text: "No it didn't. The Catholic Church from the beginning inserted itself as the interpreter of Scripture (in fact it also inserted itself as the determiner of what was Scriptural and what writing wasn't inspired)."
  
  But early American life wasn't Catholic. It was Protestant/Puritan. For this group, the Bible was the centre of life. Catholicism was an outsider religion for some time. Even the election of John Kennedy shook some folks up. I think this is what he means.