Francis Joseph Spellman was an American Roman Catholic clergyman. He was the Sixth Archbishop of New York City, New York.
Background
Francis was born on May 4, 1889 in Whitman, Massachussets, United States, the son of William Spellman, the owner of a grocery store he inherited from his Irish immigrant father, and Ellen Mary Conway, the daughter of Irish immigrants. (Spellman made a point of his parents' American birth and resented being designated an Irishman. )
Education
He attended public schools in Whitman and graduated from high school in 1907. He enrolled at Fordham College in New York City and graduated in 1911. He then entered the seminary for the Archdiocese of Boston and was sent to the North American College in Rome, where he received a doctorate in sacred theology from the Urban College of Propaganda and was ordained a priest on May 14, 1916.
Career
Upon his return to Boston, Spellman was assigned by the archbishop, Cardinal William Henry O'Connell, first to parish work (1916 - 1918) at All Saints' Church in Roxbury, Massachussets, and then to the staff of the Pilot, the diocesan weekly newspaper, where he was charged with increasing the paper's circulation. In 1922 he was assigned to the chancery staff, the archbishop's curia, on which he served until 1925.
During this period, he and O'Connell, for reasons unclear, developed a strong mutual antagonism. In 1924, O'Connell named him the archivist of the archdiocese and a part-time staff member of the Pilot, positions of little authority and even less honor. Spellman was not put off. He translated into English two books by Monsignor Francesco Borgongini-Duca, one of his professors in Rome, and received the praise of Archbishop Giovanni Bonzano, the apostolic delegate to the United States hierarchy.
Borgongini-Duca recommended that O'Connell name Spellman a monsignor - a proposal which brought the cardinal's blunt reply that Spellman did "not yet have a position to be raised to the purple. " Spellman then sought to gain such a position through his Roman connections, which eventually led him out of the oppressive atmosphere of Boston.
In 1925, Spellman accompanied a group of Boston pilgrims to Rome - nominally, as secretary to Bishop Joseph Anderson, the auxiliary of Boston. While in Rome, he arranged to be appointed director of the Knights of Columbus playgrounds in Rome, subject to the Extraordinary Affairs of the Vatican Secretariat of State. Later that year, Pacelli was named the cardinal secretary of state.
In 1931, Pope Pius XI issued Non Abbiamo Besogno, a condemnation of fascism, but because of the fascist suppression of the church press, Spellman smuggled the letter out of Italy to Paris, where it was printed and distributed by the Associated Press. In 1932 he was consecrated titular bishop of Sila and named auxiliary bishop of Boston; he was consecrated by Cardinal Pacelli on September 8, 1932, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Spellman's years as auxiliary bishop of Boston, from 1932 to 1939, were difficult ones. O'Connell had not asked for an auxiliary bishop and made it publicly clear that Spellman was not being considered as his successor. Spellman's diary recounts his strained relations with the cardinal on a series of issues: the cardinal would not publish his confirmation schedule; he publicly opposed Governor James Michael Curley, with whom Spellman was on cordial terms; and he opposed an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting child labor, while Spellman was drafting such an amendment. In the fall of 1936, Pacelli visited the United States, ostensibly as the personal guest of Genevieve Brady, by then a widow.
Spellman arranged a meeting at the president's mother's home at Hyde Park, New York, on November 5, 1936, two days after Roosevelt was elected to a second term. Spellman was present while the president and cardinal discussed the establishment of formal relations between the United States and the Holy See. In the fall of 1938, Cardinal Patrick Hayes, the archbishop of New York, died. Several candidates were rumored as the new archbishop, but Spellman's name was not prominent.
With the prospect of war in Europe, Spellman worked to establish diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See. Spellman had been making overtures since 1935, principally through Kennedy, and, later, James Roosevelt, the president's son. The president, however, was negotiating with Cardinal George Mundelein of Chicago, whom he regarded as a close friend and supporter.
When Mundelein died in the fall of 1939, Spellman assumed the mantle of leadership with Roosevelt. On December 24, through Spellman's influence, Roosevelt named Myron C. Taylor as his personal representative to Pius XII, in lieu of establishing official diplomatic relations. At the same time, Spellman was named the vicar for the armed forces of the United States, and he immediately appointed John O'Hara, C. S. C. , the president of the University of Notre Dame, as his auxiliary bishop.
He used his dual position as archbishop of New York and military vicar to gain national influence. Learning that Roosevelt had reservations about Archbishop Samuel Stritch, who had succeeded Mundelein in Chicago, Spellman telephoned Stritch and then forwarded to the president a private letter from Stritch describing his attitude toward the White House.
In May 1941, Spellman reported to Pius XII that he had completed all the tasks assigned to him when he had been appointed archbishop.
In the spring of 1943, he visited American armed forces in Spain, Rome, England, North Africa, and the Middle East. In Spain he met with Generalissimo Francisco Franco and explained American war intentions in an effort, made at Roosevelt's request, to persuade the Spanish leader to remain neutral. Traveling to Rome under an Italian safe conduct, he met with the pope but never disclosed the exact nature of their conversations either in his diary or to his authorized biographer, Robert I. Gannon. The journey introduced him to political and ecclesiastical leaders throughout the world.
After the liberation of Rome in June 1944, he again visited the pope and offered his advice on American church matters, including the naming of Richard J. Cushing as archbishop of Boston, since O'Connell had died earlier that year. Pius XII also offered to make him the Vatican's secretary of state. Spellman did not become the secretary of state, but he was named a cardinal in 1946 in Pius XII's first consistory.
Throughout the 1950's, Spellman still hoped to see the United States establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See. In 1958, however, Catholic senator John F. Kennedy declared his candidacy for the presidency. Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, influenced by Blanshard, demanded that every presidential candidate declare himself on diplomatic relations with the Vatican and aid to parochial schools.
In 1961, Spellman defended biblical scholars against Vagnozzi's attacks. In 1962, when Vatican II opened, he discovered that John Courtney Murray, a progressive Jesuit theologian, had been excluded because of the opposition of Vagnozzi and other Roman officials. He had Murray made an official theologian of the council. Spellman was elected to the presidency of the council and made more interventions than any other American prelate. In the summer of 1963 he participated in the conclave that elected Montini pope. He used his power to have religious liberty placed back on the agenda of the council later that year.
An efficient administrator of the nation's principal dioceses, he also had a reputation for standing by his priests and even promoting experimentation.
He died on December 2, 1967 in New York City.
Politics
Spellman emerged as a strong opponent of Communism in the postwar years. His anti-Communism was one of the factors in his opposition in 1949 to the union of gravediggers in Catholic cemeteries, who were affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).