Francis Spellman: Difference between revisions

| type = Cardinal

| honorific-prefix = [[His Eminence]]

| honorific-suffix =

| title = {{br separated entries | [[Cardinal (Catholic)|Cardinal]], | [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York|Archbishop of New York]]}}

| image = Cardinal Francis Spellman 1946.jpg

| image_size = 250px

| church = {{ubl | [[Catholic Church]] | [[Latin Church]] }}

| archdiocese = [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York|New York]]

| consecration date 32 = March 8, 1967

}}

 

==Early life and education==

 

 

 

==Priesthood==

 

 

O'Connell eventually assigned Spellman to promote subscriptions for the archdiocesan newspaper, ''[[The Pilot (Massachusetts newspaper)|The Pilot]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thebostonpilot.com/index.asp|title=Catholic News from The Pilot: America's oldest Catholic newspaper.|website=www.thebostonpilot.com|access-date=May 25, 2019|archive-date=May 25, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525221424/https://www.thebostonpilot.com/index.asp|url-status=live}}</ref> The archbishop named him as assistant [[Chancellor (ecclesiastical)|chancellor]] in 1918 and archivist of the archdiocese in 1924.<ref name="gwu">{{cite web|url=https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/spellman-cardinal.cfm|title=Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman (1889–1967)|website=www2.gwu.edu|access-date=May 25, 2019|archive-date=October 8, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008124938/https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/spellman-cardinal.cfm|url-status=live}}</ref>

 

 

 

==Episcopal career==

===Auxiliary Bishop of Boston===

 

 

 

Spellman became an early friend of [[Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.|Joseph Kennedy Sr]], the US ambassador to the United Kingdom and the head of a rich Catholic family. Over the years, Spellman married several Kennedy children, including future Senator [[Robert F. Kennedy]], Jean Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, and future Senator [[Edward Kennedy]].<ref name=":5" />

 

 

===Archbishop of New York===

After the death of Pope Pius XI, Pacelli was [[Papal conclave, 1939|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.<ref name=":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]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P9YsLQor6HgC&dq=Francis+Cardinal+Spellman&pg=PA57|title=Hispanas de Queens: Latino Panethnicity in a New York City Neighborhood|first1=Milagros|last1=Ricourt|first2=Ruby|last2=Danta|date=June 17, 2003|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=0801487951 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

 

| publisher =[[Universal Newsreel]]

| access-date =February 22, 2012

 

After his appointment as archbishop, Spellman also became a close confidant of President Roosevelt.<ref name="Shannon_NYT">{{cite news |author=William V. Shannon |date=October 28, 1984 |title=Guileless and Machiavellian: Review of John Cooney, ''The American Pope'' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/28/books/guileless-and-machiavellian.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=October 23, 2018 |archive-date=October 23, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181023160644/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/28/books/guileless-and-machiavellian.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Hampson">{{cite web |author=Hampson, Rick |date=September 28, 1984 |title=Comment: The American Pope: the Life and Times of Francis Cardinal Spellman |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00552R000606360001-1.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123083526/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00552R000606360001-1.pdf |archive-date=January 23, 2017 |access-date=May 26, 2019 |publisher=[[CIA]] |agency=[[Associated Press]]}}</ref> During [[World War II]], Roosevelt asked Spellman to visit Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in 1943, 16 countries in four months.<ref name=odyssey>''Time'' June 7, 1943</ref> As archbishop and a military vicar, he would have greater freedom than official diplomats."<ref name=":5" /> During the Allied [[Italian campaign (World War II)|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.<ref name=Shaw/>

Spellman was instrumental in getting [[William J. Brennan Jr.|William Brennan]] appointed to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|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."<ref name=":5" />

 

 

According to the Catholic journalist [[Raymond Arroyo]]'s foreword written for a 2008 edition of [[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|Fulton J. Sheen#Falling-out with Cardinal Spellman}}

 

 

====Second Vatican Council====

 

 

 

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."<ref name="pastor">{{cite magazine |date=May 15, 1964 |title=The Pastor-Executive |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,871039,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111213235710/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,871039,00.html |archive-date=December 13, 2011 |magazine=Time}}</ref>

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.<ref name=resignation>{{cite magazine|date=October 21, 1966|magazine=Time|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,836510-2,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524053256/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,836510-2,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 24, 2011 | title=People: Oct. 21, 1966 | access-date=May 2, 2010}}</ref>

 

 

===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."<ref>{{cite book |author=Curt Gentry |url=https://archive.org/details/jedgarhoovermans00gent |title=J. Edgar Hoover, The Man and the Secrets |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1991 |isbn=9780393024043 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/jedgarhoovermans00gent/page/347 347] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

 

 

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 theatre|Broadway]] revue ''[[One Touch of Venus]]''.<ref name="Signorile" /><ref>{{cite book |author=John Loughery |title=The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives & Gay Identities – A Twentieth-Century History |url=https://archive.org/details/othersideofsile000loug |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Henry Holt & Co. |year=1998 |page=[https://archive.org/details/othersideofsile000loug/page/152 152]|isbn=9780805038965 }}</ref>

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&nbsp;... against the methods of the Communists".<ref>''NYT'' November 8, 1954</ref>

 

 

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

 

 

 

=== Politics ===

Spellman denounced the efforts of US Representative [[Graham Arthur Barden|Graham Barden]] to provide federal funding only to public schools as "a craven crusade of religious prejudice against Catholic children"<ref name="truman">Truman Library</ref> and even called Barden himself an "apostle of bigotry."<ref name="eleanor">{{cite magazine |date=August 1, 1949 |title=My Day in the Lion's Mouth |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794889-1,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001004244/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794889-1,00.html |archive-date=October 1, 2007 |magazine=Time}}</ref>

 

 

 

During the [[1964 United States presidential election|1964 presidential election]], Spellman supported President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], whose [[Higher Education Act of 1965|Higher Education Facilities Act]] and [[Economic Opportunity Act of 1964|Economic Opportunity Act]] had greatly benefited the Catholic Church.<ref name=":6" />

=== Films and plays ===

 

* Spellman's condemnation of the 1947 film ''[[Forever Amber (film)|Forever Amber]]'' prompted the producer [[William Perlberg]] to refuse publicly to "bowdlerize the film to placate the Roman Catholic Church."<ref name="cooney" />

* When ''[[The Deputy]]'', a play about Pius XII's actions during the [[Holocaust]], opened on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in 1964, Spellman condemned it as "an outrageous desecration of the honor of a great and good man."<ref>DeMarco 1998</ref> The play's producer, [[Herman Shumlin]], called Spellman's words a "calculated threat to really drive a wedge between Christians and Jews."<ref name="cooney" />

 

== Awards ==

 

* [[Sylvanus Thayer Award]] by the [[United States Military Academy]] at West Point, New York – 1967<ref>{{Cite news |last=Val |first=Val Adams |date=1967-05-07 |title=Spellman Is Given West Point Honor – Cardinal Is First Clergyman Cited by Graduates |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/05/07/archives/spellman-is-given-west-point-honor-cardinal-is-first-clergyman.html |access-date=2024-04-26 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

 

==Legacy==

 

 

==See also==

[[Category:Roman Catholic archbishops of New York]]

[[Category:Whitman-Hanson Regional High School alumni]]