Richard John Neuhaus

The Public SquareIt’s coming on ten years since Thomas Cahill published How the Irish Saved Civilization. The book gave new life to a genre of tribal literature in which extraordinary claims are made on behalf of one people or another to whom we are indebted for their crucial contribution to . . . . Continue Reading »

George Santayana: A Biography by John McCormick Transaction, 615 pages, $29.95. Reaching a certain age that rather abruptly presents itself as one’s maturity, I discover a more frequent impulse to reflect on the influences that brought me to this point. “Impulse” is the right word, . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square It is an unprecedented “but,” although I expect it will turn out to be ephemeral. My unscientific survey of reactions to the November election led me to read, for the first time in months, an editorial in the New York Times. The gist of the editorial, published the day after, . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public SquareAmong the most oft-quoted statements on American foreign policy is that of John Quincy Adams in 1821: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of . . . . Continue Reading »

Last month I discussed the signs of an emerging new leadership within the conference of Catholic bishops. Such signs were evident in the June meeting of the bishops, where efforts to evade or delay taking a clear position on pro-abortion Catholics in public life were decisively turned back. The . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public SquareIn the nineteen years he has been attending these meetings, says one archbishop, this was unquestionably the best. The sentiment seems to be widespread among the bishops who participated in the semi-annual meeting, held this past June in Englewood, a few miles from Denver, Colorado. . . . . Continue Reading »

That extraordinary writer of stories about the “Christ-haunted” American South, Flannery O’Connor, was frequently asked why her people and plots were so often outlandish, even grotesque. She answered, “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you have to draw large and . . . . Continue Reading »

Forty-four years is a long time and a lot has changed since the last Catholic ran for president. Early in his campaign, John Kerry opined that the question of a Catholic politician’s adherence to church teaching had been settled by John F. Kennedy in 1960. As has become more evident in succeeding . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square Last month we began an extended report on the two reports issued on February 27 and on some of the preliminary responses to the reports. The first report, commissioned by the National Review Board, consisted of the findings of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square The cover of the 150-page report of the National Review Board (NRB) is deep purple, the color of Lenten penitence, which is just right for this telling moment in the Long Lent that began with the Boston exposures of January 2002. It is titled “A Report on the Crisis in the . . . . Continue Reading »