Here's a piece in the New York Times by one Gerald Howard decrying 2012-Catholic-Presidential-candidate Rick Santorum's disavowal of 1960-Catholic-Presidential-candidate John F. Kennedy's famous speech on the separation of Church and state. Well, I don't expect much from the Grey Lady, and she never disappoints (or never fails to disappoint), so I'm not surprised if this inane. Though (contrary to the last sentence) I'm pleasantly surprised to see they have a companion piece by the eminent Stanley Fish, "Rick Santorum Isn't Crazy," arguing that the "wall of separation between Church and state" that JFK's so eagerly embraced is not good law, not Constitutional, not demanded by the Supreme Court or the Founders, etc.
I wanted to respond, however, to Mr. Howard's avowal, "The election of Jack Kennedy as president on Nov. 8, 1960 was certainly the happiest day in the history of American Catholicism, in good part because it helped heal a deep historical wound we had suffered 32 years previously."
That wound, of course, was the "humiliating" defeat of Al Smith, the Democratic candidate for president in 1928, and the first Catholic to be nominated for that position by a major American party. Smith got just over 40% of the vote, surely tied, in part, to an aggressive campaign by the Ku Klux Klan. Smith was horrified, upon campaigning across the country, to find burning crosses at many stops. There is no doubt that Al Smith's defeat has much to do with anti-Catholicism, and no doubt that JFK's victory has something to do with a kind of end to anti-Catholicism.
HOWEVER. First, we must note that there were other factors in Smith's defeat. In 1928, America was at the peak of its biggest economic boom ever. Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency for the whole decade. Smith did only slightly worse than Democrat John Davis had done in 1924, before four boom years of Republican leadership. In fact, because Robert La Fallotte ran as a Progressive that year, Davis got a much lower percentage of the vote (28.8%) than Smith did. And the split of 1924 says something about the state of Democratic party, which was undergoing a serious identity crisis in those years. Smith himself would abandon the party in 1934, after Roosevelt's left-turn seemed to forsake the party's Jacksonian defender-of-the-little-guy philosophy in favor of patrician authority. (Smith's 1934 speech to the American Liberty League, which I can't find on the internet, is fantastic.)
And the Republicans had the political sense to run a moderate Herbert Hoover (actually, probably to the left of Smith) to replace Calvin Coolidge. Why should America switch parties when the Republicans were doing a great job and were posing as moderates?
Finally, Smith's campaign was a bit tone deaf. Al Smith was about as New York City as you can get -- an Irish kid from the Lower East Side. As Rudy Giuliani has discovered, the rest of the country doesn't get New York, and is nervous about New Yorkers. And Smith didn't get that -- his campaign song was "The Sidewalks of New York," a great celebration of . . . precisely what made him foreign to the rest of the country. There are, in other words, a lot of reasons Smith lost, not just anti-Catholicism.
NONETHELESS, yes, surely anti-Catholicism played a roll. Hence JFK's need to give his famous speech in Houston. The problem with Kennedy's speech -- and Kennedy's election -- can be shown by putting it side by side with an identical moment in Smith's campaign -- Smith's May 1927 open letter, in the Atlantic Monthly. (Charles C. Marshall, a prominent Episcopal layman and Constitutional lawyer, had attacked Smith's Catholicism in those pages the month before.)
Kennedy's speech focuses on the distance between him and the Catholic Church. But I'll give you excerpts from Smith's letter first, so you can see the very different approach Kennedy could have taken. Here's Al Smith on why it's okay to elect a Catholic President (this letter is so magnificent, it's hard not to quote the whole thing):
In your open letter to me in the April Atlantic Monthly you 'impute' to American Catholics views which, if held by them, would leave open to question the loyalty and devotion to this country and its Constitution of more than twenty million American Catholic citizens. I am grateful to you for defining this issue in the open and for your courteous expression of the satisfaction it will bring to my fellow citizens for me to give 'a disclaimer of the convictions' thus imputed. Without mental reservation I can and do make that disclaimer. These convictions are held neither by me nor by any other American Catholic, as far as I know. ...
you imply that there is conflict between religious loyalty to the Catholic faith and patriotic loyalty to the United States. Everything that has actually happened to me during my long public career leads me to know that no such thing as that is true. ...
You yourself do me the honor, in addressing me, to refer to 'your fidelity to the morality you have advocated in public and private life and to the religion you have revered; your great record of public trusts successfully and honestly discharged.' During the years I have discharged these trusts I have been a communicant of the Roman Catholic Church. If there were conflict, I, of all men, could not have escaped it, because I have not been a silent man, but a battler for social and political reform. ...
I am unable to understand how anything that I was taught to believe as a Catholic could possibly be in conflict with what is good citizenship. The essence of my faith is built upon the Commandments of God. The law of the land is built upon the Commandments of God. There can be no conflict between them. ...
any unwarranted religious influence ... other than it should play in the life of every God-fearing man . ...
for Catholics alone the Church recognizes no deviation from complete acceptance of its dogma. These words are used in a chapter dealing with that subject only. The very same article in another chapter dealing with toleration toward non-Catholics contains these words: 'The intolerant man is avoided as much as possible by every high-minded person.... The man who is tolerant in every emergency is alone lovable. The phrase 'dogmatic intolerance' does not mean that Catholics are to be dogmatically intolerant of other people, but merely that inside the Catholic Church they are to be intolerant of any variance from the dogma of the Church. ...
'If religious freedom has been accepted and sworn to as a fundamental law in a constitution, the obligation to show this tolerance is binding in conscience.' ...
'Pope Pius IX did not intend to declare that separation is always unadvisable, for he had more than once expressed his satisfaction with the arrangement obtaining in the United States.' ...
'The Catholic doctrine concedes, nay, maintains, that the State is coordinate with the Church and equally independent and supreme in its own distinct sphere.' ...
'To the Catholic obedience to law is a religious obligation, binding in God's name the conscience of the citizen ...'
Under our system of government the electorate entrusts to its officers of'every faith the solemn duty of action according to the dictates of conscience ...
My summary answer is: I and all my children went to a parochial school. I never heard of any such stuff being taught or of anybody who claimed that it was. That any group of Catholics would teach it is unthinkable. ...
I believe in the right of every parent to choose whether his child shall be educated in the public school or in a religious school supported by those of his own faith. ...
And I believe in the common brotherhood of man under the common fatherhood of God.In sum, Al Smith's response to anti-Catholicism was to say that the Catholic Church does not teach the objectionable things ascribed to it -- that, in fact, Catholicism makes a person a good citizen. Good citizens are God-fearing, follow their conscience, and obey the laws, including the Constitution. Non-Catholics should vote for Al Smith because he is a good Catholic, and good Catholics make good presidents. We want leaders who are rooted in sound religious principle.
This is not to say that Smith was perfect. He does use the words "absolute separation of Church and State" -- words that later in the century would become problematic. Though the context in which he uses those words clearly delimits their meaning. The judgment of a Church tribunal, he says, does not hold in the civil sphere; excommunication is a religious, not a civil, penalty. But we want religious men to be presidents, and we expect religion to make them upstanding people.
Similarly, he uses phrases like "the consecration of the rights of conscience;" if the Pope illegitimately intervenes in properly civil affairs, "Any Catholic . . . would not be bound to obey the Pope; or rather his conscience would bind him absolutely to disobey, because with Catholics conscience is the supreme law;" "I believe in absolute freedom of conscience." But again, in context these statements are less extreme. When talking about disobeying the Pope, his point is that the individual believer has to figure out how to apply Church teaching to particular circumstances -- but it is clear through his abundant references to Catholic rulings that "bind in conscience" that he does not believe Catholics have any right to act against Church teaching, only that Church teaching is properly about moral issues, not political ones. Conscience is about the application of moral norms, not the creation of them.
And, okay, Gov. Smith, as much as I love him, was a bit naive. "In the wildest dreams of your imagination you cannot conjure up a possible conflict between religious principle and political duty in the United States, except on the unthinkable hypothesis, that some law were to be passed which violated the common morality of all God-fearing men." Um . . . . That didn't stay unthinkable for long. But as he goes on, his point is that every person, and certainly every moral person, has to deal with the same kind of moral quandaries. "How would a Protestant resolve it? Obviously by the dictates of his conscience. That is exactly what a Catholic would do."
Okay, Smith was really naive. Making the point that he employs the best men, not just people who go to Church with him -- and thus that his Catholic convictions are to good governance, not to tribal favoritism -- he makes this horrific statement:
The man closest to me in the administration of the government of the State of New York is he who bears the title of Assistant to the Governor. He had been connected with the Governor's office for thirty years, in subordinate capacities, until I promoted him to the position which makes him the sharer with me of my thought and hope and ambition in the administration of the State. He is a Protestant, a Republican, and a thirty-second-degree Mason.I don't know whom he's talking about, though it makes me shudder, at that time, to hear a Catholic bragging about how he shares the hopes and dreams of Masons. Smith was also under the thumb of Robert Moses (who, being Jewish, and only thirty-nine at the time, is probably not the person described here), who turned out to be a real jerk, more of a power broker than a public servant.
So Smith wasn't perfect. But anyway, when he describes why he would be an acceptable president, his point is that Catholicism makes him better, not worse.
Compare that to JFK's 1960 speech:
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 church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference
where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials ...
where there is no Catholic vote ...
I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own private affair
whose fulfillment of his Presidential office is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual, or obligation. ...
my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools ...
But let me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic....
I do not speak for my church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views
Oh, he too makes a couple references to conscience. But JFK's argument seems to be that you should vote for him because he is not a Catholic. He makes no effort to defend his Church; he just disavows it. He makes no effort to defend the role of religion in public life; he just disavows it. He makes no effort to explain the importance of religion in forming a conscience; he just disavows it. Where Al Smith explicitly emphasized that he was a good Catholic -- a communicant, a child and supporter of parochial schools, a friend of bishops, an obedient servant of public schools -- JFK's disavows it all, especially emphasizing his rejection of parochial schools and of Church teaching on precisely the kind of things that Smith refers to as "the common morality of all God-fearing men": "the law of the land is built upon the Commandments of God," said Smith.
The timing makes it all the worse. Kennedy had perhaps the easiest opening ever for a Catholic candidate. In 1960, the Sexual Revolution had not yet burst forth. Griswold vs. Connecticut was 1965; abortion became an issue in the 1960s; the FDA first approved what would become the Pill in 1960, though it was not yet marketed as a contraceptive; divorce was only just beginning to arise as a political issue. Meanwhile, since World War II (and the move to the suburbs), Catholics had gained a new kind of acceptance, as Kennedy himself eloquently explained in this speech: "this is the kind of America I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we might have a divided loyalty." Finally, Kennedy was explicitly running as a conscience candidate (again from the same speech):
I believe that we have far more critical issues in the 1960 campaign; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers only 90 miles from the coast of Florida -- the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power -- the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctors bills, the families forced to give up their farms -- an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues -- for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barrier.
What a very silly statement. Of course worrying about war and hunger and ignorance and despair is religious. Of course people have religious motivations for dealing with these things. Kennedy could have taken the high road, and said, hey, vote for me, because my religion, far from making me a scary president, would make me a great, just, moral, god-fearing president. Instead, he chose to disavow his religion.
The happiest day in the history of American Catholicism? I have to agree with Rick Santorum that when almost 80% of Catholics voted for a man who disavowed his Catholic faith, it was a very sad day indeed.
As a footnote, let me add that that Santorum gave his own Houston speech. Like Smith, he did it well in advance of the election. It is a model of how a Catholic explains his involvement in politics -- not by disavowing his faith, but by explaining how his faith contributes to his political vision. Like Smith, Santorum may be naive and imperfect as a politician in many ways -- I disagree with a lot of his positions. But on faith and politics, he's got it right.
