Nine Days That Changed The World

CSpeakers ranging from Cardinal Francis George to Patricia Heaton challenged Legatus members to bring God and faith into the marketplace during the Feb. 4-6 event at the St. Regis Resort in Dana Point, Calif.

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President George W. Bush headlined a dynamic lineup of speakers at the event. In a wide-ranging talk that touched on the genesis of his political career as governor of Texas and his belief in the universality of freedom, Bush’s most moving statements came as he talked about his encounters with two popes.

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Catholic business executives of Legatus are gathering today to honor former President George W. Bush and Cardinal Francis George, hear Newt Gingrich's conversion story and watch his new film.

These are just some of the highlights of the Legatus annual summit in Dana Point, the group's executive director, John Hunt, explained to ZENIT. Legatus announced last month that the former U.S. president is attending the summit, which began today and will end Saturday, to receive its prestigious Cardinal John J. O'Connor Pro-Life Award.

"You could argue that he was the most pro-life president in our lifetime," Hunt affirmed.

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Newt and Callista Gingrich join Joan Lewis on Vatican Insider (EWTN) to discuss their upcoming documentary, Nine Days that Changed the World, as well as Newt’s conversion to Catholicism.

Part 1 (January 9, 2010):

Part 2 (January 16, 2010):

Listen here (mp3) or Download here (mp3)

WARSAW, Poland — Heavily Catholic Poland has joined the Vatican in criticizing a European court ruling against the display of crucifixes in Italian schools.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said his country will never agree to remove crosses from its schools.

The Nov. 3 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights does not require that Poland remove the crosses that hang in most public schools. It could, however, eventually force a review of the use of religious symbols in government-run school across Europe.

Twenty years ago, on November 9, 1989, the most visible symbol of totalitarian evil, the Berlin Wall, tumbled down. Two years later, the Soviet Union officially dissolved on Christmas Day 1991. The fall of the Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union transpired in relative calm, but they followed decades of repression, cruelty, and murder by the Soviet regime.

The trumpet blasts that finally destroyed the Berlin Wall in a peaceful revolution and brought freedom to millions in Eastern Europe were political, economic, diplomatic, and military in character. But it became evident to us in working on our new documentary, Nine Days that Changed the World, that spiritual factors were decisive, as Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan rallied the West to a defense of freedom and human dignity.

WASHINGTON – The visit of Pope John Paul II to his native Poland June 2-10, 1979 did more than just encourage a nation. It was the beginning point for the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of Communism’s grip on Eastern Europe, and a new Europe.

Thirty years later the full impact of this historic papal journey is the subject of a new film, “Nine Days that Changed the World.” Produced by Citizens United, Gingrich Productions, and Peace River Company LLC, the documentary is hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich.

Catholic Online had an opportunity to talk with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich about the film as well as what he envisions as its impact on audiences here in the United States and around the world.

Some consider President Obama's refusal to attend the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany next week an outrage.

I consider it a tragedy.

To commemorate, after all, is to remember. And Americans need to remember, not just that the Wall fell, but why it fell. We need to remember that the Berlin Wall was the symbol of more than just the Cold War, more than just the division of Europe.

It was the symbol of an evil ideology that denied human dignity, denied truth, and respected only power.

When the Wall fell, truth and human dignity, in a rare moment in the 20th century, triumphed over power. But that victory is not permanent.

BOSTON, Mass. — When secular intellectual elites expunge religion from history, the solution is to get into the movie business, asserted former speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich. At least that was his reaction.

At a fund-raising event for Catholic Citizenship, the Catholic grassroots education organization in Massachusetts, Gingrich promoted his new documentary about the visit of Pope John Paul II to Poland in 1979. The film, “Nine Days That Changed the World,” is scheduled to come out this fall.

Former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich, a recent convert to Catholicism, is producing a forthcoming documentary about Pope John Paul II’s first return visit to Poland in June 1979. Titled “Nine Days that Change the World,” the film explores the impact of the visit on the collapse of Communism.

The film’s website says that the Polish trade union movement “languished” before June of 1979. Following the visit of Pope John Paul II and the 1980 Gdansk shipyard strike, the Solidarity movement became the first officially recognized free trade union in the Communist bloc and had over 10 million members.

Nine Days that Changed the World seeks to examine what happened during John Paul II’s nine-day visit, why millions of Poles came to see the Pope and what made John Paul II’s visit such a “liberating moment.”