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Obama Cuts Ties With Church He Has Attended For 20 Years

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The Washington Post

Published: June 1, 2008

Updated: 06/01/2008 12:11 am

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and his wife, Michelle, announced Saturday they would leave their longtime Chicago church, Trinity United Church of Christ, after racially charged comments by a visiting pastor last week dragged the presidential candidate into yet another controversy over religion and race.

"This is not a decision I come to lightly ... and it is one I make with some sadness," Obama said at a news conference after campaign officials released a letter of resignation he sent to the church Friday.

"I'm not denouncing the church and I'm not interested in people who want me to denounce the church," he said, adding that the new pastor at Trinity and "the church have been suffering from the attention my campaign has focused on them."

In a letter to the Rev. Otis Moss, Obama wrote, "We are writing to make official our decision to end our membership at Trinity. We make this decision with sadness. Trinity was where I found Christ, where we were married and where our children were baptized."

Obama's decision to leave the church, where he has been an active parishioner for some 20 years, comes a week after the Rev. Michael Pfleger gave a sermon mocking Obama's opponent for the Democratic nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Pfleger, a former spiritual adviser to Obama, said he intended to expose "white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head" and mimicked a teary Clinton upset over "a black man stealing my show."

When the priest's videotaped comments hit YouTube, Obama immediately said he was "deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric." Pfleger apologized, saying the "words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message."

"I am deeply sorry if they offended Sen. Clinton or anyone else who saw them," he said in a statement.

But the damage was done.

Cardinal Francis George, the leader of Chicago's Roman Catholic Archdiocese, on Friday sharply criticized Pfleger.

"The Catholic Church does not endorse political candidates," George said in a statement. "Consequently, while a priest must speak to political issues that are also moral, he may not endorse candidates nor engage in partisan campaigning."

Clinton's campaign was quick to call on Obama to renounce statements Pfleger made during the sermon.

"We remain disappointed that Senator Obama didn't specifically reject Father Pfleger's despicable comments about Senator Clinton," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said. "We assume that he will."

Pfleger, 59, gave a similar speech making fun of Clinton at his parish, St. Sabina Catholic Church, where he has presided since 1981.

Since Thursday, the Obama campaign has moved quickly to distance itself from Pfleger.

"It's clear that now that I'm a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will imputed to me even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles," he said.

"This was a pretty personal decision and I was not trying to make political theater out of it," he added.

RELIGIOUS WOES

Republican John McCain of Arizona also has had his woes with religious leaders.

Earlier this month, McCain rejected endorsements from two influential but controversial televangelists, saying there is no place for their incendiary criticisms of other faiths.

McCain spurned the months-old endorsement of Texas preacher John Hagee after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land. McCain called the comment "crazy and unacceptable."

He later repudiated the support of Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher who has sharply criticized Islam and called the religion inherently violent.

Source: The Associated Press

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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