Catholics remember 11/22/63

November 22 marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the only Catholic to be elected president of the United States.

To measure the impact of his death at the time and to assess his legacy, The Evangelist asked several people where they were on Nov. 22, 1963 and whether their opinion of JFK has changed over the course of the last four decades.

BISHOP HOWARD J. HUBBARD:

"I was at the North American College in Rome, in the last year of my studies for the priesthood. I had just been ordained a deacon three weeks before and was anticipating ordination to the priesthood in a month. As we finished supper, word came that the President had been shot.

"We went to the recreation room and gathered around an English-speaking radio station. Everyone was in a state of shock. We didn't experience the 24-hour televised coverage that people in the States were exposed to. We spent the night in prayer for the repose of his soul, for his family and for the nation.

"The next day, strangers came up to us with tears in their eyes and expressed their feelings because they knew we were Americans.

"We are now more aware of his clay feet, but we also have a deeper appreciation of his physical suffering and more insight into the health challenges he faced. On balance, like all of us, he was a flawed human being; but he was the right man at the right time in our history. His election broke the anti-Catholicism toward office-holders that had prevailed in our country since its founding."

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* DR. PAUL MURRAY, professor of sociology, Siena College, Loudonville:

"I was a sophomore at the University of Detroit. I was coming out of class, and noticed people were clustered around, and some girls were crying, and the word came out that Kennedy had been shot. It was hard to believe something like this could happen. Nothing in our experience had prepared us for this. The rest of the weekend was just spent continuing in that state of shock, watching the television and seeing how events were unfolding. When the funeral occurred, there was a memorial service on our college campus."

Later, while teaching in Jackson, Mississippi, Dr. Murray asked students who'd been nine or ten years old when Kennedy was assassinated about their memories.

"Many said they remembered cheering and celebrating in their schools! He was such a despised figure in parts of the South. In 1962, JFK [had] sent troops to Oxford, Mississippi, to desegregate the university. That was seen as an invasion. Not having been in that environment, it came as such a shock to me."

Recently, "I was viewing some video of JFK. Jack and Jacqueline were pictured together, and immediately, I thought of the womanizing, his exploits -- did she know? Was she putting on a front? When the news came out, the first reaction was denial. He definitely has come down a few pegs in the esteem people from my generation hold for him. There were a lot of problems in his private life.

"As a politician, Kennedy was definitely a 'cold warrior.' His whole politics was dictated by his anti-Communist stance. It wasn't too long after his presidency that we got away from that. We were definitely on the brink of war [during the Cuban missile crisis]; that has caused me to re-evaluate his presidency. A second thing is that on domestic policy, he was rather cautious. It took a while before he came out in favor of civil rights; he didn't want to alienate southern congressmen.

"On one hand, you look at the way he dealt with the press: It's clear the reporters really loved Kennedy. He thought very well on his feet. [But] he definitely was full of flaws in other respects. We've learned a lot since his death about his medical condition; I have to admire that he was able to carry on while in severe pain."

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* SISTER MARY ROSE FOX, CSJ, was a sophomore at St. Patrick's High School in Catskill in 1963. She was in French class when the principal announced over the PA that Kennedy had been shot:

"We immediately began to pray the Rosary. We hadn't finished it when [the principal] told us that Kennedy had died. We were all in shock. I remember that everyone was so excited to have a young president, and the fact that he was the first Catholic was a big deal to us all.

"For the next several days, Americans just lived in front of their television sets. I remember watching Jack Ruby shoot and kill [Lee Harvey] Oswald right on television. We were paralyzed. Everyone was afraid. There was a lot of fear of the unknown, of what could happen to our country.

"I am saddened by the family tragedies and revelations that have come to light in recent years. I understand that, historically, they are important. But are they really necessary now, after all this time? What is their purpose?

"I wonder at how quickly 40 years have passed. I was always interested in history and all those events certainly were history in the making."

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* SISTER MARY AGNES KEHOE, CSJ, who was 24 in 1963, taught world history and geography at Catholic Central High School in Troy:

"It was a beautiful, chilly day. I was on a yellow school bus being driven home to the [Sisters of St. Joseph] motherhouse [in Latham] from Catholic Central. Another sister and I asked the bus driver to let us off at Delatour Road because we wanted to walk home. Consequently, we had no clue until we got there, and the sisters broke the news to us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.

"We went immediately to the community room and sat down to watch the news on television. We never left the room until prayer time that night.

"I was not a Kennedy fan, like so many others were at the time. My parents were not either. However, that said, I remember that my heart was breaking for the entire family during that time. For Jackie, little John-John and his sister, Caroline. I will never lose the image of the family and their grief.

"It was a very scary time. I wondered about what would happen to us. As a history teacher, I knew all about assassinations but never thought such a thing could ever happen in our lifetimes or here in this country.

"In those days, the sisters operated a ceramics shop. They did everything from pouring and making the molds to painting and selling ceramics. Somehow, they were able to buy a mold of John Jr. saluting his father on the day of the funeral. They sold thousands and thousands of those statues; people couldn't get enough of them.

"I have always wondered how Jackie endured all of his frivolous liaisons. Any public figure has more responsibility [than others] to live an 'almost' perfect life, because it is a public life. I still admire his courage. I also admire all that he did in such a short time of three years. He was easy to like, a great leader in many ways."

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* ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN J. MCENENY (104th District) entered public service in 1965 as a social services caseworker and director of the Albany County Neighborhood Youth Corps. In 1963, he was 20 and a student at Siena College in Loudonville:

"The entire campus became very quiet. It was just awful; nobody knew what to say or what to do. The Knickerbocker News [an afternoon Albany newspaper] carried the story on the front page. Someone on the bus had a paper, and it was passed around from one passenger to the next. No one said a word; the bus was entirely silent."

His administration "was a time of great altruism. So many programs were initiated in that administration. He was a charismatic leader. For a while, we almost got the optimism back with his brother Bobby [Senator Robert Kennedy] until he, too, was killed.

"There was such a difference in the atmosphere of the country. There were two very positive influences at that time. One was Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council. The other was President John Kennedy. They were three years of hope and energy. We've all learned that our heroes can have feet of clay. The legacy [of Kennedy's assassination] is that we lost our innocence. As 'Camelot' has been deconstructed over the years, we no longer have the same naive optimism. There is more cynicism now. Knowing all this, I have not changed my opinion on President Kennedy. I would have followed JFK into the sea, in those days. It was an incredible time."

(This story was reported by James Breig, editor; Kate Blain, assistant editor; and Pat Pasternak, staff writer.)

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