Word: spellman
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...executive, Spellman has almost universal admiration; on other grounds, he is a target of criticism for excessive prudence. Some Catholic laymen deplore the fact that his voice, loud and clear in condemning The Deputy, dirty movies and the Communist threat, is rarely heard on such social issues as segregation and political corruption. Catholic book publishers seldom try to get Spellman's imprimatur on anything more controversial than the life of an Irish saint, and there is an undercurrent of complaint from young priests about the steady-as-you-go conservatism of chancery decrees. Says one Manhattan curate...
...Spellman's influence, however, goes well beyond his diocese. As the Pope's Military Vicar in charge of the nation's 920 Catholic chaplains, he is bishop of the Catholics in the armed forces. He also bears a major responsibility for the church's largest charity, Catholic Relief Services, a $176 million foreign aid program that sends food and clothing to 79 countries around the world, from Moslem Algeria to Catholic Peru. In grudging tribute to his financial power and financial skill, Rome sometimes calls him "Cardinal Moneybags...
...useful ways that seldom get into print. After World War II, he convinced Pius of the need to internationalize the Vatican's Italy-centered investments. Later, they say in Rome, he donated more than $1,000,000 to help the Holy See pay for the Ecumenical Council. Spellman would never be so indiscreet as to interfere in another bishop's diocese-yet the Vatican seldom takes any action affecting the U.S. church without an inquiry first to the "powerhouse" in Manhattan...
Close to the People. Spellman is a product of Massachusetts' lace-curtain Irish, and readily admits that he does not "believe in change just to change." But he is an unpredictable conservative. He voted with the progressives on most issues that came before the Vatican Council, and last fall he took to Rome as his personal theologian Jesuit John Courtney Murray (TIME Cover, Dec. 12, 1960), who had been excluded from council preparations because the Holy Office objected to his views on church-state relations...
...Spellman is now a trifle slow of step and dim of sight, and he yearns to be remembered not as the good builder but as a good shepherd. His greatest consolation, he says, has been his annual Christmastide visits to the troops overseas, "which gave me a chance to do something pastoral. That has always been my ideal-to be close to the people. That is what the church has always done and always should...