John F. Kennedy at Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame has a long history with the nation’s highest public office, starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935.

“The nation’s first and still only Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, never spoke at Notre Dame during his presidency. But he did have a long and close relationship with the University prior to winning the 1960 election, and while in office he received Notre Dame’s highest honor.

As a congressman, Kennedy served as the winter commencement speaker and received an honorary degree on Jan. 29, 1950. He said: “This is a happy day in my life. I am deeply honored in being admitted to the ranks of the men of Notre Dame (this was before the University began admitting women in 1972). I have cheered for old Notre Dame for most of my life, and so you can understand my feelings as I come for the first time to this great university dedicated to Our Lady of the Lake.”

He went on to reflect on the value of education, the rights of the individual over the state and various economic and political problems of the day. In closing, the future president said: “High on the wall of the House of Representatives in Washington, so that everyone can see, are written words we should remember. They were from a speech by a distinguished senator from my native state of Massachusetts—Daniel Webster: ‘Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, and promote all its great interests and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered.’”

Kennedy and his wife of one month, Jacqueline, attended a Notre Dame football game against Pittsburgh on Oct. 17, 1953. Four years later, Kennedy returned to Notre Dame to accept the University’s 1957 Patriotism Award. In his self-deprecating way, he said, “I am not sure that my selection by the senior class (for this honor) is evidence of the outstanding judgment and wisdom the University has tried to instill in them in four years.” Clearly taken with the words of Daniel Webster, he closed his 1957 address with the same quote he cited in 1950.

Just two months later, Kennedy spoke to the Notre Dame Club of Washington, D.C., speaking at length about his service on a special Senate committee investigation of labor racketeering. In addition to his speaking engagements on and off campus, JFK was a charter member of the Notre Dame Lay Advisory Council for the College of Liberal and Fine Arts (now the College of Arts and Letters), which was formed in 1954 and met on campus twice yearly.

Kennedy accepted Notre Dame’s highest honor, the Laetare Medal, a little over a year after his election as president. The oldest and most prestigious honor given to an American Catholic, the Laetare Medal was established in 1883 and is awarded to a Catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”

Father Hesburgh bestowed the award on the president in an Oval Office ceremony Nov. 22, 1961, two years to the day before his death in Dallas.

Source: Hail to the Chief