Amid speculation, Gorbachev says he’s still an atheist

Chicago Tribune

MOSCOW — Even before the Soviet Union’s collapse 1991, questions swirled about just how much of an unbeliever was its last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Soviet leaders were supposed to be atheists ruling over a godless society, but Gorbachev used perestroika to loosen restrictions on religious worship. A year before the Communist state’s dissolution, Gorbachev told a party congress: “Spiritual rebirth is as essential to society as oxygen.”

Gorbachev’s visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy this month has rekindled those questions about Gorbachev’s faith. Was he denouncing atheism and affirming his faith in God? Was he a closet believer even during Soviet times?

Several European media outlets were quick to size up Gorbachev’s half hour of silence at St. Francis’ tomb as proof that the 77-year-old former leader of an atheistic superpower was, in fact, a Christian.

The Italian newspaper La Stampa called his visit a “spiritual perestroika.” A story in the London Daily Telegraph’s March 19 edition concluded Gorbachev “has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time.”

Since then, speculation has been building about the significance of the visit to Sacro Convento friary and his religious beliefs. So Gorbachev recently decided to set the record straight. “Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies — I can’t use any other word — about my secret Catholicism, citing my visit to the Sacro Convento friary, where the remains of St. Francis of Assisi lie,” Gorbachev said.