AH Challenge: Make A Kennedy The Pope

Okay, implausible. But I still think it's the most plausible way to meet the challenge without changing one of the Kennedy's life so much that he becomes almost unidentifiable. I think it's more likely the College of Cardinals will choose a President than the American people will elect a Pope, and I think communism is the one issue which might conceivably force the cardinals to choose an American President as Pope.

If this happens, I think many Roman Catholics would feel that the Church has lost its way - turning to worldly power over spiritual strength (e.g. the Christians before Constantine against many emperors; OTL's John Paul II against the Communists). Of course, the Church has a long tradition of doing that in the Middle Ages...

So, assuming this happened and Kennedy did get killed in Dallas (probably before he could make any long-term decisions as Pope), I see two tracks the cardinals could take. They bet on American political power against Communism, and it didn't work. They could take this as a sign of God's disapproval and try the other way - it's barely possible we could see then-Bishop Wojtyła of Krakow in Poland ascend as Pope John Paul II. Or, they could simply try again. It's too bad for TTL that new President Lyndon B. Johnson was a Protestant, else we could see a personal union between the United States and Vatican City! :eek: As it is, they could choose some prominent American political figure and continue seeking help against the Red Menace.
 
Nope, that's not in the Constitution. You need to be a natural-born citizen, and you need to swear to "to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," but you can be a foreign head of state! In theory, at least; in practice, I can't see the voters ever electing a foreign head of state.

But look at it the other way. Suppose the Communists are a lot more successful, and simultaneously a lot more anti-Roman-Catholic. Go all the way; suppose the Communists take over Italy (OTL I think they almost did in the late 1940's) and the College of Cardinals feels really, really threatened and knows there's no way they can survive as collaborators. If there's a Roman Catholic President in office at the time, I could just barely imagine them choosing him as Pope with a mandate to lead the Church against Communism! He wouldn't even need to be a cardinal; technically, any male Roman Catholic can be Pope.

Now look at the chronology, and this mad scheme actually looks possible. OTL Pope John XXIII reigned 28 October 1958
– 3 June 1963 ; Pope Paul VI reigned 21 June 1963 – 6 August 1978. Pres. John F. Kennedy was assassinated November 22, 1963. So, all we need is for a vehemently anti-Catholic Communist group to take over Italy sometime before 1963, and for the College of Cardinals to decide that their only chance for salvation after the death of John XXIII is to choose the President of a superpower as Pope.

And then, if he still goes to Dallas, he's shot after several months. Oh boy, Oswald's links with Communism are going to get a LOT more suspicion TTL... and Kennedy might even be canonized as a martyr!

I don't know why, but I like this idea.:cool:


Oh, but I should be clear, when I said have a Kennedy as President and Pope at the same time, I did mean two different Kennedys. For example, we could have Ted work his way up to be elected Pope when John Paul II dies as in OTL. Than, we have JFK, Jr. survive his plane crash and go into politics. He gets elected President in 2004 or 2008, and then we have President Kennedy and Pope Kennedy. :D
 
Technically they could elect a layman pope, but they'd have to ordain him immediately.
When Ambrose was elected Bishop of Milan they baptised him that day, ordained him priest the second day, and bishop the third day. IIRC.

Since a pope is 'Bishop of Rome', you'd have to do something similar, except probably more extended.....
 
All were unilingual except Rose, who spoke fluent French. Bobby was excellent with Latin when he was an altar boy as a kid. But they were unilingual and made no effort to learn other languages.
 
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