I am heartbroken and appalled at Senator John McCain’s acceptance of support from John Hagee, a minister who links the Catholic Church to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and a man who believes New Orleans had it coming to them when Hurricane Katrina inflicted an ineffable amount of carnage and death on that city.

While McCain is a man whose courage I deeply admire, my respect for his moral judgment has fractured. I had thought that if the presidential race comes down to a race between senators McCain and Obama along with Ralph Nader, my country, for the first time in a long time, will have three candidates of real principle to choose from. I do not think so anymore.

Mr. Hagee is the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries based in San Antonio, Texas. When it came to the New Orleans tragedy he said , “I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.”

In his book, Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee wrote this about the Catholic Church: “Adolf Hitler attended a Catholic school as a child and heard all the fiery anti-Semitic rantings from Chrysostom to Martin Luther. When Hitler became a global demonic monster, the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII never, ever slightly criticized him. Pope Pius XII, called by historians ‘Hitler’s Pope,’ joined Hitler in the infamous Concordat of Collaboration, which turned the youth of Germany over to Nazism, and the churches became the stage background for the bloodthirsty cry, ‘Pereat Judea’…. In all of his [Hitler’s] years of absolute brutality, he was never denounced or even scolded by Pope Pius XII or any Catholic leader in the world. To those Christians who believe that Jewish hearts will be warmed by the sight of the cross, please be informed—to them it’s an electric chair.”

On top of all this Hagee is hellbent on attacking Iran. Why did John McCain accept his support? I can think of no answer to this question that does not scare me, and ought to scare every American.