(ABP) — After months of pressure to reject the endorsement of conservative televangelist John Hagee, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain finally did so May 22 after the preacher's views on Hitler raised new controversy.
In a decade-old sermon, reported by the Huffington Post website, Hagee said Hitler was doing God's will by forcing Jews to return to Israel, saying “the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine.”
“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them,” McCain, who had sought Hagee's endorsement, told CNN in a statement. “I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.”
McCain said the San Antonio-based evangelist is not a “spiritual advisor,” although some news reports and pundits had described him that way when the preacher's statements first became publicized.
After the Arizona senator made his announcement May 22, Hagee withdrew his endorsement.
Hagee, an adamant Christian Zionist, also has said Hurricane Katrina was God's judgment on New Orleans for allowing a gay-pride festival, and has cited the Inquisition and the Crusades as evidence of anti-Semitism within the Roman Catholic Church.
After his comments became controversial, Hagee apologized to Catholics in a letter to William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights. He wrote, “Out of a desire to advance a greater unity among Catholics and evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.”
He said he does not consider the phrases “apostate church” and the “great whore” to be synonymous with the Catholic Church.
He also quietly retracted his New Orleans statement, saying he should not have presumed to “know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina.”