This week in Christian history: JFK meets pope, Clinton cracks down on church arsons

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, July 02, 2023

JFK meets the pope – July 2, 1963

John F. Kennedy and Pope Paul VI together in a meeting held on July 2, 1963. | Wikimedia Commons

This week marks the anniversary of when President John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic president of the United States, met with the newly installed Pope Paul VI in Rome.

“We are ever mindful in Our prayers of the efforts to ensure to all your citizens the equal benefits of citizenship, which have as their foundation the equality of all men because of their dignity as persons and children of God,” said Paul VI in his official speech for the occasion.

Kennedy, who during the 1960 election had weathered concerns that he would be subservient to the pope if elected president, shook hands with the pontiff rather than do the traditional custom of kissing the papal ring.

The Jesuit publication America admitted in a 2015 article that the informal aspects of the meeting “brought some criticism" from their editorial board back in 1963.

“In an editorial afterwards, the belief was put forth that it was nothing short of disgraceful that the head of the most powerful nation on earth would behave—and be received—in such an understated manner,” noted the publication.

“Little did the editors—or anyone else know or realize—that perhaps the pragmatist president and the diplomatic pope might have wanted it that way.”