Religion and Presidential Campaigns: The Relation Between Religious Belief, Public Morality, and Public Policy.

This paper discusses a major question candidates must address in campaigning for the presidency of the United States. In a pluralistic democracy with a constitutional commitment to religious freedom and church-state separation, how, if at all, should a president's religious beliefs influence his or her governing? Should he or she use the bully pulpit of the presidency or the appointive and coercive powers of the executive branch to translate his or her religious convictions and church teachings into public law and public policy? If so, how, when and on what issues? The paper examines this issue through an analysis of three major speeches given by political leaders in the last two generations: the Houston speech of President Kennedy in 1960, the Notre Dame address of Governor Cuomo in 1984, and the Texas address of Governor Mitt Romney in 2007. This analysis raises a deeper question: has the official American Catholic Church moved away from supporting the strict separationist position of John F. Kennedy in 1960 to advocating a more active and interventionist approach to recent Catholic presidential candidates? And if so, why? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]