This hysterical accusation has an ancient, but not noble, pedigree. But he just might make Israel the centerpiece of American foreign policy. A Jewish president, presumably, wouldn’t take orders from the Vatican (or Paris). American Jews have been the most frequent targets of this slander. Kennedy pledged his allegiance to “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 … and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him and the people who might elect him.”Ĭatholics aren’t the only ones whose loyalty has been called into question. Kennedy had to make it clear that he had no intention of outsourcing important decisions to the Boston Archdiocese, much less to the Vatican. In 1960, not long before Election Day, John F. He wasn’t the first Catholic presidential candidate obliged to defend his independence from would-be interlopers.

Kerry cried foul, but he should have known better. “John Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending,” teased the Bush-camp after the first presidential debate. Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (Metropolitan Books, 2004)

Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby