The American Compromise

I am probably not alone in my generation to have been taught by my parents that the Pope has no role in politics, that his infallibility was limited to matters of morals and theology. That formulation represents the "American Compromise" of Catholics with democracy, and my generation was probably uniquely positioned with respect to that compromise. Previous generations had worked out the compromise, such that within 18 months of my birth the first American Catholic president could be elected. The concept of the compromise was elevated by Kennedy to almost a credal dimension when Kennedy pledged to keep his religious views hermetically sealed from his political policies. I've always unconsciously accepted the compromise as a part and parcel of being a good American.

On the other hand, as Disputations observes the compromise had an unintended corollary:

Many Catholics who reject the Kennedy doctrine see the neutering of one's judgment by removing all that is uniquely Catholic as a great victory for secularists. It is, certainly, but I think there's something more fundamental at work here. Kennedy declared his doctrine, not at a meeting of secularists, but at a meeting of Baptist ministers.

A man "whose religious views are his own private affair" is not a Catholic in any meaningful sense. By cutting his faith off from community, he necessarily becomes a non-credal Protestant, since Catholicism is by definition a shared and public affair.

The risk to Catholicism in the U.S. is that, in fighting against secularism, it can make concessions to non-Catholic Christianity -- the traditional Protestantism of the country -- that makes impossible a genuinely Catholic character.

So the first Catholic president was effectively a non-credal Protestant.

It's an interesting thought. I suspect that younger generations of Catholics aren't taught the creed of the compromise since the idea that the Pope or the Church would ever be able to dictate or influence political judgments is dim at best.