Richard John Neuhaus

The Public Square In this space I recently paid tribute to the late Francis Schaeffer, noting, among other things, his singular part in alerting evangelical Protestants to the great evil of abortion. Until the late seventies, I said, the Catholic Church had stood almost alone in publicly protesting . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square “Venomous diatribe.” “Hateful xenophobia.” “Doing the work of Adolf Hitler.” “Agitating for a new crusade.” “Obviously mentally ill.” Such were among the sentiments expressed in response to my review in the October 1997 . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square In addition to being wrongheaded, the book is simply wrong on so many scores. That may be a good reason for ignoring it entirely, except that it represents a viewpoint that is influential far beyond the number of people who hold it. The book is Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square A More Real WorldThe day Mother Teresa died, an editor at USA Today asked for an op-ed piece, which I did. In it I quoted her words upon receiving the Nobel Prize for peace (see below). The next day a more senior editor called to say they couldn’t use it. “We had in mind,” he . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1971, I published In Defense of People, the first book-length critique of “the ecology movement” that was then in ascendancy and that pretty much shaped the arguments that continue to swirl around the varieties of environmentalism today. There are significant differences between then and . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square  “We Hold These Truths”––An Argument to be EngagedAstute as ever, my friend Robert Louis Wilken, the distinguished church historian, is impressed by “We Hold These Truths,” but he also admits to having some problems with the declaration released on the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square The Approaching Century of ReligionShortly before he died on November 23, 1976, André Malraux said, “The twenty-first century will be religious or it will not be at all.” I’m not sure what Malraux meant by it, but it is one of those oracular pronouncements that have about . . . . Continue Reading »

The great threat to the American experiment today is not from enemies abroad but from disordered . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square In the Beauty of HolinessWhen asked what he most misses since becoming a Roman Catholic, Father George Rutler, a former Anglican, routinely responds, “The liturgy in English.” I feel his pain. Most Catholics apparently don’t, having never known the King James Bible or liturgy . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public SquareRancho Santa Fe and the Culture of DeathNo doubt many preachers on Easter Sunday referred to the thirty-nine suicides of Rancho Santa Fe in order to set forth, by way of sharpest contrast, the Christian understanding of body, soul, and life eternal. At least I hope they did. In the . . . . Continue Reading »