If it wasn’t for Joe Kennedy’s ties with the mob Johnny wouldn’t have been elected either. There was a lot of anti-catholic rhetoric flowing during that campaign and you see how long Camelot survived.
Young people today probably have no idea how contentious it was at the time. Before the election of 1960 Kennedy actually had to meet with a number of Protestant leaders, like Norman Vincent Peale, to assure the Protestant faithful that he wouldn't be under the Pope's orders.
As a ten year old Catholic, I remember being questioned by my next door neighbor, a mother of a Protestant family, that didn't my parents have to vote for Kennedy because we were Catholics. I knew almost zilch about the election or politics in general, but I told her that I didn't think so. Most Catholics voted Dem but not all.
We had one Catholic neighbor who four years later had a Goldwater sticker on his car. But the fact that Goldwater's running mate, Bill Miller, was a Catholic cut no ice with my strong Dem parents. But religious affiliation was a lot bigger thing back in those days.