A Church, a Candidate, and a Question of Faith in American Politics

Donald Trump attended services at the Protestant Marble Collegiate church in Manhattan as a young man. The church's influential pastor during that time was Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, who would later officiate at Trump's first wedding.

In 1960, Peale was a prominent leader of a group called Citizens for Religious Freedom, which issued a statement objecting to the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy on the grounds that he was Catholic. The group's statement, published in the New York Times on September 8, 1960, expressed concern that a Catholic president would not uphold the separation of church and state.

The 1960 Controversy

In September 1960, Peale presided over a meeting of approximately 150 Protestant clergymen and laymen in Washington, D.C. The group issued a 2,000-word statement arguing that "Our American culture is at stake" and that a Catholic president could increase religious tensions.

"Brotherhood in a pluralistic society like ours depends on a firm wall of separation between church and state. We feel that the American hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church can only increase religious tensions and political-religious problems by attempting to break down this wall."
— Statement from Citizens for Religious Freedom, 1960.

John F. Kennedy responded directly to these concerns the following week in a landmark speech to Baptist ministers in Houston, Texas.

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President – should he be Catholic – how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote... where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him."
— Senator John F. Kennedy, September 1960.

Historical Echoes

The fears expressed in 1960 were not new. Similar concerns about papal influence over a Catholic president had been a central issue during Al Smith's 1928 presidential campaign. Anti-Catholic sentiment, often intertwined with nativism, was a potent political force in early 20th-century America.

This sentiment was vividly illustrated in New York City the year before Smith's run. In 1927, Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, was arrested during a Ku Klux Klan riot in Queens, New York. The Klan's anger at the time was directed at the city's Irish Catholic police force.

A Klan flyer distributed in Queens after the 1927 riot was headlined: "Americans Assaulted by Roman Catholic Police of New York City!" A 1928 Klan postcard opposing Al Smith declared: "We now face the darkest hour in American history. In a convention ruled by political Romanism, anti-Christ has won."

These historical threads connect a prominent religious figure of the mid-20th century, a pivotal moment in American political history, and the familial background of a future president, all centered on the enduring American debate over faith, identity, and public office.