John F. Kennedy, Catholic and Humanist

by Albert Menendez and Albert J. Menendez

Book Overview

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) commonly known as "Jack" was the 35th President of the United States. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879751096
• ISBN13: 9780879751098
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

AS WE BLUR THE LINES BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE WE MUST NEED REVISIT HERE AND COME CLEAR ONCE MORE

For one thing the Appendix in itself is an historic statement of clear principles of inestimable value. Not only do we find the well-known speech then Candidate Kennedy gave the Greater Houston Ministerial Alliance upon the separation of Church and State, and on his Irish Catholic essence (a speech also heard in Caroline Kennedy's AUDIOBOOK formats of A Patriot's Handbook: Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love and seen, I believe in, O'Kennedy's Ireland, but we also have the New York Times's full transcript of the hard and unChristian grilling the ministers gave him later, including quotes from an obsolete Syllabus of Errors. This question also came up from a minister of the Church of Christ: "Pope John XXIII only recently stated, according to St. Louis Review dated December 12, 1958: 'Catholics must unite their strength toward the common aim and the Catholic hierarchy has the right and the duty of guiding them.' Do you subscribe to that?" Candidate Kennedy responded, without teleprompters, without whispers, without earplugs and hidden receivers of any kind, in part, on his feet: "Well, now, I don't, I couldn't describe guiding them in what area. If you're talking about in the area of faith and morals, in the instructions of the church, I would think any Baptist minister or Congregational minister has the right and duty to try to guide his flock. If you mean by that statement that the Pope or anyone else could bind me by a statement, in the fulfillment of my public duties, I say, 'No.' If that statement is intended to mean, and it's very difficult to comment on a sentence taken out of an article which I have not read, but if that is intended to imply that the hierarchy has some obligations, or has an obligation, to attempt to guide the members of the Catholic Church, then that may be proper. But it all depends on the previous language of what you mean by 'guide.' If you mean direct, or instruct, on matters dealing with the organization of faith, the details of the faith, then, of course, they have that obligation. If you mean that anyone could guide or direct me in fulfilling my public duty, then I do not agree (p. 132)." Obviously this address that day, and the freewheeling Q & A which followed, served as important a function as President Barack H. Obama's statement on race while candidate. Obviously it still has much to tell us now. Among the other long lost materials in the Appendix, arranged in chronological order, we have the statement released to the media by the Kennedy Campaign of April 21, 1960 on "the religious issue in American politics." Are included are several addresses made while President, including to the CYO days before his execution. We also read his remarks to the separate men's and women's groups at the Eleventh Annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast, with Billy Graham munching toast by his side. And we read these, his words, upon the centenary celebration of Jesuit Boston College: " . . .In this hope I