Newsweek - USA (2019-06-21)

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The Road to Freedom

D-Day was only one of the milestones on the

way to political and religious liberty

we rightly celebrated the

75th anniversary of the land-

ing at Normandy on D-Day—June 6,

1944. It was the largest single oper-
      ation ever undertaken and involved
      great complexity in timing between
      airpower, paratroopers, sea power
      and massive landings from the
      English Channel on to the French
      Coast. I just dedicated a podcast
      episode to D-Day and President
      Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s national
      prayer, in which he led the entire
      country into praying for the safety of
      our young men and women in uni-
      form—and for victory over tyranny.
      But there are three
      other important lib-
      eration events worth
      remembering. The first
      was the liberation of
      Rome on June 4, 1944
      and the second was the
      arrival of Pope John Paul
      II in Warsaw on June 2, 1979. The third
      happened 10 years after the Pope’s
      visit: the first free elections in the
      post-war Soviet bloc on June 4, 1989.
      The Allies had fought their way
      up the Italian peninsula in a diffi-
      cult and deadly campaign. Italian
      topography lends itself to defense
      with many mountains and ridges
      that can be effectively defended.
      Even after the Italian government
      switched sides and worked to help
      the Allies, the Germans were able
      to maintain a powerful and clever
      defense that cost many lives.

There was always a bittersweet

feeling for the veterans of the Ital-

ian campaign that the gigantic

Normandy landing two days later

overshadowed their achievements.

However, on the evening of June

5, 1944 President Roosevelt spoke to

the nation in a fireside chat and put

the liberation of Rome in its proper

context. Rome represents a time in

history when one nation controlled

all the known world. As President

Roosevelt noted, “the United Nations

are determined that in the future no

one city and no one race will be able

to control the whole of the world.”

Roosevelt noted

Rome housed temples

and churches of many

faiths, “but the churches

and shrines of Rome are

visible symbols of the

faith and determination

of the early saints and

martyrs that Christianity should live

and become universal.”

Finally, he pointed out that the

liberation of Rome was an effort by

many nations and peoples:

“It is also significant that Rome

has been liberated by the armed

forces of many nations. The Amer-

ican and British armies —who bore

the chief burdens of battle —found

at their sides our own North Amer-

ican neighbors, the gallant Canadi-

ans. The fighting New Zealanders

from the far South Pacific, the cou-

rageous French and the French

Moroccans, the South Africans, the

Poles and the East Indians—all of

them fought with us on the bloody

approaches to the city of Rome.”

Pope John Paul II’s visit to Poland

marked another moment of great

importance for freedom and espe-

cially for religious liberty. He was

greeted by 3 million people for an

open-air mass in Warsaw. As my wife

Callista and I described in a docu-

mentary about that trip called Nine

Days that Changed the World, it was

this visit that shook the control of

BY

NEWT GINGRICH

@newtgingrich

OPINION

JUNE 28, 2019