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.
The Pell case was a total set-up to get rid of an orthodox and ethical man who was making the entrenched folks - most of them FOFs, meaning Friends Of Francis - uncomfortable.
As for Spellman, he was originally considered to be one of the hard-core conservatives who would resist VII, and liberals in NY hated him. He was a company man, though, and when Rome told him to enforce liturgical decrees from VII, he did.
I don’t know the inside story and neither does anybody else but God. I’m just relating my experience, which was seeing him flying off to celebrate mass for the troops - and also to celebrate their funerals. He was hated because, like any good Irishman, he was very pro-American.