How John F. Kennedy Overcame Anti-Catholic Bias to Win the Presidency

On September 12, 1960, John F. Kennedy avers he does not speak for the Roman Catholic Church, and neither does the Church speak for him. From the article:

"On September 12, 1960, less than two months before Americans would choose the next president of the United States, Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy was in Texas giving a speech to a Houston gathering of Southern Baptist clergy.

This wasn’t a normal campaign stop. Kennedy was Catholic and, at the time, only the second Catholic presidential candidate in U.S. history after Al Smith’s unsuccessful run in 1928. And for a Catholic candidate from New England, a conference of Southern Baptist ministers was considered the “lion’s den,” ground zero for anti-Catholic political rhetoric and even outright bigotry."