I, too, remember that very well. It was seen as a "big deal", but turned to to be nothing because Kennedy turned out to be one of the biggest phonies ever to walk the earth. The Kennedy PR machine portrayed him as a youthful, vigorous family man, Catholic to the max. The truth was completely different. Kennedy paid no more attention to the Pope or his teachings than he did to bubble gum wrappers. Harry Truman got it right. Truman wasn't afraid of The Pope, he was afraid of The Pop... Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, a whiskey smuggler and stock swindler, among other unsavory thingsThe Annoyed Man wrote:
I was alive and remember the Kennedy/Nixon presidential campaign. Republicans said that if Kennedy won, he would give the Pope authority over his decisions as President. Did he? No, of course not. That's just ignorant poppycock. The media like to beat up on the Catholic church because it is a big, easy target. Since, unlike many Protestant denominations, it has a large centralized "governmental" structure, it is easy and convenient to try and tar ALL believers with the sins of a few. It is cheap yellow journalism, and it's intellectually bankrupt.
Kennedy inspired a youthful BJ Clinton to want to become President in the worst way, which eventually he was.