Voting Station

Francis Cardinal Spellman

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Religious Figure

The Resume

    (May 4, 1889-December 2, 1967)
    Born in Whitman, Massachusetts
    Auxillary Bishop of Boston (1932-39)
    Archbishop of New York City (1939-67)
    Appointed to the College of Cardinals (1946)

Why he might be annoying:

    He supported Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist witch hunts.
    When gravediggers at Cavalry Cemetery went on strike for higher pay, he accused them of being Communists and sent in seminary students as strikebreakers.
    He allegedly said of Pope John XXIII, 'He's no pope. He should be selling bananas.'
    While traveling to a eucharistic congress in Guatemala, he flouted the Pope's orders by appearing in public with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia.
    He called the Vietnam War 'a war for civilization' and 'Christ's war against the Viet Cong.'
    Journalist Michelangelo Signorile claimed he was 'one of the most notorious, powerful and sexually voracious homosexuals in the American Catholic Church's history.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    While traveling to Rome as translator for a Boston bishop, he so impressed Pope Pius XI that he became the first American named to the Papal Secretariate of State (1925).
    He helped modernize the Vatican's press office.
    He inaugurated the Al Smith Dinner, an annual fundraiser for Catholic Charities attended by prominent national figures, including presidential nominees.
    He refused a request from J. Edgar Hoover to publicly condemn Martin Luther King, Jr..
    His longtime secretary said that allegations of homosexuality were 'utterly ridiculous and preposterous.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 11 Votes: 18.18% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 14 Votes: 78.57% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 18 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 74 Votes: 51.35% Annoying