Cardinal's Birthday

On Manhattan's Fifth Avenue one day 20 years ago, traffic came to a halt as thousands of New Yorkers, 2,000 priests and scores of bishops crowded into St. Patrick's Cathedral for the installation of the city's sixth Roman Catholic archbishop. Said the new prelate, whom they had come to honor: "I have read that this see is the richest see . . . The city of New York has length and breadth and height and depth of astonishing dimensions . . . [But] my viewpoint as a Catholic bishop is the apprehension of St. Paul, who wrote to the Corinthians: 'We look not at the things that are seen but the things which are not seen.' "

This week, as Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman celebrated his 70th birthday and his 20th anniversary as New York's archbishop, he could look the length and breadth of his see for some remarkable achievements. During the last two decades, the Catholic population of the New York archdiocese (including Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island, and seven suburban counties) grew 50% to 1,558,328; the number of auxiliary bishops had risen from one to nine; the number of elementary and high schools had increased from 307 to 412; tireless Fund Raiser Spellman has chalked up $41,322,074 through his annual fund appeal for Catholic Charities. Born in Whitman, Mass., moonfaced, articulate Frank Spellman ran errands for his father's grocery, played sandlot baseball, boxed in a village barn, became an altar boy at the local church. After graduating from Fordham University ('11), he studied for the priesthood at Rome's North American College. He served in the Boston archdiocese before the Vatican summoned him in 1925. As first U.S.-born staff member of the State Secretariate, Spellman translated and delivered in English the first papal radio broadcast, stayed for seven years, part of that time as attache to the Vatican's secretary of state and his close friend, Cardinal Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII.

In many ways Francis Spellman represented the U.S. to the Vatican, did much to help modernize its ancient methods, was admired as well as occasionally resented for his drive, efficiency and muscular opposition to Communism. Noted at home for tough stands on Catholic issues (e.g., his hassle with Eleanor Roosevelt over publicly paid transportation for parochial schools, his frequent criticism of movies he considered indecent), he traveled tirelessly, has spent many Christmases with U.S. troops in Japan, Korea and Europe in his capacity as military vicar to the armed forces.

This week he keeps up his customary pace as he moves back and forth between New York (special Masses, dinners, receptions) and Boston (a private reunion with relatives). At 70, Spellman remains the foremost U.S. Catholic prelate and probably the busiest. As he put it 20 years ago: "I shall pray as if everything depended on God. I shall work as if everything depended on me."

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