When JFK ran for office, many people feared he would be a tool of the Vatican.

[BuyingThyme]

But after the assassination, was there much conjecture in regards to the fact that he was not?

[Raven]

1. No, not that I recall. Most people didn't take those Vatican

conspiracies seriously. His assassin had a Cuba obsession but the main point is that there was a culture of violence and hatred that enabled Oswald. We should have called out the haters and the conspiracy folks for what they were...maybe JFK would have lived to see old age if we had.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. No, JFK was doomed when

the Cuban revolution was allowed to take place. His fate was sealed then.

Ironic that his father's dealings ultimately brought him down.......................

[PATRICK]

3. the "Tool of the Vatican"

was typical birther mentality. It was based on centuries old religious war propaganda(both sides), implying vast satanic properties to the Vatican crew- a real hoot by 1960. Hatred, prejudice and insane disregard for common sense, common decency or the facts. Oh yeah, the wonderful world of the religious right bigotry with much lingering mainstream hatred which had victimized immigrant Catholics for over a century. No prejudice too stale to be fanned into convenient flames for political manipulation.

The sexual immorality smears they snuck out decades after the glow of the assasination funeral and the EWternal Flame dimmed enough for a resurgence of selective spite. Same people, same tradition, same types, same means and same ends.

[imdjh]

9. When the Vatican threatens US politicians?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. The shock after JFK's murder

was so deep and so profound, no one even discussed that nonsense. We were caught up in dealing with it, watching his widow and so terribly young children cope, coming to terms with LBJ as our President, wondering how the Soviets might somehow exploit this tear in our history.

It's hard to explain to someone who didn't live through it how thoroughly JFK's assassination affected the country. 9/11 comes close, but, for me, JFK's death was far more traumatic. I know that might sound fatuous, but it's how I have experienced both events.

9/11 was a colossal horror, but John Kennedy's killing was personal. We all took it personally, because we - so many of us, and I was a young student at the time - had so much invested, emotionally, in him and his revolutionary approach to government, his incredible Cabinet, the 50 miles hikes, the vigor ("vigah"), the Peace Corps, the sense, suddenly, that we, the young people, MATTERED.

But, that Vatican crap? No, not a whisper. Not ever again........................

[The Wielding Truth]

5. I think that is why Giuliani could never be a Republican President.

[orpupilofnature57]

6. JFK ,Did the Vatican petition him to the moon ,forwarding Racial equality..

disbanding the C.I.A., No.

[BuyingThyme]

12. If the Vatican ever infiltrated our government, they started with the CIA.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Not that I remember.

An interesting question on an interesting topic. A more complex issue than most people ( esp liberals) believed at the time.

People who were spooked by the Vatican thing in 1960 were looked on as flat-earthers or bigots. But we've since seen that the question of where one's first loyalty ( if they are Catholic) lies is not at all so simple.

One remembers Father Drinan dutifully resigning from Congress at the order of the conservative red-hatted mullahs that surrounded John Paul II. Would he have had to step down if his politics were in line with those of the RW of the church? One doubts it.

That episode was pause for concern. We've since seen that the Vatican is absolutely and unabashedly determined to control the actions of Catholic public officials... at least on *certain* issues. One must assume that they are at least occasionally successful; though I think they've ( the Vatican hierarchy) isolated themselves more than they wish from their own faithful... not to mention from the rest of us who take our marching orders from somewhere else entirely.

If we take marching orders at all, that is.

[rug]

8. Cardinal Spellman put out a contract on JFK.

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. If the bishops had any traction....

...Justice William J. Brennan would not have been the most liberal Supreme Court judge of my lifetime, and Catholics wouldn't make up 5 of the 10 most liberal Senators -- Harkin, Kerry, Reed, Menendez and Durbin. (110 DW_Nominate rankings). The 'good belt from the crosier' doesn't sting much any more, if it ever did.

[Libertas1776]

11. In the same way

that people feared a black man becoming President, back in the 60s, people feared a Catholic becoming president. The reasoning was the same then as it is now; plain stupid and unreasoning fear. The birther ancestors believed he would be under the thumb of a "papist dictator" in Rome, rather than rule by the American people's will. Had Al Smith been elected in 1928, we probably would have had these papal conspiracies come to a head 30 years earlier.