There aren’t a lot of people living today who have a direct memory of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, but most of us have read about the “Roman Catholic” problem that he faced in a predominantly Protestant 1960s America.

Catholics were not the assimilated and accepted group back in 1960 that we are today, 66 years later. Kennedy had to convince the skeptical Protestants he was not going to be a “Poppet,” namely, a rubber stamp for the Vatican.

He gave a speech in Houston before Christian ministers to calm their fears of “dual loyalties,” and made the following statement: “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I do not speak for the Catholic Church on issues of public policy, and no one in that church speaks for me… The fact is that the Catholic Church is not a monolith — it is committed in this country to the principles of individual liberty — and it has no claim over my conduct as a public officer sworn to do the public interest.”

That was pretty much the last time that the issue of dual loyalty has been raised in a presidential........

© The Saratogian