Ronald Reagan
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
13 Jun 2004
Ronald Reagan was buried last Friday, the fortieth president of the United States (1980-1989). He was a great leader who, as Margaret Thatcher explained, “won the Cold War for liberty without firing a shot”. The oppressive Communist empire in Eastern Europe and Russia has gone.
Reagan was no intellectual, not interested in administrative detail. Insulted and derided by most of the experts, he had a few central convictions, courage, and an extraordinary capacity for reaching ordinary people. He possessed genuine decency and persistent good humour. On great occasions he could reach an eloquence unmatched by anyone since Churchill, even J.F. Kennedy.
Twenty years ago I complained to an older wise archbishop about Reagan, citing as evidence that he stopped work at 5.00pm on most days. The archbishop replied that it was this practice which he found most reassuring! I can understand better now what he was saying. Let me explain.
Once on a flight to Perth my neighbour insisted on talking. He was an interesting man who claimed that in life and in business what is important is to identify the few key issues and get the answers to them correct. This done, he claimed, all the secondary issues will fall into place.
Reagan was a good example of this theory in practice. He set his priorities and pursued them.
Many year six students today know about Hitler, even when they are unsure whether he started the First or Second World War. Few know anything about Stalin, unless their parents are East European. Communist oppression, its military expansion and persecution of religion, its network of slave labour camps are no longer on the horizon for many people. Experts who were silent about its abuses now suggest that its disappearance was inevitable. But almost no one predicted its collapse; except Ronald Reagan.
Some debate today who was the most important figure in this Communist defeat, Reagan or Pope John Paul II or Margaret Thatcher; or even Gorbachev with his ineptitude and decency or Lech Walesa, the Polish trade union leader. Probably Reagan should have pride of position, but none of this group could have done it alone.
What was rare and exceptional was that the U.S.A., Britain and the Catholic Church had leaders with the convictions and courage to attempt to knock down the Evil Empire, when they were surrounded by experts and fellow leaders who believed any such attempt was unwise and bound to fail. Such an unusual alliance was not coincidental, but Providential.
In 1987 Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin before the Berlin Wall imprisoning East Germans. In a dramatic challenge he urged “Come to this gate, Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”. The wall is down and I have a piece of it on my book shelf.
I watched Reagan’s funeral on T.V. as I watched Churchill’s. All of us owe them a lot.
