Abp. Chaput on JFK's speech: "It was sincere, compelling, articulate – and wrong."

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput's speech, "The Vocation of Christians in American Public Life", has been getting quite a bit of attention, not the least because it takes on directly the famous speech given fifty years ago by JFK. Italian journalist Sandro Magister writes:

Precisely fifty years after the memorable speech, preserved in the anthologies, that John F. Kennedy gave to the Protestant pastors of Houston in order to convince them and the entire nation that as a Catholic he could be a good president (see photo), the archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput, has returned to the scene of the crime, in Houston, for a Baptist conference on the role of Christians in public life.

Here are a couple of bits from the Archbishop's speech:

Fifty years ago this fall, in September 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He had one purpose. He needed to convince 300 uneasy Protestant ministers, and the country at large, that a Catholic like himself could serve loyally as our nation’s chief executive. Kennedy convinced the country, if not the ministers, and went on to be elected. And his speech left a lasting mark on American politics. It was sincere, compelling, articulate – and wrong. Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life. And he wasn’t merely “wrong.” His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America’s public life and political conversation. Today, half a century later, we’re paying for the damage. ...

The Houston remarks also created a religious problem. To his credit, Kennedy said that if his duties as President should “ever require me to violate my conscience or violate the national interest, I would resign the office.” He also warned that he would not “disavow my views or my church in order to win this election.” But in its effect, the Houston speech did exactly that. It began the project of walling religion away from the process of governance in a new and aggressive way. It also divided a person’s private beliefs from his or her public duties. And it set “the national interest” over and against “outside religious pressures or dictates.”
 
For his audience of Protestant ministers, Kennedy’s stress on personal conscience may have sounded familiar and reassuring. But what Kennedy actually did, according to Jesuit scholar Mark Massa, was something quite alien and new. He “‘secularize[d] the American presidency in order to win it.” In other words, “[P]recisely because Kennedy was not an adherent of that mainstream Protestant religiosity that had created and buttressed the ‘plausibility structures’ of [American] political culture at least since Lincoln, he had to ‘privatize’ presidential religious belief – including and especially his own – in order to win that office." ...

Fifty years after Kennedy’s Houston speech, we have more Catholics in national public office than ever before. But I wonder if we’ve ever had fewer of them who can coherently explain how their faith informs their work, or who even feel obligated to try. The life of our country is no more “Catholic” or “Christian” than it was 100 years ago. In fact it's arguably less so. And at least one of the reasons for it is this: Too many Catholics confuse their personal opinions with a real Christian conscience. Too many live their faith as if it were a private idiosyncrasy – the kind that they’ll never allow to become a public nuisance. And too many just don't really believe. Maybe it’s different in Protestant circles. But I hope you’ll forgive me if I say, “I doubt it.”

Read the entire speech on the Archdiocese of Denver website. Learn more about Archbishop Chaput's book, Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life.

Comments

[Patricia Cornell]

I sent a friend this website to read about the Catholic clergy who met with the Kennedy families to convince them that it was all right to support abortion and remain Catholic. He said he could not locate this article at this website.....would you tell me , please? I cannot locate it either. It was only 2 days ago that I read it here. Thank you very much. It was a telling article and made me sad...it also was crucial to know abut my Catholic past. Thank you. Patricia Cornell [email protected]

[LJ]

Archbishop Chaput is a brave man. Taking a shot at JFK is really going to win him friends on the left.

He is absolutely right about the consequences of JFK's stance. His own brother Edward's flip-flop on abortion is just one of those, along with Catholics in high office like Nancy Pelosi who call themselves "devout" and support abortion at very turn, justifying it with that bizarre personal twist on separation of Church and state such that they become one politician in two persons. (Beware the one that self-identifies as "devout". Really devout people are too humble to talk about it.)

To be fair to JFK, I don't think this was what he had in mind, or even imagined the consequences of his argument. I think that his goal was to persuade those in 1960 whose suspicion of the loyalty of Catholics had nothing to do with moral or religious conviction per se, but was a paranoia based on their focus on the Pope as a foreign entity, the head of a foreign state, who might compromise the sovereignty of the U.S. through undue influence on the President.

Throw in some good old fashioned anti-Catholicism of course and it is quite possible JFK would not have become president without the big disclaimer.