https://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-catholic-bigotry-is-an-elite-american-pastime-la-dodgers-white-house-sisters-of-perpetual-indulgence-joe-biden-jfk-bde742cc?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he felt compelled, memorably, to make a declaration of political independence from the authorities of his Catholic faith.
His opponents had notoriously exploited anti-Catholic sentiment in key states to suggest that somehow a papist in the Oval Office would owe principal loyalty to the Vatican and would take instruction from the pope on critical questions of the presidency.
The issue had dogged him through Democratic primaries and threatened him in a close general election, so in remarks to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September, Mr. Kennedy sought to lay the calumny to rest: “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.”
Sixty years on, Joe Biden, the second Catholic president, hasn’t had to make a similar declaration. It would be nice to think that is because America is a more tolerant place than it was in 1960. But with each day of his presidency it seems the opposite is true. Anti-Catholic bigotry is entrenched among the left-wing elites who control the Democratic Party, and they have no fear that Mr. Biden in office would lift a finger to restrain it. Far from being a secret agent for the Vatican, the president seems content to be a very public agent for the continuous denigration of those who hold to traditional Catholic doctrine.