A Pope and a President Read online

  The bond between Reagan and John Paul II began forming well before they met. In June 1979, candidate Reagan was moved to tears as he watched news footage of the pontiff’s first trip to his homeland.19 The excited Polish crowds thronging the pope spoke not simply to pride in a native son but also to the enduring religious faith and yearning for freedom behind the Soviets’ Iron Curtain. Reagan resolved that as president he would reach out to the pope and the Vatican and “make them an ally.”20

  Nothing intensified the bond as much as the assassination attempts, which occurred only six weeks apart in the spring of 1981. Each man was shocked upon receiving news that the other had been shot. Reagan, still recovering from his own wounds, was so stricken by the news of the attempt on the pope’s life that every day for weeks he would ask his national security adviser, Richard V. Allen, for updates on John Paul II’s health. The president had a message delivered directly to the pontiff, saying that he “happily” joined him in their “dubious distinction” of surviving assassins’ bullets.

  The Soviets had worried about an anticommunist, anti-Moscow kinship between the president and the pope. Now, in the space of just weeks, these two men suffered assassination attempts and strikingly similar near-death experiences. The experiences—a unique shared suffering and sacrifice—brought them much closer together.

  That connection became apparent when Reagan and John Paul II met for the first time, in June 1982. There, in the Vatican, the president and pope confided their conviction that God had spared their lives a year earlier for the divine purpose of defeating the communist empire.

  This book will explore that June 1982 meeting and many other aspects of the partnership between Reagan and John Paul II. It is important to understand the character of their relationship. This book does not suggest that the two men were painstakingly coordinating, day in and day out, their tactical efforts to take down an atheistic empire. But their partnership must not be underestimated, either. As this book will show, the two leaders had common goals, visions, and motivations, and they eagerly worked together where and when they could, with much mutual support and respect. The extent of their communications, including telegrams, phone calls, and private meetings, will surprise some readers.

  Just as important, the former Hollywood actor and the Polish priest shared rather remarkable similarities. This book will examine another surprising but crucial element of the story: the deep spiritual bond between the Protestant president and the Catholic pope. Inspired by that bond, they worked together toward a grand objective, one that would benefit people of all stripes, religious or not, from East to West: to take down communism.

  Reagan’s single most trusted aide throughout his political career was William P. Clark, who succeeded Dick Allen as national security adviser in 1982. Clark was Reagan’s closest adviser on fighting the Cold War. A devout Catholic, he often discussed spiritual matters with Reagan. The two of them privately spoke of the “DP”: the “Divine Plan” to defeat communism.

  Reagan and John Paul II saw God’s hand not only in their own roles but also in that of Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the Soviet general secretary in 1985. The final Soviet leader consistently perplexed and attracted Reagan and the pope. Gorbachev’s political and spiritual journey remains a complicated subject, with details that have eluded public knowledge. It contains more than a few faith-based elements, beginning with Gorbachev’s secret baptism in the Stalin era by his Orthodox mother and grandmothers. Reagan and John Paul II hoped and prayed that the new Soviet leader was a “closet Christian” rescuing an officially atheistic state. A Protestant, a Catholic, and perhaps a man of the Orthodox Church—all part of the DP.

  Perhaps the most surprising part of this story relates to Reagan’s fascination with the “secrets of Fátima,” which date to the reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, starting on May 13, 1917—sixty-four years to the day before the attempt on John Paul II’s life.

  It is hardly news that the pope connected the shooting and many of communism’s crimes to the events of 1917. What is new is that the Protestant Reagan, who had a fondness and appreciation for the Virgin Mary, developed an intense interest in Mary’s appearance at Fátima and the suggested connections to the Soviet Union, the Cold War, and the shooting of the pope. Reagan discussed the matter with close aides and perhaps even with the pope himself, who was devoted to the Blessed Virgin.

  And so this story begins not in 1981 but on May 13, 1917.

  Part 1

  WARNINGS AND BEGINNINGS

  1

  MAY 13, 1917

  AN ECHO

  The sounds of the bullets that pierced the afternoon air of Saint Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981, were an echo of a message that began resounding sixty-four years earlier, on May 13, 1917. The message was said to have come from Mary, the mother of Christ.

  Before we go any further, an explanation is in order. This book is a work of historical investigation, not a religious apologetic. Given that, it may seem odd to examine the role of the Virgin Mary in crucial events of the twentieth century. To some readers it will be off-putting. But I ask you to stick with me, even if you do not believe in the supernatural or are a religious person skeptical of Catholic claims of Marian apparitions. The fact is that many of the figures in this book believed devoutly in what I am about to share. They believed that these forces underlay important political and historical developments. John Paul II, in particular, connected the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Fátima to his attempted assassination and to the crimes of communism. Non-Catholics like Ronald Reagan lent their ear to this account.

  And so the Virgin Mary features prominently in this book for the simple reason that key players saw her as being significant to how the long story of communism played out. This book does not seek to convince you of the Marian connection. The point is that you must understand the role the “secrets of Fátima” played in the thought of John Paul II and Ronald Reagan to gain a full understanding of how the special relationship between the pope and the president changed world history.

  I am reporting nothing new when I say that John Paul paid special heed to Our Lady of Fátima. He consecrated himself and his papacy to the Virgin Mary, because doing so brought him closer to her divine Son and His will. “Her mediation,” John Paul wrote in his classic encyclical on Mary, Redemptoris Mater, comes “in the nature of intercession.” The pope argued that the Church had “great trust” in Mary, just as God himself, the Eternal Father, had trusted the Virgin of Nazareth, giving her his only begotten Son. That is why Karol Wojtyła entrusted himself to the Virgin Mary, the “God-bearer,” for her “special and exceptional mediation.”1 The sainted pontiff’s papal motto was “Totus Tuus,” which is Latin for “Totally Yours,” meaning totally Mary’s, and totally Jesus’s via Mary. In a 2003 Angelus address, the pope affirmed his commitment to “entrusting everything” to Mary. He stated unhesitatingly that the Blessed Virgin “directs our daily journey on earth” and makes comprehensible “certain events” in “human history.” Her hand helped him comprehend events from 1917 to 1981, from his first to his final days on earth.2

  But if this Marian dedication to Jesus is something we have long known about John Paul II, we have not known the interest Ronald Reagan had in the Virgin Mary. In 2004 I published a bestselling book on the faith of Ronald Reagan without knowing the intriguing Marian element to his thinking. I learned it only later.

  The story begins a century ago, in 1917.

  THE THREE SECRETS OF FÁTIMA

  Between May 13 and October 13, 1917, three children in a tiny Portuguese village called Fátima claimed to have had six encounters with the Virgin Mary—with the actual spiritual-physical presence of the Mother of Christ. Through the centuries innumerable faithful have claimed encounters with Mary, but it is rare for the Roman Catholic Church even to investigate such claims, and far rarer still for the Church to certify them. The Church approaches claims of apparitions with a prudential skepticism that wo
uld surprise a Richard Dawkins or the late Christopher Hitchens. Of nearly four hundred serious claims of Marian apparitions in the twentieth century, in less than a dozen instances the Church gingerly concluded that some supernatural character was apparent.3 Non-Catholics cannot conceive of the frustration many Catholics feel over the Church’s delay or rejection of this or that perceived appearance that a large number of Catholics are convinced is genuine.4

  Fátima is one of the few approved apparitions, having survived the highest level of rigor. The three children who claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared to them faced a barrage of interrogations, often cruel, and sometimes by outright hostile clergy. Thousands of eyewitnesses offered testimony in support of the claims. No less an authority than Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as Vatican secretary of state was the second highest-ranking official, behind only the pope, said that “what happened at Fátima has been studied, microscopically scrutinized, and thoroughly analyzed.”5

  That is why John Paul II and so many others accorded these events the utmost seriousness.

  The three children, Lúcia dos Santos and her younger cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, said that Mary first appeared to them on May 13, 1917, a Sunday. At the time, May 13 was the Catholic Church’s liturgical celebration of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament—that is, Mother of the ongoing Real Presence of Jesus in the world. Only eight days earlier, on May 5, Pope Benedict XV had made a direct appeal to Mary to intercede in ending the Great War, which would claim some seventeen million lives.

  The three children had gone to Mass before taking their flock of sheep to a spot outside the village called the Cova da Iria, which means “Cove of Irene” or “Cove of Peace.” They ate their lunches and played. It was a beautiful afternoon, but then they saw a flash of lightning. Turning to head home to escape what they thought was an impending storm, they saw another flash. This time they were shaken by the sudden manifestation of a lady in white, whom Lúcia later described as “more brilliant than the sun,” radiating a “clear and intense” light. The most radiant light of all emanated from a crucifix on a rosary the Lady held, a rosary with beads glimmering like stars. Lúcia later estimated the young woman’s age to be about seventeen.6

  Sensing the trepidation among the children, the Lady repeated the words that a startled earthly Mary had received from the Angel Gabriel. “Do not be afraid,” she told them.

  Lúcia, at age ten the oldest of the three children, was the only one who communicated with the Lady. “Where are you from?” Lúcia asked. The woman answered, “I am from heaven.” The girl then asked what she wanted; the Lady replied that she wanted the children to come to the same spot on the thirteenth day of each month for six consecutive months. “Later,” she vowed, “I will tell you who I am and what I want.”7

  On that May 13, Mary asked the children whether they were willing to endure the trials that lay ahead, the divine plan that God had in store. Were they willing to suffer as sacrifice and in reparation for the sins of the world that were offending Him? If so, would they provide supplication in a way that would convert sinners? The children gave their assent.

  During each of the next five months, typically on the thirteenth day, the Lady returned. On June 13 she told the children something they must have struggled to assimilate: she said that Jesus Christ wanted the world to make special devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which had pumped blood into His earthly body as it formed in the womb. On July 13 the Blessed Lady gave the children a vision of hell. As she did, the children were allegedly infused with a protective grace that enabled them to observe the vision without being so terrified as to perish at the sight.

  More than that, the Lady provided predictions. According to Lúcia, the Blessed Mother delivered three dramatic prophecies:

  First, the Lady of Fátima predicted that the earthly hell of the Great War would soon end but would be followed by an even deadlier war.

  Second, she warned about the coming eruption of atheistic communism: “Russia will spread its errors throughout the world,” said the Lady, “raising up wars and persecutions of the Church” in the century ahead. Russia would be an “instrument of chastisement.” She reportedly shared this prophecy on July 13, only three months before the Bolsheviks shocked the world by taking power in Russia. Over the next several decades, Lenin and his disciples fulfilled the warning of “wars and persecutions” and “chastisement.”

  Thus, this book will explore not only the extraordinary events that Ronald Reagan and John Paul II faced but also the crimes and errors that the communists committed throughout the twentieth century. Communism made victims of priests, cardinals, bishops, reverends, nuns, rabbis, Buddhist monks, and Muslim imams, and also of leaders like John F. Kennedy, Pope Pius XII, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Lech Wałęsa, and Pope John Paul II. It is crucial to understand this history of communist “persecutions” and “errors” to grasp why both Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan saw communism as the great evil of the twentieth century and came together to confront it.

  What was the third secret of Fátima? As we shall see, the Vatican sealed that secret in a vault, where it stayed for the remainder of the long century. Some feared it predicted a third world war, or Armageddon. It turns out that it envisioned another communist crime: the assassination, or at least an attempted assassination, of a man robed and hatted in white—that is, a pope.8

  The Lady also told Lúcia that her two cousins would be leaving this world “soon,” whereas Lúcia was to “stay here some time longer.” Both Jacinta and Francisco died within three years, victims of the influenza epidemic that followed the war. Lúcia did live longer—to the age of ninety-seven, in fact, long enough to see the three predictions come true. As an adult—by which point she was Sister Lúcia, a Carmelite nun—she would record the three secrets in writing.

  THE MIRACLE OF THE CENTURY

  The last of the Virgin Mary’s six alleged apparitions in Fátima occurred just a week and a half before the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution.9

  What materialized on October 13, 1917, became the most significant Church-approved miracle of the century. Some enthusiasts among the Catholic brethren contend that it was the greatest supernatural feat since the Resurrection.

  A miracle, by its nature, is hard to believe; it’s a miracle, after all. But it is imperative to recall the rigorous, skeptical approach that the Roman Catholic Church takes to investigating reports of Marian apparitions. And after having “microscopically scrutinized and thoroughly analyzed” the Fátima case (in Cardinal Bertone’s words), the Church concluded that something miraculous transpired in that tiny Portuguese village.

  On October 13 a crowd of some seventy thousand, pilgrims and skeptics alike, descended on Fátima. Lúcia, Jacinta, and Francisco had told people to expect a miracle, and word had gotten around. Some four thousand people had been present for the July 13 visitation and twenty-five thousand for the September 13 appearance, though only the children could see and communicate with the Lady. Now there were so many more because the Lady had promised a miracle for all to see in October.

  It had rained all morning. Throughout the dreary day, the throng was getting antsy, angry. Where was this miracle? Surely this was a hoax. How could these mere children mislead so many?

  Then something suddenly changed. The children became locked in, fixated, staring upward. Something was there, communicating to them. Fulfilling her July 13 promise to Lúcia that she would eventually reveal her true identity, the mystical woman told the children, “I am the Lady of the Rosary.” Reiterating what she had said earlier, she told them that the current war would end soon, with fathers returning from the frontlines. She urged reparation and penance.

  Then came what everyone was waiting for. As Lúcia later described it, the Lady of the Rosary opened her hands and “made them reflect on the sun, and as she ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.” Lúcia cried out to the gathered to look at the sun.


  Two unbelievable things happened. The three children watched the Lady vanish “into the immense distance of the firmament” (as Lúcia later explained it), only to behold in the sky Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus aside the Lady robed in white with a blue mantle. It was the Holy Family. The Christ child and His earthly father traced the Sign of the Cross with their elevated hands as if to bless the world.10

  This was surreal enough, but as the three children were mesmerized, the stunned thousands were felled by another spectacle altogether: they saw the sun do incredible things, beyond scientific explanation.

  THE WITNESSES

  If the children had been the only witnesses, no one would remember the scene today. But what happened next was backed by the testimonies of those who were there.

  Here are merely a few eyewitness accounts among the many collected and published. One witness was Dr. José Maria de Almeida Garrett, a professor in the Faculty of Sciences at the prestigious University of Coimbra, the oldest institution of higher education in Portugal. Dr. Garrett had gone to Fátima a skeptic, but what he witnessed changed his outlook. He recounted:

  It must have been 1:30 P.M.… The sky, which had been overcast all day, suddenly cleared; the rain stopped and it looked as if the sun were about to fill with light the countryside that the wintery morning had made so gloomy.… The sun, a few moments before, had broken through the thick layer of clouds which hid it and now shone clearly and intensely.

  Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude spread out in that vast space at my feet … turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations had been focused, and look at the sun on the other side.