Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2016
In November 1963, John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic President of the United States of America, was assassinated while travelling in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas.
The election of Kennedy was a significant moment in relations between religion and public life in this nation for, although Catholics were physically present on the continent over a century before Protestant's, the Protestant spirit clearly dominated the newly formed nation in positions of political and economic power well into the twentieth century.
But the death of Kennedy was also a significant moment, a moment in which religious sentiments and public concerns were fused. The grief that was felt nationwide betrayed depths of religious emotion usually reserved for the intimate spaces of family life. But this was the grief of a body politic for one in whose office the entire community, however otherwise divided, was symbolized. Moreover, the funeral, stately and elegant, came as close as any other event in the history of America to being a national religious ritual, even if conducted for many only through the conveyance of electronic media.
This article was originally an address to the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Divinity School, presented November 2, 1983, on behalf of the Project on Religion and Public Life in America. Except where indicated, the quotations in this article retain the language of the original texts (including terms which would now be construed as sexist—he, his, man—and possibly racist—Negro).
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