Presidential Facts - First Catholic President

John F. Kennedy was the only Roman Catholic President of the United States. During the 1960 Presidential campaign, his religion was viewed as a liability. It was a time when Catholic candidates were often slandered by their opponents during election campaigns by using their Catholicism as a weapon to attack a man's character.  

Kennedy knew he had a lot of prejudices to overcome, namely convincing the voters that his decisions would not be influenced by the Pope. 

He took the opportunity to address the concerns during a speech to Protestant clergy of the Greater Houston Ministers Association on September 12, 1960.

1960 Presidential candidate John F Kennedy

Paraphrased:

"Because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues of this campaign have been obscured. So it is necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in - for that should be important only to me - but what kind of America I believe in. . .   I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. . . .  I am not the Catholic candidate for President but the candidate who happens also to be Catholic.  I do not speak for my Church on public matters and the Church does not speak for me."  

His speech headlined the national news until election day and some pundits felt his words went a long way to win over the swing voters. 

He won the election by a very close margin: 303 electoral votes to Vice President Richard Nixon's 219 electoral votes. However in actual votes, Kennedy received 118,000 more votes than Nixon.

Update:  November 2020. President Joseph Biden won the 2020 Presidential election with 360 electoral votes. He is the second Catholic President in U.S. history.

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