1960-11-08 · Washington, D.C., United States

John F. Kennedy Elected First Catholic President of the United States

On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected the 35th president of the United States, becoming the first Catholic to hold the office and breaking a barrier that had defined the limits of Catholic acceptance in American public life for nearly two centuries.

Anti-Catholic prejudice had been part of American politics since before the founding of the republic. When Al Smith ran for president as a Catholic in 1928, he was destroyed by a campaign of bigotry — opponents warned that the Pope would be running the country. Kennedy faced the same suspicion in 1960, and he addressed it directly. In a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960, he declared that he believed in an America 'where no Catholic prelate would tell the president how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.' He said he would resign the presidency rather than violate his conscience or the national interest. The speech was a political masterstroke. It was also, from a Catholic perspective, somewhat painful. Kennedy essentially promised to compartmentalize his faith, keeping it out of his public decision-making. Many Catholics at the time accepted this as a necessary concession. Others, then and since, have argued that it set an unfortunate precedent — the idea that a Catholic politician should act as if his faith has nothing to say about public policy. But on Election Day, Kennedy won — barely. He took 49.7 percent of the popular vote against Richard Nixon. Catholics across the country celebrated. A barrier that had seemed permanent was broken. The symbolism mattered enormously. For millions of American Catholics, many of them children and grandchildren of immigrants who had faced discrimination for their faith, Kennedy's election was proof that they finally belonged. Whatever the complexities of his presidency and personal life, the fact that a Catholic could be elected president changed what was imaginable in American public life.

Why it matters

Broke the most significant barrier to Catholic participation in American public life, symbolizing the full acceptance of Catholics in a country where anti-Catholic prejudice had been a political force for nearly two centuries.