Second Spiritual Advisor To Obama Falls By The Way

Sen. Barack Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004 that he had three spiritual advisors: Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks, and Father Michael Pfleger. Obama distanced himself from Wright when videos of his racist, anti-American rants from the pulpit at Obama's Church, the Trinity Church of Christ, made their way to the Internet and became too hot too handle. Obama said he only remained a member of that church because Rev. Wright retired. Now, a controversial video of a racist rant against Sen. Hillary Clinton from the pulpit of Obama's church by Father Michael Pfleger, a controversial white Catholic priest, is forcing Obama to distance himself from yet another one of his spiritual advisors. Here's a little of what Pfleger had to say about Clinton:

"Rev. Moss, when Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on, I really don't believe it was put on," Pfleger says from the pulpit. "I really believe that she just always thought, 'This is mine! I'm Bill's wife, I'm white, and this is mine! I just gotta get up and step into the plate.' And then out of nowhere came, 'Hey, I'm Barack Obama,' and she said, 'Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show!'

Pfleger then mocks her crying, much to delight of the crowd, many of whom stand up and applaud.

"She wasn't the only one crying, there was a whole lot of white people crying!" Pfleger says to laughter.

Obama's campaign released this statement in response to the controversial statements made by Pfleger just his past Sunday:

As I have traveled this country, I've been impressed not by what divides us but by all that that unites us. That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause.

There was also an apology from Pfleger:

Father Pfleger writes to say, “I regret the words I chose on Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Senator Obama’s life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Senator Clinton or anyone else who saw them.”

Like Wright, Pfleger is an admirer of the controversial Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan. Pfleger claims to have been a spiritual advisor to Obama for more than 20 years. As the Sun-Times reported in 2004:

Friends and advisers, such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church in the Auburn--Gresham community on the South Side, who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that compass set, he says.

"I always have felt in him this consciousness that, at the end of the day, with all of us, you've got to face God," Pfleger says of Obama. "Faith is key to his life, no question about it. [It is] central to who he is, and not just in his work in the political field, but as a man, as a black man, as a husband, as a father.... I don't think he could easily divorce his faith from who he is."

Unlike Rev. Wright, Pfleger had been given an active role in Obama's presidential campaign. The Obama campaign featured an endorsement by Pfleger on its website. The site included a testimonial from Pfleger, which has since been scrubbed. ABC has documented the financial ties between Pfleger and Obama. Pfleger also campaigned for Obama in Iowa.

So what about the third advisor, Rev. James Meeks? Well, he's also a state senator who doesn't mind mixing religion and politics from the pulpit. He is minister of the 24,000-member Salem Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side. Meeks has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as one of the "10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement".