It was an unexpected gesture.

And like so much of what Pope John Paul II does, it looks prophetic in hindsight.

“I send my regards to President Reagan and to Mrs. Reagan, who is so attentive to him in his illness,” the Pope said to President Bush on June 4 — the day before President Ronald Reagan died.

It was a touching, personal remark that seemed to come out of nowhere — the Pope sent no greetings to other American figures. But it made sense, the elderly Holy Father saluting the elderly former president 20 years after the two had known each other in the exuberance of their new roles as leaders of the world.

The two shared a lot in common back then. Reagan was the child of a Catholic father and a seamstress mother. So was John Paul, the difference being that the Pope's father raised him in the faith. Each had been an actor, each had an almost charismatic gift of communicating directly to the people and each used his gift to defend freedom.

In the ’80s, they came to share more. They both survived assassination attempts in the spring of 1981. Both stood cheerfully on principle, to the popular acclaim of the people and despite the vilification of the elite. And both saw their dreams realized as the Soviet Union dissolved under the sheer power of the principles they stood for, without any military battle.

Some authors have made a great deal out of the similarities and the cooperative relationship between Reagan and the Pope, describing a “holy alliance” between the two in a conscious conspiracy against communism.

The truth is that the two did indeed cooperate in that victory — but not in a partnership with each other. Instead, they each cooperated with providence.

That's because Reagan and the Pope also shared an expansive understanding of their vocations as world leaders. These weren't just men fulfilling their positions — they were generals on the side of right and good in the great battle of ideologies that marked the 20th century.

Compare Reagan's and John Paul's speeches about America's role in the liberation of Europe.

Reagan spoke to veterans at Normandy on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. “What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?” he asked. “We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.”

The Pope, at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2000, likewise hailed “the American people, with their rich heritage of commitment to freedom and equality under the law, their spirit of independence and commitment to the common good, their self-reliance and generosity in sharing their God-given gifts.”

“In the century just ended,” he added, “this heritage became synonymous with freedom itself for people throughout the world, as they sought to cast off the shackles of totalitarianism and to live in freedom. As one who is personally grateful for what America did for the world in the darkest days of the 20th century, allow me to ask: Will America continue to inspire people to build a truly better world, a world in which freedom is ordered to truth and goodness?”

Like the Holy Father, Reagan saw that America has a great responsibility. By being true to the religious, moral basis of the principles in her founding, she can do a great deal of good for the world. By straying, she can do a great deal of harm.

The Pope said that, in the face of a culture in which liberty has become license and even the right to life has been forgotten, it is up to people of faith to ensure that America goes in the right direction.

“For religious believers,” John Paul said, “our times offer a daunting yet exhilarating challenge. I would go so far as to say that their task is to save democracy from self-destruction.”

It is a daunting task. So daunting as to look impossible.

In much the same way D-Day looked impossible.

For Catholics, the best way to honor the Pope and his old friend Ronald Reagan is to take up the challenge they both gave us, and to fight for the American spirit they both loved.

As Reagan put it in his D-Day speech: “Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor, and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.”