Today marks the 6th anniversary of death of Father Richard John Neuhaus.
Personally, I miss him: his voice “crying in the desert,” his friendship, and his intellect and priestly presence. The clear integration and articulation of faith and reason, a vibrant faith and the public order have been wounded by RJN’s death in 2009. Many feel the same.
May God be merciful.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of priests, protect him.
The Chairman of the Board of First Things, Robert Louis Wilken, announced that Russell R. Reno is the new editor of First Things.
Last evening a segment of the faithful gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the Sacrifice of the Mass, celebrated by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, on the first anniversary of the death of a friend, Father Richard John Neuhaus. It is hard to conceive with ease that a year has past since Father Richard passed from life to Life. He died a year ago as a result of complications to cancer at 72.
Father Richard John Neuhaus’ recent book, American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile, which argues for a natural law approach to political and moral order, was reviewed last week by Charles R. Morris of the NY Times. Read it here.
I am still saddened by the death of Father Richard John Neuhaus. Many are. I pray for him regularly at Mass and while saying the rosary and I find myself wondering what he’d say about this or that today. First Things arrived the other day and I shelved it temporarily because I’ve got other things to read first (what, I am not going to drop everything to read FT???); I look forward with eagerness to read to First Things
One of the last gifts he gave to us is the forthcoming book, American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile. It’s not a book from the grave as it was in production long before RJN got ill and died. I am looking forward to it as I have looked forward to everything RJN wrote for publication or said in the public forum.
Available from Amazon. A Google preview of American Babylon.
Product description
Christians are by their nature a people out of place. Their true home is with God; in civic life, they are alien citizens “in but not of the world.” In American Babylon, eminent theologian Richard John Neuhaus examines the particular truth of that ambiguity for Catholics in America today.
Neuhaus addresses the essential quandaries of Catholic life–assessing how Catholics can keep their heads above water in the sea of immorality that confronts them in the world, how they can be patriotic even though their true country is not in this world, and how they might reconcile their duties as citizens with their commitment to God. Deeply learned, frequently combative, and always eloquent, American Babylon is Neuhaus’s magnum opus–and will be essential reading for all Christians.
Let me recommend to you the Richard John Neuhaus Online Archive, a well stocked blog of materials by or on Father Richard.
Happy the peacemakers; they shall be called sons of God. (Mt 5:9)
God our Father, you reveal that those who work for peace will be called your sons. Help us to work without ceasing for that justice which brings true and lasting peace.
The days leading up to today have made me more concerned than ever for the rights of the unborn. It is clearer to me that with the new presidential administration and the confirmation of Mrs. Clinton as the Secretary of State, abortion will become more accepted and more ingrained in the political machinery here in the USA and it will be a significant agenda item in foreign policy. The abortion politic may not be so “in your face” as it has been but the architects of our governmental social and foreign policies will slip the matter of abortion into the fray as a human right wherever possible. For example, I can foresee that an African country who has traditionally been against abortion will be pressured to change their laws and health care policies to make abortion available and fully funded. The Clinton crowd has already worked in organizations like the UN and USAID to foster pro-abortion policies. Also dangerous to human life is how it will be introduced in health care reforms through riders to the existing laws, counseling, foreign aid and various other humanitarian projects in our own land. So, it is likely that FOCA will not be the most significant piece of legislation to advocate for abortion rights here in the USA. Planned Parenthood has an elaborate plan to move their agenda ahead. What is the Pro-Life? What is our plan at the local and state levels? Who are our spokespeople, now that Richard Neuhaus is dead?
Let’s reflect on the last pro-life essay written by the late Father Richard John Neuhaus in the January 2009 essay in First Things, “The Pro-Life Movement as the Politics of the 1960s” where he wrote:
“Whatever else it is, the pro-life movement of the last thirty-plus years is one of the most massive and sustained expressions of citizen participation in the history of the United States. Since the 1960s, citizen participation and the remoralizing of politics have been central goals of the left.”
And further Neuhaus wrote: “the pro-choice proponents are the defenders of the status quo. They routinely cite data indicating that a majority of Americans do not want to see Roe overturned. As has often been pointed out, these same Americans believe that Roe created a restrictive abortion policy. In what sociologist James Hunter calls “mass legal illiteracy,” it is widely believed that Roe permits abortion in the first trimester, allows it for serious reasons in the second, and forbids it in the third. But, of course, as Roe and companion decisions make clear, the law as presently imposed by the Supreme Court allows abortion at any time for any reason and up through the fully formed baby emerging halfway out of the birth canal. As Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon has written, it is the most permissive abortion regime in the Western world. When those same Americans are asked about the circumstances in which abortion should be permitted, a great majority says that abortion should not be permitted for the reasons that 90 percent of abortions are procured. It is understandable, however, that pro-choice advocates trumpet popular support for Roe, dependent as they are on the ignorance of “the silent majority.”
Therefore, oursis the work
of “welcoming unborn children into life and protecting them under law,” as Fr Neuhaus once said.
Before 10 a.m. this morning Father Richard John Neuhaus, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, died. Jody Bottom made the announcement on the First Things website.
Neuhaus’ death comes nearly a month after our dear friend’s death, Avery Cardinal Dulles.
May the Good Shepherd be merciful and forgive his sins and receive him into the New Jerusalem where Lazarus is poor no longer.
May Father Neuhaus’ memory be eternal!
The National Review Online is reporting this afternoon that Father Richard John Neuhaus received the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick at the hand of Father George Rutler last night. Read the story here. I mentioned this matter a few days ago.
Father Neuhaus is the famed Editor-in-Chief of First Things and the head of the Institute on Religion and Public Life.
Kindly say a prayer for him.