Posted on 09/27/2015 10:44:12 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
Can a Roman Catholic be president of the United States? Silly question, right? Sixty-five years have passed since John F. Kennedy went from Mass at Holy Trinity in Georgetown to take his inauguration oath on the Fitzgerald family Bible; and, while there are plenty of grounds on which to criticize that priapic shyster, his faith isn't one of them.
Go back to the early days of the republic, though, and you find a very different attitude. John Jay, one of the Founding Fathers, who went on to become the first U.S. chief justice, argued that his home state of New York should extend full toleration to every sect "except the professors of the religion of the Church of Rome, who ought not to hold lands in, or be admitted to a participation of the civil rights enjoyed by the members of this state."
What made John Jay so skeptical? The same thing that makes many Americans skeptical about this hypothetical Muslim presidential candidate about which we keep reading so much. Jay had no problem with Catholic beliefs. He didn't complain about priestly celibacy or transubstantiation. What worried him, rather, was the idea that Catholics wouldn't be properly patriotic; that they might, in the last analysis, have divided loyalties.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Please, can’t we just work together to kill all the Muslims before we start on each other again. /s
I remember an old lady where we lived who was terrified of electing a Catholic President. She said, with a “we all gonna die!” attitude, “If we elect a Catholic, WE ARE LOST!”
I also remember the Nixon-Kennedy debate. Those who heard it on the radio said Nixon won. Those who saw it on TV said Kennedy won as Nixon looked sweaty, shifty eyed and bad.
Same reason many say Bobby Kennedy would have easily won in 1968 if he had not been murdered by a Philistine (Palestinian) immigrant.
Actually the IRA wasn’t Catholic in the sense it was there to fight for the Church. It was largely staffed by Catholics but some of the patron saints, if you’ll forgive the term, were Protestant such as Wolfe Tone. In the early 20th century there were also Protestant leaders such as the Countess Markievicz, Sam Maguire, Roger Casement, Erskine Childers,etc.
Everyone likes to trot out the IRA as a Christian or Catholic version Al Qaeda when in reality the Catholic Church was largely opposed to it. I remember reading threats from the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland that IRA members would be denied Catholic burials. The reason given is that there was no hope of military success against the might of the British Empire and thus the struggle against them didn’t match the requirements of the Church’s doctrine regarding a Just War (no hope of success). That being the case the view of some priests was that Catholics participating in the IRA could be considered to be murderers. I don’t think these threats were ever carried out but there was a tremendous opposition by the Church to Irish militant nationalism during its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Past the 20s into the 1960s while the organization became more Catholic in membership they descended into Socialist political theory. Had they ever gained supremacy in Ireland I believe that they would have been as pro-Church as the communist party in Poland. The IRA in the 60s and 70s through today ended up being true believers, but largely believers in Marx and other left wing baloney.
Billy Graham was one of those who were terrified by the idea of a Catholic being elected President in 1960.
Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic nominee, was the first Catholic to run for President. After his defeat he joked that he had sent a telegram to the pope: "Unpack."
I was really wondering when someone would remember JFK and the “controversy” of that era.
I was old enough to be following the campaign in 1968. I thought at the time that Humphrey would still get the nomination even with Bobby winning the California primary (of course he was shot hours after the primary ended so it became moot). LBJ had enough clout in the party to make sure Bobby wasn’t the nominee.
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