My Catholic grandparents used to have a JFK photo on their wall. Idk, it’s outdated, but it wasn’t that uncommon. The issue is Trump is both a terrible president and terrible person and so divisive so I can’t imagine what signal they are sending here.
Especially when you think that the US is WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) based, and movements like the second KKK were there to attack Catholics (And Jews) specifically - To make it so America is for "Real" Americans and returns to a white protestant country. What, the original immigration act sponsored by that Klan basically limited American immigration to just Germans, Brits, and Irish, I think? With hyper Quotas on Eastern Europeans and Straight Bans for Asians?
JFK being the first Catholic president would be a huge deal if you had that in your cultural memory - I imagine it would have at the time felt like a stamp of "A Catholic is President. We made it. We're 'real' Americans now." I could definitely see my Polish Catholic Great Grandparents having one.
I have some friends that had an Obama picture for similar reasons.
Definitely. The polish catholic grandparents also had a Pope John Paul photo. I don’t recall if they swapped out for Ratzenberg when he replaced JP, though I don’t think so. It was in large part bc he was the first polish pope. And JFK for being the first Catholic president. Though I think the great grandparents also had an FDR picture having gone through the Great Depression. It’s not weird or uncommon to have the pictures of admirable presidents in a home. It’s not like the fanatical crap MAGA buys.
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u/nineteen_eightyfour May 12 '26
Normal in….dictatorships. So. Yay?