Catholicism and the Kennedys

Summary

Podcast Summary: United States of Kennedy — "Catholicism and the Kennedys"

Date: January 12, 2026
Hosts: George Civeris & Julia Claire
Guest: Matt Sittman (Know Your Enemy podcast, formerly of Commonweal Magazine)

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Main Theme

This episode examines the complex and iconic relationship between the Kennedy family and Catholicism, exploring how their faith shaped public perceptions, personal dynamics, and political strategies. The discussion covers the historical backdrop of anti-Catholic prejudice, the intersection of religion and American democracy, gender dynamics within the Kennedy family, and the enduring mythology of the Kennedys as America’s "most famous Catholic family."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Kennedys as America’s Catholic Dynasty

[03:01–04:12]

• The Kennedys are still seen as the most famous Catholic family in America.
• Hosts note the spectrum of religious devotion in the family: Rose, Bobby, and Ethel were devout, while others were more casual about Catholicism.
• Early Kennedys, notably Joe, faced significant anti-Catholic prejudice in elite WASP Boston circles, motivating him to amass wealth and seek power.
  • “These early anti-Catholic slights motivated [Joe Kennedy] to amass a gigantic fortune and crown one of his sons the first Catholic President of the United States.” — George ([03:30])

2. The Political Stakes of Catholicism

[03:57–04:28]

• JFK’s 1960 presidential campaign brought the “Catholic Question” to the forefront, with accusations of dual loyalty—serving the Pope over America.
• Host Julia highlights the election’s razor-thin margin and public suspicion about JFK’s faith.
• JFK both courted Catholic support and publicly defended the separation of church and state (notably in his 1960 Houston speech).

3. Guest Introduction: Matt Sittman’s Catholic Bonafides

[04:47–07:32]

• Matt explains his unusual path to Catholicism (raised fundamentalist Christian, converted as an adult).

• Sittman’s experience at Commonweal, a liberal Catholic magazine, gave him insight into how Catholics adapt to pluralism and liberal democracy, topics the Catholic Church did not always embrace.

  • “It really is liberal in the sense of liberalism as a political philosophy… 75 years ago, as a Catholic in the United States, was not the tradition that the Church was offering you.” — Matt ([06:22])

4. Interdenominational Rivalries and Identity

[08:03–09:59]

• Julia discusses moving between Catholic and evangelical traditions, emphasizing intra-Christian tensions many outsiders might not expect.
• George reflects on being raised Greek Orthodox—a similar but distinctly different tradition, with its own emphasis on aesthetic and ritual differences.
• Aesthetics differ: Catholic “superior dragginess” vs. Orthodox simplicity.

5. The Kennedy Imprisonment (Gary Wills) and the Family’s Dysfunction

[10:39–15:25]

• Discussion of Gary Wills’ The Kennedy Imprisonment, praised as the “best book ever written about the Kennedys” (Matt, [10:40]).
• Book’s thesis: The Kennedys’ myth is both Freudian and Shakespearean—stripping away but not totally deconstructing their legend.
• Key insights into the Kennedy men’s relationships with women—an environment described as “cult-like,” with Joe Kennedy’s sexual competition with his sons highlighted.
  • “It’s just deranged. I don’t think people recognize just how much sex there was…” — Matt ([15:25])
• Matt observes that Catholicism in the family is most strictly expressed not by the men but by the women (Rose, Ethel), often holding themselves to higher standards amid the men’s hypocrisy.

6. Gender, Catholicism, and Power

[17:01–18:17]

• While Kennedy men were often defined by their sins and political ambitions, family women internalized and enforced the Church’s demands more rigidly.
  • “The ones who were most strictly held to the principles of Catholicism—it was the women in the family. … This was just a very patriarchal, in the truest sense of the word, family.” — Julia ([17:13])

7. Joe Kennedy’s Assimilation and the Performative Use of Catholicism

[21:31–24:18]

• George and Julia discuss Joe’s attempt to assimilate into WASP power structures—initially seeking acceptance above all, only embracing his Catholic/Irish identity when it served his ambitions.

• Joe's desire for a son to become president was, per Matt, a form of “elaborate revenge fantasy” against Boston’s Protestant elite.

  • “He didn’t get what he wanted. This was a man who got what he wanted most of the time. And wanting one of his sons to be president is a kind of elaborate revenge fantasy…” — Matt ([22:38])

8. Mid-Century Catholicism in America & Vatican II

[25:27–28:26]

• Matt details the parallel “reign of the two Johns”—John XXIII (who called Vatican II) and John F. Kennedy.
• Vatican II opened the Catholic Church to pluralism, human rights, and democracy—the same period as JFK’s presidency: symbolism and policy overlapped historically and personally.
• Jesuit advisor John Courtney Murray’s advisory role in JFK’s Houston speech—a link between American Catholic reform and Kennedy’s campaign.
  • “There are links, very particular links in terms of people that were connected to both... Pope John XXIII’s reign and President Kennedy’s reign.” — Matt ([28:26])

9. Anti-Catholic Prejudice and the “Catholic Question”

[30:55–36:41]

• Kennedy’s campaign brought anti-Catholic bigotry to the surface—hostility from both Republicans and Democrats (including Eleanor Roosevelt).

• The “dual loyalty” charge: would a Catholic president take orders from the Pope? The Catholic Church was seen as “other” and even incompatible with liberal democracy.

  • “It is essentially a dual loyalty charge that the Pope was… a kind of monarch who had terrestrial power… This was a religion that supposedly didn’t believe in liberty of conscience.” — Matt ([33:43])

10. Vatican II, the Latin Mass, and Catholic “Mystery”

[39:45–41:27]

• Julia and Matt discuss how pre-Vatican II Catholicism seemed secretive and exotic to outsiders, with masses in Latin and “magic” rituals (last rites, oils).
  • “There was something aesthetically and viscerally kind of alien to it.” — Matt ([40:09])
• Comparisons made to public suspicion about other “mysterious” faiths—like Mormonism during Mitt Romney’s campaign.

11. Comparing Kennedys & Trumps: Power, Sex, Media, and Myth

[52:02–55:03]

• George and Matt draw compelling parallels between the Kennedys and the Trumps, especially Joe Kennedy’s chip-on-the-shoulder insecurity about being rejected by elite society mirroring Trump’s Outer Borough complex.
• Both families had obsessions with media, Hollywood, and cultivating a glamorized image—while harboring deep personal dysfunction.
  • “I could totally imagine John F. Kennedy saying what Trump said on the Access Hollywood tape. …It was that sense of having the right… as his birthright.” — Matt ([53:01–53:05])
  • Obsession with gossip, Hollywood, and “who Frank Sinatra is fucking” ([54:42–55:03]).

12. Are the Kennedys Good Catholics? Myth Versus Reality

[58:48–63:00]

• The question is raised: Have the Kennedys been “bad Catholics”? Matt offers a nuanced answer, citing both the family’s embrace of ritual and their public and private transgressions.
  • “Are the Kennedys good Catholics? Well, no, but none of us are… that is partly the point of Catholicism. That we are sinners… bound in ways that the exercises of our freedom can’t overcome.” — Matt ([62:47])
• The role of tragedy and public death in both Catholic lore and the Kennedy story—death is part of the Catholic narrative; mourning and ritual are strengths of the faith.

13. Regional and Generational Divides in Kennedy Loyalty

[66:16–70:32]

• Julia reflects on two responses in Irish Catholic Massachusetts: veneration vs. resentment (seeing the Kennedys as either role models or interlopers).

• Matt compares Kennedy-worship/hatred to Hillary Clinton’s dynamic among women: identification fueled by generational struggle, and intense emotional reactions on both sides.

  • “They don’t want the mythology disturbed… I think their identification… comes from generational struggle.” — Matt ([67:49])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Kennedys’ Relationship to Women:

  • “The Catholicism of the Kennedys is most fully expressed in the people you don't see in their mythologies, which is the women.” — Matt ([16:05])

• On JFK’s Public Catholicism:

  • “It was his Obama Jeremiah Wright speech.” — Matt ([31:13]) (regarding JFK’s Houston address separating himself from direct Papal authority)

• On the Family’s Sins:

  • “All the men are sort of identifiable by their mortal sins… JFK was lust, Bobby was wrath…” — Julia ([48:37])

• On Kennedy Mythology and Death:

  • “Death and rebirth are the metier of both Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular. And they do both really, really well.” — Matt ([64:25])
  • “This very public family, they've died very publicly as well. And there's something interesting to that because it's very Catholic in its own way.” — Matt ([65:42])

• On the Parallels with Trump:

  • “Joe Kennedy, much like Trump, so upset that he had all of the material... of what should make for a high status man, but he was rejected by high society. And that is clearly such a fundamental original wound within Joe.” — Julia ([53:14])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro & Episode Setup: [03:01–04:28]
• Matt Sittman’s Background: [05:17–07:32]
• Gender & Catholicism in the Family: [15:25–18:31]
• Joe Kennedy’s Assimilation & Motivations: [21:31–24:18]
• The Catholic “Problem” in JFK’s Campaign: [30:55–36:41]
• Comparisons to Mormonism & Other “Exotic” Faiths: [41:27–43:29]
• The Kennedy Men’s Sins & Gary Wills’ Book: [47:51–52:02]
• Kennedys vs. Trumps (Power & Myth): [52:02–55:03]
• Are the Kennedys ‘Good Catholics’?: [58:48–63:00]
• Public Mourning & Catholic Ritual: [64:25–65:53]
• Massachusetts Catholic Response to Kennedys: [66:16–70:32]
• Parallels to Hillary Clinton, Political Myths: [70:32–72:55]

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, irreverent, and deeply knowledgeable.
• Nuanced acknowledgment of both the achievements and flaws of the Kennedys.
• The interplay between personal anecdotes, scholarship, and pop culture makes the episode engaging for listeners familiar and unfamiliar with Catholicism.

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Further Listening & Reading

• Gary Wills, The Kennedy Imprisonment — Recommended as the best Kennedy book for understanding their myth and reality ([10:40] and [73:32]).
• Know Your Enemy podcast episode with Jeet Heer — In-depth discussion of Wills’s book ([73:54]).

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Closing Reflection

The episode provides a layered, critical, and often humorous exploration of how the Kennedys navigated faith, power, and public expectations. It recognizes the importance of both myth and history in shaping our collective understanding of the family, and situates the Kennedy story within broader narratives of American religion, democracy, and popular culture.

Transcript

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[George Taveras]

George I'm George Severis.

[Julia Claire]

And I'm Julia Claire and this is.

[George Taveras]

United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week we go into one aspect of the Kennedy story and today we are talking about the Kennedy family's relationship to Catholicism.

[Julia Claire]

The Kennedys remain to this day the most famous Catholic family in America. Some of them, like the family matriarch Rose as well as Bobby and his wife Ethel, were devoutly religious. While others approached the moral demands of Catholicism a bit more casually.

[George Taveras]

Both in politics and in their personal lives. The Kennedys often faced anti Catholic prejudice, especially in the first half of the 20th century. Joe Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy clan, was snubbed by Harvard's final clubs and wasn't offered a single job at any of the Boston banks owned by old money Protestants at the time. These early anti Catholic slights motivated him to amass a gigantic fortune and crown one of his sons the first Catholic President of the United States.

[Julia Claire]

When JFK eventually ran for President, he was accused of dual loyalty and essentially working for the Pope's interests. The Catholic issue, as it was called, almost cost him the election. He beat Nixon in the popular vote by only 100,000 votes.

[George Taveras]

JFK both embraced his Catholicism by appealing to Catholic interest groups and distanced himself from his religion by passionately defending the separation of church and state publicly, most notably in a 1960 speech at a meeting of Baptist ministers in Houston, Texas.

[Julia Claire]

To help us untangle the Kennedys relationship to Catholicism, we're joined today by someone who knows quite a lot about both Catholicism and American power. The co host of one of our favorite podcasts, Know youw Enemy, and former editor at Commonweal magazine, Matt Sittman. Matt, welcome to United States of Kennedy.

[Matt Sittman]

I'm very happy to be here talking with all of you about the Kennedy clan.

[Julia Claire]

We are so excited to have you. George and I have been texting back and forth about questions we want to ask. First of all, for those who may not be super familiar with your background, we are of course having you here today to talk to us about the Kennedys and Catholicism. And we would love for you to situate yourself in the world of Catholicism and tell us a little bit about your background with the faith.

[Matt Sittman]

I'm happy to do that. And you used the word situated. I'm actually literally in Rome, in the Eternal City right now recording this. So I felt like it was very we planned that.

[George Taveras]

Yes, we planned that.

[Julia Claire]

Yes. Yes.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, we actually flew you over. We have a really big budget.

[Matt Sittman]

We have a huge budget.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Matt Sittman]

I meant to ask you where to expense some of my dinners and whatnot.

[George Taveras]

Don't worry, we'll email.

[Matt Sittman]

You'll email me that? Yes. But I'm a Catholic myself. I was not raised Catholic. I was raised in a fundamentalist Bible church, Christian church. That the word fundamentalist would be their self description, not my pejorative. And it's funny because it's basically the most anti Catholic form of Christianity I could have been raised with. I don't know what. In a Freudian sense, you know, the Kennedys are great patients as well to examine, you know, in a Freudian sense. I don't know if this was something, you know, thumbing my nose at my parents or, you know, what psychologically was going on that drew me to the Catholic Church. I'm gay too, so, you know, not the most gay friendly organization in the world, but also it is one of the gayest. I can say that now, having been a Catholic for 10 years.

[George Taveras]

Oh, yes.

[Matt Sittman]

It's more fitting than some of your listeners might guess. And previously to doing the podcast, I co hosted know your enemy full time. I was an editor for over six years at Commonweal magazine, which is now it's over 100 years old. It was founded to be kind of the Catholic New Yorker and it's commonly described as liberal Catholicism. And I think, you know, one thing that's interesting with John F. Kennedy's Catholicism is its relationship to American democracy. And I think, you know, in a lot of ways, when I call Commonwealth a magazine of liberal Catholicism, it's liberal in the sense of like left of center in the current, you know, political landscape. But it really is liberal in the sense of liberalism as a political philosophy, liberal democracy being pro liberal democracy. 75 years ago, as a Catholic in the United States was not the tradition that the Church was offering you. Exactly. So the magazine I worked at was long kind of concerned with how, because Catholics in the United States relate to liberal democracy, the modern world, religious freedom, pluralism, things like that, that in the old world, in Europe, the Catholic Church was not known for being typically on the side of.

[Julia Claire]

It's very much sort of a Vatican II publication. Yes.

[Matt Sittman]

If you look at our subscription numbers, the high watermark for Commonweal really was in those years after the Second Vatican Council where a lot of the things I just mentioned, the church's relationship to religious pluralism, human rights, liberal democracy, things like that those were where the church opened up to the modern world a bit and reckoned with some of that. And Commonweal was the magazine that explained that to American Catholics, I think, more than any other.

[Julia Claire]

That's so interesting. Just for the listener's own edification, I disclose my prejudices immediately. I was born and raised Catholic, baptized in the faith, had my first communion confirmation, and then I actually went the opposite of Matt, where I dabbled in evangelical Christianity in college for a minute. Interesting. And encountered some truly, as you mentioned, very anti Catholic bias within Christianity, which I think a lot of people who are not Christian or maybe who don't understand, like interdenominational tensions probably wouldn't expect or wouldn't understand. And then I have come back into the fold. I consider myself Catholic and I will until I'm dead to dabbling.

[George Taveras]

Evangelical Christianity in college is, I'm sorry to say, Julia, a really unique form of mental illness that I did not know college is, you know, when you dabble in atheism and then you come back to Christianity.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, absolutely. No, I was not well and I know it. And now I'm back and I'm normal again.

[George Taveras]

It's funny, before we started recording, Julia was talking about being raised Catholic and I was like, oh, you know, I was raised Greek Orthodox. And Julia was like, well, it's very similar. And I found myself almost without realizing it, being like, no, it's not. It's where you're talking about the intra Christianity sort of differences are so pronounced when you grow up in a specific faith. I mean, I didn't even grow up super religious, but it was just because my family is Greek and because I partly grew up there. It was a huge part of my childhood going to church and having religious classes in school. There was a, you know, in every school in Greece and there's no separation of church and state technically. So there's a priest that teaches a religion class that's in full Orthodox priest garb. The like, all black, sort of simple. It seems so different than the like, ostentatious, like dragginess of the Catholic Church. And you sort of stress those differences because you want to believe that your thing is somehow unique.

[Julia Claire]

Okay, you say dragginess, I say superior aesthetics.

[George Taveras]

Well, I mean, I have to say I will agree there that, you know, the Catholics really knew what they were doing aesthetically. Matt, one of the things that has honestly been a huge topic of conversation between Julia and me since we first thought of booking you is that when we were sort of like, okay, what has Know youw Enemy done about the Kennedys in the past? We started looking into old episodes and we found this episode about this book called the Kennedy Imprisonment by Gary Wills. And I'm ashamed to say neither of us, despite the fact that we've read and or skimmed many Kennedy books in our time doing this podcast, and somehow this one had never crossed our desk and we've both been.

[Julia Claire]

We've been eating it up.

[Matt Sittman]

It's the best book ever written about the Kennedys. It's incredible. I'm confident saying that.

[George Taveras]

And I find that with kind of. I don't want to call it a pop history book, but with non academic history books like this, either it's super, super dry or it leans into the mythology so much that you're like, what? Even.

[Julia Claire]

It's too elegiac. It's too.

[George Taveras]

Exactly.

[Matt Sittman]

Yes.

[George Taveras]

And he has a way of actually sticking to facts, but then also unexpectedly bringing Foucault into it when you don't expect.

[Matt Sittman]

And you're like, who? Yeah, that's more like the epigraphs of a chapter, right?

[George Taveras]

Yes, I think it is. But even just like the fact that it's funny, you already mentioned Freud, like the fact that the chapters are called the Father. It's so juicy in this way without being tabloid. So I wonder, I mean, I'm sure it's been a while since you've actually read it, but can you talk a little bit about coming to that book and how it changed your view of the Kennedys writ large?

[Matt Sittman]

Yes, it's a very memorable book that I read in the sense of. It was the first one I really read at the start of the pandemic when we, you know, the lockdowns, you know, shelter in place, everyone's staying in. I was in New York City in Manhattan. So for some reason I'm not sure why I decided to read that book. And to be honest, it's interesting. Commonweal, despite superficially, you might think, oh, Commonweal and Gary Wills have a lot in common. Gary Wills is a Catholic writer. He's still alive. He's living. He's, I think, 91 or about to turn 91. And there's a biography coming out of him, I think, in the next year or two. I'm very excited for that. But Gary Wills, you know, had this long fascination with the Kennedys. He was Catholic, of course. Gary Wills got his start at a magazine founded by another Catholic, William F. Buckley Jr. National Review in 1955. And the Kennedys and the Buckleys were kind of like bizarro world reflections of each other. There was a bit of rivalry there. I think you can read Joan Didion taking potshots at the new Frontier. Arthur Schlesinger look alikes she saw laughing at a John Wayne movie in the theater. The anti Kennedy sentiment was strong in. In fact, Wills, about 10 years before he published the Kennedy imprisonment, wrote his great book Nixon Agonistas that follows kind of Nixon on the campaign trail in 1968 through his election as president. And one of the things I love about the Kennedy imprisonment is he said, I always kind of have to give Nixon credit for hating the Kennedys. That's the one thing he would grant Richard Nixon was he was right to have this blood feud hatred of the Kennedys as the rich kids who. Nixon had a chip on his shoulder about them.

[Julia Claire]

I mean, he had a chip on his shoulder about everything.

[Matt Sittman]

Yes, that's true. Yeah. The Kennedy family would fall under the category of everything, which was what bothered Richard Nixon. This book came out, I think, in 1982, the Kennedy imprisonment. And it's in between Nixon Agonistas and then in 90 or 91, Lincoln at Gettysburg, which you won a Pulitzer Prize for. So I always say this is Wills at the height of his powers. And I think your reaction to the book gets at that because it's such a compelling unfolding of an argument in such an orderly way. Like watching Will's mind at work is fascinating and it is kind of Freudian. But I would also say this is where you see Gary Wills. He's even more so. He's Shakespearean. And I think that combination of stripping away the mythology of the Kennedys without lapsing the outright cynicism or just like total deconstruction, there's something. Wills always strikes that balance just right for me. And it's because he's Shakespearean and not Freudian in a sense. And therefore he's demythologizing without being totally deconstructive. Maybe that's the term I wanted. And I should say, though, Wills, for all his classical learning, he has a PhD in classics from Yale. The most I can't imagine. I don't know if I have enough time to read all of Gary Wills's books, let alone all the books he read to write them. It's incredible just kind of how prolific he is and how learned he is. But this book on the Kennedys, it does not shy away from the good gossip.

[Julia Claire]

Oh, my gosh. It starts by about sex.

[Matt Sittman]

You mentioned the father, but the father's sexual. You Know, adventures trying to sleep with the women that the boys were sleeping with. Out of some, you know, it's extremely fucked up.

[George Taveras]

That was one of the number one things, the relationship of the Kennedy men to women. Obviously people know that JFK had affairs and that there were rumors, whatever, but I don't think I had realized how like cult, like the environment was. I mean, they were raised to believe the JFK generation, Joe's children were raised to believe that women are like objects to be passed around. Joe would want to participate and sort of be involved with his son's girlfriends and lovers. I mean, it really was way more crazy than people realized.

[Matt Sittman]

It's just deranged. I don't think people recognize just how much sex there was. Like. Yes. To say John Kennedy had affairs, JFK had affairs really is not even scratching the surface of what he got up to. It seemed like some of the people around him, like Secret Service members, his aides, procuring women was almost a full time job for them. It seemed like a different one almost every day, seemingly, or that would have been the dream. You know, I think some of them stuck around more long term affairs. Right. But I mean, the number was just insane, frankly. And there's a lot you could say about, you know, what was John F. Kennedy's personal faith as a Catholic, or what was Bobby's, what was Teddy's, what was the dad's. And we can talk about all of that. But I think in some ways, as I was thinking about some of this again, to me it's always the Catholicism of the Kennedys is most fully expressed in the people. You don't see in their mythologies, which is the women. And I do think that is a function of their Catholicism in a profound way. I mean, Wills talks about Rose Kennedy as almost being in a cloister within a nunnery, a convent, within their domestic arrangements, sometimes even at their vacation, right. Having her own little cottage on the beach she would go to and live in almost by herself. So there's a way in which I think the most conspicuous elements of the Kennedy's Catholicism often do relate to women. But the people in the Kennedy family, you don't know that much about or you don't hear that much about are the women. And I can't think that can be separated from their Catholicism, frankly, especially that era, that vintage of Catholicism, pre Vatican ii, very old school. That was very much in play.

[Julia Claire]

Totally. I was actually talking to George about this right before we started recording, which was. It seems like a lot of times when we talk about the Kennedys. We are just talking about the men.

[Matt Sittman]

Three or four of them.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, we're talking about Joe, Jack, Teddy, Bobby. But in terms of their relationship to Catholicism, it seems like the ones who were most strictly held to the principles of Catholicism, it was the women in the family. Yes, in a way that the men just simply were not. And that I'm sure was both a function of the time and a function of this particular family itself. This was just a very patriarchal, in the truest sense of the word, family. And it's funny because Joe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong about this, but Joe's relationship to the Catholic Church was entirely political. From all accounts, it seems like he had no real spiritual interior life and treated Catholicism the way that he treated women and way he treated anything else, which was as a political pawn, as a means to an end. And I, I thought that was really interesting. But yeah, the women who were held to the highest standards of being good Catholics, quote, unquote, were the women and.

[Matt Sittman]

Often were held to that standard by themselves, like they did their duty would have been, I think the language. Right. And that duty, they understood it in terms of the obligations imposed upon them as women, mothers, wives, by the Catholic faith.

[George Taveras]

We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after this break.

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[Julia Claire]

And we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

[George Taveras]

I'm just thinking about the times we have talked about Catholicism on this podcast. We had an episode on Kathleen Kennedy and it was such a big controversy within the family that she ended up marrying a non Catholic. And depending on who you ask, people say she was disowned by the family. Other people say that's exaggerated. But the point is that there was a real fracture in the family and it's so crazy to imagine what a big controversy it was that she wanted to marry this man that she by all counts loved. And meanwhile, as you're saying, there's a team procuring various loose women for JFK to have affairs with inside the White House. And that is not seen as contra to his faith. But Julia mentioned Joe Kennedy. I want to start kind of at the beginning. I want to start at Joe Kennedy. So to me it's interesting that the Kennedys are so synonymous with the Catholic Church and the American imagination, because from what I understand, and correct me if I'm Wrong. Joe initially really wanted to assimilate in WASP culture. Like I. So much of his initial thirst for power was because he was, in his mind, rejected from the country club set.

[Matt Sittman]

Literally. Yes. I mean, I think there was a point in time where he wanted to join the beach club, you know, where people would summer, you know, when summer is a verb and not a season. The kind of elite rich person, but therefore mostly Protestant club. And he couldn't. Right. And, like, that was a chip on his shoulder. There's a story of him going back to his college reunion, right. And being kind of booed or hissed at, like, these little slights to him, whether it was his college reunion or joining the elite social club, beach clubs, those kinds of things. He didn't get what he wanted. Right. And this was a man who got what he wanted most of the time. And wanting one of his sons to be president is a kind of. Of elaborate revenge fantasy on his part. For all the slights of the high society types, the Boston Brahmins, who wouldn't accept him and his Irish Catholic clan. That's a major factor in the whole story of the Kennedys as we've come to know it.

[Julia Claire]

And I think, as George alluded to, it's so funny that this is the most famous Irish Catholic family in America in the last hundred years. And Joe so badly wanted to distance himself from that because he saw it as like a personal hindrance and only came to embrace it when it became politically useful to him. But exactly as you were saying, he was rejected by the wasps in Cohasset, Massachusetts. He was denied the position he wanted in the Roosevelt administration, the Secretary of the treasury, and then his second choice was Ambassador to England, which is, again, as an Irish person, what's a bigger stab in the back?

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Well, their relationship with England is funny because there was a part in the Wills book in the very beginning where Wills is saying that the children thought of Joe's relationship to sex as very English or something. It was. I'm trying to remember the exact phrasing, but it was like.

[Matt Sittman]

It was very randy.

[George Taveras]

Yes, it was something about how it's ironic that the Kennedys are considered this iconic Catholic family because he always thought of himself as having a very sort of English disposition. And I do think that was also part of him wanting to be this cosmopolitan, worldly connector of people who was above specific ethnicities and religions. But in terms of Catholicism in America, because obviously, if we fast forward to the JFK election, a huge hindrance for him was the so called Catholic Question. And people thought he had some sort of dual loyalty to the Catholic Church and to America. But before that, what, in your opinion, was the status of the Catholic Church in the American imagination sort of leading up to that, like, from the 40s through the 60s, like, yes, there was prejudice against Catholics. What were the stakes?

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah, in some ways, I mentioned already, you can look at the particular face of any individual Kennedy and see what's going on there. But I think the more interesting questions are about the moment that the Kennedys and their Catholicism met with the history of our country and especially the history of Catholicism in it. One of my favorite lines of Garry Wills is the reign of the two Johns, meaning John xxiii, who was the Pope who called the Second Vatican Council. We've described that a little bit already, but one of the phrases associated with it is throwing up the windows of the church, throwing up open the windows so that the church can look out and the world can. It was at the Second Vatican Council, where again, religious freedom, religious pluralism, human rights, liberal democracy, how the Catholic Church related to the Jewish people were all reformulated and reworked and adapted and updated in a way, in the Second Vatican Council, which was. We're talking late 50s, early, early 60s. So as America is electing its first Catholic president, the Catholic Church is literally calling the bishops and cardinals from all over the world to convene on Rome and deliberate about the very matters I was just discussing, among others. So it's a very interesting moment. And the phrase the reign of the two Johns, I've always loved that. It's one of Wills, great flourishes, I think. But it was also interesting to me that an important figure at the Second Vatican Council, especially when it came to religious freedom, was the Jesuit priest and philosopher John Courtney Murray. And when Kennedy gives his speech in Dallas or Houston, Texas, Sorry, something else happened in Dallas. Sorry, more on that one.

[George Taveras]

No spoilers.

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah. When Kennedy essentially hauls his ass in front of these Baptist ministers in Houston, Texas, when he's running for president and says, no pope's going to tell me what to do. The separation of church and state is absolute. Essentially, that was how he kind of cut that knot.

[George Taveras]

Right.

[Matt Sittman]

The pope's not going to influence me. Separation of church and state is absolute. You have nothing to worry about with me. You can overplay his advisory role, but it. It was John Courtney Murray that Teddy Sorensen called up, the Kennedy speechwriter and read that speech to him to get comments from. So one of the major theological advisors at the Second Vatican Council, a major American Catholic theologian John Courtney Murray was the Kennedy people were soliciting his advice, asking for notes essentially on this major speech. A former Commonweal editor, John Cogley, I think, was another reader of that speech. So there's not just the timing's not just fortuitous or providential as you might view it, but actually there are links, very particular links in terms of people that were connected to both, you know, one John's reign, the Pope John his reign, and President Kennedy his reign. There's actually material personnel based links between them in very interesting ways as well.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, it is a really interesting parallel because Vatican II was, as you said, kind of the Catholic Church, the oldest institution in the world, like stepping into the 20th century. And I think the JFK presidency was seen as such as, well, because he was young, because he had young children, because he had this kind of new sensibility, the new frontier.

[Matt Sittman]

He's a little like Zo Ron in that sense. Like, it's a little hard to make the bigoted attack stick because you look at him, right? This handsome guy in Kennedy's case, right. The cute kids running around, in Zoron's case, lovely guy, beautiful wife, et cetera. It's a little hard to make the bigotry stick when that's who you're saying is this odious, nasty person. It just is a little, I think Kennedy's appearance and the marketing around it and the youthful, yes, new, fresh. This isn't Adlai Stevenson running for the third straight time.

[George Taveras]

Right.

[Matt Sittman]

That merely mattered in terms of shedding, I think, or at least repelling some of the anti Catholicism. But there's a line I wanted to share about this in particular that I thought was really interesting. And it was by Peter Steinfels, who's another former editor of Commonweal, and after that, the New York Times religion reporter for a couple decades. But he published a book in 2003 called A Drift, the Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America. But he formulated the Kennedy moment in an interesting way, and I'll just read it. Here's Peter Steinfeld's. He says suddenly between 1960 and 1965, all the residual stress points between Catholicism and America's public ethos seemed to collapse. The campaign of John F. Kennedy for president had first revealed how much of the old suspicions remained alive. But Kennedy's victory rendered all that anachronistic. The liberating effect on American Catholicism was enormous. And I like that formulation that the Kennedy candidacy at first revealed how much of this bigotry remained. But then Once he won, how much? It seemed to put that behind us in a way as a country. Now, how much that actually happened or not. It's interesting, but that formulation, it's true. I mean, you can look at Eleanor Roosevelt dipping her toe into the water of anti Catholicism a bit because she wasn't sure Kennedy was a good liberal or good enough liberal. Right. Anti Catholicism was said, oh, this is the last acceptable bigotry. In a way, conservatives like to say that especially, which it's not true. But the fact that you could be well into the middle of the 20th century and anti Catholicism be an alive issue in a campaign.

[George Taveras]

Right.

[Matt Sittman]

That was true. It really was a problem for Kennedy. He worried about his advisors, worried about it, and as I mentioned, took him going down to Texas of all places in front of these back Baptist preachers and saying, the Pope ain't gonna tell me what to do. Like that was. I think he did have to do that, actually. It was his Obama's Jeremiah Wright speech.

[George Taveras]

Well, I was about to say, I mean, the quote you read has such clear echoes of Obama's election in the sense that the kind of most optimistic possible narrative at the time was that the election exposed all the racism that still existed. But his victory transcended that. And officially we are in a post race America. And much like jfk, he was also young, he also had young kids. I mean, the parallels are quite striking just in the sense of the mainstream media narrative. I think there's many other differences otherwise.

[Julia Claire]

Right.

[Matt Sittman]

And how quickly that narrative collapsed. I mean, think about it. So Kennedy is assassinated, he's elected in 1960, he's the first Catholic president. 1963, he's assassinated. 1973 is Roe versus Wade. Like, yeah, Catholicism. Well, we got this thing settled. Religion, politics, we got it. Everything's fine. And then within a decade of his assassination, an issue that was seen as a Catholic issue, abortion becomes a major, major flashpoint in the culture wars or kind of the onset of the culture wars even. Right. And it was suddenly, yeah, maybe assuming there's a little too easy relationship between your Catholicism and secular liberal democracy in the United States. You know, the celebrations were a bit premature.

[Julia Claire]

We have only had one Catholic president since jfk.

[George Taveras]

That's true.

[Julia Claire]

This is so crazy. And I want to say I do not think these two are equal comparisons. But we have one more Catholic president than we have had black presidents.

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

I have a friend whose favorite party question is, do you think we will have an Italian American president or a gay president first? And I'll just Leave that. I'll just leave that with the group. I want to say before we get it, I know we're sort of historically now we're post JFK victory, but before we keep going, I do want to talk a little bit about the election itself and sort of the Catholic question, because I think the Kennedy's dealings with both the Church itself and Catholic groups during the election really have defined the relationship they would have during the rest of the dynasty to this day. And so I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the specifics of the anti Catholic attacks both from Republicans and Democrats and people running against Kennedy. What did the that look like? Because it's a type of prejudice that I think people in our sort of age group didn't grow up with. So it seems very foreign to us. Like I know there were accusations of him having a dual loyalty. Like what were the attacks like at the time?

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah, that's a good point, George. It seems a bit quaint in some ways to haul out kind of arcane theological slurs, unless that's your nasty contribution to public discourse. But I think it is essentially a dual loyalty charge that the Pope was, and especially this was more true in the years preceding Kennedy's running for President, before the Second Vatican Council, where the Pope was considered a monarch of sorts, not just like an authoritarian in a neutral sense of that word, I guess like leader of the Church, the decider in the Catholic Church, but literally a kind of monarch who had terrestrial power than the Papal States. And then when that was taken away from him, he was hold up prisoner in the Vatican they called it, that period of time until the Lateran Treaty which created Vatican City.

[George Taveras]

Right.

[Matt Sittman]

That's why the Pope is the head of the Vatican City. For decades he wasn't. He was essentially stuck in the Vatican, not knowing what to do. So he was a monarch in the fullest sense of the word for much of the Catholic Church's history, at least in the west and in Europe the past few centuries, millennia, whatever. And so this was a religion that supposedly didn't believe in liberty of conscience. Right. As a Catholic, you couldn't have the same relationship to your faith that certain kinds of Protestants did. A kind of free thinking religious liberty. You can't d dictate what someone really believes deep down inside sort of thing. It was the dual Lord's charge that the Pope would essentially. The Pope who was the John F. Kennedy's real dictator. Right. The real person telling him what to do, he would be taking orders from the Pope, if not Literally, directly, then indirectly in the sense of implementing Catholic teaching or being unbound by it in a certain way. And yeah, so it was kind of a dual loyalty charge that he would be unreliable, that he wouldn't be a good liberal. Because this is kind of the period of time too when liberals in the Democratic Party really are surging.

[George Taveras]

Right?

[Matt Sittman]

This is post Hubert Humphrey's intervention in the 1948 convention, right. This is after Adlai Stevenson had already run twice a champion of a certain sort of liberalism as the party is coming around on civil rights and the freedom struggle of African Americans, right? All this is kind of happening. And suddenly this guy, as the Democratic Party's embracing its liberalism, this is the guy who has ties to the old world stodgy, authoritarian religion that's out of the mainstream of American public life. It was I think not just vestigial or lingering anti Catholicism or the anti Catholicism that prevailed, especially before the Second Vatican Council. It was a Catholic running at this moment, not just in our history, but in the Democratic Party's history and where the trends were going in the party at that time. It's liberalism. It's more progressive, embracing more progressive positions. Kennedy's Catholicism was considered a problem and precisely in relation to that too. And that's why someone like Eleanor Roosevelt, when I mentioned her diplomatic our toes into. I think people eventually just came out and said it. Yeah, I'm a little suspicious of this guy because he's Catholic and not so many words perhaps, but that was behind so much of it.

[Julia Claire]

I'm pretty certain we're going to take a short break. Stay with us.

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I'll come back up for you.

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[George Taveras]

And we're back with United States of Kennedy.

[Julia Claire]

So before Vatican ii, it's important to remember that a lot of Catholic masses, I think most of them were still in Latin.

[Matt Sittman]

Yes, they were not in the vernacular yet.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, and so that was another big. I think that really added to the scary mythos that the way that it occupied non Catholics minds that like their church services are in a dead language. What are they saying?

[Matt Sittman]

Have you ever read John Adams from the founding generation? Shows up to a mass and it's just like all this hocus pocus, the trembling, the weird languages, the incantations. You know, there was something aesthetically and viscerally kind of alien to it. And I've often thought too, what was it like? What did most Americans think when Cronkite. It's cronkite Cronkite announced his death. Right. It says, we've heard that a Catholic priest gave John F. Kennedy last rites. When had the term last rites been used on a major network news broadcast? Even we knew this guy essentially had been killed, had been assassinated because of the Roman Catholic rite that had just been performed. That itself was so strange probably for a lot of Americans or even, even, oh, they got that the Catholics busted out their magic oils and ointments and incantations one last time hoping to save their boy. You know, I'm sure some people really did think that.

[Julia Claire]

Sure, definitely. And especially before Vatican ii there was there and there still is even after Vatican ii. There's something very insular about the Catholic Church. Definitely more so before the 1950s, but there was something that for a lot of non Catholics felt very cloak and dagger about, about it.

[George Taveras]

This is a really imperfect comparison, so bear with me. But I just remember, for example, when Mitt Romney was running for president there was this question of like he's part of this cult like religion that is unfamiliar to the vast majority of Americans. They and they have weird customs and he wears Mormon underwear. I mean and I think because Mormonism.

[Matt Sittman]

That'S pretty good George. Actually I, I like that comparison because.

[George Taveras]

I think Mormonism is still more, not to be sort of normative about it, but it's still a more sort of marginal original religion obviously than the Catholic Church, which is one of the biggest religion in the world. I think it was much more acceptable to theorize about that and joke about it on late night tv. And I don't necessarily think we look back on that being like wow, we were so close minded about Mormons. But it was, it was an acceptable form of prejudice, rightly or wrongly that you could sort of be like, well he seems normal but he's doing all these weird things.

[Julia Claire]

I actually think that that's a really apt comparison George, especially for pre Vatican II Catholicism. Because in the same way, obviously this was long before mass media as well, but in the same way as the Catholic Church was like very closed and impenetrable from the outside the Mormon Church to this day we don't know what goes on. Like non Mormons do not know what goes on inside of the Mormon Temple. We are able to read things, but they have never allowed to go in, in the temple to film a service or anything like that. So I think that's actually a really good comparison.

[Matt Sittman]

And the not knowing breeds both the kind of curiosity and the salaciousness of some of this. Although George, I was thinking, as you were describing Romney. Do you remember he voted to impeach Trump because the Constitution is divinely ordained and Trump violated. Like Mormons believe the founding is this kind of divine event. I'm not exaggerating or, you know, trying to make fun of. I'm saying it was very interesting that Romney. Actually, to me, the most interesting thing is that he said it out loud.

[George Taveras]

Yes, completely. That's such a different reaction to being called a religious fundamentalist to Kennedy's, whose instinct was to be like, actually, I'm going to make a huge momentous speech about the separation of church and state. I'm going to not. I'm going to not. He didn't go the route of being like, actually, my Catholic faith is the reason I want to be president. He was like, no, it's. It's a part of me. But I. Basically, I'm gonna. I mean, the emphasis that Brace, your church has said is almost like saying, it's something I'm not gonna bring into my job. I mean, yes, I believe these things, but I'm not gonna bring them into my job.

[Julia Claire]

Which, by the way, is what Mitt Romney had to do when he was governor of Massachusetts. I'm from Massachusetts, and that was a big thing for people in Massachusetts. Obviously, it's a pretty liberal state.

[Matt Sittman]

This is where Romney and Kennedy aren't. I mean, the. The comparison is very apt at one level, but at another, Mitt Romney, I can't see inside his heart, but he seems like a very faithful Mormon to me in a lot of sense that we cannot say that about Kennedy and his Catholicism. And even when Kennedy was elected, there was the jokes. It might have been Wilfred Sheed, a Catholic writer. We've yet again been deprived of our first Catholic president. And even Jackie Kennedy once said something like, oh, Jack doesn't take this seriously. And I said, bobby, if he had elected him president.

[Julia Claire]

But he said, basically, it's too bad about all the Catholicism accusations because Jack is such a poor Catholic, whereas Bobby never misses a Mass and prays all the time.

[George Taveras]

And not only that, but then even within the family, Bobby is sort of seen as the weird ones because they are religious.

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

It's like, oh, they have all these kids running around and they're always praying.

[Matt Sittman]

And I think it's fair to say Bobby is the one who womanized the least, if at all, and was not a drunk. You know, he might have had a weak stomach. That's why the father and Jack didn't drink as much as they might have they had weak stomachs?

[Julia Claire]

Teddy was the drinker.

[Matt Sittman]

Yes, yes. Which Gary Wills forgives him for. From his theological reasons, his will was bound. He's an addict. There was an Augustinian original sin. Like, this is a man afflicted by forces he cannot himself dominate or control. And so drinking meant that when Teddy fucked up, he was not doing it consciously, intentionally, in a way that Gary thought John or other Kennedys might have.

[George Taveras]

No, that's a very good point. And I don't want to get too carried away with the vignettes from the Wills book, but I think the fact that Kennedy was such a truly delicate man, like, he couldn't drink, he couldn't eat, anything complex. But it really puts into relief just how, as you're saying, intentional and calculated. All his sins were, you know, to go Catholic mode. I mean, he is so calculating in his actions. And there's a chilling scene where they talk. He talks about how Ken Kennedy would show up to a woman's, like, hotel room and have two eggs that he.

[Matt Sittman]

Would request the father.

[George Taveras]

Oh, sorry, this is the father. Joe would show up and would have two eggs that he would write on the shell how he needed them prepared so that they wouldn't upset his stomach. I mean, to be sort of like a badass playboy and be like, I'm not drinking and I require my eggs to be soft boiled for exactly three and a half minutes. It's so crazy.

[Julia Claire]

I'm here to fuck and eat soft boiled eggs.

[George Taveras]

Exactly, exactly.

[Matt Sittman]

I mean, the stories of the father. I want to get this in because he was showing up at these hotels often to try to sleep with women that his sons were also involved with. Right. And the story of him bringing some. This is the father again, Hollywood starlet on a transatlantic cruise with him and his family. And like Gloria Swanson. Yeah, yeah, Gloria Swanson, Right. And like, she had her own cabin and Kennedy's actual wife had hers. Right. And it was kind of like, known. The brazenness of it is what I'm getting. Getting that is kind of remarkable, the father's sense of untouchability. And even his sons had to learn this the hard way, that they could not, for the sake of their political careers, do this. Because it's pretty much confirmed, right, that John F. Kennedy, one of his dalliances with, was a Nazi spy. And they were very worried, J. Edgar Hoover's gonna record you. He's gonna tape this, he's gonna record all this. They were paranoid by that. And they were convinced that there was footage, tapes, recordings, somehow that proved that John F. Kenned, he ran for president, had an affair with the Nazi spy. So this is a Nazi hunting trap kind of situation.

[Julia Claire]

This is such a labyrinthine topic. And the thing that I kept thinking about, both in doing research for this episode and also skimming through the Gary Wells book, is that, yes, this is the most famous Catholic family in America. And all the men are sort of identifiable by their mortal sins. In a way, they're like sins of the flesh. You know, JFK was lust, Bobby was wrath. He wasn't a womanizer, but he had a nasty temper. Joe had, like, all of them, basically, pride, lust, envy. And Teddy was an alcoholic and arguably responsible for a woman's death.

[Matt Sittman]

He was.

[George Taveras]

He was, yeah, I think allegedly.

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah. We can legally, we are not allowed to say.

[Julia Claire]

I don't know why I said, I am trying to protect myself from legal rap. The case is closed.

[Matt Sittman]

He's dead. It's fine.

[Julia Claire]

That's right. Well, he's never dead. In my heart, as. As a Catholic from Massachusetts, I know.

[Matt Sittman]

My old boss at Commonweal, Paul Bman. Anytime I'd say something bad about Teddy, he'd flip out at the lunch table. But do you know what actually set him off more than anything? I once said, hey, there's a. This is true. This is a bumper sticker. But there's a great bumper sticker. My guns have killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car. Right.

[Julia Claire]

I remember it.

[Matt Sittman]

And. And which I hate to admit it, that. That does go pretty hard. It's a amazing bumper sticker, and it is literally true. But that's what set off my Kennedy loving friends when I mentioned that.

[Julia Claire]

Okay, well, my first question was about the mortal sins and how they became so associated with those. And if you think that that's coincidental or do you think that the fact that they were Catholic heightens that contrast? And my second question was specifically about your old colleagues at Commonweal being very defensive of the Kennedys. And why you think that was.

[Matt Sittman]

Well, you know, I suspect the interest in their sins is heightened in a way because of their Catholicism, in ways I probably can't prove. If you asked me to prove this in a certain way, I'm not sure I could. You could probably trace certain statements where there's something lurk working. But I do think that's part of it, and not necessarily unfairly. I mean, that is part of the drama of the Catholic Church that drew me to it, is their understanding of human beings as flawed, sinful creatures who nevertheless are capable of finding Grace and redemption. Somehow even Kennedy's. Right. So I'm agreeing with your premise. And I do think it is interesting that, yes, they're known for those sins, but I'm not even sure, again, after reading the wills book, you'll probably agree. Most people don't know the debts of them. I feel like with Kennedy, John Kennedy and lust. I believe this was in the Robert Dallek biography. But Kennedy's sins led to his death or were a factor in his death, because one of the women he'd brought to the White House, they were in the White House pool, and Kennedy slipped and threw out his back. And so he had. The day he was shot in Dallas, he had on this back brace that meant he couldn't duck. So after you first see him hit, after you first hear the shot, he couldn't duck to dodge the second or third bullet or the magic meanderings of the single bullet. Either way, the fact that he was made upright by his back brace and couldn't duck out of the way, some people have suggested that was a contributing factor in why the assassination was ultimately fatal. One, the attempt isn't that crazy.

[George Taveras]

I mean, I get to the list. I know you really can't write this stuff. Every time I think we're over mythologizing the Kennedys and reading too much into everything, then I hear a story like that and I'm like, no, there's something there.

[Matt Sittman]

Now, I have to say, in the current political season we're in, every time somebody says RFK Jr. Sullying his family's legacy, I know he is the fulfillment of it. Like, this guy's not betraying anything. He's epitomizing and fulfilling all the horrible things that the Kennedys have done, said inflicted on our country totally over the past few years, decades.

[George Taveras]

One of the real aha moments I had while reading this book was just how Trumpy Joe Kennedy was. It's this crazy thing because in the public imagination, let's say, you think of the Kennedys as almost opposite to the Trump machine. You're like, the Kennedys are statesmen and they are patriots and they're elegant and they're well dressed and all this stuff. And in fact.

[Matt Sittman]

And Trump put his name in front of theirs on the Kennedy Center. Yes.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I know. It's so crazy. It really is, like, end of history stuff.

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah. Writers are so lazy. Yeah.

[George Taveras]

But Joe, and then even JFK himself had bad taste. Aesthetically, it was Jackie who had good taste. Like, Jackie was interested in high art and fashion and all this stuff. And JFK was sort of Trumpian in his tastes. He was much more like in your face, like, you know, golden White House.

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, frankly, I mean, either of you can disagree with this, but I could totally imagine John F. Kennedy saying what Trump said on the Access Hollywood would take.

[George Taveras]

I mean, if he didn't say it out loud, then certainly that was his ethos. Yeah.

[Matt Sittman]

It was that sense of having the right. Yeah, completely to do this to women. Having that sense of like it was his birthright. Yeah. Which affected his governance too.

[Julia Claire]

I think there's definitely a good comparison between what George initially said, Trump and Joe Kennedy in particular, because Joe Kennedy, much like Trump, so upset that he had all of the material out of what should make for a high status man, but he was rejected by high society. And that is clearly such a fundamental original wound within Joe. And I think it is that way with Trump too. The difference with Trump being that he was born into it. And so it makes Trump even angrier that he was born into to wealth but still is rejected by like.

[Matt Sittman]

Yes, yes, he's the outer borough guy.

[George Taveras]

Yes, exactly. The other similarity which I hadn't thought of is the obsession with Hollywood and with show business. Like Joe Kennedy really. I mean, his later career was spent as a Hollywood producer and he had this obsession with getting an advance, basically like a screener of like the new movie that hadn't come out yet and having screenings in the White House. I mean, I know the Marilyn Monroe connection is way overstated and we've heard theories that it never happened or it only happened once. And you know, people love to mythologize it more than it maybe deserves. But it's an example of the Kennedy men's obsession with starlets and Hollywood actresses and singers.

[Matt Sittman]

And like Trump, there's such gossip queens, all of them. These accounts of JFK in the White House, kind of wondering who Frank Sinatra is fucking. Is it the same girl he is? Like the rumors and gossip about the starlets and actors and singers and yoke celebrities, Hollywood types totally like that. That is one of the, one of my favorite parallels between these two families.

[George Taveras]

It's funny how everything sort of old is new again in this weird way.

[Julia Claire]

We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after this break.

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[Julia Claire]

And we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

[George Taveras]

All right, so you mentioned RFK Jr. You know we always talk about how the two most high profile Kennedys now are RFK Jr. And Jack Schlossberg and both of them are like archetypes that have been there since the Joe Kennedy generation. The sort of hot, young, dumb one and the kind of dangerous, power hungry.

[Matt Sittman]

One, you know, like, yeah, I like that. And the hot one's kind of like a normie lib. Exactly. You know, like throwing some resistance red meat to people. But yeah, right.

[George Taveras]

And also, much like so many of his ancestors, like, really thinks it's his birthright to be. He's just, he's like, I'm running for Congress. I don't really have a big statement about it, but like, come on, just vote for me.

[Julia Claire]

It's me. Hey, it's me.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. No, truly, his. His campaign slogan is it's me. But I'm wondering, Julia had this question of like, of, are the Kennedys bad Catholics? So I want to credit her for writing that question, but I want to add to it. Like, are they bad Catholics? And where do we stand on that question now? Like, with this current generation, do you see their evolving relationship to Catholicism?

[Matt Sittman]

Can I give a bit of a wind up to this answer?

[George Taveras]

Please do.

[Julia Claire]

Go for it.

[Matt Sittman]

This is an interesting question because that actually I've thought a lot about in the years since Biden ran for president and he was mourner in chief, kind of like this almost genuinely stereotypical Irish Catholic going to every damn funeral and giving her like giving a speech, right. Like, that was extremely Irish Catholic. And he's kind of the very last gasp of, of a very interesting generational story where you go back pre Vatican II, like 30s, 40s, even into the 50s, Catholics lived in enclaves, kind of their own neighborhoods. There was the Italian parish or the Irish parish in your town or city where the kind of ethnic Catholic groups would go to Mass. There was still some of that segregation. Then you'd go to Loyola or Georgetown or Gonzaga. And then by the time it's the 60s or 70s, maybe you got your PhD at Columbia or an Ivy League school. And this kind of move from ethnic enclaves and the immigrant church into the middle class and mainstream of American society. You know, think about if either someone went to Georgetown. Now, you don't think of them as like, oh, you must be the kid of some immigrants, right. Who went to the Catholic school. Right. So even Catholic institutions have kind of matured in a way. And so I think in some ways it's hard to look back for people our age. Like this was early get what a live question. Kennedy's Catholicism was as we described. And it's partly because as the Peter Steinfeld's quote, I began us with his campaign for president, revealed the bigotry that still remained. But once he won, it seemed like that faded away. And the Catholic kind of emergence into the middle class and mainstream, away from the margins, the ethnic enclaves and such, that. That was kind of how happening? Full speed ahead. And then we see it's a little more complicated than that. For one thing, there's the school prayer decisions that Catholics that took very, very Protestant Bible readings and prayers. The relationship between Catholics and the American mainstream. There's the Kennedy part we've been talking about, but there's also public schools became way less Protestant in a formal, official sense. And so this kind of idea that Catholics were joining the American mainstream and the kind of bigotries and old suspicions and hatreds would fade. That's been true to some extent. I mean, how much have we hear Bobby Kennedy's Catholicism or Jack Schlossberg's.

[George Taveras]

It's funny you mentioned the Jack Schlossberg thing is funny because actually I was.

[Matt Sittman]

Reading one of his parents is Jewish, right?

[George Taveras]

I think he was maybe confirmed and raised Catholic. Don't quote me on that. But I think I read that in one of the articles you read about him. But it's funny, I was talking about him to someone else, and they were like, is he Catholic? Because of his last name, obviously. And we were both sort of like, oh, I think he was raised Catholic, but maybe he's Jewish. It's crazy to think about a Kennedy that we wouldn't know whether he's Catholic. And he has been, you know, this kind of funny figure in pop culture now for like a year and a half, and we didn't even know whether he was Catholic or not.

[Julia Claire]

But it's so funny, too, to add on to that that they still. Not only are they still Catholic, they're still Catholic royalty in a way, because in the beautiful piece that Tatiana Schlossberg wrote about her cancer diagnosis, she talks about one of the nurses being kind to her and not batting an eye when she pulled out a ros and holy water that had been blessed by Pope Francis himself. And I think about the fact that Teddy was given his first communion by Pope Pius xii, which is, as my friend Cassie said when I told her this, so devilicious.

[Matt Sittman]

Yes. Yeah, that's a. That's an incredibly great insight, Julia, that I think, especially that the. The death. Are the Kennedys good Catholics? Well, no, but none of us are.

[Julia Claire]

That's the point.

[Matt Sittman]

I mean, I am not going to sit here. My boyfriend just Came in the door at our apartment in Rome here. I'm not going to hurl stones at anyone from this glass house. But that is partly the point of Catholicism. That we are sinners. We are bound in ways that the exercises of our freedom can't overcome. We are flawed, tragic. Tragic. That's a word always associated with the Kennedys.

[Julia Claire]

And.

[Matt Sittman]

And I do think the place of death, I mentioned the last rites, the Cronkite newscasts announcing Kennedy had died, that was in the mix. I do think there is something to that. The death hauntedness of the Kennedy family is also related to its Catholicism in ways that I find much more productive and interesting than some of what we've been discussing. That they are so associated with tragic death that I think Catholicism is, among other things, it's a cradle to grave religion. And you're on your deathbed, you will get last rites, the priest will say a funeral mass for you so you don't have to grieve from scratch. Mourning is one of the things the Catholic Church does extremely well, as we just saw. You mentioned Pope Francis. I mean, the scenes of millions of different kinds of people from all over the world gathering to mourn Pope Francis and then be there for the election of Pope Leo. Death and rebirth are the metier of both Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular. And they do both really, really well.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, as someone who was raised Catholic in a very Catholic state, as a child, I remember going to so many funerals and wakes, and that was not something that culturally you would keep your kids home from. I know. I realized that that is not something that, like, everyone experienced, but it was like a social event.

[Matt Sittman]

And isn't that interesting? I mean, one of the things I've thought a lot about is whenever a Pope dies, it's so striking to me that you see his frail little body. Right. Because they've been old and sick for quite some time. The last popes have died. Frail body, feet sticking up, pale face, pale hands. You see that? That's not hidden. And there's a strange parallel in a way with, like, how public, like, John F. Kenning's assassination is. Most people who have looked into it at all have probably seen some kind of photo of the event itself or like an autopsy photo or something that, like, is a bit bloody and death related in some way. And these very. This very public family, they've died very publicly as well. And there's something interesting to that because it's very Catholic in its own way. Not by their Choosing and choice. But there is something very Catholic about saying, this is death. We have bodies and we. We die.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah.

[Matt Sittman]

And we're not going to hide from that or run from that. So it's kind of something that the most famous Catholic family in the United States is also the family most famous for the tragic deaths of its leading men.

[Julia Claire]

Right, yeah.

[George Taveras]

Which only adds to the mythology of them being this, like, outsized American dinosaur. We've come to the two things they're most associated with are. Well, I was about to say sex and death, but I guess I would say sex, power and death are the three things that Kennedy's are most associated with. And I mean, sex and death are like the two Catholic obsessions, you know.

[Julia Claire]

That's right, definitely.

[George Taveras]

So it really makes sense.

[Julia Claire]

I wanted to go back because I think we got lost in the sauce a little bit because there's simply so much to talk about here. There is. I can talk to you for three hours about this. As a death and sex obsessed Catholic myself, I wanted to go back to your colleagues at Commonweal magazine and being defensive of the Kennedys because I have found that in both in my own family, my own Irish Catholic family, and, you know, in different parts of very Catholic Catholic Boston, the greater Boston area, there is either a completely worshipful veneration of the Kennedys or a treatment of them as not like us. I'm reading a book right now by Michael Patrick McDonald which is like a memoir of Southie in the 70s. And Southie was obviously very conservative, all white, Catholic, Irish, and they hated Ted Cruz Kennedy. And my grandmother was in that tradition a very. I. I didn't know my grandfather, but I know he was too. They hated the Kennedys because even though they were so representative of Irish Catholic Massachusetts, they were also seen by a certain group of people as like, interlopers. They didn't actually grow up in Massachusetts and they were bad Catholics and they just weren't like the rest of us. So I'm interested if you could speak to that push and pull a little bit and maybe talk about where your colleagues at Commonweal kind of fell on that spectrum.

[Matt Sittman]

Sure. I mean, I mentioned it was my boss, Paul Bauman. Great boss. I love Paul, but He's in his 70s now, so I do think there's a generational aspect. And the comparison, as you were describing this, it reminds me of the way some white women relate to Hillary, Hillary Clinton. They very much identify with the generational struggles of a woman striving for professional success in a hostile male Dominated world. Right. And politics especially. I think there's something that people who just won't hear any. You know, that's the tell.

[George Taveras]

Right.

[Matt Sittman]

They just. I don't want to hear it. Right. They don't want the mythology disturbed. And I think it's their identification with it comes from generational struggle. You know, being old enough to have a bit of actual experience with the American anti Catholicism, knowing a bit of that. Or maybe their parents are. Or grandparents especially experienced it. Maybe they're only one or two generations away from immigrant parents. So that's another part of the Catholicism we haven't touched on quite as much. But I would say, yeah, the identification comes in large part through the generational experience would be my guess, in part because of the reasons we've been describing, going through that, watching that unfold. But I think some of the hatred is almost like a narcissism. Small differences. Or anytime any. Anyone is a kind of. I hate to use this language, but like a trailblazer from a community. Right. It's always some people of that community are like, this guy's actually embarrassing, or this woman's actually not. You know, I suspect the generational aspect of this explains in some ways both sides of that coin. At least that's part of it. The mythos goes so deep. Right. It's so a part of our political culture now that I think it's spilled beyond the boundaries of those generational dynamics. So I feel like the strongest feelings and the most heated debates you'd have would be with people from a certain generation about the Kennedys and not black like our colleagues and peers.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah. I also think that particularly in Massachusetts, Teddy became the source of a lot of ire for conservative Irish Catholics because he supported desegregation of the Boston public schools and the. What they called forced busing. And there was no coming back from that for him.

[George Taveras]

Your Hillary Clinton comparison is so funny because you're absolutely right that a certain generation of upwardly mobile professional women really relate to her and therefore don't want to hear any criticisms. But the other side is also true, that the people who hate Hillary Clinton as though she is like the literal devil. Of course, she is just as corrupt as any other politician. I'm not disagreeing with that. But the passion of the hatred is also like this strange, outsize thing. And I think ultimately she's probably just as fallible as most American politicians.

[Matt Sittman]

Yeah. I think it kind of gets to what we were discussing earlier about the Kennedys being held to the Catholic standard in interesting ways. So you're some Protestant Southern Baptist person in Texas in 1960. You probably hate the Kennedys because they're Catholic. But then you also say, and they're not even good ones, and the portions are so small. I was about to say it's kind of that weird dynamic, and it's sort of with Hillary Clinton. So many people hate her for misogynistic reasons. But then it's also like my mother, who's conservative. I remember one time, I think during the 2016 race, she said, how can she believe that about abortion? As a mother, he was like, the woman fact that gets held against Hillary. My mother was like, as a woman, how could you believe that about abortion? As a mother, how could you? You know, my mom's very concerned. And so it was this weird thing where, like, the reason most people were hating Hillary, she's a woman. Right. That's a big part of why a lot of people don't like her unfairly. There's many fair reasons to dislike her. Those are the reasons. Reasons I held. But, you know, the reason so many people dislike her being a woman is like, for my mom was like, turned around in this weird way to also hate Hillary.

[Julia Claire]

Right.

[George Taveras]

You know what's funny is my mom, who votes Democrat, had a very almost opposite reaction. What you're describing, she goes, as a woman, how could she have stayed with Bill after the affair? I'm like, oh, my God. It's like, you can't win.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, that's exactly. That's exactly my mom's rationale. I mean, there's a lot of people who feel that way about her. George and I are criticisms of Hillary Clinton. We just want to say are perfect.

[George Taveras]

Yes, that's right.

[Matt Sittman]

I would expect nothing less.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, we're the only people that really grasp the vibe.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, that's right.

[Matt Sittman]

That's why I agreed to come on the show. I knew you as the perfect Hillary criticizers. Your reputation preceded you.

[George Taveras]

We will be relitigating Bernie versus Hillary next episode.

[Julia Claire]

That's right.

[Matt Sittman]

Oh, I. I was hoping we could get to the 2016, have you back. Because you do remember on the eve of the New York primary, Bernie went to the Vatican for that conference on labor.

[George Taveras]

Oh, my God. I did not remember that.

[Matt Sittman]

And gave a talk at the Vatican because it was the anniversary of one of the encyclicals of Catholic social teaching, like affirming of unions and labor rights and things like that. And believe it or not, it stirred so many crazy reactions, including, I won't say who, but A well known religion writer said, is this who was totally in the tank for Hillary. She said, does this violate the Constitution? Constitution.

[George Taveras]

Oh, my God.

[Matt Sittman]

A Jewish guy giving a talk at the Vatican. That definitely does not violate the Constitution or endorse. Bernie was not suggesting Catholicism should be the state official religion of the United States.

[George Taveras]

Right.

[Matt Sittman]

Well, we could have tied it back to the 2016 primaries, but I chose not to. But I leave those little breadcrumbs for your listeners. They want to explore that. That Catholicism in the 2016 primary. Yes, it does.

[George Taveras]

It all connects. I mean, Bernie saying that Catholicism should be the official religion of America is the funniest possible thing he could do if he wants to. A really amazingly funny announcement. All right, well, Matt, this was so much fun.

[Matt Sittman]

Thank you so much for having me.

[George Taveras]

I have to say, if nothing, I mean, this was such a great conversation, but we're also just so grateful you introduced us to that book, the Kennedy imprisonment, because it really has kind of shifted how I think about a lot of this stuff.

[Matt Sittman]

Right.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah.

[Matt Sittman]

I'm so glad. I want everyone to be wills pilled. Wills pilled. Must become wills pilled. We're wills pilled. We're wills.

[Julia Claire]

His pedagogy is just like. It's incredible.

[Matt Sittman]

That's the perfect word for it. Yes.

[George Taveras]

And I highly recommend the episode of Matt's podcast, Know youw Enemy with Jeet here about the book. It's from a couple years ago. Anyway, thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thank you for doing it from Rome. And please enjoy, you know, to celebrate.

[Julia Claire]

Peace be with you, Matt, and also with you. So that's it for this week's episode. We also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the tragic passing of Tatiana Schlossberg, JFK's granddaughter and Jack Schlossberg's sister. She was just 35 years old and.

[George Taveras]

You can read her beautiful essay from last year about her terminal cancer diagnosis on the New Yorker website. Her family is in our thoughts.

[Julia Claire]

United States of Kennedy is hosted by me, Julia, Claire and George Taveras.

[George Taveras]

Original music by Joshua Topolsky.

[Julia Claire]

Editing by Graham Gibson.

[George Taveras]

Mixing and mastering by Doug Boehm.

[Julia Claire]

Research by Dave Bruce and Austin Thompson.

[George Taveras]

Our producer is Carmen Laurent.

[Julia Claire]

Our executive producer is Jenna Cagle.

[George Taveras]

Created by Lyra Smith.

[Julia Claire]

United States of Kennedy is a production of I Heart Podcasts.