By Msgr. Owen F. Campion

Truman's friendly ties to Catholics ran deep

Although the country's 33rd president was raised Southern Baptist, he was 'with the Catholics' on moral issues

Harry S. Truman, who served as president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, was a Southern Baptist who may have been born again in more ways than one.

Truman's writings, and the recollections of people close to him when he was young, certainly never suggest that he ever harbored anti-Catholic feelings. But he came from a strongly-fundamentalist religious background, and he was born and reared in rural Missouri where there were few Catholics.

If there was any anti-Catholicism in his past, he had something of a rebirth when he served in the Army in World War I. His company almost totally was composed of Irish-American Catholics from Kansas City, Mo.

In this company, he made friends of Catholics and surely saw questions about Catholics' loyalty to this country ridiculous and developed a lifelong esteem for his company's chaplain, Father L. Curtis Tiernan. (Years later, Truman invited then-Msgr. Tiernan to stay at the White House when visiting Washington.)

His service in the war coincidentally led Truman to appreciate Catholicism in another way. He loved classical music. As a young soldier stationed in France, he wrote to his future wife that he often went into town for Sunday High Mass to hear the Gregorian chant and the great religious music of the masters. He also saw decent people simply at prayer.

He also wrote from France that he was "with the Catholics" when it came to morality.

Resisting bigotry

After the war, Truman started climbing the political ladder in Missouri. At the time, the Ku Klux Klan was becoming a major political force. When KKK members invited him to join their movement, they probably thought that he was a natural. He needed the political support that they could provide. He was a joiner, a hardy fellow well met. He appealed to Protestant Midwesterners. He was one of them.

However, Truman would have no part of anything anti-Catholic. He asked the KKK recruiter what membership in the organization would require of him. The answer was that Truman could not hire a Catholic. Truman ended the conversation, refusing to blackball Catholics. (He also was told that he could not hire a Jew. This too left Truman cold. His business partner was Jewish, and they respected each other.)

His good friend, Jim Pendergast, introduced him to his uncle, Thomas Pendergast, the Irish-Catholic Democratic Party boss of Kansas City. He liked Truman and helped him politically. Truman liked him.

In 1928, Truman backed Catholic Alfred E. Smith for president, when many Democrats turned away from him. (In 1960, he supported John F. Kennedy.)

Building trust

Truman wanted to run for governor of Missouri, but he settled on seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1934. He certainly knew that being anti-Catholic was not good politics for any Democrat running statewide in Missouri, considering the big Catholic vote in St. Louis and Kansas City. Catholics had great influence in the national Democratic Party.

Yet, Truman's resistance to anti-Catholicism seems to have been more than political pragmatism. He was realistic. He knew Catholics were good Americans. He knew how hard they fought for the country in the wars. Truman saw the Church as no threat, but instead as a friend of freedom, justice and human dignity.

In turn, American Catholics trusted him. A great majority of them voted for him for president in 1948. Many served in his administration.

He also knew that Pope Pius XII was one of the world's greatest spokesmen for peace and against communism.

Truman dramatically showed this regard for the pope in 1951 by proposing full diplomatic relations with the Holy See, naming retired U.S. Army Gen. Mark Clark as ambassador. This action enraged American Protestants. In the face of this fury, Clark withdrew. Realizing that no ambassador could be confirmed, Truman named no replacement for Clark.

Out of office, he and his wife visited Pope Pius XII in Rome.

Msgr. Owen F. Campion is the associate publisher of Our Sunday Visitor.