Neuhaus the Educator

Posted by Tom McFeely

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 2:39 PM

The funeral Mass for Father Richard John Neuhaus took place today at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in New York.

In this post, we are featuring an article published in the December 2008 issue of Blue and White, the undergraduate magazine of Columbia University.

Entitled “The God Solution,” Andrew Flynn’s article is a well-written and well-researched exploration of the thought of Father Neuhaus and of his influence on Columbia, especially through the homilies he delivered while celebrating Masses at the university chapel on Sunday.

“Richard John Neuhaus is Columbia’s intellectual superstar you’ve never heard of. You’ve never written a paper for him, you’ve never checked his CULPA reviews, and you’ve certainly never shown up late to one of his classes,” Flynn’s article begins. “This is because Neuhaus’s lectures are delivered not from a Hamilton Hall lectern, but from the pulpit in St. Paul’s Chapel. Every Sunday for the past four spring semesters, Father Neuhaus has made his way uptown from his parish on 14th Street to say the 5 PM Mass at Columbia.”

Continues Flynn, “‘Lecture’ is a loose way of describing what Neuhaus does — but not that loose. The Catholic priest is an orator of Roman proportions — with a stentorian voice, perfect sense of timing, and a knack for rhetorical flourish. The sermons themselves are peppered through with references to great works of theology, philosophy, and literature — classic and contemporary. All are variations on a theme: ‘the attractiveness of the high adventure of Catholic faithfulness,’ as he puts it. They are recorded and archived on the Columbia Catholic Ministry’s website for the greater listening public.”

Here is the link to the Columbia Catholic Ministry’s archive of Father Neuhaus’s homilies. We highly recommend that Daily Blog readers peruse those homilies and that they also read the full text of Flynn’s fine article about the ideas that Father Neuhaus discussed so incisively every Sunday at Columbia.

— Tom McFeely

Filed under columbia university, father neuhaus