Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, founder of the Institute for Religion and Public Life and founding editor-in-chief of First Things, died this morning at the age of 72, of complications from cancer. I never met him—I’ve wanted to for years, but I knew it was highly unlikely that it would ever happen—and can’t say I knew him, apart from the occasional gracious correspondence by e-mail (I don’t know if my own experience is typical, but if it is, he has to have spent a lot of time e-mailing random readers), but I truly grieve his death. As a winsome, insightful, grace-bearing advocate for the gospel of Jesus Christ in our contemporary Western culture (and he was that, even as he never backed down from a fight he deemed worthwhile), he had few equals and fewer superiors over this past century. His death, coming so soon after that of Avery Cardinal Dulles, impoverishes not only the Catholic theological scene, but the whole church, in America and around the world. I have no doubt that First Things will continue strong under the leadership of Joseph Bottum, but as my wife pointed out when she called to give me the news, his own voice and perspective will never be replaced. I appreciate what Bottum had to say, which I think is just about perfect:
My tears are not for him—for he knew, all his life, that his Redeemer lives, and he has now been gathered by the Lord in whom he trusted.I weep, rather for all the rest of us. As a priest, as a writer, as a public leader in so many struggles, and as a friend, no one can take his place. The fabric of life has been torn by his death, and it will not be repaired, for those of us who knew him, until that time when everything is mended and all our tears are wiped away.
It is good and right that Bottum has chosen to repost today Fr. Neuhaus’ 2000 article “Born Toward Dying,” which the Anchoress rightly calls “deep, open, thoughtful, funny, moving and wise. Typically, so.” My only objection to her use of the word “typically” is that this really is Fr. Neuhaus at his best; it is, I think, a profoundly important piece, especially for our death-denying, thanatophobic culture.The Anchoress also posted a video of the Kings College Choir singing the seventh movement, “In Paradisum,” from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem in D minor, which suits beautifully here:
Requiescat in pace, Fr. Neuhaus.