Relative Importance

Two Sixties icons: JFK and Pope Paul VI (WSJ)

In the Hawaii of the '50's and '60's nearly everyone I knew was Christian. (The Jewish and Buddhist kids I could count on the fingers of one hand, and absolutely no one would cop to being an atheist.)

One's Protestant denomination was important, while Catholics were "different."

John F. Kennedy's Catholicism was such a big deal during the 1960 Presidential campaign that there was worry that he "would take orders from the Pope."

“I do not speak for my church on public matters,” John Kennedy told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, “and the church does not speak for me.”

The culture has changed to such an extent that on general principles I admire anyone who takes his or her religion seriously. It usually means that they've thought about life and the relative importance of material things and politics.

John F. Kennedy, who nearly died for his country in World War II and was assassinated 57 years ago, would have understood.