WASHINGTON — The “religion question” raised directly in John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential run may well echo in future presidential politics, but not necessarily for a Catholic candidate, panelists agreed March 8 in a discussion at the Newseum on “The Making of a Catholic President: John Kennedy, Faith and Public Office.”

Kennedy faced open accusations that Catholic leaders in the U.S. and in the Vatican would influence or dictate Kennedy administration policies. Monday's program was the debut event for the new Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum, headed by scholar and religious-liberty expert Charles C. Haynes.

“The Protestant critique was that the Catholic church was so hierarchical that the pope woke up in the morning and the first thing he did was dictate talking points, and every priest and every sister around the globe got that envelope under their door that morning with the talking points from the pope,” said panelist Shaun Casey, author of a new book, The Making of a Catholic President. “There was this notion that Catholicism really was a church and a state, so that by definition, an American president who was Catholic would get that same memo every day too. And that fear was real.”

Panelists and audience questioners noted that 2008 Republican primary hopeful Mitt Romney, a Mormon, faced questions that year similar to those raised in the 1960 primary and general election about Kennedy’s Catholicism and the impact of his faith on presidential decisions and policy.

“The fact that he had to go to Texas A&M and make that speech — and it was really directed to Republicans in Iowa — was really unfortunate for him,” Casey said about Romney, considered among strong possible presidential contenders for 2012.

Panelists said Romney may have to restate his independence from church leaders, particularly in early Republican primaries. The lesson Romney should take from Kennedy, Casey said, is to address his Mormonism directly and early in the campaign.

The discussion opened with a brief video of Kennedy speaking in September 1960 to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, now widely seen as a turning point in Kennedy’s balancing act to defuse the faith issue with Protestant voters while keeping Catholic voters in the fold.

Casey said that while GOP candidate Richard Nixon waged a “strong, subterranean private anti-Catholic campaign in the field” on the religion issue against Kennedy in 1960, 2008 Republican candidate John McCain “did not take the Richard Nixon route.”

Still, Casey said, there nonetheless was an underground e-mail campaign by others that Obama, after the election, would suddenly reveal his Islamic faith.

Casey and panelists John Seigenthaler, in 1960 an aide to Robert F. Kennedy, and Sander Vanocur, an NBC television correspondent during the campaign, also discussed early opposition among mainstream Protestant leaders to Kennedy over the faith issue.

“It was constantly on our minds because of this flood of anti-Catholic material,” Seigenthaler said. “The networking was taking place on the other side, and it involved some really leading Protestant ministers — mainstream Protestant ministers. You felt that because there were so many Sundays when [then-Southern Baptist Convention President] Dr. Pollard in Memphis and others would make national news with sermons that dealt directly with Kennedy’s Catholicism.”

Casey also said Nixon made a serious error, perhaps costing him the close national election, in making a tepid response in a major Baptist publication in Texas on the issue of federal aid to parochial schools. Kennedy, however, responded with strong opposition to such aid — a stance much more acceptable to Protestant voters, Casey said.

The First Amendment Center's Robert M. Bernstein and Gene Policinski contributed to this report.