Wright also previously drew criticism when his church magazine honored the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan.
Obama began distancing himself from Wright early last year, when he withdrew an invitation to the minister to deliver a public invocation at the senator's official announcement of his candidacy for president.
David Doak, a Democratic strategist who supports Clinton, said the controversy over Wright could hurt Obama if he is the party's nominee in the fall.
"It's the kind of thing that in the general election the Republicans will really work him over on," Doak said.
The presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, faced a religion-related uproar of his own last month when he was endorsed by San Antonio-based pastor John Hagee.
The conservative Catholic League put out a statement calling on McCain to "retract his embrace" of Hagee, who Catholic League President William Donahue said had "waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church."
Donahue noted that Hagee, a televangelist and founder of Cornerstone Church, had called the Catholic Church "the great whore," "the anti-Christ" and a "false cult system."
McCain initially avoided specifically commenting on Hagee's statements. Two days after the Feb. 27 endorsement, McCain said Hagee's support "does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes."
He stressed he was proud of Hagee's "spiritual leadership to thousands of people" and praised his commitment "to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel."
It was not until a week later -- after Catholic groups, the Democratic National Committee and its chairman, Howard Dean, kept the drumbeat of criticism going -- that McCain explicitly told the Associated Press he rejected and repudiated any anti-Catholic statements, including Hagee's.
The controversy over Wright underscored the racial sensitivities that have emerged in recent days amid a historic race in which the Democratic Party is poised to select either a woman or an African American man as its nominee for the fall presidential race.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro was forced to quit Wednesday as a fundraiser for the Clinton campaign after saying that she believed Obama's political rise likely would not have been possible were it not for his race.
And black ministers have begun talking about disillusioned African Americans disengaging from the general election if Obama is not the Democratic nominee.
The racial divide was clear in Tuesday's Mississippi Democratic primary, which Obama won handily. Exit polls showed that Obama carried 90% of the black vote and Clinton won 70% of the white vote.
In another issue that has put the Obama campaign on the defensive, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday that the senator said in an interview that indicted Chicago businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko had raised as much as $250,000 for his earlier political campaigns.
That amount is more than previously believed. A Times analysis this month found that Rezko had raised at least $200,000.
Rezko, a longtime Obama friend and political supporter, is on trial on federal corruption charges not related to the candidate. Obama has given funds raised by Rezko to charities.
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scott.martelle@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Maeve Reston contributed to this report.
