In Praise of a Great Christian, Priest and Catholic Intellectual : Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

Catholic Online ^ | 1/09/08 | Deacon Keith Fournier

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Father Neuhaus was a defender of fundamental human rights throughout his entire ministry. His early “politics” and his later “politics” were grounded in the same great principles derived from the implications of the Incarnation, consistent with reason and based on the Social teaching of the Church. He loved the teachings of the Church and he grew in his understanding them. He became one of their greatest teachers to the rest of us. He also knew that the truth about the dignity of every human life was not dependent upon revelation, not simply a “religious” position, but that it was revealed in the Natural Law, knowable by reason and confirmed by that revelation. Therefore, he knew that this truth must form the foundation of any truly just society. He knew that when he stood against racial discrimination or when he stood against the killing of the innocents through abortion, he was doing the same thing, defending the dignity of the person. Unceasingly he used his great intellect and gift of communication to re-present the splendor of truth to an age of relativism.

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I join the thousands who mourn and offer this prayer, with the Church, for this holy priest of Christ: “Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine, et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace. Amen.”