At the centre of the china cabinet in my grandparents’ farmhouse, amid porcelain, crystal, and family portraits, stands a plate painted with the images of Jackie and John F Kennedy. For people in their household and countless others, the Kennedys were a symbol of arrival and achievement, a sign of a time when it was easy to be fully Catholic and fully American. Mixing the two was simple – all one had to do was vote Democrat.
Even as Catholics left the Democratic Party in the 1970s and 80s, that conviction held. As men like Michael Novak and Richard John Neuhaus led people who had voted four times for Roosevelt into the big tent of the GOP, the message was reassuring familiar. One could be fully Catholic and fully American – all one had to do was vote Republican.
