Our Lady And Ronald Reagan

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “I want to play this clip from President Reagan that we played yesterday, because many of you did not have access to the app audio.  You might have listened to this in tape delay.  I think yesterday’s second hour of this program is probably one of the finest hours of broadcasting I’ve ever been a part of with Christopher Ferrara there and Michael Hichborn, and this clip from Ronald Reagan, and what I shared with the audience.”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I want to play this clip from President Reagan that we played yesterday, because many of you did not have access to the app audio.  You might have listened to this in tape delay.  I think yesterday’s second hour of this program is probably one of the finest hours of broadcasting I’ve ever been a part of with Christopher Ferrara there and Michael Hichborn, and this clip from Ronald Reagan, and what I shared with the audience.

Chris Ferrara, who is an expert on the subject of Fatima and the Miracle of the Sun and all the apparitions and everything else that goes along with it.  Chris was blown away.  He was still shaking his head when he left yesterday, that he had never heard that Ronald Reagan spoke in Portugal and spoke about the children, Our Lady of Fatima.  He ever called her Mary.  And about John Paull II’s love and devotion for all things Marian.  As Chris said: Mike, this is an excavation.  This is an historical artifact that’s been excavated.  I found it yesterday thanks to Paul Kengor, the historian.

As I look at this today, this has to be a cached number.  There’s no way that this is correct. Yesterday when I told you that the video existed, some of you had to have gone and found it, plus we put it in yesterday’s Pile of Prep, and we tweeted it out.  It had 1,285 views.  Today, as I look at it, it has 1,285 views.  What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here?

[start audio]

President Reagan: I can think of no more fitting place to renew that call of the world than here in Portugal, and I can think of no people better equipped to advance the cause of democratic development and human freedom than the Portuguese. Let Portugal again lead the world, and let the Portuguese again cross small seas and great ones bearing news of science and discovery, the new science of democracy, the discovery of freedom—that it works, that it prospers, and that it endures.

And I hasten to add that freedom can guarantee peace. Let us never forget that aggression and war are rarely the work of a nation’s people, for it is the people who must bear the brunt and endure the worst of war. No, war and aggression in our century have almost always been the work of governments, one of the militarists and ideologues who may control them. And that is why war and aggression have a tiny constituency. Let democracy spread, let the people’s voice be heard, and the warmongers will be made outcasts and pariahs. Let us not be afraid that in our crusade for freedom to proclaim to the world that the cause of democratic government is also the cause of peace.

This pursuit of peace has occupied much of our efforts on . . . [Mike: Did he say crusade? He said crusade. It’s the video that keeps on giving the whole year long.]

[repeating]

. . . that it works, that it prospers, and that it endures.

And I hasten to add that freedom can guarantee peace. Let us never forget that aggression and war are rarely the work of a nation’s people, for it is the people who must bear the brunt and endure the worst of war. No, war and aggression in our century have almost always been the work of governments, one of the militarists and ideologues who may control them. And that is why war and aggression have a tiny constituency. Let democracy spread, let the people’s voice be heard, and the warmongers will be made outcasts and pariahs. [Mike: Did he say warmongers? Is he talking about then-Congressman John McCain? He’s calling out neocons. He’s probably calling out some Ruskies, too.] Let us not be afraid that in our crusade for freedom to proclaim to the world that the cause of democratic government is also the cause of peace . . .

[repeating]

And that is why war and aggression have a tiny constituency. Let democracy spread, let the people’s voice be heard, and the warmongers will be made outcasts and pariahs. Let us not be afraid that in our crusade for freedom to proclaim to the world that the cause of democratic government is also the cause of peace.

This pursuit of peace has occupied much of our efforts on this journey and in our broader diplomatic efforts. Important negotiations are now underway in Geneva, negotiations that can lessen the chance of war by producing verifiable agreements and the first real reduction in nuclear weapons. So, too, the United States is moving forward with technological research that we hope someday will lessen the chance of war by reducing dependence on a strategy based on the threat of nuclear retaliation.

I know you share my hopes that our efforts to reach negotiated solutions will succeed. And I know, too, that you understand working toward this goal means remaining strong in our alliance and in our resolve to protect our nation’s freedom and independence. Our agreement on this point is why we can be hopeful that a century that has seen so much tragedy can also be a century of hope. In the United States and here in Portugal, in Europe and throughout the world, we have rediscovered the preciousness of freedom, its importance to the cause of peace and to restoring to humanity the dignity to which it is entitled.

This belief in human dignity suggests the final truth upon which democracy is based—a belief that human beings are not just another part of the material universe, not just mere bundles of atoms. We believe in another dimension—a spiritual side to man. We find a transcendent source for our claims to human freedom, our suggestion that inalienable rights comes from one greater than ourselves.

No one has done more to remind the world of the truth of human dignity, as well as the truth that peace and justice begins with each of us, than the special man who came to Portugal a few years ago after a terrible attempt on his life. He came here to Fatima, the site of your great religious shrine, to fulfill his special devotion to Mary, to please for forgiveness and compassion among men, to pray for peace and the recognition of human dignity throughout the world.

When I met Pope John Paul II a year ago in Alaska, I thanked him for his life and his apostolate. And I dared to suggest to him the example of men like himself and 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.

This, too, is something the Portuguese can teach the world. For your nation’s greatness, like that of any nation, is found in your people. It can be seen in their daily lives, in their communities and towns, and especially in those simple churches that dot your countryside and speak of a faith that justifies all of humanity’s claims to dignity, to freedom.

I would suggest to you that here is power, here is the final realization of life’s meaning and history’s purpose, and here is the foundation for a revolutionary idea—the idea that human beings have a right to determine their own destiny.

[end audio]

Mike:  You have to go and see this.  A couple of things here that are worthy of attention.  The magnificence, just the clarity with which President Reagan spoke, speaks if you will, is the first thing that ought to remind you – when someone says, [mocking] “That stupid old man was just an old actor.  Whatever, dude.”  Whenever someone says that Reagan was nothing more than a bag full of wind, and that the was just flummoxing and fleecing the people and what have you here, this is totally defied when you hear a speech like this, when you hear him in his own words and he just so eloquently speaks as he just spoke.  It’s just breathtaking.  That’s the first thing.  The second thing, it ought to be obvious that Paul Kengor was right when he was writing two days ago about this, when he was writing about how he had gotten a call from the former ambassador to the Vatican.  The ambassador to the Vatican – Shakespeare was his name.  He had told him: I’m getting old.  I’m 87 years old.  I need to tell you this so that you can spread the word.  If I don’t tell you, then this may pass into history.

What he told the historian, Paul Kengor, was that he was with President Reagan.  When you hear this particular speech from Ronald Reagan, just remember that he is speaking at a time when there’s a lot of tension between the Russians and Americans.  You’ve got to remember at this point in time there’s a likely chance, I think almost certain, that it was Mikhail Gorbachev who was the premier of Soviet Union.  They were going through all this glasnost stuff and other garbage that ultimately would succumb to the Russian people’s desire to escape having to live under communism anymore.  That’s exactly what they did.  That’s why when they had all those secessions in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Does anyone ever give Mary credit for this?  This is another angle that Ferrara and Hichborn and Brother Andre and I did not pursue yesterday.  I have often said that when they say – you’ll get it like this.  This is how you’ll get it.  You just heard the president say that Pope John Paul II went to Fatima and had honored and prayed to Our Lady of Fatima.  What was he praying for?  An end to communism.  [mocking] “No, Mitter Church, you can’t say that.  It was America.  USA!  USA!  It was America that brought down the Soviet Union.”  Was it?  That’s mighty braggadocious of you, don’t you think?  That’s mighty presumptuous of you, don’t you think?  How do you know it was America.  [mocking] “Because the history books told me so.  Bill Kristol and everybody on Fox News told me so.”  What if they’re wrong?

There is every bit of a possibility, nay, likelihood that Our Lady of Fatima had as much to do with the fall of the Soviet Union as America did.  We’re so self-important.  We love to pat ourselves on the back, love to tell ourselves how star-spangled awesome we are and we brought all this about.  I’m not saying we didn’t have a role in it, because we obviously did.  The visions at Fatima were all about the errors of what?  Hello?  Russia.  The errors of Russia.  They weren’t about the errors of Portugal; they were about the errors of Russia being spread throughout the world.  That ought to say right there . . .

End Mike Church Show Transcript