Richard John Neuhaus

Saved in Hope: Benedict’s Second Encyclical“Spe salvi facti sumus—in hope we were saved. So says Saint Paul to the Romans, and also to us (Rom. 8:24).” That’s the opening of Pope Benedict’s second encyclical. John Allen, a typically thoughtful reporter on all things Catholic, . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s a good day to be thinking about the Christian mission, this Day of the Conversion of Saint Paul. Today is also the close of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an observation that has, regrettably, become more anemic in the last decade or so. In 1990, John Paul the Great issued the . . . . Continue Reading »

Rocco Palmo over on Whispers in the Loggia reminds us that this week , January 15 to be precise, was the eighty-eighth birthday of John Cardinal O’Connor. Of course the fifteenth is also the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., who, had he lived, would now be seventy-seven years old. They were . . . . Continue Reading »

The calibrations and ruminations of sociologists all too often dress up as expert “findings” what we already knew, resulting in conventional wisdom with numbers added. (Anticipating another protest from that thoughtful sociologist Christian Smith, I quickly add that there are notable . . . . Continue Reading »

Here’s an instructive exchange between Luke Timothy Johnson and Eve Tushnet. Johnson is a distinguished New Testament scholar at Emory University and Tushnet is a writer living in Washington, D.C. She is a recent convert to Catholicism and identifies herself as a lesbian. The exchange appeared . . . . Continue Reading »

Religion and Politics: “The Great Separation”I approached Mark Lilla’s new book with considerable interest and with the expectation of encountering a fresh way of thinking about perennial problems. The book is The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (Knopf). It is true . . . . Continue Reading »

The news this next year will be dominated by the presidential race. That is near to inevitable. In that race, there are few things as consequential as the location of authority, and, in particular, the authority of the courts.Way back in 1956, Hannah Arendt wrote an essay titled “What Is . . . . Continue Reading »

It is not a matter of revving ourselves up to experience again the wonder of the Christ Mass. There is no point in trying to recapitulate Christmas as you knew it when you were, say, seven years old. That way lies sentimentalities unbounded.The alternative is the way of contemplation, of demanding . . . . Continue Reading »

I see that Jonathan Last and Michael Novak have been having at it , and getting me in the middle. Please leave me out of it. I have written about the Mormon factor in the Romney candidacy here , here , and here . But let me spare you the trouble of re-reading all that. My argument can be briefly . . . . Continue Reading »

This is a disagreement among friends. I believe Peggy Noonan gets it right when she worries that religion has become the decisive factor in the race for the Republican nomination at this point. Noonan is no friend of the naked public square, and she is on target when she writes, “But there is . . . . Continue Reading »