San Antonio, Texas, Mar 25, 2008 / 20:36 pm
An influential Texas pastor who endorsed Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain has denied allegations he is anti-Catholic.
Rev. John Hagee, pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, has been accused of anti-Catholicism by Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Donohue argued that Hagee “clearly distorts” Catholic teaching and misrepresents Church history, especially concerning the actions of Pope Pius XII during the Second World War.
Hagee said his statements about the Catholic Church had been “grossly mischaracterized.” His words about the anti-Christ and a “false cult system,” he said, were references to “those Christians who ignore the Gospels.”
In his recent book, Hagee wrote that “most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.” When asked about this statement during an interview with the New York Times magazine, Hagee said he was trying to express “the fact that Christian anti-Semitism — both Catholic and Protestant — contributed to an environment in which Nazi racial anti-Semitism could flourish.”