Richard John Neuhaus

I write the day after military action was launched. What happens in the days and weeks ahead nobody knows, and any speculation would be dated by the time you read this. So there is no point in that. What can be known now, and is very much worth trying to understand, is how the several religious . . . . Continue Reading »

At the end of last month’s installment of this continuing rumination on Catholic trials and tribulations, I spoke of the Catholic center, asserting that “The center holds.” Is that more than a rhetorical ploy? After all, people who take a position generally like to claim that their . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square Prejudice gets a very bad press, but one cannot live without it. On numerous questions, we have all made judgments that are “pre” our present encounter with the question. “No, thank you, I do not care for broccoli; and no, I’m not interested in revisiting the question.” . . . . Continue Reading »

When I was young and under the compulsion to affect a deeper experience of life than I had, I was fond of quoting Whittier’s sage-sounding observation that the saddest words of tongue or pen are simply these, “It might have been.” They can be words of profound regret and even bitterness about . . . . Continue Reading »

“Years ago,” writes John Leo in U.S. News & World Report, “an old friend, now deceased, was ordained a priest and joined a new community in the Midwest. My friend was homosexual, and it slowly dawned on me, on a visit out there, that the other priests in the house seemed to be gay too. So . . . . Continue Reading »

Who brought down the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston? A survey of print and broadcast media around the country produces no dissent from the answer: Bernard Law was brought down by the agitation of lay people and priests who are regularly described as “reformers,” and by determined . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1987, while I was still a Lutheran, I published a book titled The Catholic Moment: The Paradox of the Church in the Postmodern World . There I argued that the Catholic Church is the leading and indispensable community in advancing the Christian movement in world history. In evangelization, in . . . . Continue Reading »

“At last.” I breathed a sigh of gratitude upon my first reading of Bishop Wilton Gregory’s presidential address at the November meeting of the bishops conference. At last they are no longer jumping through media hoops and giving the impression of scurrying about like scared . . . . Continue Reading »

It is hard to know precisely where we are in the unfolding of the Long Lent of 2002. Elsewhere in this section, I have a comment on Peter Steinfels’ evaluation of media misdoings, and what he thinks about the “reform” agendas that are hitching a ride on the scandals. As of this . . . . Continue Reading »

In the dock are Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. If they get a conviction, it is possible, but not certain, that the prosecution will go after a long list of indicted coconspirators. The charges are very serious: disturbing . . . . Continue Reading »