In early January, America lost one of its wisest public intellectuals with the passing of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, the founder and longtime editor in chief of that essential journal, First Things. Among the magazine’s many friends and contributors is Robert P. George, McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and director of its James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez sat down with Professor George to discuss the late Father Neuhaus’s contributions to American intellectual life and his enduring impact in the public square. KJL: What do you miss the most about your friend, Father Richard John Neuhaus? RG: Like all who enjoyed the extraordinary blessing of his friendship, I already miss him terribly. A great hole has been created in our lives, and nothing can fill it. I miss his sparkling conversation, his amusing stories, his witty ripostes, his volcanic, booming laugh. I miss his words of encouragement and his inspiring and sometimes even exhilarating calls to arms on behalf of the great moral causes of our day. I miss jousting with him about ideas and being reprimanded by him for exaggerating (as he wrongly saw it) the power and authority of reason. (You see, even after becoming a Catholic he remained a Lutheran in some important ways.) Like all of his spiritual children, I am feeling orphaned. KJL: How will the public square be left especially naked without him?

RG: Well, thanks in no small measure to his writings and witness, the public square will not be left naked. More than anyone, Father Neuhaus is responsible for sinking the misguided and dangerous notion that democracy is best served by scrubbing religion and religiously inspired moral witness from our public discourse and public life. And make no mistake about it: That notion is sunk. While, to be sure, it continues to hold some professors, jurists, and ACLU-type liberal activists in thrall, it has been utterly discredited intellectually, and it has been repudiated by every major political leader from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton to George Bush to Barack Obama. There is no future in it. KJL: What was special about First Things?

RG: What was, and is–and, God willing, will remain–special about First Things is that it publishes the best writings by the best thinkers on religion, morality, and public life, and it brings these thinkers into fruitful conversation with each other. It is non-sectarian and ecumenical in the very best sense. One finds in its pages outstanding writings by Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Mormon, and Jewish Scholars. What Rabbi David Novak calls “the First Things family” includes theologians, philosophers, historians, sociologists, literary and cultural critics, legal scholars, economists, and policy specialists. Father Neuhaus was the greatest impresario of the intellectual life God ever created. He knew exactly who should be talking to whom, and he got them talking. KJL: Which was your favorite Neuhaus book and why? RG: That is like asking: Which of your grandparents is your favorite? But, if pushed to the wall, I would say The Naked Public Square . . . um, wait, no, I would say Death on a Friday Afternoon . . . no, no, wait . . . it has to be The Catholic Moment . . . oh, wait, no, I have to change that, it is To Empower People (with Peter Berger) . . . no, wait, um . . . oh, I can’t decide. They are all wonderful. KJL: We’re all sending around his wonderful “Born Toward Dying” reflection, of course, for obvious reasons. What would you recommend to Neuhaus newcomers? RG: I would suggest beginning with some of his great essays, such as “A New Order of Religious Freedom,” “The Idea of Moral Progress,” “ ‘Salvation is from the Jews,’ ” “How I Became the Catholic I Was,” and “We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest.” #ad#KJL: What do you want him to be most remembered for? RG: His lifelong witness to the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of each and every member of the human family. He lived in undeviating fidelity to the principle that human beings, as creatures fashioned in the very image and likeness of the divine Creator and Ruler of the universe, have inestimable and eternal value, and must therefore be treated with love and respect. This explains the civil-rights activism that caused him to be labeled a liberal in the 1960s and the pro-life activism that caused him to be labeled a conservative beginning in the 1970s. As his old friend and fellow Lutheran convert to Catholicism Fr. Leonard Klein said in a wonderful tribute, “Richard’s politics changed precisely because his principles did not change.” KJL: He of course famously left Lutheranism for Catholicism. Why should people other than Catholics consider what he has to say? RG: He possessed, and his writings communicate, a profound understanding of the Judeo-Christian worldview, an understanding from which all who honor the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus have much to learn. Equally profound was his understanding of the centrality of ethical monotheism and the tradition of reflection on natural law and natural rights to the American experiment in ordered liberty and constitutional democracy. I should add that it is a mistake to view his reception into full communion with the Catholic Church as a repudiation of Lutheranism. From his earliest days as a Lutheran seminarian, he regarded Lutheranism not as a separate church, but as a reform movement within the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. “In this understanding,” as he wrote, “the goal was to fulfill the promise of the Lutheran Reformation by bringing its gifts into full communion with the Great Tradition that is most fully and rightly ordered through time in the Roman Catholic Church.” KL: Was President Bush influenced by him? How? RG: George Weigel and I had the honor of visiting President Bush in the Oval Office of the White House a few days after Fr. Neuhaus’s funeral. After concluding our discussion of the matter the president had invited us to talk with him about, he spoke to us of Fr. Neuhaus’s influence on his thinking, especially on issues of abortion and embryo-destructive research. He said that Fr. Neuhaus had crystallized these issues for him in the proposition that we must work for an America where “every unborn child is welcomed in life and protected by law.” KL: Is some of the “theocon” and other criticism of him fair?

RG: The “theocon” business is silly. As for other criticism, well, I suppose as someone who disagreed with him about some practical as well as some speculative philosophical and theological matters, I have to say that some of it is fair. His judgments of other people’s character were sometimes faulty, usually because he was far too generous. He couldn’t fathom the idea that someone would simply lie to him or represent himself as something he was not or engage in an act of betrayal. (The same was true, by the way, of his friend Pope John Paul II.) On a different matter, his criticism of the Mormon faith, while intended as constructive theological engagement, unnecessarily bruised the feelings of some wonderful people and valued allies in the struggle to defend conjugal marriage and the sanctity of human life. Soon recognizing this, he orchestrated a more fruitful dialogue about the Latter Day Saints tradition in the pages of First Things. This dialogue will, I’m sure, continue and will deepen mutual respect and understanding among people who, in different ways, worship Jesus as Lord and seek to walk in his ways. #PAGE#KL: He led a well-known “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” effort. After this election cycle, have we lost him when we need him most? RG: Yes, we have lost him when we need him most. I have to confess that I have complained to God about this in my prayers. I don’t think it’s quite fair of the Almighty to allow the national government to be taken over by the proponents of San Francisco values and the practitioners of Chicago politics, and then allow Fr. Neuhaus to be taken from us. Since his death, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading the Book of Job. Still, we should take inspiration in the face of political adversity from Fr. Neuhaus himself. As Sherif Girgis has observed, “he always kept his sense of adventure, his sheer joy, founded on an utter trust in the providence of God and an Augustinian sobriety about the imperfections of every polity short of the New Jerusalem, without losing sight of the ways in which we are called to advance the cause of justice and serve the common good.” #AD#On the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” initiative, I would say that this project (which he co-chaired with his great friend Chuck Colson), together with his promotion of friendly and fruitful relations between Christians and our Jewish “elder brothers in faith,” will be counted among his greatest contributions. KL: How important was the “end of democracy” debate in First Things in the mid-’90s? Did it wake people up to the issue of judicial tyranny? RG: It was very important in calling attention to a serious and insidious threat to constitutional democracy. Unfortunately, it was badly misunderstood in some circles. The basic point was simple and sound: the judicial usurpation of decision-making authority left or placed by the Constitution in the hands of the people and their elected representatives is unconstitutional and, indeed, anti-constitutional. To the extent that we are being ruled by judges who refuse to respect the constitutional limits of their authority, that rule is constitutionally and morally illegitimate. The illegitimacy of judicial rule is exacerbated when it is used to deny to the people their right to employ the constitutionally prescribed mechanisms of democracy to ensure that all, including the unborn, are afforded the equal protection of the laws. That does not mean that revolution, much less violent revolution, is warranted or justified–and none of the participants called for such a thing. But it does mean that those in the political class who have acquiesced in judicial usurpation need to go back and read Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address on the question of their solemn responsibility in the face of anti-constitutional judicial acts. If “The End of Democracy?” accomplished nothing else, it reminded readers that threats to the constitutional order can come from judges as well as legislators and executive officers, and that we should not be tricked into accepting anti-constitutional judicial acts by the claim that respect for the rule of law means acquiescing in government by the judiciary. KL: What’s something that will surprise even loyal Neuhaus fans to learn about him? RG: He remained a registered Democrat. Don’t ask me why.

KL: What did he teach us about living? Again, a somewhat ecumenical lesson, perhaps? RG: By precept and example he taught us the joy of trusting in God and living in hope. People said he was an optimist. He always denied it. Optimism, he said, is merely about optics–how things appear. What others mistook for optimism he understood as the theological virtue of hope. He was filled with it. It was a hope rooted in faith and nurtured by love of God and neighbor–love he received and love he gave. Moreover, it was a reasoned and reasonable hope, a hope founded on trust in God’s goodness and providence, a hope that, in the words of Julian of Norwich–words Fr. Neuhaus never tired of quoting–“all will be well, and every manner of things will be well.” KL: What did he teach us about death?

RG: He taught us that death is real, and it is profoundly sad. When Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, he wasn’t pretending or putting on an act. But death is not final. It has been conquered. He would quote St. Paul: “Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?” And so he taught us that death can be holy and prepared for; it need not be feared.