June 13, 2004

Our Pope has called President Reagan “a noble soul.” Addressing the parliament of Portugal, Reagan became the first president to mention Our Lady of Fatima. He recalled how the Pope went to Fatima after the attempt on his life, “to fulfill his special devotion to Mary.” He added, “...in the prayers of simple people everywhere, simple people like the children of Fatima, there resides more power than in all the great armies and statesmen of the world.” When Communist members of the parliament stormed out, the President drew laughter: “I notice that those on the Left have found their seats uncomfortable.”

Many of our cultural elite were uncomfortable when on March 8, 1983 he called the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire.” Anthony Lewis of the New York Times said the speech was “primitive...simplistic theology” and Henry Steele Commager of Columbia University called it “the worst speech ever given by an American president.” But when news of the speech reached Natan Sharansky, confined to an eight-by-ten foot cell on the Siberian border, the reaction was different: “Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan’s ‘provocation’ quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth — a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.”

I catechized and received into the Church a friend, Peter Robinson, who went on as presidential speechwriter in 1987 to pen the line “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Various advisors demanded it be removed, but President Reagan shouted it in Berlin, and soon the wall came down.

In the 1970’s, when I did not know who he was, the man walked across a meeting room in a Philadelphia hotel where I was to speak, “Hello Father, my name is Ronald Reagan.” Soon, everyone knew who he was, but some patronized him as just a “great communicator.” He said, “I am not a great communicator but I communicate great things.” Mother Teresa visited him in June after he was shot and told him: “You have suffered the passion of the cross and have received grace. There is a purpose to this…This has happened to you at this time because your country and the world needs you.”

On January 14, 1988 he signed a document: “Now therefore I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare the unalienable personhood of every American, from the moment of conception until natural death, and I do proclaim, ordain, and declare that I will take care that the Constitution and laws of the United States are faithfully executed for the protection of America’s unborn children.”

Only those who support that are fit for public office.

Fr. George W. Rutler