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In 1958, as John F. Kennedy was preparing to run for president of the United States, polemicist Paul Blanshard published the second edition of his incendiary 1949 book, American Freedom and Catholic Power. This was the bible of anti-Catholicism in American public life. In it, Blanshard called for a “resistance movement” that would oppose the Catholic Church’s “antidemocratic social policies,” and attacked Catholic schools as “the most important divisive instrument in the life of American Children.” Echoing Blanshard’s bigotry, a February 1960 editorial in Christianity Todayasserted that it is “perfectly rational” to oppose the nomination and election of a “Romanist” because “a Catholic presidency would be torn between two loyalties.”
In September 1960, Kennedy, sensitive to the broad public sentiment reflected in these broadsides, gave his famous speech to the Houston Ministerial Association, in which he renounced any claim that his Catholic faith might have on his moral life. Reducing his Catholicism to an accident of birth, Kennedy assured voters that it had no purchase on his political judgment. Sixty years later, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are, respectively, Kennedy’s religious and Blanshard’s polemicist heirs.
One difference between Blanshard and Harris, of course, is that the former possessed only the power of persuasion, whereas the latter possesses the power (and is campaigning for more) to institutionalize her bigotry against Catholics and public organizations whose practices are consistent with Catholic moral life. And she has wielded it vigorously.
For example, Harris is perfectly willing to impose unconstitutional religious tests to nominees to the federal bench. In 2018, when Brian Buescher was nominated as a District Court judge, Harris put this written question to him:
Continued below.
www.firstthings.com
In September 1960, Kennedy, sensitive to the broad public sentiment reflected in these broadsides, gave his famous speech to the Houston Ministerial Association, in which he renounced any claim that his Catholic faith might have on his moral life. Reducing his Catholicism to an accident of birth, Kennedy assured voters that it had no purchase on his political judgment. Sixty years later, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are, respectively, Kennedy’s religious and Blanshard’s polemicist heirs.
One difference between Blanshard and Harris, of course, is that the former possessed only the power of persuasion, whereas the latter possesses the power (and is campaigning for more) to institutionalize her bigotry against Catholics and public organizations whose practices are consistent with Catholic moral life. And she has wielded it vigorously.
For example, Harris is perfectly willing to impose unconstitutional religious tests to nominees to the federal bench. In 2018, when Brian Buescher was nominated as a District Court judge, Harris put this written question to him:
Continued below.
Kamala Harris’s Record of Anti-Catholic Bigotry | Kenneth Craycraft
Never have two people with such open hostility to Catholic faith and practice been so close to the two highest offices in American politics.
www.firstthings.com
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