I read this article elsewhere, and I just want to defend Spellman. I grew up in NY and I remember one time on a rainy day walking down Madison Ave. (behind St. Pat’s, where the episcopal palace was located) and seeing Cdl Spellman emerge from the residence, escorted by handsome clergymen holding a virtual tunnel of umbrellas over his head. He was very short and looked like an Irish bowling ball of a man, and while he may have been careful to make sure only the best and most handsome of underlings stood next to him (the way the military chooses an honor guard), I don’t think he was actively homosexual or even necessarily promoted people because he thought they were homosexuals.
Spellman was quite conservative, but he also regarded himself as just under orders: if the pope said jump, you jumped. He was not very scholarly, just a pragmatic Irish guy, and it would never have occurred to him to say no to anything he was told to do. So when Vatican II hit, he did what he was told, and was particularly intimidated by the “intellectual” crowd who hung out at the Paraclete bookstore and were big supporters of the most radical stuff of VII.
He was one of the few clergy who supported the troops in Vietnam and he spent a lot of his career visiting military installations and inspiring a lot of men who were about to go out to die in a war that the US had decided it was going to lose, thanks to the leftists. So be careful what you say about this man. God only knows, but from what I saw, while he may have been bad with his appointments (because he regarded them as smarter and more polished that he himself), he was a sincere and honest and ethical Christian gentleman and bishop.
Case in point, Cardinal Pell was hired by Frankie to oversee the repair of the Vatican finances. Since Pell is a very capable administrator he got in there and found some real problems. He hired Price Cooper Waterhouse to do a complete audit.
PCD began to do their work and some cardinals in charge of certain financial fiefdoms got upset and complained to Frankie. Pretty soon Cardinal Pell is called back to Australia to face charges of a sexual nature which are very questionable, in fact, witnesses seem to be unable to provide proof of exactly how he either did bad stuff or covered up bad stuff up. The Australian courts have called for complete media silence regarding the case.
What if it is seen as rather convenient to blame a good guy or a couple of good guys? It is an old Alinsky tactic to accuse an innocent party of what a guilty party is doing just so they can somehow forestall or alleviate the eventual blame.