Ronald Reagan and U.S. Catholicism.(Editorial)

It was fitting that Wilton Gregory, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent a note of condolence to Nancy Reagan, the wife of the late president, on the occasion of the latter's death on June 9. Mourning the dead is both a cardinal virtue and an evangelical counsel. But one must question the flawed message of Bishop Gregory. In his communique, he thanked God, "for the life and witness of the great man whose love for freedom and liberty affected the whole world."

While the old admonition of de mortuis, nisi bonum (about the dead, speak nothing but good) surely is appropriate in the immediate period of loss, Christians should also be …