Santorum vs JFK

The New York Times is talking about Santorum's criticism of a speech John F. Kennedy gave in 1960. About that speech, the NYT helpfully mentions:

Kennedy, then a presidential candidate, gave the speech to quiet claims that he would answer to the Vatican because he was a Roman Catholic.

But what doesn't the NYT tell us? The NYT doesn't tell us what Kennedy actually said. There are no actual quotes from Kennedy or from the speech in question - there is the paraphrase above and this paraphrase:

[Santorum] described how he had become sickened after reading John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech calling for the rigid separation of religion and politics.

There are a dozen quotes from Santorum. A couple from Romney. None from Kennedy. Nor is there a discussion of the context of Kennedy's speech. Nor is there a link to the actual text of Kennedy's speech.

So, readers are left to either wonder what JFK actually said, or to take Santorum's word for it. The NYT isn't going to tell you if Santorum is telling the truth because as we know, that's not their job. But I would've thought a reasonable summary of JFK's speech would be required for a proper "he said/he said" story. Guess not. Two pages of Santorum quotes, barely two sentences of badly-paraphrased JFK. This is a actually a "he said he said" story.

So what did JFK say? Here's the speech itself. He says he wants a strict separation between Church and State because he was being accused, as the first Catholic candidate, as being possibly under the control of the Vatican. And this speech was a response to those critics. Kennedy says:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

He's telling his critics that their religion would be safe if he won the Presidency because he doesn't think the government has any business interfering in religion. But the NYT doesn't want us to know that.

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