History is often burdened by hoary myths that take on a life of their own, independently of what “really happened,” in order to establish a certain narrative. We’ll likely hear one such myth this April, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord: the “midnight ride of Paul Revere” which, while important, involved other characters. But that’s not the myth I want to explore.
I want to explore Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Historians cite it as a turning moment in the 1960 presidential campaign when Catholic JFK at least partially answered the mainstream Protestant protest that he’d be a Roman ruse in the White House.
Let’s reconsider that trope.
In 1960, there was still something of a Protestant consensus about the “whore of Babylon.” The Protestant “mainstream” was still largely the animating force of American civil religion. Ecumenism was a tiny flicker and Vatican II had not happened. American civil life still coasted on the gases of a Judaeo-Christian ethic that was broadly compatible with a Catholic worldview (although, by that time, important parts of the Protestant “mainline” had broken with the unbroken Christian consensus against contraception).
JFK to them represented a potential papal puppet and “Catholic schools” threats to “Americanism” (remember, public schools were still reading the King James Bible). And while abortion was considered abhorrent, many Protestants were comfortable with their contraceptives and were convinced JFK would take away those contraceptives.
While many argue that Kennedy’s election as a Catholic was a breakthrough, it was a setback for Catholics. We would have been better off losing with Kennedy than winning on his terms—an “absolute separation” of Church and state where a Catholic would not be informed by his faith but would be schizophrenically “personally opposed” to some things he’d otherwise push. A “Catholic” President would have one set of clothes on Sunday (or Saturday night in Wilmington) and another for the rest of the week.
In broad outlines, JFK was the prototype for Mario Cuomo, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and all the other (mostly) Democrats who would never let their religion get in the way of their politics (or poll numbers).
What happened? Within a decade, the “sexual revolution” occurred. Its melody would find its “Catholic” harmony in Charles Curran’s “dissent” against Humanae vitae, which created “Catholics but….” Within thirteen years, abortion-on-demand would be legal—but the Bible would no longer be allowed in public schools.
I wonder if anybody ever surveyed what became of the men gathered in Houston in 1960. My guess is they eventually split into two camps. The “mainline” Protestants (Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians) gradually accommodated to the Zeitgeist or else found themselves in increasingly internally divided denominations. By 1972, for example, there was a “Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights” in which many of those “mainline” groups could be found. And all that would plant the seed for what Richard John Neuhaus called the “mainline” becoming the “old line” and, eventually, the sideline.
I’d bet the other half—probably more fundamentalist and evangelical types—began having doubts about America’s arc, convinced the nation was going to hell in a handbasket and trying desperately to pull the brake on America’s moral decline. Twenty years later, they’d be in Lynchburg, Virginia, rallying around Jerry Falwell and trying to ignite a “moral majority”.
But the Kennedy Presidency and its divided approach to religion should be seen in the light of another man and time: Jimmy Carter and his one term as President, from 1976 to 1980.
I suspect that most of the Protestant ministers who choked on Kennedy were willing to swallow Carter, silently convinced the Sunday School teacher from Plains, Georgia would be the brake on America’s moral decline. No, they didn’t explicitly say that but they likely believed a Georgia Baptist would have those views.
What they got was four years of a Protestant JFK: one who talked about his Bible while guiding most of his policies according to the secular priorities of the Democrat party. Sure, he occasionally dressed those policies up in religious terms—but the policies were at core secular, not religious. The fact most Evangelicals looked askance by 1980 at the failure of the Carter presidency to do anything to rein in Roe v. Wade (after making noises about it early in his campaign) soured them on the man from Plains.
Gentlemen of Houston, you got what you wanted: a Protestant with the split morality you extracted from JFK.
And that’s probably why many of those Protestants turned in 1980 to vote for a nominally Protestant Ronald Reagan who, nevertheless, had powerful Catholic influences in his background.
The anti-Catholic bigotry of 1960 Protestantism that extracted JFK’s bipolar commitment to not letting his religion guide his politics was predicated on crude anti-Romanism with the extremely attenuated vision that the Protestant “civil religion” consensus that largely tracked Christian orthodoxy would continue. It did not–perhaps to their surprise—and no small part of the Protestant “mainline” helped shuffle it off stage in ensuing decades.
This makes us go back to the historians to ask whether JFK’s Houston address was a benefit or a bane to America’s common good.
In the wake of Jimmy Carter’s death, there have been some revisionist attempts to rewrite history elsewhere, namely about Carter’s allegedly “pro-life” record. Ex-Congressman Daniel Lipinski–primaried out of office by the pro-abortion litmus test begun in the Carter Administration–tried to paint Carter as “the last pro-life Democrat president.” John Murdock tries to be more balanced/realistic by calling the 39th President an “awkward abortion moderate.”
Their claims are based mostly on the fact that Carter defended the Hyde Amendment cutting off taxpayer funding of Medicaid abortions That was the least he could do. Both authors ignore the fact that, even in the late 1970s, Roe had still not become a “super precedent.” There were still mainstream challenges to it and–perhaps even more importantly–a pro-life group among Democrats, especially in the House. Carter was President, which also made him his party’s leader. He’d support Hyde, which helped defuse some of the opposition to Roe (back then, people objected to having to subsidize killing). But he’d also “balance” HHS’s Joseph A. Califano Jr. with feminists like Midge Costanza in the White House.
Carter could have chipped away at Roe; he decided, as a good Protestant JFK, that politics would—mostly—prevail over conviction. The preliminary design for such politics came, paradoxically, from the Popish plotter that Carter’s fellow Protestants distrusted sixteen years earlier.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum. But not “bonum” at the expense of veritas.
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And, today (about “straight [!] lines”) a contagious variant of the JFK viral mindset:
“Following the [mentioned] first Cuomo, the next-generation Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fully retailored modern-day theocrat of Secular Humanism, dropped the other shoe when he announced in 2014 that those who oppose abortion and gay ‘marriage’ (that is, affirm life and man-and-woman marriage) ‘are not welcome in New York.’ More recently (2016), it is reported that the New York City Commissioner on Human Rights declared no less than thirty-one kinds of sexual identity. He (‘he’) wants the use of the ‘non-binary’ spectrum zie’ in place of ‘he’ and ‘she,’ and threatens heavy fines for not following the new script. How very sophisticated. . . are we now to suppose that the basic [natural law] moral distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, is also just a ‘binary’ mindset and nothing more?”
(Beaulieu, “A Generation Abandoned,” 2017: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/03/29/a-generation-abandoned-why-whatever-is-not-enough/
Proverbs 23:23 “Buy truth, and do not sell it;” Carter was an insincere bidder in the truth market…and a BIG seller on the policy side.
More significant than his Quisling attitude to the Faith in the Houston speech was JFK’s full-throated support of Engel V. Vitale ending prayer in public schools. Had he cared to, Kennedy could easily have rallied the nation – Democrats and Republicans – to a constitutional amendment to get the Supreme Court out of the business of proscribing religious activity from the public square. But then, of course, he was a bit preoccupied with his paramours.
He could have succeeded there BUT …. he did exactly what he said he’d do in Houston. “The Supreme Court has spoken….” The neo-Catholic revision of Roma locuta est.
Pope Leo XIII foresaw, in the 1890s, the Americanist trap into which US Catholic (especially Irish Catholic) intellectuals and clerics were in danger of falling.
In Longinqua Oceani and Testem Benevolentiae, he directly warned the US bishops (especially Gibbons, Ireland and Keane) that it would be “very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church”. Yet this is precisely the erroneous position at which John Courtney Murray, the Maritainians and all of the assorted “anti-integralists” of the post WWII period arrived.
The Kennedy candidacy and election (even if he did need Dick Daley to steal it for him from Nixon) provided the catalyst required to instill it as “orthodoxy” among US Catholics.
From there, it was not a long leap to the proposition that “the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity”, which Leo had presciently forewarned and condemned in Testem Benevolentiae.
With its “Catholic” president and its cultural supremacy in most of the lands inhabited by Catholics, the US became the “paradigm” of the “world of today” to which John XXIII and the modernists at Vatican II wished to offer words of encouragement.
The road from Kennedy and John XXIII to Biden and Francis is not as far in logic as it may seem in time. As someone, whose philosophy Leo also condemned, once said: “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce”
An excellent article Mr. Grondelski. I read Lipinski’s article week ago and thought at the time – that is not true.
I liked your description of Carter as a protestant JFK. For some reason it reminded me of something that I read several decades ago. A European was asked what he thought of American Catholics. He replied that they were protestants who went to Mass. That apparently was a reference to the great amount of dissent and cafeteria Catholicism even among weekly Mass going Catholics.
While JFK was baptized and raised a Catholic. To refer to him as a Catholic president is a bit of an overreach. His life style lacked a moral compass, just look at the fact he in effect raped a White House intern when he just got in office. This and everything else done by JFK is overlooked by his administration skillful manipulation of a compliant press. In effect for both JFK and Carter, morals would in no way defend pro life, with Carter exceeding in betraying Israel. As time goes by and I learn more about these presidents I feel they mastered the art of betrayal to a degree that is disgusting.
Good points. Let’s not also forget that being a serial adulterer is incompatible with authentic faith. JFK was no more Catholic than Biden.
Does outright power promote promiscuity? The “wandering eye”.
JFK? How about RFK and RFK Jr. and other Catholic and Protestant luminaries like Trump, who have fallen prey to their raging libidos? I (remember) when the mere thought of this sexual desire was a MORTAL sin and condemned one to the fires of Gehenna. Is it real proof or hyperbole? A contributing sin is the use of contraceptives. A double whammy.
Jimmy Carter. He specifically said he was against abortion except if the pregnant woman would die. Was he doomed to take that position? Some “holier-than-thou” say “there is no reason for abortion”.
Recently, a Texas mother was denied emergency care twice. The third plea caused her death. She bled out in the hospital parking lot. Enter Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton. Their pitiful ignorance of Texa law does allow for that exception. They are criminally complicit. They will receive no consequence. They didn’t even attend the funeral.
Remember, Christ trying to protect the harlot said, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
LA Times: JFK and Tempest Storm? RFK People.com: “He was probably the most puritanical and probably the most sanctimonious of Joe Kennedy’s boys.
Mr. Morgan, with respect when you cite cases of expectant mothers perishing because of state laws could you please provide a source? Thank you.
Thank you mscracker. Source, Texas Tribune covering Porsha Ngumezi case, the third woman and the mother of two sons, to die because of political interference. Paxton has a criminal record because of fraud. Read this article…
https://apnews.com/article/paxton-indictment-texas-d5e57fc6cd062c995ced91e9d2542199
I believe that no one wants to support abortion. Porsha and her husband Hope really wanted this child. No question their lives have changed. They will still mourn.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/27/texas-abortion-death-porsha-ngumezi/
Thank you for sharing those links Mr Morgan. I appreciate it.
It looks like another case of a hospital not following proper medical protocols or providing standards of care to a woman of colour.
Whenever there’s a tragedy like this it’s exploited by the feticide industry. The same sort of thing happened in Ireland and that poor mother’s death was also exploited to further feticide on demand.
The media promotes these stories in the hope that laypeople outside the medical profession will be taken in by them. These tragedies are about substandard medical care. Not prolife laws.
Jimmy Carter did NOTHING to roll back the abortion-on-demand license of Roe to talk only about threats to maternal life. He could have, considering over 96% of all abortions have no medical or criminal nexus but are socio-economically motivated. He could have jumpstarted that conversation. He did not. The most he did was protect the Hyde Amendment (which Biden wanted to gut). That does not earn him plaudits from me: keeping abortionists out of taxpayer money was the least any politician could do in a country where significant numbers of people think abortion is killing. Furthermore, as I understand it during his years in office the DNC adopted positions denying funds to those who were not “pro-choice.” Roughly 1/3 of the House Democrats in 1977-80 were prolife: if Carter stood with them, there would have been a “big tent” in the DNC. He stood with his pro-abortion VP (Mondale) who picked Ferraro, picking a fight with John Cardinal O’Connor (at a time when we still had bishops with guts). This same disinformation is pedaled today so that young women today are scared that becoming a mother in 21st century America is “risky” without the “backup” of abortion. That is barbarism. And Jimmy could have helped temper it.
Exactly what do you expect from JFK? An executive order prohibiting the eating of meat on Fridays for all Americans? Calling the Vatican every morning for his orders for the day?
And by the way, the vast majority of Catholics practice or have practiced contraception. Right wing Bishops are not going to change this. Get used to it.
Please lay off the straw men. They went out with the Houston ministers and the 1960 West Virginia primary. It was quite clear that secularization was growing, esp. in the judiciary, already by the early 1960s. There were pushes to involve the government in “family planning,” supposedly otherwise something government should never get involved in, according to its advocates. There were questions about fairness of treatment for religious schools. Kennedy could have been a leader; he chose to follow. Yes, secularization galloped after his death, but when you promise you will not let your faith inform your politics, it’s pretty clear you are abetting that process.
Ever hear of the 1st Amendment? The current crop of Christian Nationalists want the government to enforce right wing beliefs. No thanks.
What would you have had JFK do? Try to enforce Catholic Doctrine on everyone?
William can you please identify a Christian Nationalist and explain what that title means to you?
Thank you.
I have heard of the First Amendment. The very first right in the First Amendment is freedom of religion, not freedom FROM religion. Yes, the Amendment speaks about “no establishment of religion” but that does not mean pretending religion does not exist. All it meant was that there was not to be a denominationally established privileged church, e.g., as Anglicanism was in Virginia or Congregationalism in Connecticut. The Supreme Court tortured that to mean religion in general, a discovery it took them until 1947 (almost 160 years after the Constitution was written) to make. The rest of the Amendment bans interfering with “free exercise of religion.” So, borrowing Richard John Neuhaus, to pretend that the First Amendment’s approach to religion is for society to pretend that it doesn’t exist, the “naked public square,” may be SOME people’s (and occasionally some Courts’) views but was never generally what the Constitution meant.
Well said! Thank you for that John!
“the vast majority of Catholics practice or have practiced contraception”
2 things:
1). Moral Truth is not determined by the immoral majority, and
2). They better get to confession because if they don’t repent they are damned to Hell.
Nonsense. I’ll take my chances. Read Matthew 25. Christ said nothing, repeat NOTHING about contraception, but plenty about helping the poor. You right wing Catholics focus on sex and ignore the poor.
“You right wing Catholics focus on sex and ignore the poor.”
And you are full of nonsense. I know so, so many “right-wing Catholics” (that is, orthodox Catholics with moderate/conservative beliefs) who help the poor in numerous ways.
Also, as I’ve explained many times, it’s the Left and Co. that is obsessed with sex, often and increasingly in a way that is anti-life, anti-relationship, anti-common good, anti-human:
My wife and I, unable to have children, were called in clear and convincing ways to adopt. We’ve been involved in five adoptions and have witnessed the painful reality of material, spiritual, and relational poverty in ways that are sometimes shocking. In each case, the children faced living in poverty (again, material and otherwise). In two cases, the adoptions did not take place; we witnessed damaged people making decisions that were problematic or worse. Such is the reality of the human condition; we are all sinners and we all are poor in our basic state. But, again, you are wrong in your broadbrushed and uncharitable comment.
“Christ said nothing, repeat NOTHING about contraception…”
Taking a Fundamentalist approach is Scripture and Church teaching is embarrassing.
But this is what I see so often with those Catholics who whine and moan about the Church’s teachings re: contraception because, first, they don’t understand the Church’s teachings about marriage, sexuality, family, the common good, etc., and, foremost, because they are hypocrites. They’d rather attack those who uphold Church teaching than admit their own failings to know and live said teaching.
When people take a fundamentalist approach to scripture you would think they would remember the sin of Onan. Christ didnt need to cite every single thing already covered in the Old Testament.
So, I am a hypocrite? Well, I’ve been called worse. Note to right wing Catholics: if you choose to eschew contraception, fine and dandy. Just don’t try to inflict your beliefs on the rest (I.e. 90+%) of us.
Good grief. You rail and whine endlessly about “right wing [sic] Catholics” but what you are really railing and whining about is the Church’s perennial teaching against the use of contraceptives. Those teaching are not “my beliefs” (although I fully believe them) but the teachings of the Church founded by Jesus Christ. So why don’t you take up your issues with this man?
Or this man?
One thing I’ve learned in my nearly 30 years as a Catholic: that when a self-described Catholic starts railing against “Catholic right-wingers” or “Catholic fundamentalists,” it’s almost always because they disagree with the Church’s teachings on some issue related to sexuality. Predictable as rain in western Oregon in January.
William, if something is life giving and critically important wouldn’t you focus on it?
Catholics can multi task and focus on more than one thing at the same time.
🙂
Oh, here we go… The old “Christ never said a word about” argument. Christ also said nothing about bestiality. Is a goat safe around you?
I think someone should compile a list of all the things Christ *didn’t * say.
🙂
Your argument is absurd, and typical right wing claptrap. Try to think.
“I knew you before I formed you in the womb”
William, dear William, sad William; Read the Gospels and try to actually “think” William. In fact, read the entire bible, including the passages that encourage further future development of understanding how we ought to order our lives in light of the implications of the moral laws already received.
Do you believe, for example, that the commandment against not bearing false witness against one’s neighbor is confined to one’s next door neighbor? No, it obviously implies every member of humanity, as we are obliged to regard every member of humanity as our neighbor, past and present, even historical figures. We don’t even have a right to lie about history as best we can ascertain past events. We definitely do not have a right to lie to ourselves, a matter that on occasion, we might be tempted to do dozens of times a day, perhaps even on an active comment posting day.
And sexuality? When Jesus said to even look upon a woman with lust is a grave sin, He clearly spoke volumes about human dignity. Sexuality is for building families, not for destroying them, as would be self-evident to an honest mind, were you to engage the “thought” you insist those you regard as your inferiors are lacking.
William: Should we, then, get used to sin? Hardly a Christian stance.
In the late 1970s, Carter’s Southern Baptist Convention moved in a more conservative direction, becoming anti-abortion. Carter opposed these changes and later left the SBC.
In other words, Southern Baptists came to discover their model for a “religion-free President” sketched out in Houston came back to bite them. And the fact that Carter chose policy over denomination is exactly my point.
I agree– Kennedy’s victory was a hollow one for Catholics as we got essentially the first hollowed-out Catholic. Of course, Nixon might not have been much better in 1960, which also demonstrates the utter failure of the two-party system as early as that. It only got worse after that.
As for Jimmy Carter, I cast my first presidential vote for Ellen McCormack in 1980, and I’ve never had any reason to regret that.
Not sure McCormack ran again in 1980. She certainly did in 1976, in part because Democrats were already bobbing and weaving about where they stood on Roe.
McCormack was the candidate of the Right to Life Party in New York in 1980. At that time it was actually an established political party here, having knocked the Liberal Party down to fifth place on the ballot. Of course, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats would tolerate that (not to mention the Conservatives and Liberals), and they did everything they could to eliminate the Right to Life Party. Unfortunately, they were successful, and I’ve mostly had to resort to write-in candidates since then. It should be noted that most Republicans weren’t particularly fervent about opposing abortion either, even back in the 1980’s. They were quite happy to let it be “settled” by the Supreme Court. At best, they would say that they opposed abortion, but when it actually came time to do something about it, they were nowhere to be found. The Hyde Amendment was about the best we could get.
“I suspect that most of the Protestant ministers who choked on Kennedy were willing to swallow Carter, silently convinced the Sunday School teacher from Plains, Georgia would be the brake on America’s moral decline. No, they didn’t explicitly say that but they likely believed a Georgia Baptist would have those views.”
*********
That’s what I believed also & why I volunteered in his campaign.
In the next election I voted for Reagan.
Anyone who thinks it is possible to be a pro-life Democrat is kidding themselves. There are very few remaining truly pro-life Democrats running for office–Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois was the last one that I know of, and he was essentially run out of office by his own Party.
As for Republicans–well, considering that the party stands for limited government interference in the lives of citizens, it’s likely that the majority of Republicans would be pro-choice if they could get away with it, or “pro-life with the exception of danger to the mother’s life”, which could mean that the pregnant woman is really upset over her pregnancy and doesn’t want to continue it.
Neither Party is “Christian.” A Party cannot be “Christian.” Only its people can be Christian.
I am grateful that most of the Christians who used to be Democrats, or at least were sympathetic to Democrats, have recognized that the Democratic Party is on the side of evil when it comes to abortion. It’s not surprising–it was the Democratic Party who championed the Ku Klux Klan and segregation after the Civil War, while the Republican Party succeeded in electing several African Americans (former slaves) to the U.S. House of Representatives.
On the other hand, traditionally the Republican Party has fought against government interference in everyday life decisions, especially medical decisions–which means that there are still plenty of pro-“choice” Republicans.
We just need to be careful to vet anyone we vote for and not assume that all Democrats are pro-abortion (although most are), and not all Republicans are pro-life.
I also think that Protestant Christians who are pro-life need to abandon the Mainline Protestant churches even if their family has been attending churches of a certain denomination for several generations. If they really want a “reverent” liturgy rather than the Praise and Worship service, they should convert to Catholicism.
As for Catholics who are pro-choice…God, deliver them from Satan’s lies!
I am a convert to Catholicism from Evangelical Protestantism (2004).
Getting increasingly hard for a Christian to join the dance of the politicians. Both parties have lost the moral compass. At times they may talk the talk, but neglect walking the walk. What to do?
This is largely correct. But we are still very much in a situation where one party actively works to destroy the right of Christian families to possess their own private beliefs and practices. Whereas the other party still mostly believes in limiting the government’s control over the individual.
No political party exactly mirrors Catholic teaching. Get as close as is possible.
Neuhaus – mainline/oldline/sideline Protestantism – First Things, May ’96.
JFK never supported abortion or any policy that violated Catholic teaching. RFK was pro-life. Ted Kennedy was pro-life until he sadly defected to the dark side in the 70’s. Yes, JFK was deeply flawed but blaming him specifically for the acceptance of abortion when thereis no evidence he supported it (in fact, he would qualify as a conservative by today’s standards).
I am not blaming him for abortion, which in 1960 was still not an issue. I am blaming him for the mentality that his faith was separable from his politics, which subsequent politicians used to support abortion. Ideas have consequences, as Richard Weaver noted.
John. I still believe that religion and politics don’t blend too well. Especially in today’s clash of the titans “rightists and leftists, blue or red”, no longer red, white and blue. I believe that this dialog, extensive as it is, reveals that dilemma.
Most of folks in my age group fully recall JFK and his plusses and minuses. He confronted Khrushchev to remove Russian missiles from Cuba. He served his country with honor for his service in World War II. John F. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (the highest non-combat decoration awarded for heroism) and the Purple Heart. He lost the invasion at the Bay of Pigs. He wrote Profiles in Courage.
Jimmy Carter Carter brokered a historic peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, leading to a lasting peace treaty between the two nations. It is considered one of the most significant diplomatic achievements of the 20th century.
We appear to have strayed from the headline to a Donnybrook of the use of contraceptives. Does it align with masturbation? I mean, how sinful can we get?
Is it a priority given the apocalyptic fires in LA? The slaughter of Ukrainians by Putin? Social media platforms are politically poisoning the minds of our next generation with incessant lying and hatred. I saw none of this with either Kennedy or Carter. Today, Catholic prelates’ complicity in support of those politicians who perpetrate this ideology has become obvious.
I would not rate either.
RFK, unfortunately, was not pro-life. Don’t let his large family fool you. His ego was too committed to accepting most anything that presented itself as progress.
Perhaps the blame for this bifurcation should be placed on Richard Cardinal Cushing, who made the distinction between public policy and private conscience in a radio interview. JFK did not hesitate to adopt this moral travesty.
Perhaps: as we can repeatedly see, giving a man a red hat does not necessarily infuse him with theological knowledge or even perhaps orthodoxy.
Was is not the Jesuits who fashioned the USA Catholic politicians lying excuse that they personally oppose murder in the womb but would not force their beliefs on anyone else?