By Pat Centner, AFA Journal staff writer

April 2005 – John F. Kennedy,America’s 35th president, served only two years and ten months in office before being assassinated in November of 1963. Although he and Theodore Roosevelt had their own styles for running the country (AFA Journal, 2/02), they were connected in one unique way. 

Roosevelt was the youngest man ever sworn in as president (at age 42, after William McKinley’s assassination), while Kennedy was the youngest man actually elected to the office (at age 43). There were other similarities between the two.

Kennedy was a vibrant man with diverse interests. His promotion of the space program and moon exploration resulted in the first man walking on the moon. In addition, the resolution of the Cuban-Missile Crisis, his efforts in the area of race relations and formation of the Peace Corps are just a few of his numerous accomplishments. Privately, his deep love for sailing and occasional game of touch football with family members at the Kennedy compound were well known. 

The first Roman Catholic ever elected to the presidency, Kennedy was often photographed with his wife, Jacqueline, and their children, John and Caroline, as they attended mass. Kennedy, like Roosevelt, publicly recognized God and named Him as the source of his strength in many of his speeches.

At the 9th annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast held in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1961, Kennedy had much to say about God and His role in the life of America’s presidents. He also spoke to the country’s need for God during trying times. His words resonate with significance more than 40 years later and seem to fit perfectly the deep needs of our country today. Following are excerpts from his speech:
“No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God…. While they came from a variety of religious backgrounds and held a wide variety of religious beliefs, each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were the strongest intellectually were also the strongest spiritually.

“Today our nation is passing through another time of trial. In many ways, our dangers and our problems are far greater – and certainly infinitely more complex…. It is an ironic fact that in this nuclear age, when the horizon of human knowledge and human experience has passed far beyond any that any age has ever known, that we turn back at this time to the oldest source of wisdom and strength, to the words of the prophets and the saints, who tell us that faith is more powerful than doubt, that hope is more potent than despair, and that only through the love that is sometimes called charity can we conquer those forces within ourselves and throughout all the world that threaten the very existence of mankind.

“Keeping in mind that ‘when a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him,’ let us go forth to lead this land that we love, joining in the prayer of General George Washington in 1783, ‘that God would have you in His holy protection, that He would incline the hearts of the citizens…to entertain a brotherly love and affection one for another…and finally that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with…the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, without an humble invitation of whose example we can never hope to be a happy nation.’ The guiding principle and prayer of this Nation has been, is now, and ever shall be ‘In God We Trust.’”