GMA Exclusive: Father Michael Pfleger Talks About His Sermon Mocking Clinton
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, the Chicago priest suspended for two weeks after a sermon mocking Sen. Hillary Clinton, returned to his pulpit on Sunday like a fighter ready to take back the title.
In this June 1, 2007, file photo, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, left, of Saint Sabina Catholic Church is seen during a news conference at Rainbow/Push Coalition headquarters in Chicago.
(AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
In an exclusive interview, Pfleger told “Good Morning America” that he does not “apologize for being passionate, I don’t apologize for being free.
“But I apologize when my passion or my freeness and my flawedness of character get in the way of a content which is much more important to me,” he told “GMA’s” Robin Roberts.
Watch the full interview Thursday on “Good Morning America.”
Pfleger gave the controversial Clinton speech on May 25 as a guest preacher at Trinity United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama‘s longtime parish, which the likely Democratic presidential nominee has since left.
Pfleger said, in part, that Clinton felt a sense of “white entitlement” to the presidency. Click here to see the sermon.
A firestorm erupted when the sermon hit YouTube, and the media picked it up and rebroadcast it. Obama denounced Pfleger’s comments as “divisive” and “backward looking.”
Pfleger issued an apology, but he received numerous death threats, which he said were indicative of the racial climate in the country.
One e-mail threat he received said, “I wish one of the folks in your dangerous neighborhood will shoot you.”
“I mean, just some of the mean, horrible things that were said,” Pfleger said. “I think you have to also understand it’s the reality, it’s the reality of the sensitivity of this country, the name-calling, the number of e-mails and letters using the N word, calling me a wigger and telling me to leave the country, and why don’t I go to Africa.”
But Pfleger is also not backing down.
In his sermon on June 22 called “Ain’t Nothing Like a Comeback,” Pfleger told his parishioners at St. Sabina’s Catholic Church that he would not “run and hide, nor allow them to cause me to ‘play it safe’ or become silent.”
Pfleger has been the leader of the predominantly black church since 1981. He has been described as “extremely Afro-centric,” and has called the controversial former pastor at Trinity Church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a “friend, mentor and hero.”
Pfleger said his sermon at Trinity was supposed to be about race, not politics, but admitted he has to be more careful about what he says from the pulpit.
“You know, I was at a church family that I’ve spoken to many times, that I know well, and I think when you’re around family, you’re looser, you’re friendlier,” he said. “And, um, do you get carried away? Do you get more dramatic? Do you get caught up in the crowd when you’re around your friends and your family? Absolutely. And I acknowledge that, and I over-dramatize, and I get carried away, no question.”
Ann
