MICHELE NORRIS, host:
Father Richard John Neuhaus, a well-known conservative Catholic theologian, has died. He was a writer and founder of the journal First Things. NPR's Lynn Neary has this remembrance.
LYNN NEARY: Father Richard John Neuhaus seemed to go through more change that most. Born in Canada, he spent most of his life in the United States. A Lutheran minister, he converted to Catholicism and was ordained into the priesthood. An anti-war and civil-rights activist in the '60s, he later became known as a conservative theologian. But Joseph Bottum, the current editor of First Things, says Father Neuhaus didn't necessarily view is own life as others did.
Mr. JOSEPH BOTTUM (Editor, First Things): He was a radical in the 1960s in some ways. And later, of course, he was the confidante of George W. Bush, and that looks like a change. But the internal narrative of his autobiography, as he understood himself, he didn't perceive the change to be that great.
NEARY: Bottum says Neuhaus felt it was liberalism that changed, not him. He began moving away from the left because he was a firm anti-communist and a staunch opponent of abortion.
Mr. BOTTUM: He said it ought to be those heartless Republicans who want to kill babies, and it ought to be we on the left who are expanding the community of care to protect the unborn.
NEARY: George Weigel, a close friend and colleague, said the suggestion that the pro-life movement should be an extension of the civil-rights movement is one of the two big ideas Father Neuhaus will be remembered for. The other was his promotion of the role of religion in public life. In his 1984 book, "The Naked Public Square," Father Neuhaus argued that it was a mistake to drive religion from public discourse. In so doing, says Weigel, he reignited a still ongoing conversation about religion and politics. Weigel says Father Neuhaus was motivated by his devotion to democracy.
Mr. GEORGE WEIGEL (Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center): Because he was a genuine Democrat with a small D, and he recognized that 90 percent of the American people affirm a belief in the God of the Bible, and that if you tell those people that they can't bring their most deeply held convictions into the deliberation on how we ought to live together, then you have done a profoundly undemocratic thing.
NEARY: Neuhaus became a Catholic in 1990 and was ordained a year later. But Weigel believes his Lutheran background helped him with one of his other great passions: trying to bridge the gap between Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics.
Mr. WEIGEL: And Evangelicals understood that he understood their language and their issues. By the same token, I think he displayed Catholicism to Evangelicals in a way that Evangelicals could really wrap their heads around.
NEARY: In announcing his death, the magazine First Things reprinted an article Father Neuhaus wrote about dying. In it, he says, it is death in the singular that shatters all we know about death. And indeed, says Joseph Bottum, those who knew him well will be shattered by the death of this singular man.
Mr. BOTTUM: The whole fabric of life has been torn, and it can't be repaired until that time when everything is mended and all our tears are wiped away.
NEARY: Father Richard John Neuhaus died yesterday. He was 72 years old. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
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