In 1956, former President Harry Truman was asked by a priest in Rome what St. Francis had done for him. “Nothing,” Truman jocularly replied, “but give me a sore throat and a stomach ache in his town of San Francisco.”
Truman’s response to the priest is provocative because it is the reverse of what you would expect a president to say. In general and throughout American history, presidents—for the most self-protective reasons—not only avoid comments that might offend a vote of faith as sacrilegious, but also tend to exaggerate the depth of their personal religious conviction and practice. Richard Nixon, for instance, kept Reverend Billy Graham close at hand and started regular, well-publicized prayer services at the White House—even though, as the later record demonstrates, faith does not seem to have loomed large in his approach to presidential leadership.
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