Santorum, Kennedy, and the Separation of Church and State

At the end of February, presidential candidate Rick Santorum relayed his nauseated response to President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech regarding “the absolute separation of church and state.” In this editorial, R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sides with Santorum that an “absolute” separation is impossible although he states that Santorum “clearly missed some of the careful nuances of Kennedy’s speech.” While President Ronald Reagan’s name has been batted around recently as well I wonder if Santorum is attempting to highlight tensions between himself and fellow Catholic President Kennedy due to scandal brought to light earlier that month with an extensive interview with Mimi Alford.

After expressing his gastrointestinal distress, Santorum proclaimed “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.” This exhibits not only Santorum’s literal, uninformed reading of history but a very narrow view as it appears he can not understand why American citizens of other or no faiths are uncomfortable with this. This completely threatens the separation of church and state which apparently is not as solid and uncontested as believed. Mohler states that it is impossible to have a complete separation of the government and all religious institutions as evidenced by the continuous flow of legal proceedings regarding faith based conflicts. In addition, “Human beings are composite creatures, and there is no way that authentic religious beliefs can be safely isolated from an individual’s total worldview.”

It is in this way that Kennedy diverges from Santorum and Mohler on ideas of church and state. In 1960, then candidate John F. Kennedy was facing a similar problem as Mitt Romney. As a Catholic presidential candidate, Kennedy had to prove to the American public that he would work for and with Americans within the defined secular, American laws and not act as a puppet for the Pope forfeiting American autonomy to Catholic rule. The American people wanted this separation, at least from the Catholic Church. Many of his contemporaries described President Kennedy as able to “compartmentalize his life” in this way, for better or worse, in both the political and personal spheres. I assume, although it is not stated explicitly, that Santorum views this compartmentalization as equally destructive to America as it has been to President Kennedy.

We do need different guidelines to operate in the diverse areas of our world especially the American president, whose decisions have far reaching effects on diverse groups of people. I agree with Mohler that our beliefs, religious or not, are part of who we are and influence our decisions. However, politicians are required to make decisions based on American law not religious doctrine. Kennedy reaffirmed the American ideal of religion as being dependent only on the individual’s conscience and therefore one can not incorporate religion into the government and impose these beliefs, with no legal grounds, on other individuals. Although there is obviously overlap between legal and religious realms in The United States this does not mean we should throw our hands up and stop trying to navigate this grey area and in the process make some Americans vulnerable with the loss of their civil liberties.