Richard John Neuhaus

I have learned that Richard John Neuhaus has passed away. Richard John Neuhaus was a conservative Catholic priest, who founded the conservative Catholic journal First Things.

I first learned of First Things when I was at Harvard. A friend of mine who was converting to Roman Catholicism subscribed to the publication. He wondered what went through his atheist dorm-mate's mind when he saw it in the mail! Although First Things is conservative, it managed to garner respect from academics. Jon Levenson and Gary Anderson of Harvard wrote articles for it. A liberal professor of mine at another institution expressed curiosity about it. He thought that Catholic conservatism and evangelical conservatism differed in that the former was progressive on policies for the poor, but I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Levenson once gave a lecture against salad-bar religion, the type in which you can pick and choose what doctrines you will accept. Levenson said that he wrote his article for First Things, and he asked if anyone in the room read the publication. He looked around the room (including at me in the back), then he sarcastically remarked, "Well, if anyone here does, then he can leave the room!"

I heard Richard John Neuhaus speak at Harvard, at a Catholic conference that featured Alan Keyes a few years later. Fred Barnes was also at the conference where Neuhaus was speaking. I wasn't overly impressed with Neuhaus' speech, and I noticed that he liked to play with his styrophone cup. One incident I remember was during the Q and A session. An elderly Catholic gentleman went up to the microphone and complained about the moral problems of the nation--abortion, pornography, etc. He expressed fear that America's days were done for. Neuhaus responded that he should have more hope than that. During the break, I heard Fred Barnes comment to the elderly gentleman about Bill Clinton.

But Neuhaus really impressed me on Meet the Press. I was watching it because Joel Osteen was going to be on, and Neuhaus was one of the guests. He did a good job defending his conservative Catholic beliefs. A liberal Catholic woman stated that Catholicism is against capital punishment, and he retorted by listing historical Catholic sources that support it.

As I look at the article on Neuhaus on wikipedia (see here), I see remarkable things: he started out as a Lutheran minister who ministered to a poor minority neighborhood; he was a huge participant in Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue; he expressed hope in universal salvation, while he refrained from preaching it as a doctrine; and he advised President George W. Bush on stem-cell research, the marriage amendment, cloning, and abortion.

He wrote a lot of books, and I've not yet had the pleasure of reading them. Maybe I'll give them a chance sometime!