Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

You will be missed...

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus passed away at the young age of 72.  He was a towering intellectual figure of conservative goodness and the founder and editor of the ecumenical journal First Things.

He was a Lutheran minister prior to being ordained a Catholic priest in 1991.

Highly active in liberal politics in the 1960's, it was the Roe v. Wade decision that forever led him to the right regarding society's most important issues.  

This is taken from one of his last public addresses, speaking to the National Right to Life Committee in July of last year:

"We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life.  We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until all the elderly who have run life's course are protected against despair and abandonment, protected by the rule of law and the bonds of love.  We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every young woman is given the help she needs to recognize the problem of pregnancy as the gift of life.  We shall not weary, we shall not rest, as we stand guard at the entrance gates and the exit gates of life, and at every step along way of life, bearing witness in word and deed to the dignity of the human person -- of every human person.

Against the encroaching shadows of the culture of death, against forces commanding immense power and wealth, against the perverse doctrine that a woman's dignity depends upon her right to destroy her child, against what St. Paul calls the principalities and powers of the present time, this convention renews our resolve that we shall not weary, we shall not rest, until the culture of life is reflected in the rule of law and lived in the law of love."

And these, his final words for his magazine First Things, prior to slipping into a coma at the end of December:

"As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of unknown origin.… I am grateful beyond measure for your prayers storming the gates of heaven. Be assured that I neither fear to die nor refuse to live. If it is to die, all that has been is but a slight intimation of what is to be. If it is to live, there is much that I hope to do in the interim.… Who knew that at this point in life I would be understanding, as if for the first time, the words of Paul, "When I am weak, then I am strong"? This is not a farewell. Please God, we will be pondering together the follies and splendors of the Church and the world for years to come. But maybe not. In any event, when there is an unidentified agent in your body aggressively attacking the good things your body is intended to do, it does concentrate the mind. The entirety of our prayer is "Your will be done"—not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression. To that end, I commend myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home."