Richard John Neuhaus

The Public Square Late on the night of November 7, I announced to friends with whom I was watching the returns that I was going to retire as a political prognisticator. Not that I was ever a certified expert on political outcomes. Experts are certified chiefly by having been wrong more often than . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square Father Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983) is one of the very important people in my life. It is not simply that he helped form some of my ideas, especially about liturgy, or gave me a feel for realities about which I knew little, such as Orthodoxy. He was a great spirit; he lived . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square I share fully the pleasure that our reviewer, John J. Reilly, takes in Jacques Barzun’s big new book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (FT, November). It is a very big book indeed, coming to almost nine hundred pages with notes. But it is a wonderful . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square Yes, much of the misunderstanding was willful. But the fact is that the media coverage of the declaration Dominus Iesus (The Lord Jesus), issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in September, was almost uniformly negative, as was the reaction of the several . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square The idea that religion is the heart of culture and culture is the form of religion has been proposed in various ways by Christian thinkers over the years, and there is, I believe, a great deal to it. The danger, of course, is that it can lead to a smooth synthesis of religion and . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public SquareIn the May issue I offered my tribute, written as he was dying, to my former bishop, John Cardinal O’Connor. He was one of the truly great men I have been privileged to know, and I owe him a personal debt of gratitude beyond measure. I will not repeat what I have already said . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square Early returns tend to vindicate, at least in part, the worries of cardinals and others when John Paul II announced in the 1994 document Tertio Millennio Adveniente (On the Coming of the Third Millennium) that the Catholic Church should publicly confess the sins of her children over . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square There is this odd thing that all the social science data agree that the United States is ever so much more religious, so much less secularized, than Western Europe. Yet I keep bumping into people who say that, when they are there, they are impressed that religion seems to be more . . . . Continue Reading »

So David Frum sends me his new book, with the inscription, “Hope you like this one better than the last.” I definitely do. The last one was Dead Right, in which Mr. Frum contended that conservatism was making a big mistake by letting itself be distracted by the social and cultural issues when . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square That is not the only interesting question, but it is probably the most important. Most non-Mormons have little occasion to think about Mormonism, and those who do tend toward distinctly negative thoughts. Although there is this curious thing of recent years that many conservative . . . . Continue Reading »