On September 12, 1960, John F. Kennedy’s Catholic faith had raised enough doubt about his candidacy for the presidency that he felt it necessary to address the controversy head-on. He went to Houston, Texas and gave a speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, which was a Protestant organization. After reminding his audience that the country faced many much more important issues, Kennedy explained his vision for religion in America. Here’s an extended excerpt:
…because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America in which I believe…
Somebody gave this speech to Rick Santorum. He read it. It made him nauseous. Here is what he said about the bolded part:
Santorum, speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, was asked to respond to a video clip of him criticizing President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on separation of church and state.
“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country,” said Santorum.
“The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion. That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square. Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, no, faith is not allowed in the public square,” he continued.
What Kennedy actually said was quite a bit different from Santorum’s presentation. Kennedy said that politicians shouldn’t be told how to act by the Pope or any other body of religious leaders. He said people shouldn’t be told how to vote by their religious leaders. I don’t agree with Kennedy but his suggestion doesn’t make me sick. I have no problem with religious leaders telling their leaders what to do and telling their flock how to vote. My problem is with people who listen to them unquestioningly. That’s my problem with Rick Santorum. He takes the church’s official line on everything (except dropping bombs on people) and he doesn’t exercise any independent judgement. A president Santorum would never oppose the Pope (except when he decided to drop bombs).
A representative of the people, even the president, has the responsibility to weigh the facts. If they think they are already in possession of the only facts that matter, that’s a recipe for disaster. Just think about a President Santorum trying to decide what to do during the Bay of Pigs disaster or the Cuban Missile Crisis.
