This article was written in fond memory of Father Richard John Neuhaus, Editor of First Things magazine who died on January 9, 2009. It was published in The Atlantic Catholic, January 31, 2009.
Writers and public leaders well above my pay grade have already had much to say about the life and death of Father Richard John Neuhaus.
Born and raised in Pembroke, Ontario, the young Neuhaus moved to the United States where he became a liberal Lutheran Leader of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960’s. In 1968 he was a delegate to the Democratic Convention in Chicago where he clashed with police and was arrested for disorderly conduct.
In the mid-nineteen seventies his ideas about religion and politics evolved. He was profoundly affected by the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision and began to vigorously defend a more conservative position on the sanctity of life and the place of religion in public affairs.