Let’s face it, Republican GetReligion readers. You are out there, bracing for the moment when the Rev. Pat Robertson (a) speaks his mind on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, (b) endorses Sen. John McCain, (c) begins his pre-hurricane-season Bible commentaries or (d) all of the above.
Right?
You just know that the mainstream reporters are, after the Wright firestorm, going to be all over the wild fringe of the Republican clergy (as they should be). This brings us, of course, to the Rev. John Hagee and his colorful views of the Roman Catholic Church, which is big news in a national election year because Catholics are the swing voters who matter the most.
For those behind in this game, here’s the top of an Associated Press report on Hagee and the aftermath of his controversial endorsement of McCain:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain … repudiated any views of a prominent televangelist who endorsed him last month “if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.”
McCain has come under fire since televangelist John Hagee endorsed him on Feb. 27, but until Friday his response had been tepid. The Arizona senator merely said he doesn’t agree with everyone who endorses him. He said Friday he had been hearing from Catholics who find Hagee’s comments offensive.
Hagee, leader of a San Antonio megachurch, has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “the great whore” and called it a “false cult system” and “the apostate church” — “apostate” means someone who has forsaken his religion.
Thus, McCain tried to distance himself from Hagee and his beliefs. The problem, however, is that it was hard to know what Hagee actually said — beyond a few wild and very offensive phrases. As you would expect, conservative Catholics were very interested in this issue. They were upset, to say the least.
And so was Hagee, who quickly put out a statement. This is one of those cases where it helps to read the whole document (please do so), but here is a crucial section:
The truth is I am not now nor have I ever been anti-Catholic. That has been demonstrated in a life time of ministry that has assisted Catholics and the Catholic Church. I have given thousands of dollars to the Catholic Church for disaster relief and have personally supported a local convent for many years. Cornerstone Church has operated a social services center that gives food and clothing daily to people who in the majority are Catholic. My wife comes from a Catholic family and millions of my viewers are Catholics.
Many in the media have mistakenly accepted characterizations of my statements which simply are not true. I never called the Catholic Church the “anti-Christ” a “false cult system” “the apostate church” or the “great whore” of Revelations. This is a serious misinterpretation of my words. When I use these terms, I am referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels and embrace the false doctrines of Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism.
Now the crucial statement is this: “This is a serious misinterpretation of my words.”
In other words, Hagee said the words that he is being accused of saying. Yet he believes that he is being quoted accurately, but out of context. So what does Hagee believe?
It seems to me that his views contain many of the classic anti-Catholic interpretations of scripture that are embraced by some Protestant fundamentalists. Yet Hagee claims that he is not applying these views to all Catholics, but only to those who are — in his view — guilty of anti-Semitism. His views of Rome’s actions in World War II are as radical as, well, any left-wing critic of Pope Pius XII.
That’s rather ironic, don’t you think? There are times when people go so far to the right that they end up on the far left. Can you say “Hitler’s Pope”?
 | Posted at 6:35 am |  Print
| Permalink | Trackback |
Comments (21) |
March 31, 2008, at 8:25 am
I’m not sure it is a right-left dichotomy, as you have pointed out before, when religion is involved the usual liberal/conservative political road-map starts to fail. This is especially true in the murky world of conspiracy theorists, which for all intents and purposes Hagee is. His eschatology has crossed the boundaries of mere faith and entered a world of geopolitical pondering and shadowy pro-Antichrist forces. Hagee is the more acceptable face of fringe Christians like Jack T. Chick, who see a vast anti-Christian conspiracy all (usually) fed by Rome (if they happen to be Protestant).
March 31, 2008, at 9:25 am
This conservative Catholic isn’t at all interested in John Hagee, except for a slight curiosity as to whether he really was quoted out of context. In the first place, I’m a Texan and used to anti-Catholic rhetoric. But more to the point, John McCain isn’t a member of Hagee’s (or Robertson’s) congregation for 20 years, nor does he claim either as a spiritual mentor. Religious Right endorsements are of little political interest. Period.
Jack T. Chick, indeed! Now there’s a fond (not) memory.
March 31, 2008, at 10:04 am
An interesting journalistic tack would be to compare John Hagee’s comments about Catholicism with Pope Benedicts comments about protestantism when he claimed that Protestants are not truly church just an ecclesial community. Since ecclesial usually means church I am not sure Benedicts comments are compleatly intelligible. In effect the Pope is saying the Roman Church is the true Church and protestants are not. Hagee is saying his brand of dispensational protestants are the true church and the Pope is not. It is (imho) hypocritical for Catholics to squeel about Hagee’s comments while supporting the Popes. Grow some skin! Catholics think Protestants are wrong and Protestants think Catholics are wrong. Stop the whining!
March 31, 2008, at 10:21 am
Catholics think Protestants are wrong and Protestants think Catholics are wrong. Stop the whining!
That is a good idea, but some people get paid to whine, to each his own. However you are sort of being sloppy when you say that B16 “claimed that Protestants are not truly church” — that’s strange syntax and I doubt he used it. Protestants are not formally part of THE church according to a Catholic like the Pope, but he recognizes a church-like structure. To most Catholics I think the Pope’s comments are intelligible.
March 31, 2008, at 10:38 am
tmatt writes above
For the life of me I don’t understand why someone who is a Catholic in these modern times would be a swing voter, excepting their not listening closely to the church’s teaching. (And that’s the main gripe with the Pope’s visit isn’t it; that he’s going to teach again?)
Maybe with the older Catholics it’s like a popular (and coincidentally Jewish) radio host’s description of some Jews. “They’re still voting for FDR.”
Even on the much bally-hooed “social justice” topics, I think the warning against Envy trumps the enabling that this sin allows politicians. And a “Sparks Notes” reading of Leo XIII’s “just wage” thoughts would be more than enough to take away any good Catholic’s wavering between free markets or the control economy offered by the left in this country. And then there’s the issue of Life.
So why are Catholics such swingers?
March 31, 2008, at 11:38 am
Why did you identify Catholics as the election deciders for 2008? They might be, but I think it’s much too early to pinpoint the swing voting block.
March 31, 2008, at 11:52 am
Hagee is a coward who is afraid to debate faithful Catholics. I found this out in 1987 when Pope John Paul II came to San Antonio. He and some of his minions tried to wheen people away from the church; yet when Catholics confronted him he bid a hasty retreat. Also, of course he is going to say is not Anti-Catholic. The only people who admit that wear white sheets and hoods.
March 31, 2008, at 11:56 am
Agreed Jerry, it’s early, especially in an election cycle where even more than usual, all the talk is about the variable “critical swing group du jour” (racial, gender, ethnic, age/generational, religious, etc. take your pick).
I think tmatt might’ve meant that historically, not just this election cycle, Catholics have often been the critical swing voting block, which itself is debatable but still somewhat more defensible.
March 31, 2008, at 4:03 pm
Regarding Greg’s issue with the phrase “ecclesial communities†above, basically from Rome’s perspective the distinction is between communities that possess the valid priesthood (such as all who are direct communion with Rome, the Orthodox, Copts, Armenians, Old Catholics, etc.) and so have a full sacramental life, as against all those other communities (mostly out of the Reformation) who profess faith in Christ, who accept the formula of Nicea as to the nature of God, and who baptize according to “the the Father Son, and Holy Spirit.â€
By their baptism and faith they are Christians, but due to their impoverished sacramental economy, they do not experience the fullness of the sacramental life, as say the Orthodox or Copts do. Thus the Orthodox and Copts (who celebrate the seven sacramental mysteries in their fullness) are churches, and the Baptists (say) are not. Though all of them are Christians.
The official Vatican explication can be read here:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html
And on Ken’s confusion as to why Catholics are such “swingers” - Know that I am a staunch mass going, pro-life Catholic. And as things stand now, I may (I say *may*) throw my vote to Obama (should he be the Democratic nominee) for three reasons:
1. The Republicans have shown themselves to be fundamentally un- serious about overturning Roe v. Wade. They have held executive power for the better part of the thirty or so years since the decision, and it still stands.
2. The War. The Republicans - McCain included - deserve to burn for this debacle. Obama is the least pro- war of the three standing candidates.
3. Racial symbolism: his election would do wonders for domestic concord and international approbation.
As for Leo XIII & Catholic social doctrine, neither party is especially good, but the Republicans encourage the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the oligarchy more than do the Democrats (see tax policy alone)- wages have barely increased against cost of living these last thirty years, and now trade policy encourages the rank exploitation of the poor abroad. Not in keeping with principles of distributism or subsidiarity at all..
That’s just to scratch the surface of the issues. Republicans should not take our votes for granted.
And needless to say, cozying up to the likes of John Hagee does them no good, by the way.
That’s all I have to say.
March 31, 2008, at 5:50 pm
Mr. Curtis: My question was sarcastic; not the result of confusion. And more properly characterized as a lamentation; which is also what I was feeling as I got to your point #3.
The Republicans may not have been successful with “overturning” Roe, but your statement alerts me to your not being aware that we cannot “overturn” court decisions — not under the U.S. Constitution and not without voter concensus. The remedy under our legal system is for the elected law makers to pass a law and hope that the people who are put on the courts do not overturn the law on a manufactured excuse. We also gain on the Life issue by electing people who will pass incremental laws against various types of abortion.
Obama has stated he would veto partial birth abortion laws and that he is for a woman’s right to choose. How a “staunch mass going, pro-life Catholic” can “throw [his] vote” to a politician that promises such things boggles me and was the point of my initial post.
As for your read on free markets: people in the global south freely stand in line whenever a Western plant puts a “hiring” sign up because they know the job will provide the income to raise them to a better place. It is those who advance the government program in place of free choices by free peoples able to own property, guided by religious principles; it is those liberals who are preventing the exodus from the plantations around the world. Food stamps and gifts from “Bwana” are not subsidiarity at work, my friend.
What economics suggest that wage growth is pegged to cost of living? Au contraire; wages are pegged to productivity. As for trade policy that coincidentally improves the job picture in Asia, India, Africa — you need to go to those countries and explain to the folks who are welcoming the job that will make their life better, explain to them that you don’t want them to have three meals a day because it means you won’t have the dollars to buy $140 sneakers for your teenager or your second tv. Subsidiarity indeed.
March 31, 2008, at 6:49 pm
Rev. Hagee’s attitude toward Catholics is of no interest to me compared to Rev. Wright of the United Church of Christ. Sen. McCain did not join his church, send a 20,000 dollar donation to him, sit in his congregation sopping up anti-American, anti-white, anti-Italian (“Garlic noses”) sermons for 20 years, and does not support abortion to the point he is willing to defend infanticide to protect the abortion industry.
Many Catholics do not understand how bad Obama’s judgement is on joining Wright’s church (and I have yet to see a story delving into the different ways Catholics and Protestants choose their church.)
The Catholic Church is organized basically on the territorial parish model. Catholics are expected to join the parish in whose territory they reside—regardless of whether they like the sermons and policies in their territorial parish—and most do so.
On the other hand Protestants tend to church and preacher shop to a much greater extent. Thus Obama’s choice of church and preacher says a lot more about Obama than of any Catholic who attends his local parish.
March 31, 2008, at 6:54 pm
Deacon John makes a very important point. Thanks!
March 31, 2008, at 7:39 pm
Ken:
The executive branch appoints judges. Most importantly, it appoints judges to the Supreme Court whose authority is at issue here. Everyone knows that the Court can indeed, both in theory and *practice*, reverse itself. It has done so before. Most famously when Plessy v. Ferguson was reversed in Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education. Or when Bowers v. Hardwick (which upheld states’ laws that criminalized homosexual activity) was explicitly reversed in Lawrence v. Texas. Both of these were of course “politically correct” reversals by contemporary lights. The fact that reversing Roe v. Wade would blacken the Sun, and cause the Seas to boil and overflow, does not change the fact that it is in theory possible. Which is why the Senate is so curious as to appointees stance on stare decesis, and past judgments on abortion.
The question, from my point of view, is whether Roberts or Alito would vote to reverse Wade, or otherwise vote to restrict abortion. That is, for example, act to allow state & local jurisdictions to set their own abortion laws (rights to privacy lodged in the “penumbra” of the Constitution aside, whatever happened to the explicit wording of the 9th & 10th amendments?? So much for the Constitution, I say..) I personally am very skeptical that any such reversal will ever occur, no matter how many Republican appointees there are to the court. Because if they did reverse Roe, then chumps like me would feel free to vote Democratic again. That would undo the Rove/Nixon coalition.
Thus, in light of the War, which I oppose (and have opposed) with as much ferocity as I do abortion; I feel free to vote strategically in the (probably vain) hope that the new president might be less belligerent than Bush.
As for the Global South, the policies of the IMF and World Bank are explicitly designed to force their markets open, and destroy locally owned industry. All in favor of Multi National Corporations who need unrestricted access to 3rd World labor and markets. As a Catholic I oppose this, vociferously. Let them, indeed *help* them to, develop their own economies. They’ll stay home.
As for the Rev. Hagee, it’s not simply his anti-Catholicism that offends. It is also his support of Israeli & Zionist excesses in places like Lebanon & the West Bank. That the Republican (and to a large degree Democratic) establishments are uncritically for untrammeled violence like we’ve seen in Lebanon & Iraq these past few years, is reason enough (in my opinion) to vote for anyone who says they will change our policy.
Whatever their stance on abortion is. Being pro-life means that violence is always a last resort. The War will redound on us, as will our abortion policy. Live by the scalpel and sword, die by the scalpel & sword. Justice will out, unless we turn to mercy.
These are dark times, and the choices I have politically seem to be all false ones. Still, I will not despair. Faith, hope, love. These three abide.
That’s my stance.
March 31, 2008, at 8:32 pm
Mr. Curtis explains….
“Israeli & Zionist excesses…” sort of brings tmatt’s closing sentence to mind.
March 31, 2008, at 9:46 pm
I just spiked a few comments.
Please return to talking about the media coverage of these issues and take the theology elsewhere.
March 31, 2008, at 11:28 pm
[…] The point of the article is that the Left likes to call the Right “fascists,†when fascism is historically a leftist movement. (Let me just quote a recent post at Get Religion analyzing the anti-Catholicism of Rev. John Hagee that points out “There are times when people go so far to the right that they end up on the far left. Can you say ‘Hitler’s Pope’?â€) The fascinating part was how Goldberg always portrayed the forces of change – then and now — as envious opportunists motivated by laziness and greed. […]
April 1, 2008, at 10:44 am
Mr. Mattingly, you wrote:
I would expect better wording from a man who claims to “Get Religion.”
Identifying the Papacy as the Antichrist spoken of in Scripture is not some radical teaching limited to some “fundamentalists.” Like it or not, this is the official teaching of Lutheranism. Are Lutherans, like your own Mollie Hemingway and me, who hold to what Lutheranism confesses and teaches: “some protestant fundamentalists” ??? What is a “protestant fundamentalist”?
April 1, 2008, at 3:39 pm
Hey there,
I watched the video on this post. At no point does Hagee invoke the name of the Catholic Church. He just talks about the “apostate church.” In the Newsweek quote, it asserts that he has called the Catholic church those things, but there is no citation as to when or where. If all you’ve got to go on is this video, then Hagee’s explanation holds water.
I think Hagee is a total nightmare. Don’t get me wrong. But if he actually said this stuff, I would like to see it, rather than just a series of assertions. Do you all have anything written by him, or a video of him, saying “the Catholic church is the anti-christ” or anything like that?
Thanks.
April 1, 2008, at 3:43 pm
Tmatt spiked an earlier comment where I pointed out how American evangelicals like Hagee have tended to allow their anti- Catholicism (which by extension logically extends to all apostolic Churches, Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Nestorian, etc.) to ignore the plight of such Christians living amongst Muslims in the Middle East.
He’s said I could repost, so here’s the gist of my earlier remark:
This indifference to the crisis among Apostolic Christians in the Middle East seems rather common amongst Americans generally, both on the right an left. Which I believe is Tmatt’s point, when he remarks on Rev. Hagee’s embrace of the left wing criticism of Pope Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope.”
Their situation that is exacerbated by US and Israeli policies and actions (in places like Lebanon, the West Bank and Iraq, most especially) generally supported by most American Evangelicals.
I recommend reading this very interesting interview, with Grégoire III Laham, (Byzantine Catholic) Patriarch of Antioch of the Greek-Melchites. It is, I think, extremely challenging, no matter what your perspective on the Church, Islam, or Middle Eastern policy:
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=9596
April 1, 2008, at 4:28 pm
The quote “This is a serious misinterpretation of my words.” is itself incorrect. What Hagee said was “To assert otherwise seriously misrepresents my words.” How did you make that mistake, Terry? Did the press release change since you wrote your entry?
It’s not surprising, though. I have no idea what point Hagee is really trying to make in the video.
April 2, 2008, at 11:23 am
Hey, I commented a couple of comments ago. Hagee does actually refer to the Roman Catholic Church by name, but not in a way that seems anti-Catholic. He says that the Catholic church committed the acts of the Crusades and Inquisition, which is just a historic fact. And then he says that Hitler was going to do that and worse.
Once again, I think Hagee is wrong-headed and scary. But I think if this is all you got on him as far as anti-Catholic sentiment goes, you need to do better. So, do you have anything else?