From the nineteenth century through the 1960 presidential election, anti-Catholicism played a major role in American presidential politics. Historians trace anti-Catholicism in the presidential campaigns to the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe. The Reformation spawned a number of Protestant denominations and churches that rejected papal authority and opposed the major beliefs, teachings, and liturgical practices of the Catholic Church. The split between Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church touched off a religious war between European Protestants and Catholics. Sadly, these animosities spread to the colonies.
The vast majority of early settlers to the colonies belonged to Anglican, Calvinist, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Congregationalist, Unitarian, and other Protestant sects. Even though large numbers of Catholics settled in Maryland, relatively few Catholics lived in the colonies during the eighteenth century. From the Revolutionary War through the early decades of the nineteenth century, anti-Catholicism was not a visible factor in national politics. However, the First Great Awakening (1730s–1770s) and the Second Great Awakening (1800s–1850s) led to a significant increase in the role of religion in American society. Equally important, the number of Catholic immigrants also surged in the 1840s. The largest group of Catholic immigrants came from Ireland as the result of the potato famine and settled in the eastern portion of the United States. By the 1840s, Democratic urban political machines, such as New York City’s Tammany Hall, became heavily dependent on these immigrant voters to maintain their political power.
During the late 1840s and early 1850s, growing anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment led to the establishment in New York of a secret society dedicated to denying immigrants political power. Members of the society came to be known as Know-Nothings because of their refusal to admit belonging to the secret society. The members of this society established the American Party as their political arm in 1854. The success of the American Party in winning state and local elections led the party to run its own presidential candidate, former president Millard Fillmore, in 1856. Although Fillmore won 21 percent of the popular vote, he managed to win only the electoral votes of Maryland. Support for the American Party in the North collapsed after the 1856 election, largely due to the party’s support for pro-slavery policies.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, the decline of the Democratic Party reduced the political power of Catholic voters, leading to a decline in anti-Catholic sentiment. By the 1880s, the era of Reconstruction was over and the Democratic Party reemerged as a national political force, reigniting anti-Catholic sentiment as Democratic candidates in northern states once again relied heavily on the Catholic immigrant vote to win elections.
In particular, anti-Catholic sentiment played a major role in the final hours of the Campaign of 1884 between Democrat Grover Cleveland and Republican nominee James G. Blaine. Both Blaine and Cleveland needed New York’s electoral votes to win the presidential election, and Cleveland needed New York City’s Tammany Hall organization to get out the Catholic immigrant vote. On October 29, 1884, Blaine attended a meeting of pro-Blaine Protestant clergy in New York City. During his introduction of Blaine, Reverend Samuel D. Burchard commented that “we are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been ‘Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.’ ” With only days remaining before the election, the well-publicized remarks mobilized New York Catholics to turn out to vote for Cleveland, enabling him to take New York’s electoral votes and defeat Blaine.
Beginning in the 1890s, and continuing through the beginning of World War I in 1917, the United States experienced new waves of immigration, largely from southern European countries. Many of these immigrants were Catholic as well. This rise in immigration in the early decades of the twentieth century coincided with the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which expanded its attacks beyond African Americans to include immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. This public backlash against immigrants precipitated numerous immigration reforms, including the 1924 Immigration Act, which imposed strict quotas on the number of individuals other countries could send to the United States.
Against this backdrop, New York governor Al Smith became the first Roman Catholic to win a presidential nomination when he was tapped by Democrats during the Campaign of 1928. Even though the Republican presidential nominee, Quaker Herbert Hoover, did not attack Smith’s religion, many Republican partisans trotted out the old canard that, if elected president, Smith would obey the Pope’s bidding on political issues rather than serve the needs of the American people. Smith’s defeat made both the Democratic and Republican parties more nervous about nominating a Catholic for the presidency.
From 1928 to 1960, no Catholic candidate received the presidential nomination of either political party. Then, in 1960, Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination after a series of competitive primary victories. Throughout the campaign, Kennedy faced questions regarding the role his religion might play in his decisions as president. On September 12, 1960, Kennedy dealt directly with the issue in speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Texas. In an effort to end the controversy, Kennedy stated, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.” Presidential election experts generally agree that Kennedy’s speech played a major role in defusing the Catholic issue, contributing to Kennedy’s narrow victory over the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon.
By the 2000 presidential election, evangelical Christians emerged as a major influence on the Republican Party. Early in the 2000 Republican primary season, Texas governor George W. Bush and Arizona senator John McCain fought for crucial Republican votes. During the South Carolina Republican primary, Bush made a visit to Bob Jones University, located in Greenville, South Carolina. Bob Jones, the founder of the college, had a reputation for making anti-Catholic statements, and the college had a previous history of whites-only admissions and had banned interracial dating (both of which have since been eliminated). While Bush’s visit to the Bob Jones campus undoubtedly aided him in winning over the heavily white, evangelical Protestant voters in the South Carolina primary, the event created unpleasant fallout for the candidate in other parts of the country, particularly among African American and Catholic voters. In a February 27, 2000, letter to Cardinal John O’Connor, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, Bush expressed regret for failing to disassociate himself from the anti-Catholic statements associated with Bob Jones. The apology did not end the controversy. Bush sharply criticized McCain for allegedly tacitly supporting push polls by his supporters that implied that Bush was anti-Catholic.
In the Campaign of 2004, the Democratic Party nominated Catholic Massachusetts senator John Kerry as its presidential nominee. During the campaign, Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis forbade Kerry from receiving communion in his diocese because of Kerry’s pro-choice position on the abortion issue. During the campaign, a number of Catholic bishops openly criticized Kerry on this topic, leading to controversies among Catholic voters about whether it was appropriate for the Church to make recommendations about their decisions at the ballot box.
Religion once again emerged as a controversy in the Campaign of 2008 when Democratic nominee Barack Obama was forced to defend his religious affiliation and distance himself from incendiary statements made by the pastor of his Protestant Chicago church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Nevertheless, his choice of Catholic running mate Joe Biden stirred no reaction. Furthermore, Obama was able to win 52 percent of the Catholic vote seven percentage points higher than Kerry’s Catholic tally in 2004. Obama’s Catholic support was earned against heavy criticism from a number of Catholic bishops, including then-archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, who referred to the Democrats as “the party of death,” and the suggestion by Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton that abortion should be the primary issue guiding the votes of Catholics.
More recently, anti-Muslim remarks shared by two Republicans campaigning for the 2016 nomination have exposed prejudices remarkably similar to those directed against Catholics just a few decades earlier. Donald Trump proposed a ban against all Muslims entering the country, reminiscent of the anti-Catholic nativism of the nineteenth century and its loud twentieth-century echoes; and, it should be noted, a suggestion roundly rejected within Mr. Trump’s own party. Prior to Trump’s posturing, Dr. Ben Carson bluntly claimed that the idea of a Muslim president runs contrary to the principles of the Constitution—ignoring the Constitution’s prohibition against religious tests—a comment that, mutatis mutandis, would have been targeted against Catholics even as late as the mid-twentieth century. Attitudes such as these are what prompted Catholic Senator John Kennedy’s eloquent and insightful September 12, 1960, address in Houston two months before his election to the presidency. Residues, at times strong, of anti-Catholicism remain in American culture, but in mainstream politics Catholics no longer confront the same bigotry that hobbled Al Smith and that was so deftly deflected by John Kennedy. Given recent comments during the 2016 campaign, it is evident that anti-religious prejudices are, at least for the moment, focused elsewhere to the detriment of the American pursuit of a free and just society.
See also Abortion Controversy; Campaign of 1960
Dulce, Benton, and Edward J. Richter. Religion and the Presidency: A Recurring American Problem. New York: MacMillan, 1962.
Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York: Basic Books, 1992.