Sept. 12, 1960 – John F. Kennedy Speaks to Greater Houston Ministerial Association on His Catholic Faith

​64 years ago this month, Democrat presidential candidate John F. Kennedy spoke before some 300 members of the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, an influential Protestant group. The address, given at Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas, aimed at easing Protestant voters’ fears that electing a Catholic president may pose a threat to religious freedom, as a Catholic president, it was thought, may answer to the Pope first and the American people second.

Kennedy, then a senator from Massachusetts, had been counseled by advisers to reject the group’s invitation to speak, fearing political disaster. The United States had never before had a Catholic president, and prejudice against the church and its adherents ran deep in the strands of American history, especially in the Bible Belt, where Catholics had been frequent targets of the Ku Klux Klan.

Yet the future president saw an opportunity to make inroads with voters. In his speech, Kennedy emphasized his loyalty to the separation of church and state and the need to combat religious bigotry. The heavily secular nature of the speech, however, is also credited with prompting a backlash from certain Christian groups who believed in keeping America a Protestant society.

Kennedy became the first Catholic ever elected to the presidency on Nov. 8, 1960. His first term ended early in a tragic assassination just three short years later. He was the only Catholic to hold the Oval Office until President Joseph R. Biden.