We saw the new motion picture “Reagan” last week. It brought me back to the time of my own political coming of age in the 1970s. The first presidential election in which I participated was in 1976. The United States was reeling from the disruption of both a presidential and vice-presidential resignation. The country was in the hands of two appointed men in the executive branch of our nation. In 1972, by an overwhelming majority, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were reelected. Two years later, Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller held the offices of president and vice-president. The political and social turmoil of the time was redefining the United States. We had just come off an eight-year war against the communists in Vietnam and the loss of 58,000 American lives. The Korean War, which was fading from memory by then, also saw the loss of approximately the same number of casualties. Perhaps the Cold War was not as cold as we thought. Our national resolve to be the stabilizing force for the world was in question.
The Catholic Church had condemned communism since the days of the Bolshevik Revolution. Pope Pius XII approved The Decree Against Communism issued in 1949 by the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, which declared “Catholics who professed Communist doctrine to be excommunicated as apostates from the Christian faith.” Many mistook the position of the Church as a condemnation of the economic hardships being endured in the countries that fell behind the Iron Curtain. These difficulties were a byproduct of a system that turned from God and looked to operate a secular society in which religion was outlawed. The Church understood that the real danger in this ideology was its militant atheism.
Our Lady predicted the abuses and persecutions that were taking place in countries which fell under the control of the Soviet Union. These were the inevitable result of not defining persons through a spiritual lens, as made in God’s image. She presented a plan from heaven: live in accord with the gospels and make reparation for sin. In 1947, our co-founder Msgr. Harold Colgan called for a Blue Army of prayer to counter the Red Army of atheistic communism. The weapon for this army was to be adherence to the Fatima message, and this has been our mission for 77 years.
The Pope, the Premier, and the President
The debate about the dangers of communism came to light again in the 1980s. St. Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher stood as leaders who understood that this enemy needed to be defeated, not just to eliminate an adversary, but to free their citizens from the yolk of atheistic rule.
On March 25, 1984, the Holy Father made the consecration requested 55 years earlier by Our Lady. By the Spring of 1985, after several explosions that began to dismantle the Soviet nuclear program, Gorbachev and others in his inner circle began to see the reality that they were being defeated by their own system. Lacking freedom and human dignity, the people under it would not accept this totalitarianism much longer. And so, he began a series of reforms that led to a total ban of communism by 1991.
In his farewell speech, Gorbechev stated:
“This country was suffocating in the shackles of the bureaucratic command system. …Doomed to cater to ideology, and suffer and carry the onerous burden of the arms race, it found itself at the breaking point. … This society has acquired freedom. It has been freed politically and spiritually, and this is the most important achievement that we have yet fully come to grips with. And we haven’t, because we haven’t learned to use freedom yet.”
Even those who question the validity of the 1984 consecration cannot deny the history of the following years when the Berlin wall finally came down and the Soviet Union dissolved.
In 2007 and 2008, I traveled to the former Soviet Union to participate in conferences in Moscow and in the dedication of the only Catholic church in Kazan. The sterile communist-era buildings still stood as a backdrop to the magnificent architecture of St. Basil’s Basilica and the Kremlin, which illustrated the dichotomy between a culture built on Christian principles and one built on utilitarian functionality.
Godless systems come and go. Empires rise and fall. Rulers live and die. Let us put our hope in the Lord. Psalm 146 tells us:
“Put no trust in princes, in mere mortals powerless to save. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth; that day all their planning comes to nothing.” (vs 3-4)
And in Proverbs 8:15-16, speaking of Jesus as the Divine Wisdom of God: “By me kings reign, and lawgivers establish justice; By me princes govern, and nobles; all the rulers of the earth.” It underlines His great dignity and freedom before Pilate: “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above.” (Jn 19:11)
May we all stay strong and persevere with Our Lady – taking up our rosaries as the spiritual weapon. God will trample every evil!
God bless you and Mary keep you in her Immaculate Heart.
David M. Carollo is the Executive Director of the World Apostolate of Fatima USA/National Blue Army Shrine. He wrote this for his Voice of Fatima column.
If you would like to comment on this post, please contact him at [email protected].
