For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. — Galatians 3:26–29
The Nicene Creed (completed in A.D. 381) defines the church’s attributes as “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” We now come to that third attribute—catholic. What does “catholic” mean?
Though few today remember it, considering a Catholic presidential candidate was an explosive issue in twentieth-century American politics. Not just in 1960, when Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy was elected president, but much more so in 1928. In that year, the Republican nominee, Herbert Hoover, faced the popular Democratic governor of New York, Al Smith. Smith was also the first Roman Catholic to be nominated by a major party for the office of President of the United States. Anti-Catholic rumors abounded. Protestant marriages were to be annulled. The pope was preparing to move to America. The new
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