Article: THE CATHOLIC QUESTION: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND JFK's PURSUIT OF THE 1960 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION.

Author James A. Michener recalled feeling quite startled when guests at publisher Bennett Cerf's early 1960 dinner party challenged John F. Kennedy's presidential candidacy on religious grounds. In an educated, professional crowd, Michener encountered "American liberals [who] ... had the most serious and deep-seated fears of a Catholic in the Presidency." One individual called the Vatican "dictatorial, savage[,] ... reactionary ... [and] brutal in its lust for power." Others feared that clerical pressures would determine Kennedy's political decisions. One colleague declared that "Irish priests" would manipulate a Catholic president "as if he were their toy." A Catholic at ...

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