Billy Graham admired the moral leadership and evangelistic passion he saw in Catholics like John Paul II.
Opening his Southern crusades to blacks and cooperating with Roman Catholics, both measures vigorously criticized by many of his supporters, required courage of the kind conventionally lauded as liberal or progressive. It is true that challenging racial segregation and anti-Catholic prejudice were both deemed progressive stances, but I am rather sure that carried little weight with Billy Graham. His singular passion was to preach the saving gospel of Jesus Christ to absolutely everyone.
Many Catholic leaders warmly welcomed his ministry; others were more ambivalent. In New York, the late John Cardinal O'Connor embraced him and urged archdiocese priests to encourage people to come out to hear him. Innumerable Catholics were doubtlessly renewed and strengthened in faith as a consequence of Graham's ministry.
He met with popes from John XXIII to John Paul II, and his friendship with the latter seemed especially warm and deep. After an extraordinary personal meeting of two hours in 1989, Graham reported, "There was a pause in the conversation; suddenly the pope's arm shot out and he grabbed the lapels of my coat, he pulled me forward within inches of his own face. He fixed his eyes on me and said, 'Listen Graham, we are brothers.'"
Already in 1966, only a year after the Second Vatican Council, Graham said, "I find myself closer to Catholics than the radical Protestants. I think the Roman Catholic Church today is going through a second Reformation." On The Phil Donahue Show in 1979, he said, "I think the American people are looking for a leader, a moral and spiritual leader that believes something. And the pope does. … Thank God, I've got somebody to quote now with some real …
Source: Christianity Today Most Read