Houston Ministerial Association Speech

Houston Ministerial Association Speech

约翰·菲茨杰拉德·肯尼迪（John Fitzgerald Kennedy，1917年5月29日－1963年11月22日），通常被称作约翰·F·肯尼迪（John F. Kennedy）、JFK或杰克·肯尼迪（Jack Kennedy），美国第35任总统，美国著名的肯尼迪家族成员,他的执政时间从1961年1月20日开始到1963年11月22日在达拉斯遇刺身亡为止。被视为美国自由主义的代表，在第二次世界大战期间，他曾在南太平洋英勇救助了落水海军船员，因而获颁紫心勋章。肯尼迪在1946年—1960年期间曾先后任众议员和参议员，并于1960年当选为美国总统，成为美国历史上最年轻的当选总统，也是美国历史上唯一信奉罗马天主教的总统和唯一获得普利策奖的总统
　　在他总统任期内的主要事件包括：猪湾事件、古巴导弹危机、柏林墙的建立、太空竞赛、越南战争的早期活动以及美国民权运动。
　　在针对美国总统功绩的排名中，约翰·肯尼迪通常被历史学家列在排名的中部偏上的位置，但他却一直被大多数美国民众视为历史上最伟大的总统之一，在任期间是美国历史上支持率最高的总统。约翰·肯尼迪于1963年11月22日遇刺身亡，官方在随后的调查报告中公布的结果表明，李·哈维·奥斯瓦尔德是杀害总统的凶手。他的遇刺被视为对美国历史的发展产生重大决定性影响的事件之一，因为这一事件在其后数十年中一直影响了美国政治的发展方向。

肯尼迪家族的不幸

在肯尼迪王朝的背后是家族的不幸，卡罗琳·肯尼迪是约翰·肯尼迪现在在世的唯一一个子女，杰奎琳在1955年流产和1956年生下死胎，1963年出生的帕特里克·布维尔·肯尼迪出生两天就死了，剩下的两个孩子中小约翰·菲茨杰拉德·肯尼迪被寄予厚望，毕业于名校布朗大学，大众看好他能参加竞选而且与他抗衡的人不多，可是不幸的是1999年他驾驶私人小型飞机在长岛外海失事，同机的还有他的妻子和妻姐。在1941年约翰·肯尼迪的妹妹罗斯玛丽就因脑部手术成为植物人，1944年第二个妹妹凯瑟琳新婚不久的丈夫英国贵族哈廷顿勋爵在法国作战时遭德国枪手狙击中弹身亡，同年他的哥哥小约瑟夫奉命去炸毁纳粹德国的Ｖ－１飞弹发射架，在执行任务时，他驾驶的飞机因故障在英国上空爆炸，他和副驾驶被炸得粉身碎骨。几年后孀居的凯瑟琳有了新的男友英国人菲茨威廉伯爵。１９４８年５月１３日两人租用一架小飞机去法国度假，在山区遇大风双双坠机身亡。在当选总统不到一年后他的父亲约瑟夫·肯尼迪在打高尔夫时突发中风，1968年在达拉斯事件不到5年后他的弟弟罗伯特·肯尼迪决定参加总统竞选，肯尼迪家族似乎有可能再产生一位总统。不幸的是再一次公众集会上，有个年轻人对他头部开枪，罗伯特死在医院中。三个哥哥死于非命，爱德华·肯尼迪颀果仅存，他也在努力向政治巅峰冲刺，１９６９年当选为参议院民主党副领袖，有希望成为１９７２年总统竞选的热门人物。但在１９６９年７月发生的一件意外事件断送了他的前程。一天晚上他开车带着漂亮的金发姑娘科佩克内小姐回旅馆，在过一座小桥时汽车冲入河中。爱德华逃生，姑娘却死在车中，而且爱德华报案还很不及时。这一事件损害了肯尼迪家族的名誉，也使得爱德华不得不放弃竞选总统。爱德华的儿子因为癌症的治疗而被截肢，罗伯特的儿子博比１９８３年还因吸毒被判刑。他的弟弟戴维更糟糕，第二年因吸毒送命，1997年另一个儿子迈克尔在山坡滑雪中身亡。

John F. Kennedy: Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association
delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX
Reverend Meza, Reverend Reck, I'm grateful for your generous invitation to state my views.
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that I believe that we have far more critical issues in the 1960 campaign; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers only 90 miles from the coast of Florida -- the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power -- the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctors bills, the families forced to give up their farms -- an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues -- for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barrier.
But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured -- perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again -- not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to  me -- but what kind of America I believe in.
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 church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and 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.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been -- and may someday be again -- a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end -- where all men and all churches are treated as equals, where every man has the same right to attend or not to attend the church of his choice, where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind, and where Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, at both the lay and the pastoral levels, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe, a great office that must be neither humbled by making it the instrument of any religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him* [sic] as a condition to holding that office.
I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the first amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test, even by indirection. For if they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.
I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all and obligated to none, who can attend any ceremony, service, or dinner his office may appropriately require of him to fulfill; and whose fulfillment of his Presidential office is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual, or obligation.
This is the kind of America I believe in -- and this is the kind of America I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we might have a divided loyalty, that we did not believe in liberty, or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened "the freedoms for which our forefathers died."
And in fact this is the kind of America for which our forefathers did when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches -- when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom -- and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died Fuentes, and McCafferty, and Bailey, and Badillo, and Carey -- but no one knows whether they were Catholics or not. For there was no religious test there.
I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition -- to judge me on the basis of 14 years in the Congress, on my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools -- which I attended myself. And instead of doing this, do not judge me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and rarely relevant to any situation here. And always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed Church-State separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.
I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts. Why should you?
But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the State being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or prosecute the free exercise of any other religion. And that goes for any persecution, at any time, by anyone, in any country.  And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their Presidency to Protestants, and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would also cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as France and Ireland, and the independence of such statesmen as De Gaulle and Adenauer.
But let me stress again that these are my views.
For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President.
I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic.
I do not speak for my church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected,   on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views -- in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But if the time should ever come -- and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible -- when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do likewise.
But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith; nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.
If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I'd tried my best and was fairly judged.
But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.
But if, on the other hand, I should win this election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency -- practically identical, I might add, with the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can,  "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution -- so help me God.