JFK's privatized religion

John F. Kennedy's famous
Houston speech on church and state during
the 1960 presidential campaign elicited Rick Santorum's after-the-fact disgust. Though Santorum
misrepresents the speech in some ways--Kennedy didn't say anything about
limiting religious institutions and leaders from speaking on public issues--he
is right to find the speech theologically lame.

In trying to assure
Protestant voters that they had nothing to fear in voting for a Catholic as
president, JFK stressed that his religious views were "his own private affair."
He laid out his vision of a chief executive whose public acts would not be
"limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation."

Not limited or conditioned
by any religious obligation? In essence, Kennedy was saying that his Catholic
faith did not and would not shape anything he might do or think as president.