Francis Spellman

On July 30, 1932, Spellman was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Boston and Titular Bishop of Sila by Pope Pius XI.[4] Spellman had originally been considered for the Dioceses of Portland, Maine, and Manchester, New Hampshire.[10] He received his consecration on the following September 8 from Pacelli (wearing the vestments Pacelli wore when he was consecrated by Benedict XV),[3] with Archbishops Giuseppe Pizzardo and Francesco Borgongini Duca serving as co-consecrators, at St. Peter's Basilica. His was the first consecration of an American bishop ever held at St. Peter's.[11] Borgongini-Duca designed for him a coat of arms incorporating Columbus's ship the Santa Maria. Pope Pius XI gave him the motto Sequere Deum ("follow God").[1]

After his return to the United States, Spellman resided at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. He was later made pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Newton Centre; there he erased the church's $43,000 debt through different fundraising activities. When his mother died in 1935, her funeral was attended by Governor James Curley, Lieutenant Governor Joseph Hurley, and many members of the clergy, with the exception of O'Connell.[10]

In the autumn of 1936, Cardinal Pacelli came to the United States and visited New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, Saint Paul, and Chicago.[12] The ostensible purpose of the trip was personal; he was to be the guest of Genevieve Brady, the wealthy widow of Nicholas Brady. However, during the trip Pacelli met with Roosevelt to discuss diplomatic recognition of the sovereignty of Vatican City.[1] Spellman was present at the meeting, which he arranged to take place at the president's boyhood home at Hyde Park, New York, on November 5, 1936, two days after his reelection to a second term.

Pacelli also looked into the "Radio Priest", Father Charles Coughlin of Detroit. Though an early supporter of Roosevelt, Coughlin became increasingly disenchanted with him and made increasingly sharp national radio attacks on Roosevelt and the New Deal. He also expressed sympathy for the governments of Hitler and Mussolini as opponents of communism. The Catholic hierarchy, for its part, did not like Coughlin. The Vatican and the Apostolic Legation in Washington wanted him silenced.[13] Spellman worked with Joseph P. Kennedy and Pacelli to stop Coughlin. However, only Coughlin's superior, Bishop Michael Gallagher of Detroit, had the canonical authority to curb him, and Gallagher supported Coughlin. Coughlin was in Boston at the same time as Pacelli, but they did not meet.[14] In 1939, Coughlin was finally forced off the air under rules adopted by the Code Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters.

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, and one of his first acts was to appoint Spellman the sixth Archbishop of New York on April 15, 1939. Spellman succeeded the late Cardinal Patrick Joseph Hayes and was formally installed as Archbishop on the following May 23. He was painted twice in 1940 and again in 1941 by the prominent Swiss-born American Catholic artist Adolfo Müller-Ury. The first regularly-scheduled Masses in Spanish in New York began when Spellman gave authorization to the Redemptorists at St. Cecilia's Parish in East Harlem.[15]

In addition to his duties as diocesan bishop, he was named Apostolic Vicar for the U.S. Armed Forces on December 11, 1939. He spent many Christmases with American troops in Japan, Korea, and Europe in that capacity.[16]

During his tenure in New York, Spellman's considerable national influence[17][18] in religious and political matters earned his residence the nickname of "the Powerhouse."[19] He hosted such prominent figures as Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Bernard Baruch, David I. Walsh, John William McCormack, and numerous other politicians, entertainers, and clergymen.[10] In 1945, he instituted the Al Smith Dinner, an annual white tie fundraiser for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese that is attended by prominent national figures, including presidential nominees.

After his promotion to New York, Spellman also became a close confidant of Roosevelt.[16][20] During World War II, he was chosen by Roosevelt to act as the latter's agent and visited Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in 1943 fora total of 16 countries in four months.[21] As archbishop and a military vicar, he would have greater freedom than official diplomats.[10] Spellman also acted as a liaison between Pope Pius XII and Roosevelt in the Pope's attempts to have Rome declared an open city to save it from the relentless bombing that other European capitals had suffered and from potentially destroying Rome's historical sites and ruins, including Vatican City.[22] In 1946, Spellman received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York".

Styles of Francis Spellman
Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal
See	New York

Pope Pius XII created Spellman Cardinal-Priest of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the consistory of February 18, 1946. Spellman's titular church was the same one that had been held by Pius before his election to the papacy.

According to the historian William V. Shannon, "Spellman was deeply reactionary in his theology and secular politics."[16] Vehemently anti-Communist, Spellman once said that "a true American can neither be a Communist nor a Communist condoner"[23] and that "the first loyalty of every American is vigilantly to weed out and counteract Communism and convert American Communists to Americanism".[23] Spellman defended Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1953 investigations of Communist subversives in the federal government, stating at an April 1954 breakfast attended by the Senator 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".[24] In 1949, when gravediggers at Calvary Cemetery in Queens went on strike for a pay raise, the Cardinal accused them of being Communists and recruited seminarians of the Archdiocese from St. Joseph's Seminary as strikebreakers.[25] 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."[25] The strike was supported by such figures as the religious activist (now Servant of God) Dorothy Day and Ernest Hemingway, who wrote a scathing letter to Spellman.[10]

Spellman denounced the efforts of US Representative Graham Arthur Barden to provide federal funding only to public schools as "a craven crusade of religious prejudice against Catholic children"[26] and even called Barden himself an "apostle of bigotry."[27] The cardinal engaged later in a heated public dispute with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1949 when she expressed her opposition to providing federal funding to parochial schools in her column, My Day.[27] In response, Spellman accused her of anti-Catholicism and called her column a "[document] of discrimination unworthy of an American mother".[27] He eventually met with her at her Hyde Park home to quell the dispute.

Spellman frequently criticized films that he perceived to be immoral or indecent. He described Two-Faced Woman as "an occasion of sin ... dangerous to public morals",[28] The Miracle (which led to Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson) as a "vile and harmful picture ... a despicable affront to every Christian",[29] and Baby Doll as "revolting" and "morally repellent."[30] His condemnation of Forever Amber caused the producer William Perlberg to refuse publicly to "bowdlerize the film to placate the Roman Catholic Church."[10]

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."[10]

Spellman participated in the 1958 papal conclave, which elected Pope John XXIII. He was considered dismissive of Pope John and is reported to have said, "He's no Pope. He should be selling bananas."[10] In 1959, he served as papal delegate to the Eucharistic Congress in Guatemala; during his journey, he stopped in Nicaragua and, contrary to the Pope's orders, publicly appeared with dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle.[10]

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."

Spellman and Madame Hope Somoza at a reception in New York City.

Although John F. Kennedy was a Catholic, Spellman supported Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election because Kennedy opposed federal aid for parochial schools and the appointment of a U.S Ambassador to the Holy See.[10] His support for Nixon ended a long partnership with Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.[10] The 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."[20] Spellman had presided over the weddings of Robert, Jean, Eunice, and Edward Kennedy.

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.[16] 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. All of those schools are still open.

Spellman attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 and sat on its Board of Presidency.[4] The cardinal believed that predominantly liberal clergymen were being appointed to the council's commissions and opposed the introduction of vernacular into the Mass by 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."[10] A theological conservative, he supported ecumenism on pragmatic grounds.[22] However, in April 1963, Spellman brought to the Second Vatican Council John Courtney Murray as a peritus (expert) despite Cardinal Ottaviani's well-known animosity towards him. With Apostolic Delegate to the US Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi attempting to silence Murray, Spellman, along with Murray's Jesuit superiors, continued to shield him from most attempts at Curial interference. Murray's work helped shape the council's declaration on religious freedom.[6]

Spellman, after the death of John XXIII, participated in the conclave of 1963, which resulted in the election of Pope Paul VI. When The Deputy, a controversial play about Pius XII's actions during the Holocaust, opened on Broadway in 1964, Spellman condemned the play as "an outrageous desecration of the honor of a great and good man."[31] The play's producer, Herman Shumlin, responded by calling Spellman's words a "calculated threat to really drive a wedge between Christians and Jews."[10]

Although he had once expressed his personal opposition to demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement,[10] Spellman declined J. Edgar Hoover's requests to condemn Martin Luther King Jr. and funded the trip of a group of New York priests and Religious Sisters to the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. He opposed racial discrimination in public housing[23] 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.[10]

During the 1964 presidential election, Spellman supported Lyndon B. Johnson, whose Higher Education Facilities Act and Economic Opportunity Act had greatly benefited the Church.[10] The Cardinal later agreed to Johnson's requests to send priests to the Dominican Republic to defuse anti-American sentiments after the invasion of 1965.[10]

Spellman was an outspoken supporter of the Vietnam War to the extent that the conflict became known as "Spelly's War" and the Cardinal as the "Bob Hope of the clergy."[10] He had met Ngô Đình Diệm in 1950 and, favorably impressed by his strongly-Catholic and anti-Communist views, promoted his career but disassociated from Diệm, who was overthrown and assassinated in 1963.[10] Fearful of Communist gains in Vietnam, Spellman had urged American intervention since late 1954,[10] but by the 1960s his views were strongly criticized by antiwar activists and even his fellow religious leaders.[32]

When Pope Paul VI visited the United States in October 1965, he indirectly rebuked Spellman's hawkish stance by pleading for peace before the United Nations. A group of college students protested outside Spellman's residence in December 1965 for suppressing antiwar priests, and he later spent that year's Christmas with troops in South Vietnam.[10] While in Vietnam, Spellman quoted Stephen Decatur in declaring, "My country, may it always be right, but right or wrong, my country."[6] He also described Vietnam as a "war for civilization" and "Christ's war against the Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam."[10] One priest accused Spellman of "[blessing] the guns which the pope is begging us to put down".[23] In January 1967, antiwar protestors disrupted a Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.[6] His support for the Vietnam War, along with his opposition to church reform, greatly undermined Spellman's clout within the church and country.[10]

Spellman was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1967. The illustrator Edward Sorel designed a poster in 1967, Pass the Lord and Praise the Ammunition, showing Spellman carrying a rifle with bayonet, but the poster was never distributed because Spellman died right after it had been printed.[33]

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 VI asked him to remain in his post.[34] 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."[35]

Spellman died in New York City on December 2, 1967, at age 78, and 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, Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, John Lindsay, Arthur Goldberg, and Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos.[36] To date, Spellman's twenty-eight year tenure as archbishop is the longest in the history of the Archdiocese of New York.

John Cooney published a 1984 biography of Spellman, The American Pope. Before publication, he circulated galley proofs of the book, which included several pages arguing that Spellman had been a homosexual, based on multiple anonymous sources.[16] The draft of the book was covered in the press. However, the final published version removed this material and replaced it with 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."[16]

The journalist Michelangelo Signorile describes Spellman as "one of the most notorious, powerful and sexually voracious homosexuals in the American Catholic Church's history."[37] 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. 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.[37] Both Signorile and John Loughery cite a story suggesting that Spellman was sexually active and carrying on a relationship with a male member of the chorus in the Broadway revue One Touch of Venus.[37][38]

Additionally, Curt Gentry, a biographer of J. Edgar Hoover, says that Hoover's files also had "numerous allegations that Spellman was a very active homosexual."[39]