"Three members of the senior leadership of the campaign are Catholic, including our national chairman. Gov. Huckabee is committed to being a leader of all Americans," said Charmaine Yoest, one of his senior advisers.
CATHOLIC ANGER
But some Catholics were angry about the visit.
"Hagee has a history of denigrating the Catholic religion," said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, the largest Catholic civil rights group in the United States.
In his recent book "Jerusalem Countdown," Hagee wrote: "Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews."
In the same book, Hagee did applaud the late Pope John Paul II's efforts to reach out to Jews.
But Catholic bloggers on the Internet were mostly critical about Huckabee's visit. The Catholic News Agency ran the headline: "Mike Huckabee to speak at strongly anti-Catholic preacher's church."
One Catholic blogger said while Huckabee was an eloquent spokesman for the "culture of life" - code for the anti-abortion cause - his visit to "a church pastored by a raving anti-Catholic bigot" was deeply troubling.
At Cornerstone, Huckabee's appearance went down well with the crowd of several thousand worshipers, who frequently interrupted his remarks with loud applause.
"I think he is a good and godly man," said Suzanne Ramirez. But asked whether she planned to vote for Huckabee in the Texas primary in March, Ramirez said she had not made up her mind.
Huckabee said earlier on Sunday on the CBS show "Face the Nation" that he was running to be president of the entire United States, not just the Christian community.
"That's how I served as governor," he said. "People look at my record and they didn't see that I put a tent out on the capital grounds and had healing services and I didn't replace the dome with a steeple."
