With all the recent media-fueled controversy surrounding Rick Santorum’s religious beliefs, should he give a speech addressing the issue?
In many ways, Santorum addressed this issue in December of 2010, speaking to a political symposium in Boston sponsored by St. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, when conceivably he was already considering a run for president.
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In the address, Santorum criticized Kennedy’s historic speech on religion to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston shortly before the presidential election in 1960.
Santorum argued that by confessing “an absolute separation of Church and State,” Kennedy chose, “not just to dispel fear, but to expel faith,” after doubts were raised about whether or not his administration would be subject to the papacy.
“The idea of a strict or absolute separation of church and state is not and never was the American model,” Santorum stated, asserting that the concept was developed by Justice Hugo Black in the Supreme Court case of Everson vs. Board of Education in 1947.
“Black, by the way, was a Catholic hating former member of the KKK,” Santorum added, “Who ironically enough advocated for the strict separation doctrine to keep public funds from Catholic schools.”
The founding fathers, Santorum argued, were against a state sponsored religion so that religious freedom could flourish.
“Kennedy took words written to protect religion from the government and used them to shield the government from religion,” Santorum added, reminding the audience that since the famous speech, Catholics everywhere ignored the role of religion in public life.
The result, Santorum complained, was an “imposition of secular values on everybody while marginalizing faith and those who believe as ‘moralizing theocrats.'”
Santorum argued that Kennedy should have worked to explain that fears of a “theocracy” under a Catholic president were misplaced, and should have explained that prudence, together with faith and reason, could make laws for a just society, without legislating personal morality.
“The sad fact is he could have stood by his beliefs and won; he chose not to,” Santorum concluded. “Instead he charted a course that has won many elections, but has put American civilization at risk.”
