3]According to the historian William V. Shannon, "Spellman was deeply reactionary in his theology and secular politics."[21]

In 1949, when

St. Joseph's Seminary as strikebreakers.[28] He described the actions of the gravediggers, who belonged to the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers Union of America, as "an unjustified and immoral strike against the innocent dead and their bereaved families, against their religion and human decency."[28] The strike was supported by the activist Dorothy Day and the author Ernest Hemingway, who wrote a scathing letter about it to Spellman.[13]

Spellman was instrumental in getting William Brennan appointed to the Supreme Court in 1956 but would later regret the decision. Justice William O. Douglas once said, "I came to know several Americans who I felt had greatly dishonored our American ideal. One was Cardinal Spellman."[13]

Spellman

eucharistic congress in Guatemala; during his journey, he stopped in Nicaragua and, contrary to the Pope's orders, publicly appeared with future dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle.[13]

According to the Catholic journalist

Fulton Sheen's autobiography, Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, "It is widely believed that Cardinal Spellman drove Sheen off the air." Besides being pressured to leave television, Sheen also "found himself unwelcome in the churches of New York City. Spellman cancelled Sheen's annual Good Friday sermons at St. Patrick's Cathedral and discouraged clergy from befriending the Bishop."

Further information: Fulton J. Sheen § Falling-out with Cardinal Spellman
Spellman and Madame Hope Somoza at a reception in New York City.

Spellman had a long relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy Sr, the former American ambassador to the United Kingdom and the head of an influential Catholic family.

The historian Pat McNamara views Spellman's outreach to the city's growing Puerto Rican community as years ahead of its time. He sent priests overseas to study Spanish, and by 1960, a quarter of the archdiocese's parishes had an outreach to Spanish-speaking Catholics.[6] In his years as a cardinal, Spellman built 15 churches, 94 schools, 22 rectories, 60 convents, and 34 other institutions.[21] He also visited Ecuador, where he founded three schools: Cardinal Spellman High School and Cardinal Spellman Girls' School, both in Quito; and Cardinal Spellman High School in Guayaquil.

Second Vatican Council

Spellman attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 and sat on its board of presidency.[9] He believed that the Vatican was appointing predominantly liberal clergymen to the council's commissions. He opposed the Council reform that introduced vernacular language into the mass, saying, "The Latin language, which is truly the Catholic language, is unchangeable, is not vulgar, and has for many centuries been the guardian of the unity of the Western Church."[13] A theological conservative, Spellman supported ecumenism on pragmatic grounds.[27]

In April 1963, Spellman brought Reverend

Holy Office, toward Murray. The Apostolic Delegate to the U.S., Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi, attempted to silence Murray. However, Spellman and Murray's Jesuit superiors managed to shield him from most attempts at curial interference. Murray's work helped shape the council's declaration on religious freedom.[6]

After the death of John XXIII, Spellman participated in the

invasion of 1965.[13]

Spellman led his archdiocese through an extensive period of building the Catholic infrastructure, particularly the construction of numerous churches, schools, and hospitals. He consolidated all parish building programs into his own hands and thereby got better interest rates from bankers, and he convinced Pius XII of the need to internationalize the Vatican's Italy-centered investments after World War II; for his financial skill, he was sometimes called "Cardinal Moneybags."[29]

Later life and death

In 1966, Spellman offered his resignation to Paul VI after the latter instituted a policy requiring bishops to retire at age 75, but the pope asked him to remain in his post.[30]

Spellman died in New York City on December 2, 1967, at age 78. He was interred in the crypt under the main altar at

funeral mass was attended by President Johnson, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Robert F. Kennedy, New York Senator Jacob Javits, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, New York Mayor John Lindsay, Arthur Goldberg, and Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos.[31]

Homosexuality and anti-homosexuality

Curt Gentry, a 1991 biographer of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, said that Hoover's files contained "numerous allegations that Spellman was a very active homosexual."[32]

The journalist

C. A. Tripp. According to Signorile, the Catholic Church pressured Cooney's publisher, Times Books, to reduce the four pages discussing Spellman's sexuality to a single paragraph.[33][21] The published book contained these two sentences: "For years rumors abounded about Cardinal Spellman being a homosexual. As a result, many felt – and continue to feel – that Spellman the public moralist may well have been a contradiction of the man of the flesh."[21]

Both Signorile and John Loughery cite a story suggesting that Spellman was sexually active. They also related a story that Spellman had a personal relationship with a male member of the chorus in the 1943 Broadway revue, One Touch of Venus.[33][34]

Viewpoints

Racism

Although he had once expressed his personal opposition to demonstrations during the

religious sisters to the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. Spellman opposed racial discrimination in public housing[35] but also the social activism of such priests as Daniel Berrigan and his brother, Philip Berrigan, as well as a young Melkite priest, David Kirk.[13]

Communism

Spellman once said that "a true American can neither be a Communist nor a Communist condoner"[35] and that "the first loyalty of every American is vigilantly to weed out and counteract Communism and convert American Communists to Americanism".[35]

Spellman defended Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1953 investigations of Communist subversives in the federal government, stating in 1954 that McCarthy had "told us about the Communists and about Communist methods" and that he was "not only against communism—but ... against the methods of the Communists".[36]

As early as 1954, Spellman was warning the Eisenhower Administration about the advance of communism in French Indochina. He had met the future South Vietnamese president,

Eisenhower Administration to intervene in the conflict.[37][13]

When the United States entered into the Vietnam War in 1965, he became a staunch supporter of the intervention.

A group of college students protested outside Spellman's residence in December 1965 for suppressing antiwar priests. Spellman spent Christmas 1965 with troops in

Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam."[13]

Some critics referred to the Vietnam War as "Spelly's War" and Spellman as the "

St. Patrick's Cathedral.[6] Spellman's support for the Vietnam War, along with his opposition to church reform, greatly undermined his clout within the church and country.[13]The illustrator Edward Sorel designed a poster in 1967, Pass the Lord and Praise the Ammunition, showing Spellman carrying a rifle with a bayonet. However, the poster was never distributed because Spellman died right after its printing.[38]

Politics

Spellman denounced the efforts of US Representative

Graham Barden to provide federal funding only to public schools as "a craven crusade of religious prejudice against Catholic children"[39] and even called Barden himself an "apostle of bigotry."[40]

Spellman in 1949 engaged in a heated public dispute with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt when she expressed her opposition to federal funding to parochial schools in her column, My Day.[40] In response, Spellman accused her of anti-Catholicism and called her column a "[document] of discrimination unworthy of an American mother".[40] Spellman eventually met with Roosevelt at her Hyde Park home to settle the dispute.

When Senator

U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See.[13] Kennedy aide David Powers recalled that in 1960, Kennedy asked him, "Why is Spellman against me?" Powers replied, "Spellman is the most powerful Catholic in the country. When you become president, you will be." Spellman's endorsement of Nixon ended his long relationship with the Kennedy family.[25]

During the 1964 presidential election, Spellman supported President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose Higher Education Facilities Act and Economic Opportunity Act had greatly benefited the Catholic Church.[12]

Films and plays

  • Spellman described the 1941 film Two-Faced Woman, starring the actress Greta Garbo, as "an occasion of sin ... dangerous to public morals". He condemned Garbo for her alleged lesbian and bisexual morality.[41][42]
  • Spellman's condemnation of the 1947 film Forever Amber prompted the producer William Perlberg to refuse publicly to "bowdlerize the film to placate the Roman Catholic Church."[16]
  • Spellman referred to the 1948 film The Miracle as a "vile and harmful picture ... a despicable affront to every Christian".[43]
  • Spellman called the 1956 film Baby Doll "revolting" and "morally repellent."[44]
  • When
    Holocaust, opened on Broadway in 1964, Spellman condemned it as "an outrageous desecration of the honor of a great and good man."[45] The play's producer, Herman Shumlin, called Spellman's words a "calculated threat to really drive a wedge between Christians and Jews."[16]

Awards

Legacy

Russell Shaw states that Spellman "embodied the fusion of Americanism and Catholicism" in the mid-20th century.[27] Spellman's support of John Courtney Murray contributed to Murray's significant influence on the drafting of Dignitatis humanae, the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom.[6] "Spellman's enduring accomplishments were his personal acts of kindness toward individuals and the religious and charitable institutions he founded or strengthened."[21]

Henry Morton Robinson's novel The Cardinal (1950) was based in part on Spellman's career that was made in 1963 into a film of the same name with Tom Tryon as the eventual Cardinal.[27]

In July 1947, a Jesuit residential building opened on the campus of Fordham University, Spellman's alma mater, named in his honor.[48]

See also

Citations

  1. ^ a b Fogarty, Gerald P. (1999). Spellman, Francis Joseph.
  2. ^ a b c d Thornton, Francis Beauchesne. (1963). Our American Princes: The Story of the Seventeen American Cardinals. Putnam. p. 201.
  3. ^ a b c d "Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman [Catholic-Hierarchy]". www.catholic-hierarchy.org. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  4. ^ a b "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church - February 18, 1946". cardinals.fiu.edu. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  5. ^ Time 1967
  6. ^ a b c d e f McNamara, Pat (December 17, 2012). "The Powerhouse: Cardinal Francis Spellman". Catholic. Patheos. Archived from the original on July 10, 2019. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  7. ^ "Catholic News from The Pilot: America's oldest Catholic newspaper". www.thebostonpilot.com. Archived from the original on May 25, 2019. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  8. ^ "Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman (1889–1967)". www2.gwu.edu. Archived from the original on October 8, 2018. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  9. ^ a b c "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church – February 18, 1946". webdept.fiu.edu. Archived from the original on November 26, 2019. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  10. ^ Thornton
  11. ^ a b Time August 15, 1932
  12. ^
    ISSN 0008-8080
    .
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cooney, John (1984). The American Pope: The Life and Times of Francis Cardinal Spellman. Time Books.
  14. ^ Time September 19, 1932
  15. ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7. Archived
    from the original on May 25, 2019. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  16. ^ a b c Cooney
  17. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  18. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  19. ^ Boyea, Earl. "The Reverend Charles Coughlin and the Church: the Gallagher Years, 1930–1937". Catholic Historical Review 81 (2) (1995): 211–225
  20. ISBN 0801487951
    – via Google Books.
  21. ^ a b c d e f g William V. Shannon (October 28, 1984). "Guileless and Machiavellian: Review of John Cooney, The American Pope". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 23, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  22. ^ Video: Christmas Brings Joy To Everyone, 1945/12/10 (1945). Universal Newsreel. 1945. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  23. ^ Coal Strike Ended, 1946/05/29 (1946). Universal Newsreel. 1953. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  24. ^ Quinn 2006
  25. ^
    CIA. Associated Press. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on January 23, 2017. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  26. ^ Time June 7, 1943
  27. ^
    OSV Weekly. Archived from the original
    on March 4, 2016. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  28. ^ a b Time March 14, 1949
  29. ^ "The Pastor-Executive". Time. May 15, 1964. Archived from the original on December 13, 2011.
  30. ^ "People: Oct. 21, 1966". Time. October 21, 1966. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  31. ^ "Requiem for a Cardinal". Time. December 15, 1967. Archived from the original on December 15, 2008.
  32. ISBN 9780393024043
    .
  33. ^ a b c Michelangelo Signorile (May 7, 2002). "Cardinal Spellman's Dark Legacy". New York Press. Archived from the original on July 31, 2019.
  34. ISBN 9780805038965
    .
  35. ^ a b c d O'Donnell 2009
  36. ^ NYT November 8, 1954
  37. ^ GPB (March 29, 2006). "Cardinal Francis Spellman: "The American Pope"". Ex-Catholics For Christ. Archived from the original on May 25, 2019. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  38. ^ "Unauthorized Portraits: The Drawings of Edward Sorel | Joseph Francis Spellman". npg.si.edu. National Portrait Gallery. Archived from the original on February 11, 2021. Retrieved June 17, 2023.
  39. ^ Truman Library
  40. ^ a b c "My Day in the Lion's Mouth". Time. August 1, 1949. Archived from the original on October 1, 2007.
  41. ^ "Spellman Scores New Garbo Film; Archbishop Warns Catholics That Seeing -- It May Be 'an Occasion of Sin'". The New York Times. November 27, 1941. Retrieved April 21, 2024.
  42. ^ "To See Is to Sin". Time. December 8, 1941. Archived from the original on June 9, 2008.
  43. ^ "The Miracle". Time. February 19, 1951. Archived from the original on November 23, 2010.
  44. ^ "The Trouble with Baby Doll". Time. January 14, 1956. Archived from the original on November 1, 2011.
  45. ^ DeMarco 1998
  46. ^ "Cardinal Francis Spellman | Distinguished Service Medal | The American Legion". www.legion.org. Retrieved April 25, 2024.
  47. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  48. ^ Gosier, Chris (July 16, 2012). "This Month in Fordham History: Spellman Hall Opens, Named for Fordham Alumnus". Fordham News. Retrieved June 27, 2017.

Works cited

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Francis Spellman.
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by
See Created
 Titular Bishop of Sila
1932–1939 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Archbishop of New York

1939–1967 		Succeeded by
Apostolic Vicar for the Military Services

1939–1967
Preceded by
Cardinal-Priest of Santi Giovanni e Paolo

1946–1967
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