This weekend at a gathering in New Hampshire, Governor Mitt Romney was asked, yet again, whether he would give a speech outlining his religious beliefs. He said he would be happy to do so, but that some of his advisers caution against doing so, since it would “draw too much attention to that issue alone.”

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It’s too late — the governor and his faith have our attention. For better or worse, Mormonism is on the public table. The “good news” part, for Romney, is that the public interest signifies how important he has become in the presidential sweeps. Romney leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and he is now being taken seriously as a prospective nominee. The “bad news” part is that, despite Romney’s desire to think only the best of his fellow citizens — to think that no one would disqualify a person merely because of faith, 218 years after the promise of religious freedom in the First Amendment — such a vision of religious freedom is not yet a reality.

Governor Romney would be wise, in this discussion, to remind the nation to stick to its founding ideals. There is no religious caste here. Article VI, section 3 provides that “...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Romney now has little choice but to pursue the course taken by John F. Kennedy in 1960, when he used a major speech to Baptist ministers in Houston to defuse Protestant concern over his Catholicism. Even as the situations differ somewhat, the reasons for confronting the issue squarely were poignantly summarized by Kennedy: “While this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist” Or, as it turns out, a Mormon.

At the time JFK spoke, Rome still advocated for Catholicism to be an established church. This was commonplace in Europe even well into the 20th century. Pontiffs like Leo XIII held to the Catholic contention that “error could be given no rights.” So propagated, Catholicism and the constitutional freedoms secured by our First Amendment were incompatible, and it was little wonder Kennedy was held suspect. The modern Catholic Church would back off this view in the mid-60s after the Second Vatican Council. While giving no ground on the Catholic belief to be the “one true apostolic faith,” the church fathers nevertheless conceded that faith coerced under law could never be consistent with the dignity due each person.