Ambassador Frank Shakespeare: Reagan, John Paul II, Gorbachev — and Our Lady of Fatima

May 13, marks 100 years since Our Lady’s first apparition in Fatima, Portugal. As members of the Church worldwide celebrate this anniversary, the event calls to mind a lecture that the Hon. Frank Shakespeare — the onetime president of CBS Television who served as the U.S. ambassador to Portugal, and then the Holy See, during the Reagan Administration — delivered at Thomas Aquinas College on February 24, 2006. As that year’s President’s Day lecturer, Ambassador Shakespeare described the simultaneous, providential rise to power of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Pope St. John Paul II, and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. He highlighted the pivotal roles that these three men played — under the protection of Our Lady of Fatima — in the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s first apparition in Fatima, the College now makes audio of this fascinating lecture available to the public.