but had a lasting effect on u.s. politics. tonight we feature 1940 republican nominee wendell willkie. after losing he became representative to britain, middle east, soviet union and china. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern and enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c-span3. >> you're watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past. c-span3 created by america's cable television company as a public service and brought to you today by your television provid provider. >> now on american history tv, a look at challenges faced by catholic politicians. we'll hear from a professor from the university of notre dame about how al smith and john kennedy dealt with the issue in

their presidential campaigns. >> your book that came out "catholicism and american freedom chl what was the premise behind it? what did you learn? >> i wanted to look at how american idea of freedom intersected with catholic global tradition. what i learned moment of conflict and overlap. conflicts over slavery. not many catholics were abolitionists, for example, but lots of overlap to rempl the economy. ideas in the '50s about americanization and intention over issues around sexuality, divorce, a lot of the kind of cultural issues of the last 30 years. >> more than 90 years ago al smith ran for president, first catholic on the ticket. why was that significant, and who was al smith? >> so al smith was an immigrant kid from new york city, irish descent, irish and german, never got beyond the eighth grade.

by 1920, he runs in 1928 against herbert hoover. catholics are a percentage of the population, 20, 25%. they had faced considerable discrimination in the 19th century, even 1920s with ku klux klan. but being on the ticket was one marker catholics were making it in national life. the fact he lost was a marker that to run for president as a catholic was disadvantage. he lost pretty significantly in the south, which at that time, because after americans were prohibited from voting, was entirely democratic region. >> they have a dinner in his name every year in new york by the archdiocese of new york. what was he like as a person? >> you know, charming. immigrant. very new york accent, that was controversial in the campaign that had first discussions on radio of american politics. became a little bit bitter as an

old man. was bitter that franklin roosevelt, rich, sophisticated, became perceived as the candidate of the common man and became the leader in the democratic party. so in the '30s you see him shift a little idealogically. >> how so? >> well, he's kind of mad at roosevelt, and he wants to see less government programs, which kind of works against what he was doing as a pretty liberal democrat governor of new york state. so there's a little bit of a sour end, i would say, to his career in the '30s. but what we remember him for was becoming governor of new york, becoming quite successful, implementing all kinds of social welfare and reforms around child labor and that sort of thing. that made him an icon for a lot of american catholics. >> why were catholics scoring, why this did he face racism? >> well, the tension in the 19th

century was very much, hey, are catholics going to obey the american government, or are they going to obey the pope in rome. it seems odd but powerful fear. not just united states but australia and canada. one of the great fears. by the 1920s it persist'sed especially in the south, evangelical region. it was mixed up with smith as an immigrant, smith as someone who did not support prohibition and a catholic. those combined to make him seem like a dangerous foreigner. generations that lived in rural parts of the country, they weren't ready to accept that. >> 32 years after his defeat, john kennedy becomes democratic party nominee. what did he face in terms of anti-catholic bigotry? >> so, it's a different story by

1960. remember, kennedy and his generation of politicians, most of them served in the war. it was very hard to assail their patriotism. i'm thinking of pat brown in california and other catholic cc political figures who become prominent in the 1950s and 1960s. that's taken off the table. you see catholics can be patriotic but even kennedy faced real questioning about -- on controversial issues such as contraception, aid to parochial schools, such as divorce laws. are you going to obey the pope or are you going to obey the constitution. he gives a speech in houston in 1960 where he says, listen, i am absolutely going to obey the constitution and not -- i act as an american, not simply as a catholic. indeed some catholics thought he went too far in 1960 because he made a point of saying my religious life is entirely separate from my political life.

which is not something right we would say to martin luther king jr. or other people in the 1960s whose religious life informed their politics. some people thought he went too far but in retrospect he handled it well because he reassured enough white protestants to support him and overwhelming support in the catholic community. >> how significant was that speech in houston to baptist ministries. >> a big deal. in the media at the time it took the issue off the table so the speech was early in the campaign. it really made it very difficult, for example, for richard nixon, his opponent, to talk about catholicism. nixon wanted to and some advisers were doing it behind the scenes. >> somebody famously said it's not the pope, it's the pa. >> yeah, his dad, he was a famous strong willed irish catholic businessman, that's a good joke. people were joird that joseph

kennedy, john kennedy's dad had too much influence over his son. >> today the catholic church is dealing with another crisis and that is the abuse by priests that really dates back 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago. how is the church dealing with that? >> i think it's not been successful, so far. i mean, it's a terrible -- it's the biggest crisis in the history of united states catholicism, certainly. >> in the history? >> absolutely, yeah, no question. in terms of disillusionment, in terms of the struggle to figure out what the right message is and in terms of actually effectively dealing with the problem of sexual abuse and all the trauma that causes young people and all those who are abused. and, you know, in a certain sense it's been going on, as you said, 40, 50 years but the public scandal has been going on since 2002, although there's some famous early cases we can now trace back to the 1980s and 1990s. and i think the frustration is that it's been since 2002 and it still seems not to have been resolved.

the good news is that it does seem like there are very few new cases since 2002, that's what we're seeing right now. but we're still seeing uncovering, uncovering of more evidence of cover-up before 2002. and my own view is it just all -- everything has to be opened up now. >> and the pope, how do you view his role in all of this? >> sympathetic to it. he's an 82-year-old argentinian male. we have to keep that in mind. this is not somebody who thinks about gender and sex issues in the way an american who's 25 does. that said, i think his instincts have been really pretty good. he's learning, willing to admit when he makes mistakes and it will be interesting to see what happens in february at this global meeting. this is not an american issue, it's a huge issue in australia and germany, ireland. and chile and it will be

interesting to see how far they can go to developing global poll sus around sexual abuse. my own sense, i'm not alone in this, in the united states, germany as well, the policies around sexual abuse by priests are now pretty well set and actually may be working, you know again post-2002. what we haven't had are clear punishments and clear policies around bishops who cover up sexual abuse. >> you teach at a catholic institution. when you're talking to students 18, 19, 20, 21 years old, admittedly probably much more progressive than previous generations, does this come up? do you talk about this? >> yes. and, again, at a place like notre dame the students are a mix, all points of the political spectrum, we're quite proud of that actually. yes, you hear a kind of disillusionment, a sense of what is this institution? if the only thing you knew about catholicism was the headlines of the "new york times" over the last year, and most of which were on sexual abuse it might

not be the institution you join. i'm a catholic. i worry about that. i worry about the future of the institution. i think the institution is much, much better than that. but this problem is significant, severe and has to be grappled with. >> going back to the issue of the catholic church and politics. >> yeah. >> can you generally say that catholics identify with one party over another, or is it mixed? >> there's a nice history to that. catholics are very clearly associated with the democratic party from the 19th centuries to the 1950s. the data we have tells us they shifted a little bit more, more affluent catholics to the republican party in the '50s. eisenhower was very popular with many catholics. kennedy stopped that. kennedy was unbelievably popular with catholics of all income backgrounds, all ethnic backgrounds -- income levels and ethnic backgrounds. we think he got 75%, something like that, 80% of the catholic vote, which is a huge number. since then, broadly,

euro-american catholics, drifting toward the republican party, maybe 55/45 now. latino catholics who are a huge percentage of the church pretty significantly democratic. >> do you remember his assassination? >> no, i was two days old. >> but as you look back, and understand the research of what the country was going through. >> yeah. >> what was the church going through? what were catholic prooes a pris and nuns dealing with? >> it's hard to recall. we've learned a lot about kennedy's personal life the last 50 years. our culture is less empathetic to heroes and people perceived as leaders. kennedy was a hero for american catholics. i think, you know, the country was in trauma after his assassination. and nothing like this had happened since the death of lincoln in 1865. and kennedy was so young, and he's so but

ocasio-cortez, the young congresswoman from brooklyn who's 29, a self-identified catholic and talks about how

catholicism shapes her politics. i saw data that catholics are about 30% of congress, and that's a pretty high number because the catholic population is maybe 20 plus percent of the population. >> and the majority on the supreme court? >> yeah, amazingly. if you just said 30 years ago, 50 years ago the catholics would have a majority in the supreme court no one would believe that and that's a very interesting story about, in some ways, a conservative catholic legal culture, because they're now conservatives, of course, a number of them are, that has propelled catholics to the forefront. that's a great story, actually, very interesting. i think in terms of politics those are leaders. beyond politics there are catholics scattered all over american life. corporate leadership, media leadership, universities, just the president of stanford who just stepped down, john hennessey is a serious catholic. they're deeply embedded in

american life, and one thing you can say, it's also an immigrant church now again in a way it hasn't been really since the early 20th century, is that catholics run the gamut of american life. they are some of poorest immigrants and most recent immigrants as well as some of the most powerful people in the country. >> in terms of research, teaching this to your students as well. anything stand out? any particular stories or individuals or figures that you've come across that really surprised you, or intrigued you? >> so, when you teach this material to students, and i've been a dean for ten years, haven't done as much teaching as i would like, some of the figures students don't expect. dorothy day, don't know if her name is familiar to you, a great catholic radical of the mid-20th century and pacifist, very strongly anti-abortion, opposed to nuclear war, lived a life of poverty. to tell her story is to startle,

you know, university students in 2019 because she seems so anomalous. >> tell her story. >> she was an immigrant -- she was american student who was a radical. socialist in the early 20th century, lived in greenwich village and then converted to catholicism, stunned all of her friends. she had an abortion before she converted to catholicism and later looked back on that with regret but that was a part of her life then and then she devoted the next 50 years to building the catholic worker movement, a kind of radical movement, attempting to live a life of poverty and remind the people around us how unequal in many ways our society is. so that's a story that's striking, in terms of culture, flanry o'connor. that's jolting and those are

deeply catholic stories. so i have to think about that a little bit more. there are leaders across american life now and that's one of the interesting things about studying catholicism. >> and clearly you find this interesting. >> oh, yeah, sure, generally i think being a historian is an amazing occupation and i always have to remind myself how lucky i am to be in this business of writing and teaching. but yeah the history of religion and the history of catholicism in particular, my own fascination right now is with catholicism as a global institution and how you compare the american experience to other experiences, and i find that endlessly interesting. >> john mcgreevy from the university of notre dame, we thank you for your time. >> what a pleasure, thank you. you're watching american history tv, every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past, created by american's cable television companies as a