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Cardinal Francis Spellman
Francis Joseph Spellman (May 4, 1889 - December 2, 1967) was an American bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church. From 1939 until his death in 1967, he served as the sixth Archbishop of New York...view moreFrancis Joseph Spellman (May 4, 1889 - December 2, 1967) was an American bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church. From 1939 until his death in 1967, he served as the sixth Archbishop of New York, as well as Cardinal-Priest and Apostolic Vicar for the U.S. Armed Forces. He also wrote a number of books, including Prayers and Poems (1946), No Greater Love (1945), and Action This Day (1944).
Born the eldest of five children in Whitman, Massachusetts, he served as an altar boy at Holy Ghost Church. He attended Whitman High School and, following graduation, entered Fordham University in New York City in 1907. He graduated in 1911 and decided to study for the priesthood. He completed his theological studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Italy, and was ordained a priest by Patriarch Giuseppe Ceppetelli in 1916.
Upon his return to the United States, he did pastoral work in the Archdiocese of Boston. He was named assistant chancellor in 1918 and in 1924 archivist of the Archdiocese. He was made the first American attaché of the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1925, and was raised to the rank of Privy Chamberlain in 1926, by Pope Pius XI.
In 1932, Pope Pius XI appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of Boston and Titular Bishop of Sila, a post he held until 1939, when Cardinal Pacelli, now elected as Pope Pius XII, appointed Spellman sixth Archbishop of New York in 1939. Additionally he was named Apostolic Vicar for the U.S. Armed Forces on December 11, 1939. He also became Cardinal-Priest of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the consistory in 1946.
He sat on the Board of Presidency of the Second Vatican Council from 1962-1965 and was awarded the prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1967. He died in December of that year, aged 78.view less