Santorum and Separationism

Stephen M. Klugewicz offers a gentle correction to Rick Santorum’s objection to John F. Kennedy’s vision of church-state relations.

Santorum did not have to mischaracterize Kennedy’s words, for there is much to criticize in them as written. In the Houston speech, Kennedy did say that he believed “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” What Kennedy meant by that is not entirely clear, though he went on to explain that his vision meant an America in which “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.”

If Kennedy came close here to denying that his faith would have any influence on his decisions as president, he was, for better or worse, following in an American Catholic tradition when trying to reassure the Protestant majority of Catholics’ reliability as good citizens of the republic. The Houston speech needs to be seen in this light.

Fair enough, as are Klugewicz’s comments about the historical support Catholics have offered separationism as an antidote to the informal Protestant establishment of the 19th century. But he overlooks another 19th century Catholic response, which amounts to asking for an  accommodation of religion. There may be reasons to reject public support of all eligible institutions that serve both religious and secular ends, but there are also reasons to support such a program, many of which are offered in this book , which I’m reviewing for another journal.

Yes, Catholics might profit from separationism, but they’d arguably also profit from a regime that embraced and supported religious pluralism.