c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Religious leaders joined with other officials in mourning the death of former President Ronald Reagan, who succumbed to complications of Alzheimer’s disease Saturday (June 5) at his Los Angeles home. He was 93.

Many spoke of his faith, with evangelist Billy Graham saying it was deeper than most were aware.

“The president was a man of tremendous integrity, based on his religious belief,” Graham said in a statement. “I visited him and Nancy on numerous occasions in recent years and always had prayer with them.”

As the week of remembrances began with the placing of Reagan’s flag-draped casket at his presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., leaders from across the country who knew him personally and admired him from afar paused to recount memories and voice appreciation.

Graham, who expressed disappointment that he could not be with the Reagan family due to his hospitalization for a pelvic fracture, recalled how former first lady Nancy Reagan reacted to their times with the evangelist.

“Though her husband was unable to communicate at times, Nancy would say, `When you prayed, I think he knew you were here,”’ Graham said in a statement.

Pope John Paul II, who met with Reagan four times, intends to send a Vatican representative to the funeral, scheduled for Friday (June 11) at Washington National Cathedral.

“The pope recalled the contribution of President Reagan in past years in Washington to historic events that influenced the lives of millions of people in Europe and also his contribution to the life of the American people,” papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Sunday.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, who last saw Reagan in 1993 at a 90th birthday party for comedian Bob Hope, will read from the Gospels at Friday’s service.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental relations of the National Association of Evangelicals, recalled how, as the association’s legislative researcher, he suggested that Reagan be invited to address the group’s 1983 convention in Orlando, Fla.

Reagan accepted the invitation and it was there that he gave his famous “evil empire” speech about the Soviet Union.

“Obviously, not everybody agreed then or now about Ronald Reagan’s agenda, but there’s no disputing that the `evil empire’ speech he gave to the evangelical leaders in 1983 helped inspire a chain reaction for liberty that ended the Soviet Union,” Cizik said in an interview.

Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham admired Reagan from a distance and said he was impressed by a much earlier high school graduation speech he recently read about in “Hand of Providence: The Strong and Quiet Faith of Ronald Reagan,” one of two recent books published on Reagan and spirituality.

Reagan, raised in the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Dixon, Ill., cited Jesus’ words from the Gospel of John in the graduation address: “I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.”

The Southern Baptist leader told Religion News Service, “Ronald Reagan lived an abundant life, and I believe now he is experiencing an abundant entrance into God’s kingdom.”

Mike Hooper, executive director of Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, described the Reagans as “faithful attenders” and said the president was part of the congregation from 1974 until shortly after the Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 1994.

“He’s going to be sorely missed,” said Hooper of the Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation.

Other religious leaders issued statements recalling the man who was president from 1981 to 1989.

“Ronald Reagan will be remembered across the world not only as the president of the United States who helped hasten the end of the Cold War, but also as a man of uncommon decency and dignity,” said President Gordon B. Hinckley and other top officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, who founded the powerful Christian Coalition after Reagan left office, recalled Reagan’s faith as well as his influence on the nation’s fiscal affairs.

“I think the fact that the Cold War is over was primarily the doing of Ronald Reagan,” Robertson said in a statement. “The tremendous financial blessing that this nation enjoyed for many years was put into place by his tax and fiscal policies back in the early 1980s.”

Don Hodel, president of Focus on the Family and the former interior and energy secretary under Reagan, said in a statement, “It was apparent to those around him that the president had an abiding faith in God which gave him calm and confidence through all the demands of his presidency and the attacks of his critics.”

One of those critics was the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, who served as a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1987.

“He always had a sense of hope, he always had a sense of humor, but he had no sense that there were poor people, or that he cared about the poorest of the poor,” said Edgar, who was once labeled “the most dangerous man in America” by Reagan.

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