“The Clintons remained seated, yet both—particularly the ever-politic Hillary—understood how behind-the-scenes power politics work within the Christian Right, and responded to the rebuke by finding “common ground” with the nun.“

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Hillary Clinton fondly remembered how Mother Teresa—or perhaps God—compelled her to encourage adoption. The behind-the-scenes story of how The Family brokered a truce between the pro-choice Clinton and anti-choice nun, by moving Clinton rightward on reproductive rights.

Hillary Clinton, Mother Teresa, and the DC house, since sold, that was intended for an orphanage

On February 4, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the surprise keynote speaker for the 58th annual National Prayer Breakfast. The Breakfast is the one public event organized by the secretive Washington network, the Family, a group of elite fundamentalists who minister to DC’s powerful and wealthy who are seen as the divinely “elect,” chosen for leadership by God. With the Family in the news this past year due to the string of sex scandals at its “C Street” house for members of Congress—and later for the role it seems to have played in shaping the draconian anti-gay law introduced in Uganda last year—the speech by Clinton, sandwiched between Family head Doug Coe’s introduction and the traditional presidential address by Barack Obama, was an interesting coda to her strange status as a longtime “friend” of the Family.

Although much of the media coverage focused on Clinton’s and then President Obama’s condemnations of the anti-gay bill (leading religion scholar Mark Silk to suggest that Clinton’s role was damage control as the Family struggles to make the Uganda bill “go away”) Clinton’s speech also underscored the Family’s influence in pushing her stance on reproductive freedom rightward.

In her address, Clinton sentimentally recalled meeting Mother Teresa at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast.

For more, read here.