ProgressOhio

New York Times Sunday Magazine:

NYT: As a prominent evangelical pastor based in San Antonio, you were recently catapulted into national controversy when you endorsed Senator John McCain for president. Is it true that McCain actively sought your endorsement?

Hagee: It’s true that McCain’s campaign sought my endorsement.

Countdown: Hate Talk Express

NYT: How did you feel when critics called you a Catholic-basher and said McCain should reject your endorsement?

Hagee: My statements regarding the Catholic Church have been grossly mischaracterized. I never called the Catholic Church “the anti-Christ” or a “false cult system.” I was referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels.

John Hagee Preaches Anticatholicism

NYT: What about your observation in a recent book 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”?

Hagee: What I was trying to express was the fact that Christian anti-Semitism — both Catholic and Protestant — contributed to an environment in which Nazi racial anti-Semitism could flourish.

NYT; Let’s talk about your much-quoted comment that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for a gay rights parade in New Orleans .

Hagee: We’re not going down there. That’s so far off-base it would take us 33 pages to go through that, and it’s not worth going through.

Meet Team McCain: Pastor John Hagee