By Glen Johnson
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, Feb. 27, 2000; 1:57 p.m. EST

AUSTIN, Texas –– In a letter to the leader of New York's Catholics, Gov. George W. Bush says his campaign appearance at a South Carolina school with anti-Catholic views was a "missed opportunity causing needless offense, which I deeply regret."

Bush has come under steady criticism for his Feb. 2 visit to Bob Jones University, a Christian school whose founder has criticized the Pope and labeled the Catholic church a "Satanic cult."

Bush's opponents have assailed him for not using the appearance to speak out against the policies of the school, which also bans interracial dating. Bush spoke about his conservatism.

In a letter to Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, leader of the archdiocese's 2.4 million Roman Catholics, Bush states his "profound respect" for the Catholic Church and says criticism of him is unfair and unfounded.

"On reflection, I should have been more clear in disassociating myself from anti-Catholic sentiments and racial prejudice," he said in the letter, mailed Friday and released Sunday by his campaign. "It was a missed opportunity causing needless offense, which I deeply regret."

The letter marked an abrupt reversal for Bush, who only last week said: "I don't make any apologies for what I do in the campaign."

Bush faced questions about the speech almost as soon as he finished speaking. In response, he has said he opposes the school's policy on interracial dating and the comments of its leaders, but that he did not regret the decision to speak at the school. He also has noted that a brother and sister-in-law are Catholic.

"Let me make it crystal clear: I reject bigotry, I reject prejudice, I repudiate anti-Catholicism and racism," Bush said last week. "And I reject the politics of those why try to pit one group of Americans against another, of those who try to divide us based upon our race or based upon our faith."

The appearance also was the subject of telephone calls that Republican presidential rival Sen. John McCain acknowledged his campaign had placed to Michigan voters. But McCain stood by past assertions that the calls did not say Bush was a bigot.

In a television interview Sunday, McCain acknowledged approving the calls before they were made in advance of the Republican primary in Michigan last Tuesday.

His staff originally denied they were being made, which McCain said was because the questions they were asked mischaracterized the calls as labeling Bush a bigot.

He said the calls "said exactly what is fact, and that is he went to this university."

The calls were acknowledged just before the polls closed.

"There was no charge in that transcript of those phone calls that said he was anti-Catholic or anything else," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, defended the Texas governor, noting that Bush has spoken out against bigotry at the school while admitting he could have done more.

"This has been turned into a rather ugly episode in American politics. President Ronald Reagan went there, the governor of the state of South Carolina, a Democrat, went there, Jack Kemp went there, Dan Quayle went there, and none of them were criticized for supposedly harboring anti-Catholic views simply because they went there," Rove said on Fox News Sunday.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press Writer Alice Love contributed to this report.