, who was Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s longtime pastor and presided over President Reagan’s burial, died Tuesday at his home here. He was 75.
The Rev. Michael Wenning, with Nancy Reagan, center, and Patti Davis, leaving Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles.?The cause was leukemia and kidney failure, said his wife, Freda.
Mr. Wenning (pronounced VEN-eeng) was the pastor at the 2,500-member Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles from 1995 to 2001. The Reagans attended services there for decades, dating to when Mr. Reagan was governor of California. When Mr. Reagan stopped appearing in public after he developed Alzheimer’s disease, Mr. Wenning visited his home and Century City office regularly.
Mr. Reagan was 93 when he died on June 5, 2004. Mr. Wenning conducted the hilltop burial service at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley and comforted the former first lady.
“Everyone wanted to put their arms around Nancy, and here was a man holding her on behalf of the nation,” Ms. Wenning told The Orange County Register.
Mr. Wenning was born in Cape Town on July 5, 1935. He moved to the United States and received a master of divinity degree at Texas Christian University and a master’s in psychology and counseling at New York University.
He returned to South Africa and became pastor of a Presbyterian church in Durban in 1969. Mr. Wenning and his family returned to the United States in 1977.
Besides his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Michelle Blankenship of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Andrea Bull of Fresno, Calif.
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