PERSON PROFILE

Richard J. Neuhaus

Damon Linker
The New Republic
March 23, 2006

Without a Doubt

[Richard Neuhaus and] The Christianizing of America

...the one [Catholic writer] who has exercised the greatest influence on the ideological agenda of the religious right is Richard John Neuhaus..[who] has sought nothing less than to reverse the fortunes of traditionalist religion in modern America--to teach conservative Christians how to place liberal modernity, once and for all, on the defensive. Any attempt to come to terms with the religious challenge to secular politics in contemporary America must confront Neuhaus's enormously ambitious and increasingly influential enterprise...

Neuhaus teaches traditionalist Christians that they need not choose between modern America and their theological convictions, because, rightly understood, modern America has a theological--and specifically Catholic--essence. He has pushed this position for nearly twenty years now--in books, in his magazine First Things, in sympathetic Washington think tanks, and even in the White House, where George W. Bush receives counsel on social policy from the man he affectionately calls "Father Richard."...

All of the participants in [a] First Things symposium--it was called "The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics"--permitted themselves radical rhetoric. Robert H. Bork denounced the nation's "judicial oligarchy" for spreading "moral chaos" throughout the land...Charles W. Colson maintained that America may have reached the point where "the only political action believers can take is some kind of direct, extra-political confrontation" with the "judicially controlled regime." And in a contribution titled "The Tyrant State," Robert P. George asserted that "the courts ... have imposed upon the nation immoral policies that pro-life Americans cannot, in conscience, accept."

But it was Neuhaus himself who did more than anyone else to push the tone of the symposium beyond the limits of responsible discourse. In the unsigned editorial with which he introduced the special issue of the magazine, Neuhaus adopted the revolutionary language of the Declaration of Independence to lament the judiciary's "long train of abuses and usurpations" and to warn darkly about "the prospect--some might say the present reality--of despotism" in America.

Read the full report >

Richard Neuhaus at IRC Right Web

Andrew J. Weaver
Media Transparency
August 10, 2006

Neocon Catholics target mainline Protestants

Institute on Religion and Democracy leads serious breach of ecumenical good will

...Six of the 17 current members of IRD's board of directors, a full 35 percent, are prominent conservative Catholics. They include founders Father Richard John Neuhaus of the Institute on Religion and Public Life and Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, along with George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University, Mary Ellen Bork (wife of Judge Robert Bork), and board chair, Professor J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas at Austin...