National Affairs: Test of Religion

Jack Kennedy carefully chose his ground for his counterthrust on religion, and it was plainly hostile ground. Looking something like a parson himself, dressed in severe black suit and black tie, he strode purposefully into the ballroom of Houston's Rice Hotel last week to address and be questioned by the Greater Houston Ministerial Association under the eye of a statewide TV. Nervously he worked his thumbs together, rubbed his fists back and forth, sipped water several times as he waited through the introductions and opening prayer. "What's the mood of the ministers?" he asked his press chief, Pierre Salinger. Replied Salinger: "They're tired of being called bigots."

"I Would Resign." Once in command of the microphone, Kennedy wasted no time getting to his point. "I believe in an America," said he, reading word for word from a five-page statement drafted by himself and Speechwriter Ted Sorensen (a Unitarian), "where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President, should he be a Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote." He urged the clergymen to "judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress—on my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools and against any boycott of the public schools, which I have attended myself . . . I do not speak for my church on public matters—and the church does not speak for me."

Then Kennedy came to a paragraph that would be cited for years to come. "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, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise. But if the time should ever come—and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible—when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign from office, and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same."

"An Improper Action." When Kennedy had finished, the ministers applauded politely, then opened fire, often with complex questions. Kennedy fielded skillfully. Yes, he said, he would attend any non-Catholic religious service "that has any connection with my public office." No, he would not request Boston's Cardinal Gushing to ask the Vatican to "authorize" Kennedy's views on church-state separation because, just as Kennedy expected the church to keep out of his politics, so he intended to keep out of church matters. What if the Catholic Church used its "privilege and obligation," as white-haired Baptist Minister K.O. White called it, to direct Kennedy's political life? Kennedy stuck out his jaw: "I would reply to them that this was an improper action on their part, that it was one to which I could not subscribe. I am confident there would be no such interference."