Kennedy on the topic of church and state, religious freedom, and tolerance. He spoke to a meeting of houston ministers. Paid for by the Kennedy JohnsonTexas Campaign. The broadcast includes an excessive questionandanswer session, and parts of the film were later used as campaign ads. From houstons rice hotel, senator john kennedy is about to address a special meeting of the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, to which he has been invited. Senator kennedy will participate in a formal questionandanswer period. The meeting is sponsored by the Kennedy JohnsonTexas Campaign committee and is being seen throughout texas on a special 22station network. The audience you are seeing is composed of clergymen of the houston area who have been invited by the association. The meeting is about to be called to order by the president , reverend george rank. May i call this special meeting of the association of ministers of greater houston to order . Lets stand for prayer. God be merciful unto us and bless us and allow his face to shine upon us, that not a may be known upon earth by saving health among all nations. God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall praise him. With these words of the psalmists, we stand before the old god as our only sovereign lord. Lord, show us thine mercy. Let thy grace rest upon our nation and do not take thy light from us. And our ears to the. Show us always the truth that makes us free. In the name of our lord jesus christ, we pray. Amen. We are very happy that so many of you ministers are present at this meeting. The treasurer of our association has wondered to me if some of you would not like to pay your dues for this time, this year, which begins with september. I am sure that he will be in the lobby after the session ready to shake your hand. We are very happy to see so many of you ministers present, and we want this to be a true meeting of the association. Under the policy of your executive committee this year, we wish to have as guests for regular and special meetings as many personalities of note and reputation as possible. The purpose, of course, is to provide not only a good program but to give knowledge and enlightenment to the spiritual leaders of our community. A similar invitation by our association was extended to mr. Nixon. Please understand that this is not a political rally. This is a meeting of the association of ministers, and we rely upon your sense of good order, proper respect for the nominee to the highest office of our land, and good, christian behavior generally. Our little mouse has grown into a lion of big significance. This has not been our original intention, but things happen these ways. Nevertheless, may the atmosphere be informal here. And may such atmosphere be maintained. May i speak a welcome to all of you . I am the reverend herbert meza, Vice President of the association of ministers. This program this evening does not constitute an endorsement of either the speaker or the party which he represents. The program has been motivated by the religious issues in this campaign, issues that are not modern. There are some who insist that nothing has changed within the Roman Catholic church, and there are others who insist that nothing should change. The problem is not to deny the religious issue over to brand as intolerant those who raise it. The problem is to place it in proper perspective and to determine where the candidate stands in relationship to that perspective. The extremists on both sides have candidates that dominate a debate. Contrary to common propaganda, the south is not a hotbed of religious or racial intolerance. There are many honest minds that are raising honest questions. Many catholics differ with us on many questions that are relevant to the welfare of our country. The fact that the senator is with us tonight is to concede that a religious issue does exist. It is because there are many serious minds decently raising questions that we have invited the speaker of the evening, and i it is for that same reason we have allowed this meeting to be broadcast. To that end, im delighted to introduce at this time the senator from massachusetts and the democratic candidate for the president of the United States, senator john f. Kennedy. [applause] i am grateful for your generous invitation to state my views. While the socalled 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 the communist influence, until it 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 children who are hungry in west virginia. The old people who cant pay their doctor bills. The families forced to give up their farms, and america with too many slums and too few schools and too late for the moon in outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign and they are not religious issues. 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 and believe in, for that should be important only to me, but what kind of america i believe in. I believe in an america with a separation of church and state is absolute. Where no catholic powers will tell the president , should he be catholic, how to act, and no protestant minister should tell his parishioners how to vote. When no church or Church Schools is granted any public funds or political preference and where no man is denied Public Office merely because his religion differs from the president to might appoint them or the people who might elect him. I believe in an america that is officially neither catholic, protestant, nor jewish, where no public official, neither requests nor accepts instructions on private 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 against all. While this year it might be a catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, another year it has been and may someday be again a jew or a quaker or a unitarian or a baptist. It was virginias harassment of baptist preachers that led to jeffersons 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 america where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men and all churches are treated as equals, for every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice. There is no catholic vote, no anticatholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind, and where protestants, catholics, and jews at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their work in the past and promote the 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 humble 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 by him on the nation nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to hold in the office. I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment guaranteeing the religious liberty, nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. Neither do i look with favor upon those who would work to subvert article 6 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 make appropriately require him to fulfill. And whose fulfillment of office is not limited or condition of 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 to a disloyal group that threatened the freedom for which our forefathers died. In fact, this the kind of america for which our forefathers did die. When they fled here to escape religious persecution that denied office to members of certain 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. Sidebyside with bowie and crockett. No one knows whether they were catholic or not. Four there was no religious test there. I ask you to judge me on the basis of 14 years in the congress, on my declared stance against an ambassador to the vatican. Against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools and against any boycott of the public schools, which i attended myself. Instead of doing this, to not judge me on the basis of these pamphlets of publications we have all 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 the statement of the American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed church state separation. Which more nearly reflect in 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, prevent, or prosecute the free exercise of any 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 you deny it to catholics and rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, i would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as france and ireland and the independence of such statesmen as de gaulle. 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 partys candidate for president who happens also to be catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may become 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 other 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 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, to the oath ive taken for 14 years in the congress. For without reservation, i can, solemnly swear that i will faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the constitution, so help me god. [applause] gentlemen [applause] due to the press of time, we should begin immediately with a questionandanswer period. You know the ground rules. Are there any questions . [indiscernible] i think i speak for many of those that do not in any sense discount your loyalty to this nation. Can i bring it down to where we stand right here tonight as two men nearly equally facing each other . If this meeting tonight were being held in the sanctuary of my church, it is the policy of my city that has many very fine catholics in it, but it is the policy of catholic leadership to forbid them to attend a protestant service. If we were in the sanctuary of my church, would you or could you attend . Yes, i could. As i said in my statement, i would attend any service that had connections with my Public Office, or in the case of a private ceremony weddings, funerals, and so on of course, i would participate and have participated. I think the question is whether i could participate as a participant, a believer, and remain within my church. That, it seems to me, comes within the private beliefs that a catholic might have. As far as whether i could attend this sort of function in your church, if i as senator or president , could attend a Service Connected to my position of office, i could and would attend. [indiscernible] in regard to the chapel of the chaplain, i believe that you have accepted the invitation to attend and then the press said that i believe cardinal doughty brought pressure on you and you refused. This seems to be a matter of great interest. I was invited in 1947 after my election to congress to attend a dinner to raise funds for an interfaith chapel. This was 14 years ago. I was delighted to accept. Because i thought it was a useful and worthwhile cause. A few days before i was due to accept, i learned through my Administrative Assistant who had friends in philadelphia two things first, that i was listed as a spokesperson for the catholic faith. Charles taft, senator tafts brother, was to be the spokesman for the protestant faith. Senator lehman was to be the spokesman for the jewish faith. The second thing i learned was the chapel, instead of as i thought it was, located in the interfaith chapel, was in the basement of another church and not in that sense an interfaith chapel. For the 14 years since it was built, theres never been a service because of the physical location. I informed them that i was glad to come as a citizen. Many catholics went to the dinner, but i did not feel that i have the credentials to be the spokesperson for the catholic faith to raise funds when the whole Catholic Church group did in philadelphia not participate and was never blessed to consecrate it. I want to make it clear that my grounds for going were not private. I have no credentials to speak for the catholic faith at a dinner for a chapel in which no Catholic Services ever been held. To this day, no service has been held at the present time. If this were a public matter, im glad to go as an individual, but i could not go as a spokesperson. [indiscernible] i read this platform with great interest and especially in the realm of freedom, and i note that in the educational section, the right for education for each person is guaranteed or offered for a guarantee. It also says that there will be equal opportunity for employment. In another section it says that there shall be equal rights to housing and recreation. All of these speak in a wonderful sense to the freedom which we want to keep in america. Yet, on the other hand, there is in another place in the platform. We will repeal the authorization for right to work laws. It seems to me in this aspect, and i feel these are more important than any religious issue, here you are abolishing an open shot. You are taking away the freedom of the individual worker, whether he wants to be part of the union or not. Isnt this sort of doubletalk . You guarantee freedom with one hand and then take it with the other. I dont agree with that. I think there is an economy here in the platform that provision has been in the platform since 1948. Im sure there is a difference of opinion between us on that matter and between Many Democrats on the matter. This is a decision that goes towards economic and political views and i do not think it involves a constitutional guarantee of freedom. Under the provisions of the task hartley law, the state was permitted to prohibit a public shop. Interstate commerce is valuable, and therefore, i hold with the view that is better to have uniform law and not a law that is in a state commerce which permits one condition in one state and another in another. This is not a new provision. Its been in for the last three platforms. [indiscernible] i am a member of the Houston Association of ministers. You very clearly stated your positions tonight in regards to the propagation of doctrines by all religious groups. I appreciate that very much because we protestants are a missionary people. The question i have to ask is this if you are elected president , will you use your influence to get the Roman Catholic countries of south america and spain to stop persecuting protestant missionaries and to give equal rights to prote