May 29th marked the 90th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's birth -- the first (and so far, only) Catholic president of the United States. By Dr. Gary Scott Smith recalls Kennedy's years in office and his influence on Catholic-Protestant relations; further commentary by Carl Olson @ Insight Scoop.

President Kennedy on the Catholic Faith counseling Public Officials

Much has been written and said about Senator and presidential candidate John F. Kennedy's address of to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Sep 1960. The key point he made was this:

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.

Yet, there is another statement President Kennedy made concerning the Catholic Faith informing the views of public officials. Father Robert Araujo recently posted on the Mirror of Justice blog a part of the president's address at the Centennial Celebration at Boston College in April 1963. Fr Araujo writes:

[H]is remarks made as President at Boston College stand in contrast to his remarks to the Protestant ministers as candidate for President. In commenting on the recently released Papal Encyclical Pacem in Terris, the President said at Boston College: "As a Catholic, I am proud of it, and as an American I have learned from it." In his further remarks on the encyclical's "penetrating analysis," the President continued by saying "that document surely shows that on the basis of one great faith and its tradition there can be developed counsel on public affairs that is of value to all men and women of good will."

It is true that the encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) was the first encyclical to be addressed to both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. As well, the president was speaking to a much different audience then he was in Houston almost three years before. Still, it is interesting to read these words from the same man who is invoked by so many as the proper example of a public official separating his faith from his policy views. The next time a Gov Cuomo or Sen Kerry brings up the president's address in Houston they should be reminded of his words two and half years later as president in Boston.

(Note: I have been unable to find the complete text of President Kennedy's address in Boston. I would appreciate a note in the comments from anyone who may come across a copy.)

The JFK Question

I have been meaning to post on this. Instead I point our readers to Manuel Miranda's excellent piece on Opinion Journal today. Some excerpts:

While questioning John Roberts on Tuesday, Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter asked: "Would you say that your views are the same as those expressed by John Kennedy when he was a candidate, and he spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September of 1960: 'I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.' "

Hours later, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California made it worse: "In 1960, there was much debate about President John F. Kennedy's faith and what role Catholicism would play in his administration. At that time, he pledged to address the issues of conscience out of a focus on the national interests, not out of adherence to the dictates of one's religion. . . . My question is: Do you?"

How insulting. How offensive. How invidiously ignorant to question someone like Judge Roberts with such apparent presumption and disdain for the religion he practices. The JFK question is not just the camel's nose of religious intolerance; it is the whole smelly camel.

...

The JFK question has no place in a Senate confirmation process. The Constitution says so. As I noted in an earlier column new secularist bigotry has found a home in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I was not the first to say so. In July 2003, the Most Rev. Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, reacted to the growing evidence of a religious test in the Senate: "Many people already believe that a new kind of religious discrimination is very welcome at the Capitol, even among elected officials who claim to be Catholic. Some things change, and some things don't. The bias against 'papism' is alive and well in America. It just has a different address."

A Catholic archbishop's voice in politics is a rare enough thing, but it was not alone. Representing more than 1,000 synagogues, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations wrote this letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee a few days earlier: "As a community of religious believers committed to full engagement with modern American society, we are deeply troubled by those who have implied that a person of faith cannot serve in a high level government post that may raise issues at odds with his or her personal beliefs."

Now, two years later, the situation is worse. Anti-Semitism marred the confirmation battles of associate justices Abe Fortas, Louis Brandeis, and Benjamin Cardozo, but it was unpronounced and hidden. John Roberts will be only the 11th Catholic (out of 109 justices) to serve on the Supreme Court in its 215-year history. But his confirmation may be a historic first. It marks the introduction, on the record, of a constitutionally prohibited religious test for a Supreme Court nominee. We are going in the wrong direction.