Word: sheil
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...well. He lobbied successfully for Francis Spellman's appointment as archbishop of New York, and in 1939, when Chicago's George William Cardinal Mundelein died, F.D.R. had his hand-picked candidate for the nation's largest archdiocese. This time he failed. Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Bernard James Sheil, the Roosevelt choice, was bypassed because he had irritated too many others inside and outside the church. Last week, after Sheil's death at 83 of heart disease, friends attending his funeral fondly recalled the cause of that irritation: for half a century, particularly in the field of social...
Born in a mixed black-white, Catholic-Jewish, Irish-Polish neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, Sheil was lace-curtain Irish. His grandfather had been an alderman, his father was Democratic leader of the 14th Ward. Entering St. Viator's College in Bourbonnais (a later pupil: Fulton J. Sheen), Sheil was ordained in 1910 and assigned to a middle-class parish. He caught Cardinal Mundelein's eye, however, and began to receive promising assignments. He served as chaplain at the Cook County jail, as an assistant at Holy Name Cathedral and was named chancellor of the archdiocese...
Youth and Workers. By then the feisty Sheil was already showing anti-Establishment symptoms. Concerned about youth, too many of whom he had met in jail, he formed a club to keep them straight. The bishop's Catholic Youth Organization was not limited to Catholics-or to whites. Critics snickered at it as the "colored youth organization" and complained that it put too much stress on boxing tournaments. Retorted Sheil: "You can't inspire boys away from brothels and saloons with checkers tournaments...
...Sheil's predilections led him into alliance with John L. Lewis, whose CIO was attempting to organize the meat packers and increase their 390 hourly wage. Chicago's hog butchers bitterly resented hierarchical support for the workers. "I want you to remember, your excellency," a Catholic banker told Sheil as the bishop prepared to appear at a CIO meeting, "that the minute you step on that platform you lose your chance to become an archbishop." Sheil eyed the man disdainfully. "You should know," he replied, "that I wasn't ordained a priest to become an archbishop." With...
...Shell Game. Through the years, Sheil's views were often antithetical to those of his church: he opposed, for instance, the Franco regime in Spain. He was among the first to assail the Sunday afternoon fulminations of Radio Priest Charles Coughlin at. home. He adopted as his own the words of French Cardinal Jules Saliege: "The Kingdom of God is not of this world, but it is in this world that...