Members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians are hosting a memorial Mass and community reflections at Denver's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Nov. 22 at 5:30 p.m. local time.
Moore said that Kennedy's Irish background "really resonated" with Irish-Americans.
"I think many, many people were able to identify with him even though he came from an extremely wealthy background," he said.
The shock of Kennedy's assassination was also "deeply felt" in Ireland, which sent an honor guard from the Irish Defense Forces to the president's funeral at the request of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
"Even today, in traveling in Ireland, there are always fond memories of Jack Kennedy and how he really embraced his Irish identity," said Moore.
He added that Kennedy was a member of a Hibernian division in Massachusetts.
"The very fact that he would have joined the AOH would indicate some sense of pride on his part, that he would want to belong to an Irish Catholic organization. That is something that we still write about, and think about, and talk about," he said.
Moore said Kennedy's legacy includes the Peace Corps, which sent young people on humanitarian work around the world, as well as the belief that "any group, regardless of who they are, regardless of their religion, can put forth a candidate who convinces the American electorate that he is well equipped to do the job."
Catholic commentator George Weigel, writing on the website of the journal "First Things" Nov. 20, similarly praised Kennedy's "idealism" and "elegance."
He recounted his own memory of the assassination as a seventh grader in Baltimore. He witnessed his "tough-love" teacher, a young School Sister of Notre Dame, "sobbing, her face buried in her arms on her desk."
However, Weigel suggested Kennedy's legacy was not entirely positive.
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"I fear that much of the Kennedy mythos is an obstacle to the flowering of Catholic witness in America," he wrote.
Weigel said that Kennedy's 1960 speech in Houston on relations between church and state, intended to alleviate the concerns of Protestant ministers about the role of his Catholic faith in the president's office, also had the effect of "dramatically privatizing religious conviction and marginalizing its role in orienting a public official's moral compass."
This made Kennedy the "precursor" of the view that the American public sphere should not include "religiously-informed moral conviction," he explained.
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.