The Rev. John Hagee, pastor of a huge Protestant church in San Antonio, has now apologized for his past denunciations of the Roman Catholic Church, though I’m sure that our Obama-venerating media will continue to link him to John McCain and insist that he is the right-wing counterpart to Jeremiah Wright.
Leaving aside the difference between receiving a political endorsement from a clergyman and being a faithful member of his congregation for almost all of one’s adult life, this exercise in moral equivalence has another curious aspect. Pastor Hagee is an outspoken philosemite who contributes generously to Jewish causes and defends the State of Israel against its detractors. His quarrel with the Church of Rome has been primarily over its alleged role in fostering antisemitism. In his letter of apology, he writes,
In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms, I have often emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholics and Protestant relations with the Jews. In the process, I may have contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic Church. It most certainly does not.
I have no comment on whether that retraction is adequate or sincere. What’s noteworthy is that the position retracted – that antisemitism is of the essence of the traditional Roman Catholic Church – is conventional wisdom on the Left. Witness James Carroll, reverently pro-Obama political columnist and also author of Constantine’s Sword, a screed that restates over hundreds of pages the same sentiments that earned Mr. Hagee the “anti-Catholic” label. He is hardly an isolated case. The Left denounces McCain supporter Hagee for having accepted the Left’s own view of the church.
Will demands that John McCain repudiate John Hagee be balanced by calls for Barack Obama to distance himself from James Carroll? Will anyone on the Left apologize for having “contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic Church”?
It’s a pity that a remnant of Protestantism is still caught up in the idea of “whore of Babylon”, but their anti-Catholicism is a mote in the eye of the Right compared to the multiple beams in the eye of the Left.
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