Story highlights The leaders express "outrage at the demeaning and troubling rhetoric" used by some Clinton staffers

They call for Clinton's campaign to immediately apologize

Washington (CNN) Catholic and evangelical groups slammed Hillary Clinton's campaign in a statement Thursday over comments revealed in the WikiLeaks emails hack between two high-level campaign officials.

Dozens of religious leaders who signed the statement expressed their "outrage at the demeaning and troubling rhetoric used by those within Secretary Clinton's campaign."

The statement is referring to a 2011 email between campaign chairman John Podesta, whose email was hacked, and communications director Jennifer Palmieri and John Halpin, a senior fellow at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.

In the email, Halpin wrote that 21st Century Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp Chairman Robert Thomson, who are both Catholic, are attracted to the faith because of "systemic thought and severely backward gender relations."

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