Potential presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a Catholic, said today that he’s “appalled” that JFK, in an effort to reassure skeptical voters in 1960 that he wouldn’t take orders from the Pope, declared, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” Santorum claims that this supposedly “radical statement” did “great damage,” and suggested that “Jefferson is spinning in his grave.” This last part is particularly ironic, since Jefferson helped coin the phrase “separation of church and state” to begin with. [Boston Globe]
