Transcript:
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the
chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that I
believe that we have far more critical issues in the 1960 campaign; the
spread of Communist influence, until it now festers only 90 miles from
the coast of Florida -- the humiliating treatment of our President and
Vice President by those who no longer respect our power -- the hungry
children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their
doctors bills, the families forced to give up their farms -- an America
with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and
outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this
campaign. And they are not religious issues -- for war and hunger and
ignorance and despair know no religious barrier.
But because I am a
Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real
issues in this campaign have been obscured -- perhaps deliberately, in
some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary
for me to state once again -- not what kind of church I believe in, for
that should be important only to me -- but what kind of America I
believe in.
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 accept 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.
For while this year it
may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in
other years it has been -- and may someday be again -- a Jew, or a
Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of
Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson's statute of
religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be
you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart
at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in
an America where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men
and all churches are treated as equals, where every man has the same
right to attend or not to attend the church of his choice, where there
is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind,
and where Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, at both the lay and the
pastoral levels, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and
division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote
instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of
America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in
which I believe, a great office that must be neither humbled by making
it the instrument of any religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily
withholding it -- its occupancy from the members of any one religious
group. I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own
private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by
the nation upon himı as a condition to holding that office.
I would not look with
favor upon a President working to subvert the first amendment's
guarantees of religious liberty; nor would our system of checks and
balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon
those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by
requiring a religious test, even by indirection. For if they disagree
with that safeguard, they should be openly working to repeal it.
I want a Chief
Executive whose public acts are responsible to all and obligated to
none, who can attend any ceremony, service, or dinner his office may
appropriately require of him to fulfill; and whose fulfillment of his
Presidential office is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath,
ritual, or obligation.
This is the kind of
America I believe in -- and this is the kind of America I fought for in
the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one
suggested then that we might have a divided loyalty, that we did not
believe in liberty, or that we belonged to a disloyal group that
threatened -- I quote -- "the freedoms for which our forefathers died."
And in fact this is
the kind of America for which our forefathers did die when they fled
here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of
less favored churches -- when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill
of Rights, the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom -- and when they
fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with
Bowie and Crockett died Fuentes, and McCafferty, and Bailey, and Badillo,
and Carey -- but no one knows whether they were Catholics or not. For
there was no religious test there.
I ask you tonight to
follow in that tradition -- to judge me on the basis of 14 years in the
Congress, on my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican,
against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any
boycott of the public schools -- which I attended myself. And instead of
doing this, do not judge me on the basis of these pamphlets and
publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of
context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other
countries, frequently in other centuries, and rarely relevant to any
situation here. And always omitting, of course, the statement of the
American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed Church-State
separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every
American Catholic.
I do not consider
these other quotations binding upon my public acts. Why should you?
But let me say, with
respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the State being
used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel,
prohibit, or prosecute the free exercise of any other religion. And that
goes for any persecution, at any time, by anyone, in any country. And I
hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny
their Presidency to Protestants, and those which deny it to Catholics.
And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would also cite
the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as France and Ireland,
and the independence of such statesmen as De Gaulle and Adenauer.
But let me stress
again that these are my views.
For contrary to common
newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President.
I am the Democratic
Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic.
I do not speak for my
church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me. Whatever
issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth
control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make
my decision in accordance with these views -- in accordance with what my
conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard
to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of
punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But if the time should
ever come -- and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible
-- when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or
violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I
hope any conscientious public servant would do likewise.
But I do not intend to
apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant
faith; nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order
to win this election.
If I should lose on
the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that
I'd tried my best and was fairly judged.
But if this election
is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of
being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole
nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and
non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes
of our own people.
But if, on the other
hand, I should win this election, then I shall devote every effort of
mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency -- practically
identical, I might add, with the oath I have taken for 14 years in the
Congress. For without reservation, I can, "solemnly swear that I will
faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and
will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution -- so help me God.
