This September it will be fifty years since John F. Kennedy gave his famous speech on religion and politics to Baptist ministers in Houston. Archbishop Charles Chaput has anticipated the anniversary by giving a speechcritical of Kennedys at the Baptist University in the same city. You can find it at Sandro Magisters blog.Two years ago the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture hosted a symposium on "The Kennedy Moment: Religion and the Race for the Presidency," which was entirely devoted to Kennedys speech and its relevance for the then current presidential campaign. You can find a transcript of the discussion at the Centers website here.One of the participants in the Fordham symposium, Shaun Casey has a lengthy study of the 1960 campaign and of Kennedy's Houston speech in his book The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 (Oxford University Press, 2009).May I suggest that we read both Chaputs speech and the transcript of the discussion before commenting on either?

Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak, professor emeritus of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, is a retired priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

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