The President and the Pope

They may have seemed, at first blush, an unlikely pair: the American B-movie actor turned conservative politician, and the mystical, philosophical, poetically inclined Polish priest turned Pope. Yet historical coincidences that both would describe as providential led them to become the chief figures in the collapse of European Communism. Moreover, the dynamics of the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II teach us something important about how history actually works.

Journalistic fantasists like Carl Bernstein notwithstanding, there was no “holy alliance,” no conspiracy between President Reagan and Pope John Paul to bring down the Soviet empire. For the hard, chronological fact of the matter is that John Paul II did his maximum damage to the Communist enterprise during his epic first pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979, 19 months before Reagan became president. But if there was neither alliance nor conspiracy, there was a common purpose born of a set of shared convictions. And the convictions were decisive for their way of governance, as both men displayed a calm but settled determination to trust their own instincts rather than the conventional wisdom of those in Washington and the Vatican who imagined themselves more realistic about world affairs.

About the Author

George Weigel

George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center.

They may have seemed, at first blush, an unlikely pair: the American B-movie actor turned conservative politician, and the mystical, philosophical, poetically inclined Polish priest turned Pope. Yet historical coincidences that both would describe as providential led them to become the chief figures in the collapse of European Communism. Moreover, the dynamics of the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II teach us something important about how history actually works.

Journalistic fantasists like Carl Bernstein notwithstanding, there was no “holy alliance,” no conspiracy between President Reagan and Pope John Paul to bring down the Soviet empire. For the hard, chronological fact of the matter is that John Paul II did his maximum damage to the Communist enterprise during his epic first pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979, 19 months before Reagan became president. But if there was neither alliance nor conspiracy, there was a common purpose born of a set of shared convictions. And the convictions were decisive for their way of governance, as both men displayed a calm but settled determination to trust their own instincts rather than the conventional wisdom of those in Washington and the Vatican who imagined themselves more realistic about world affairs.