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NRL News
Fr.
Richard John Neuhaus: Tireless Defender of Life We had just printed the January issue of National Right to Life News when word came that Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was gravely ill. Just days later, Fr. Neuhaus, editor in chief of First Things magazine and a pro-life champion if ever there was one, passed away. We devoted two days of Today’s News & Views (six articles in all) to remembrances about this great man of God. They begin at www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Jan09/nv010809.html. I could have easily written two more days, so rich was the life he led. Let me just say a few words here. Fr. Neuhaus was one of those men who seemed to know just about everyone and be able to write brilliantly about just about anything. I first met him in 1982 in Cherry Hills, New Jersey. Had he not been a kind and gentle soul, I would have been thoroughly intimidated. There I was, less than a year into my position as NRL News editor, talking to without question the single most mesmerizingly articulate individual I’d ever encountered. We would have other, lengthier chats on other occasions, but I remember vividly on that first occasion how awestruck I was by his ability to turn every block-headed media stereotype about the Pro-Life Movement on its head. Then, as now, the media elite revel in the bizarre notion that a Movement that seeks to include more categories of people under the law’s protective umbrella is somehow “reactionary.” Neuhaus said the Pro-Life Movement was radical, “not by virtue of how far out it is but by virtue of how deep and central is the question it raises.” That question, which Neuhaus said is the beginning of all moral judgment and all just law, “is simply this: Who, then, is my neighbor?” Indeed, the party of the status quo—the reactionary party—is pro-abortion. As the author of a new book that Neuhaus reviewed for First Things put it, “Pro-choicers have little to gain from engaging their opponents and from the deliberative norms that facilitate persuasion.” After all, pro-abortionists have the Media Establishment in their pocket, which allows them to say the most mindless drivel without challenge. This is absolutely crucial since, reliant as they are on the most wobbly bromides, they have nothing that coherently furthers the case for abortion on demand. My now 26-year-old story was my feeble attempt to convey the riveting core of a powerful speech Fr. Neuhaus delivered at National Right to Life’s annual convention. His remarks were at the time, and remain today, the finest explication of the pro-life ethos it’s ever been my privilege to hear. Let me conclude my tribute to Fr. Neuhaus with this, taken from the 1982 NRL News story: “Neuhaus said he believes ‘this great testing of the American experiment’ will prevail on the side of life. And yet, if that hope is deferred for a time, ‘we must not be discouraged,’ he said. ‘We are recruited for the duration, we must be long distance radicals; we must never give up.’” |