Francis Spellman - Priesthood

Priesthood

Spellman was ordained a priest by Patriarch Giuseppe Ceppetelli on May 14, 1916. Upon his return to the United States, he did pastoral work in the Archdiocese of Boston. Cardinal O'Connell, who had earlier sent Spellman to Rome, took an apparent dislike to the young priest. O'Connell referred to him as a "little popinjay" and later said, "Francis epitomizes what happens to a bookkeeper when you teach him how to read." Spellman served as a chaplain at St. Clement's Home, an institution for elderly women, before becoming a curate at All Saints Church in Roxbury.

Following the United States' entry into World War I in 1917, he applied to become a military chaplain in the U.S. Army but could not meet the height requirement. Spellman's comparable application to the U.S. Navy was personally rejected, twice, by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Finally, Cardinal O'Connell assigned him to promote subscriptions for the archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot instead. He was named assistant chancellor (1918) and later archivist of the Archdiocese. After translating into English two books written by his friend Borgongini Duca, Spellman was made the first American attaché of the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1925. He also worked with the Knights of Columbus in running children's playgrounds, and was raised to the rank of Privy Chamberlain on October 4, 1926 by Pope Pius XI.

In 1927, Spellman established a lifelong friendship with Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli during a trip to Germany, where Pacelli was serving as Apostolic Nuncio. He translated Pius XI's first broadcast over Vatican Radio in 1931. Later that year, Spellman was charged with smuggling Non Abbiamo Bisogno, the papal encyclical condemning Benito Mussolini, out of Rome and to Paris, where he then delivered it to the press; he was subsequently attacked by Italian newspapers. He also served as secretary to Cardinal Lorenzo Lauri at the 1932 International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, and helped reform the Vatican's press office, introducing mimeograph machines and issuing press releases.