Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Farewell, Father Neuhaus
Farewell, Father Neuhaus
Mar 17, 2025 9:36 AM

First Things has announced that Father Richard John Neuhaus died this morning.

I am hardly qualified to write a eulogy, having never met the man. No doubt others, including one or two Acton colleagues who knew him better, will perform this service admirably. But I pelled to offer a few words, as I have long admired Fr. Neuhaus and his vital work, in particular the journal he edited for many years, First Things (FT).

In the mid-1990s, I was a graduate student in history at the University of Pennsylvania. I was surrounded by smart people who, with some exceptions, disagreed profoundly with most of my own views on religion, culture, and public life (to use FT’s trinitarian formula). I am grateful for that interaction and for the intellectual stimulus that Penn provided, but I was also lonely and desperate for some intellectual sustenance from a perspective both more conservative politically and more orthodox theologically. Browsing through the library one day, I came across FT. (How it had taken me so long to discover it, I don’t know.) Under the circumstances, it seemed to be literally a godsend. Social policy, science, academia–it tackled all the contentious issues at the front of my consciousness as an inexperienced but aspiring scholar who needed allies and guides as I sought to make sense of the relationship between faith and reason. It did so at a level of intelligence, clarity, and civility consistently higher than any other publication I’ve ever encountered.

From that day–when I could afford a subscription to only one periodical–to the present, I have been a devoted FT reader. And to no part of the journal have I been more devoted than Fr. Neuhaus’s monthly roundup of religion, culture, and public life, The Public Square. For more than ten years it has provoked me to thought, laughter, and (not very often) disagreement. For Fr. Neuhaus and for the journal he inspired, I am sincerely grateful. I never met him, but I feel that I’ve lost a panion.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Ponnuru on Ponzi and Pyramids
Ramesh Ponnuru says Social Security is worse than a Ponzi scheme. He’s right. It’s more like an inter-generational pyramid scheme, a pyramid tipped on its side… To be sustainable, over time (T) it has to take more from more people (thus a three-dimensional pyramid rather than a two-dimensional triangle. It’s really exponential rather than multiplicative). Social Security. In case you forgot, it still needs fixing. This Christmas, think about the rather unpleasant gift we’ll be leaving the generations that follow...
The Naughty List
You can view the most recent list of panies that have received bailout assistance from the federal government via the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA), executed through measures like the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), here (PDF updated 12/16/08). I’m thinking about adding panies to my own personal “naughty” list. Visit the EESA homepage, where you can sign up for EESA e-mail updates as your tax dollars are spent for you. “How is this money being spent?” you...
Soul Searching at Yeshiva U.
In “Betrayed by Madoff, Yeshiva U. Adds a Lesson,” the New York Times interviews students and teachers at the New York University which was closely linked to Bernard Madoff, the financier who has been charged by federal prosecutors with orchestrating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme fraud. In Intermediate Accounting I, undergraduates analyzed how he seemingly tap-danced around the Securities and Exchange Commission. In Rabbi Benjamin Blech’s philosophy of Jewish law course, students pondered whether Jewish values had been distorted to...
O Holy Night
O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices! Oh night divine! Oh night when Christ was born! Oh night divine! Oh night! Oh night divine! Chains shall he...
Reading Russell Kirk
It’s the end of the year, so the book lists are out. I’m thinking about conservative icon Russell Kirk. If you want a really enjoyable and edifying read, I mend you begin with The Roots of American Order. That book will give you an understandable and historically grounded sense of what “ordered liberty” means. It will also open the mysteries of Kirk wide to the uninitiated reader. The prose is lively. Highly readable. Kirk is more widely known for the...
Economic Justice for All Revisited
Catching up on “Revisiting the 1986 economic pastoral”, an article from October in the National Catholic Reporter: The bishops’ point “that Catholics’ moral life cannot be separated entirely from their economic life has relevance for what we’re going through now,” said Kevin Schmiesing, research fellow for the Acton Institute, a proponent of free markets. “Unless you believe there is no ponent to this, that there’s no failure of responsibility, that there’s no greed at work, that those kinds of moral...
Acton Commentary: Selfless Giving and Tempered Trading
In this season of giving, Kevin Schmiesing looks at another form of exchange — trade. He observes that mercial activity “is not an exercise in selfishness, but the practice of properly ordered self-interest, which is of necessity tempered by the wants and needs of others.” Read mentary over at the Acton website and e back to share ments. ...
Santa and the ultimate Fairy Tale
Of course, Santa is based on a historical character. And in many (but certainly not all!) ways, he points forward to Jesus Christ. But in a broader sense, God has created a mystical, mythical, and magical world– that can be overdone or mis-imagined. That said, the mon error is to under-do or under-imagine– out of our “modern” heritage and tainted worldview. I’ve blogged on this quite a few times– and three times in the past month, in noting the 100th...
J. Daryl Charles on the Revival of Natural Law
In the latest volume of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, host Ken Myers talks with J. Daryl Charles, author of Retrieving the Natural Law: A Return to Moral First Things (Eerdmans, 2008). Charles is associate professor of Christian Studies at Union University, and spent the 2007-2008 year as William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. I had the pleasure of meeting Ken Myers at this year’s GodblogCon and am...
The Acton Website gets a New Look
Today saw the launch of a sharp new look for the Acton Institute website. This new iteration of the website puts content first, with a very uncluttered, fresh look. It also sports some of the latest and greatest in web technology, but I’ll spare you the geekspeak and let you discover all of the bells and whistles for yourself. We hope that you’ll continue to enjoy the Acton website and the rich collection of articles and resources that it provides....
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved