Richard John Neuhaus (May 14, 1936 – January 8, 2009) was a prominent Christian cleric (first as a Lutheran pastor and later as a Roman Catholic priest) and writer. Born in Canada, Neuhaus moved to the United States where he became a naturalized United States citizen. He was the founder and editor of the monthly journal First Things and the author of several books, including The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (1984), The Catholic Moment: The Paradox of the Church in the Postmodern World (1987), and Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth (2006). He was a staunch defender of the Roman Catholic Church's teachings on abortion and other life issues and an unofficial advisor of President George W. Bush on bioethical issues.[1]
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Born in Pembroke, Ontario, Neuhaus was one of eight children of a Lutheran minister. Although he had dropped out of high school at 16 to operate a gas station in Texas,[2] he graduated from Concordia Seminary, in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1960[3] he was ordained a Lutheran minister, later serving as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, a poor predominantly black and Hispanic congregation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.[4] From the pulpit he addressed civil rights and social justice concerns and spoke against the Vietnam War. In the late 1960s he gained national prominence when, together with Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, he founded Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam.[5] He was active in the Lutheran "Evangelical Catholic" movement and spent time at Saint Augustine's House, the Lutheran Benedictine monastery, in Oxford, Michigan. He was active in liberal politics until Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973 which changed his perspective. He became a member of the growing neoconservative movement and an outspoken advocate of "democratic capitalism". He also avocated faith-based policy initiatives based upon Judeo-Christian values by the federal government.[6] He is the originator of "Neuhaus's Law",[7] which states that "Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed".[8]
Neuhaus helped to found the Institute on Religion and Democracy in 1981 and remained on its board until his death. He wrote its founding document, "Christianity and Democracy". In 1984, he established the Center for Religion and Society as part of the Rockford Institute, which also publishes Chronicles. He and the center were "forcibly evicted" from the institute in 1989 under disputed circumstances. In 1990, Neuhaus founded the Institute on Religion and Public Life and its journal, First Things, an ecumenical journal "whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society."[9]
Neuhas was received into the Roman Catholic Church on September 8, 1990.[10] Neuhaus had belonged to and was ordained in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod,[11] the conservative wing of American Lutheranism. He subsequently joined the American Lutheran Church, a predecessor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. A year after becoming a Roman Catholic, he was ordained by John Cardinal O'Connor as a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He was a commentator for the Catholic television network EWTN during the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.
Neuhaus expressed a strong hope in universal salvation, but stopped short of teaching it as a doctrine, emphasizing it as a hope, not a belief. "In sum: we do not know; only God knows; but we may hope." He wrote:
that absolutely no one is beyond the reach of God’s love in Christ. All are found, and therefore are not lost. That some may choose not to accept the gift of being found is quite another matter. We pray and hope that all will accept the gift of salvation that is most surely available to all. At least for Catholics, the teaching is definitive: God denies no one the grace necessary for salvation.[12]
Similar to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Neuhaus said that it cannot be known if hell is populated by anyone.[13]
Neuhaus made a posthumous appearance in the 2010 award-winning film, The Human Experience. In addition, his voice is featured in the narration of the film and the film's trailer.
In later years, Neuhaus compared the pro-life struggle to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. During the 2004 Presidential campaign he was a leading advocate for denying communion to Catholic politicians who supported abortion and voted against the church's teaching on life issues. It was a mistake, he declared, to isolate abortion "from other issues of the sacredness of life."[14]
Neuhaus promoted ecumenical dialogue and social conservatism. Along with Charles Colson, he edited Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission.[15] This ecumenical manifesto sparked much debate; some claimed that Neuhaus and Colson had compromised doctrines to promote neoconservativism and had asked that both branches of Christianity stop trying to convert the other's members.
A close, yet unofficial, advisor of President George W. Bush, Neuhaus advised Bush on a range of religious and ethical matters, including abortion, stem-cell research, cloning, and the defense of marriage amendment.[16] In 2005, under the heading of "Bushism Made Catholic" Neuhaus was named one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" by Time Magazine:[16]
Bushism Made Catholic: When Bush met with journalists from religious publications last year, the living authority he cited most often was not a fellow Evangelical but a man he calls Father Richard, who, he explained, "helps me articulate these [religious] things." A senior Administration official confirms that Neuhaus "does have a fair amount of under-the-radar influence" on such policies as abortion, stem-cell research, cloning and the defense-of-marriage amendment. Time Magazine, Feb. 5, 2005[16]
Neuhaus died from complications of cancer in New York,[17] on January 8, 2009, aged 72.[18][19]
George, Robert P. (20 March 2009). "He Threw It All Away". First Things. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/03/he-threw-it-all-away. Retrieved 20 July 2009.