Francis Spellman

window donated to St. Mary's Church, Clonmel, by Spellman in memory of his grandfather Patrick Spellman|390x390px Francis Spellman was born on May 4, 1889, in Whitman, Massachusetts, to William Spellman and Ellen (née Conway) Spellman. William Spellman was a grocer whose own parents had immigrated to the United States from Clonmel and Leighlinbridge, Ireland. Spellman had two younger brothers, Martin and John, and two younger sisters, Marian and Helene. Spellman attended Whitman High School, a public 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 baseball team. After his high school graduation, Spellman entered Fordham University in New York City in 1907. He graduated in 1911 and decided to study for the priesthood. Archbishop William O'Connell sent Spellman to study at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He suffered so badly from pneumonia that the college administrators wanted to send him home to recover. He refused to leave and eventually completed his theological studies. During his years in Rome, Spellman befriended future cardinals Gaetano Bisleti, Francesco Borgongini Duca, and Domenico Tardini. ==Priesthood==

Spellman was ordained a priest at the Sant'Apollinare Basilica in Rome by Patriarch Giuseppe Ceppetelli on May 14, 1916. Upon his return to the United States, the archdiocese assigned Spellman to pastoral positions at its parishes. 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." Spellman served a series of relatively insignificant assignments. After the United States entered World War I in 1917, Spellman tried to enlist to become a military chaplain in the US Army, but failed to meet the height requirement. Spellman also applied to be a chaplain in the US Navy, but his application was personally rejected twice by Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and future President of the United States) Franklin D. Roosevelt. O'Connell eventually assigned Spellman to promote subscriptions for the archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot. The archbishop named him as assistant chancellor in 1918 and archivist of the archdiocese in 1924. After Spellman translated two books by his friend Borgongini Duca into English, the Vatican appointed Spellman as first American attaché of the Vatican Secretariat of State in Rome in 1925. 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. Spellman translated Pius XI's first broadcast over Vatican Radio into English in 1931. Later in 1931, with the fascist government of Benito Mussolini in power in Italy, Spellman secretly transported a papal encyclical, Non abbiamo bisogno, that condemned fascism, out of Rome to Paris for publication. He also served as secretary to Cardinal Lorenzo Lauri at the 1932 International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, and helped reform the Vatican's press office, introducing mimeograph machines and issuing press releases. ==Episcopal career==

Auxiliary Bishop of Boston On July 30, 1932, Spellman was appointed as an auxiliary bishop of Boston and titular bishop of Sila by Pope Pius XI. Borgongini-Duca designed a coat of arms for Spellman that incorporated Christopher Columbus's ship the Santa Maria. Pius XI gave him the motto Sequere Deum ("Follow God"). After his return to the United States, Spellman took up residence at St. John's Seminary in Boston. The archdiocese later assigned him as pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Newton Centre; while 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. In the autumn of 1936, Pacelli came to the United States, ostensibly to visit several cities and be the guest of philanthropist Genevieve Brady. The real reason for the trip was to meet with President Roosevelt to discuss American diplomatic recognition of Vatican City. Spellman became an early friend of Joseph Kennedy Sr, the US ambassador to the United Kingdom and the head of a rich Catholic family. Over the years, Spellman witnessed the marriages of several Kennedy children, including future Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Jean Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, and future Senator Edward Kennedy. In 1939, Coughlin was forced off the air by the National Association of Broadcasters. Archbishop of New York in Italy 1944 during World War II.|291x291px After Pius XI's death, 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. In addition to his duties as diocesan bishop, Pius XII named Spellman 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. in religious and political matters earned his residence the nickname "the Powerhouse". He hosted many prominent clergy, entertainers, and politicians, including the statesman Bernard Baruch, U.S. Senator David I. Walsh, and U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader John William McCormack. During World War II, Roosevelt asked Spellman to visit Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in 1943, 16 countries in four months. As archbishop and a military vicar, he would have "greater freedom than official diplomats". 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." Second Vatican Council Spellman attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 and sat on its board of presidency. Later life and death In 1966, Spellman offered his resignation to Pope Paul VI after the latter instituted a policy requiring bishops to retire at age 75, but Paul asked him to remain in his post. Spellman died in New York City on December 2, 1967, at age 78. He was interred in the crypt under the main altar at St. Patrick's Cathedral. His 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, US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg, and Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos. Homosexuality Curt Gentry, a 1991 biographer of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, said that Hoover's secret files contained "numerous allegations that Spellman was a very active homosexual." In 2002, journalist Michelangelo Signorile called Spellman "one of the most notorious, powerful and sexually voracious homosexuals in the American Catholic Church's history." John Cooney published a biography of Spellman, The American Pope (1984). Signorile reported that Cooney's manuscript initially contained interviews with several people with personal knowledge of Spellman's homosexuality, including the researcher C. A. Tripp and the novelist Gore Vidal. 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. Writer and journalist Lucian K. Truscott IV has written that, when Truscott was a junior at West Point in 1967, he went to St. Patrick's Cathedral to interview Spellman for the cadet magazine The Pointer: "Before I could even ask my first question, Spellman put his hand on my thigh and started moving it toward my crotch." A monsignor who was the cardinal's personal assistant stopped Spellman, who then gave Truscott a gold-plated trinket. "He did it over and over again, and I just kept asking questions and recording his answers like nothing happened. I left the cardinal's residence that day carrying a couple of tie clasps, three key chains, and a couple of gold-plated tie tacks." Truscott also wrote, "I heard from several priests I befriended [...] that his nickname for decades had been 'Mary.'" == Viewpoints ==

Racism Although he had once expressed his personal opposition to demonstrations during the American Civil Rights Movement, Spellman declined J. Edgar Hoover's requests to condemn Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Spellman funded the trip by a group of New York priests and religious sisters to the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. He opposed racial discrimination in public housing 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. 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, Ngô Đình Diệm, in 1950, and was favorably impressed by his strongly Catholic and anti-Communist views. After France was defeated by the Viet Minh at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrew from French Indochina, Spellman started urging President Eisenhower to intervene in the conflict. Politics Spellman denounced the efforts of U.S. Representative Graham Arthur Barden to provide federal funding only to public schools as "a craven crusade of religious prejudice against Catholic children". He called Barden an "apostle of bigotry". Spellman engaged in a heated public dispute in 1949 with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt when she expressed her opposition to federal funding to parochial schools in her column My Day. • 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." • Spellman called the 1956 film Baby Doll, starring Carroll Baker, "revolting" and "morally repellent." • When The Deputy, a play about Pope Pius XII's actions during the Holocaust, opened on Broadway in 1964, Spellman condemned it as "an outrageous desecration of the honor of a great and good man." The play's producer, Herman Shumlin, called Spellman's words a "calculated threat to really drive a wedge between Christians and Jews." == Awards ==

• Gold Medal Award from The Hundred Year Association of New York "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York" – 1946 • Order of Rubén Darío, the Nicaraguan government's highest award, on his visit to Central America in 1958 and a Nicaraguan postage stamp issued in 1959. • Distinguished Service Medal from the American Legion – 1963 • Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York – 1967 ==Legacy==

Author Russell Shaw in 2014 wrote that Spellman embodied the fusion of Americanism and Catholicism in the mid-20th century. • In July 1947, a Jesuit residential building opened on the campus of Fordham University named in his honor. • Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx was named in his honor. • Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton, Massachusetts, was named for him. • Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, houses Spellman's extensive stamp collection. ==See also==

• Cardinal Spellman High School. n.d. "An Historical Sketch of Cardinal Spellman High School". • Catholic Hierarchy (unofficial website). n.d. "Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman". • • DeMarco, Donald. "800,000 Saved by Pius XIIs Silence" . National Catholic Register, May 18, 1998. • Dugan, George. "Huge Fund to Oust McCarthy Reported". The New York Times, 1954-11-08. • Epstein, Alessandra. 2001. "Rebel with a Cause". 201 Magazine. Boston University, College of Communication. • National Portrait Gallery. Pass the Lord and Praise the Ammunition (description). Image of the satirical poster of Cardinal Spellman produced in 1967 by Edward Sorel. • Gannon, Robert I. The Cardinal Spellman Story. New York, 1962. • Loughery, John. 1998. ''The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth Century History''. Henry Holt. • Miranda, Salvador. 1998. The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. "Spellman, Francis Joseph". • The New York Times. 1984, August 4. "New book on Cardinal Spellman stirs controversy". • O'Donnell, Edward T. "Spellman leads crusade against communism". Irish Echo Online, 82(44), November 4–10, 2009. • Quinn, Peter. "New York's Catholic Century" (essay). The New York Times, 2006-06-04. • Roosevelt, Eleanor (2004). Neal, Steve (ed.). Eleanor & Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. • Signorile, Michelangelo. "Cardinal Spellman's Dark Legacy". New York Press, 2002-05-07. • Thornton, Francis Beauchesne. 1963. Our American Princes: The Story of the Seventeen American Cardinals. Putnam. (Chapter on Spellman pp. 201ff.) • Time. July 13, 1931. "Everything Is Promised". • Time. August 15, 1932. "Boston's Bishop". • Time. September 19, 1932. "Crosier & Mitre". • Time. June 7, 1943. "Odyssey for the Millennium". • Time. March 14, 1949. "Strike in the Graveyard". • Time. November 5, 1959. "Cardinal's Birthday". • Time. December 8, 1967. "The Master Builder" (obituary of Cardinal Spellman). == External links ==