One Catholic group took great offense at one of President Clinton's remarks at the prayer breakfast, and called on him to apologize.
“I do believe that even though Adolf Hitler preached a perverted form of Christianity, God did not want him to prevail,” Clinton told guests at the Feb. 4 National Prayer Breakfast, according to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil rights, a watchdog organization tracking defamation of Catholics and Christianity.
League president William Donahue called the comment “remarkably ignorant” and said, “anyone who has studied Hitler knows that this is pure nonsense.”
He quoted Hilter saying, in 1933, “It is through the peasantry that we shall really be able to destroy Christianity because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood.”
Added Donohue, “Hitler was a neo-pagan terrorist whose conscience was not informed by Christianity, but by pseudo-scientific racist philosophies. By asserting that Christianity, no matter how distorted by Hitler, can somehow be linked to the politics of genocide is irresponsible. Hitler hated the Catholic Church, made plans to kill the Pope, authorized the murder of thousands of priests and nuns, and did everything he could to suppress the influence of the Church.”
To Donohue, Hitler's antagonism to Christianity was clear, and he said the president owes Christians an apology. (Staff)