Senator Rick Santorum: Charge to Revive the Role of Faith in the Public Square

By Honorable Rick Santorum
9/14/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

On that day, Kennedy chose not just to dispel fear, he chose to expel faith.

Three pictures hung in the home of my devoutly Catholic immigrant grandparents when I was a boy and I remember them well -- Jesus, Pope Paul VI and John F. Kennedy. The president was a source of great pride and a symbol to Catholics that all barriers had finally been broken. What my family and maybe even candidate Kennedy at the time didn't realize was that in a key moment in that election of 1960 right here in Houston, Kennedy began the construction of another, even more threatening wall for our society -- one that sealed off informed moral wisdom into a realm of non rational beliefs that have no legitimate role in political discourse.

Rick Santorum is a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center and former U.S. Senator (R-PA).

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HOUSTON, TX (Catholic Online) - (We are pleased to present the full text of an important speech given by the former Senator of Pennsylvania, the Honorable Rick Santorum on Thursday, September 9, 2010, at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. It is a strong and clear refutation of the error unleashed by the John F. Kennedy Speech given in that same city, fifty years ago on September 12, 2010. I believe it is destined to become a defining speech for Catholics, other Christians and all people of faith and good will who believe in the vital role of the ideas informed by faith in shaping society and the essential role of people of faith and religious institutions in promoting the true common good. Deacon Keith Fournier, Editor in Chief)

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Rick Santorum: Charge to Revive the Role of Faith in the Public Square

Fifty years ago this Sunday JFK delivered a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to dispel suspicions about the role the papacy might play in the government of this country under his administration. Let's make no mistake about it -- Kennedy was addressing a real issue at the time. Prejudice against Catholics threatened to cost him the election. But on that day, Kennedy chose not just to dispel fear, he chose to expel faith. Let me quote from the beginning of Kennedy's speech: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute."

The idea of strict or absolute separation of church and state is not and never was the American model. It was a model used in countries like France and until recently Turkey, but it found little support in America until it was introduced into the public discourse by Justice Hugo Black in the case of Everson v. The Board of Education in 1947. (Black, by the way, was a Catholic-hating former member of the KKK who ironically enough advocated this strict separation doctrine to keep public funds from Catholic schools.)

While the phrase "separation of church and state" doesn't appear in the Constitution, the concept of keeping the government apart from religion does. The first part of the First Amendment prohibits the federal government from establishing a state church, such as existed in England and in some of the states in 1791, and from discriminating for or against particular faiths. The founders were determined to ensure that the new national government had no jurisdiction over matters of religion, in large part to insure that each American would be free to pursue the religion of their choice without state interference. Far from reflecting hostility toward religion, our founders, rooted in their own faith convictions, knew that faith was not just an essential element, but the essence of civilization and the inspiration of culture.

The second reference to religion in the First Amendment guaranteed the free exercise of religion and in conjunction with the prohibition of established churches, these two concepts were to work together to ensure that religion and people of faith had powerful constitutional protections of their right to not only worship as their conscience dictated, but to be free to bring their religiously informed moral convictions into the public discourse.

The phrase "wall of separation" used by Black comes from a letter written by a founder who didn't even attend the constitutional convention, Thomas Jefferson. After he was elected president he mentioned the phrase in a response to a letter written to him by the Danbury Baptists. The Baptists had expressed concern to him about the right of the government to interfere with the religious pursuits of the people, not the right of the people to engage their government with religiously informed moral judgments. Jefferson's "wall of separation" was describing how the First Amendment was designed to protect churches from the government and nothing more. Note that the Sunday following the day he wrote the letter, Jefferson attended religious services in the Capitol building -- so much for the founders' hostility or indifference to religion. But Kennedy's misuse of the phrase constructed a high barrier that ultimately would keep religious convictions out of politics in a place where our founders had intended just ...

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1 - 10 of 10 Comments

John Flaherty
2 years ago
Mr. Carlton:
I wish I could say that your comments ring true with me. Unfortunately, I cannot. While I understand Kennedy's need to assuage the fears of Protestant voters, I think he went about it VERY poorly.

I once thought JFK a great man. War hero, President, Catholic, maybe even a martyr? Regrettably,as I've learned more of him, his family, and my faith, the more my awe and wonder has turned to horror and disgust. One of our own? Uh huh.
When a man hears about the vice of a sin in Church, then sits in his President's chair and encodes that same sin or others into law, what value does his faith truly have?

Kennedy could've used the platform of candidacy to better explain how the Church truthfully works. He could've articulated the ideas that Sen Santorum offered. Certainly he had the intelligence and gumption for it. Instead, he rendered his faith to be a mantel showpiece, a trinket to be hauled out on Sunday and provide some cultural references that many would understand.
I'm glad to see comments like Sen Santorum's. He may be able to undo some part of the ill that Kennedy inflicted.
Peter Carlton
2 years ago
Why would Rick Santorum be so negative about the only Catholic president, and may I say, a mighty good one, that this nation has ever had enough courage to elect.
He very lightly touches on the anti-Catholic sentiment in this country at this time 50 years ago, with very many protestant ministers and lay people actually believing that, if elected, he would be taking his dictates, orders, or whatever you might like to call them, from Rome and the Holy Father. And I might add they would not have referred to him as the Holy Father.
President Kennedy said, and you quoted him," I do not intend to disavow my views or "my" church in order to win this election."
How much stronger or clearer, do you believe he could have made this statement about" his " church and the fact that he intended to wear his Catholic faith in public.
The important decisions he had to make for this country and it's people were outstanding, and this holier than thou stuff you and some of the other supposedly "learned" Catholic scholars are writing about is mostly fodder for those who have always believed that us Catholics are going to hell in a hand basket anyway.
To blame this Catholic president for the moral decay in this country is quite a stretch. If you take a deep look at what this family has done, and continues to do, as well as asking the rest of us to do for our less fortunate brethern. I find your comments very narrow sighted. He was not elected to be our spiritual leader. Heaven forbid if that would have ever been as much as uttered out loud.
We have only had one, for crying out loud why would you continue to bash him.
I wonder if your mother has, or would have enjoyed, reading this article about the president she evidently voted for and loved.
Shame on you and the other Catholics who write this about our own. Leave this to the others who don't drink from the same cup at mass.
Bruce
2 years ago
Very educational article. I, too, was under the impression that the constitution allowed for the separation between church and state. At a time that I have very little respect for politicians, this comes as a breath of fresh air. The government is not by the people and for the people in this age--it is now a separate entity. It has evolved into a few rich people controlling the masses, clearly what our forefathers sought freedom from over 200 years ago. Our constitution does not advocate freedom from religion, but freedom of religion. Our religious beliefs and moral compass should always be part of of the civil law equation.
John Grimes
2 years ago
Jack Kennedy was cynical when he made this proposition 50 years ago. He wanted to be president and he would let nothing stand in his way. But to think that RIck Santorum has the charisma of Kennedy or that he will ever have even a quarter of that man's chance to be president is laughable. Santorum can deliver all the speeches he wants on any subject he wants and with whatever lucidity he can command, but I will bet everything I have that he will never give a speech from the Oval Office. Catholics and others cheering him on and urging him to run for president are simply wasting his and everyone else's time.
Pam
2 years ago
I would vote for Rick Santorum, in a heartbeat, too! However, I would not say that JFK accomplished a "good" in the short term because it helped to put an end to Catholic bigotry because Catholic bigotry is still alive and well. Moreover, JFK expressed a half-truth (at best--or rather, at worst) regarding the role of politics--a corrupt version that's growing in intensity more and more today and is expressed by most of the 161 Catholics in Washington (only about 46 of them voted 100% pro-life and 5-6 more of them 86% of the time). Such heinous moral corruption is literally killing us in matters of "health-care" (?); it's no wonder everything else is collapsing, as well! Mr. Santorum, himself, said: "Unfortunately, its lasting impact not only undermined the essential role that faith has successfully played in America, but it reduced religion to mere personal belief and helped launch a cultural revolution, proclaiming loudly that on matters of moral consequence, reason has no truths it can discern, nothing of moral significance it can claim to know, much less contribute to the public debate....That's the 'faith' that is being offered by those who want to change the time tested Golden Triangle of Freedom. You'll see it in the public square today, and it's popular because it pretends to impose nobody's values on anybody. Yet it's an illusion because it uses a cloak of "neutrality," "objectivity" and "rationality" that results in the imposition of secular values on everybody while marginalizing faith." Sorry for repeating this quote from Mr. Santorum's speech here, but Mr. Santorum "hits the nail on the head," on the reason for the dissolution of the "Beautiful America[n]" dream of our Founders in the new form of government in vogue today--Nevertheless, "we the people," who believe in "religion and virtue" (according to John Adams, et al) can vote to bring it back into the public square this November and in 2012--if only we will!
K.C.Thomas
2 years ago
As an Indian, I feel that in every country catholic leaders should uphold his religious teachings without a feeling of shame or inferiority complex. He has rightly said that having convictions does not mean that we dont understand the complexity of the world .... we should be able to prioritize the pursuit of truth and justice and call evil what it is . We need more dedicated and faithful catholic politicians in every country.
Tom
2 years ago
Such an inspiration. I was going to quickly scan through his speech and then print it out, but I carefully read every word until the last period. If he runs for President I'll vote for him too. Can't get over that speech!!! God Bless Rick Santorum!!!
Diane
2 years ago
If he ever runs for president I'll vote for him!
JeanCatherine
2 years ago
Amen brothers and sisters.
Jennifer
2 years ago
SANTORUM FOR PRESIDENT 2012

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