A Tale of Two Presidents

A Tale of Two Presidents

by Anthony Egan SJ

Sixty years ago another Catholic, John F Kennedy, was installed as President of the United States. The first, in fact. The first Catholic to run, Democrat Al Smith, lost the 1928 election to Republican Herbert Hoover. Part of this was due to deep-seated anti-Catholic prejudice, rooted in a fear that a Catholic president would govern the country under instruction from the Vatican.

To allay such fears, Kennedy insisted that he would govern solely according to the Constitution and legislative process of the United States. Despite this, his election was welcomed by American Catholics.

How different today! Joseph Biden’s Catholicism never got a look in during the election campaign, not even – so far as I could tell – from his opponents. People took Biden’s religion for granted. Except, well, for some of the United States Catholic bishops, who objected to his alleged support for abortion.

Read the full article here. A Tale of Two Presidents

 

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