Today’s Wall Street Journal story on Father Richard John Neuhaus cites his 2001 Register piece, “Just War Is an Obligation of Charity” (Where he wrote: “Sept. 11 recalled America from an extended and mainly hedonistic holiday from history.”)

But Raymond Arroyo in yesterday’s WSJ reminds me of a Neuhaus trait: telling you when you’re wrong.

Arroyo remembers viewing the body of Pope John Paul II with Neuhaus and then, he writes:

“That wasn’t him. He isn’t there,” I said. “No,” Father Neuhaus said. “He is there. These are the remains, what is left behind of a life such as we are not likely to see again, waiting with all of us for the Resurrection of the dead, the final vindication of the hope he proclaimed.”

Arroyo uses the story to demonstrate the breathtaking off-the-cuff eloquence Neuhaus was capable of. An excellent point. But I immediately noticed the “No.”

No one likes a “know-it-all” who tries to impress by correcting. But perhaps you’ve met people who aren’t pedantic but are honest, forthright, and feel keenly the importance of the truth. Neuhaus was one of those.

A friend told me the story about a dinner he had with Father Neuhaus, where the priest asked the question: Why do Catholics almost invariably avoid saying “Jesus” and prefer “Christ”? My friend suggested a theory and felt socially covered: He had been able to come up with something interesting to say. 

Father Neuhaus answered with, “No. You’re wrong.” And explained how, in fact, he was.

I had the same experience with Neuhaus in my most recent encounter with him. I offered a cool conversational theory. He decimated it.

There’s a sort of unspoken rule that people have in conversation: Unless you’re peddling an argument, you get to be wrong with minimal consequence. I’m not saying it’s a bad rule; I think it is a good one, generally. But it can be bad.

Once you get into the habit of letting people’s feelings trump the truth in small things, you have started down the road to letting feelings trump the truth in large ways.

You have, in fact, taken at least a small step down the road whose ultimate destination is the “naked public square.”

Remembrances about Neuhaus puzzle at how he went from sit-ins with social reformers to sit-downs with popes and presidents. This personality trait of Neuhaus might be the constant that ties all of that apparent change together.

“To be perfect is to have changed often,” said Cardinal John Henry Newman. To commit yourself to the truth will look like change over time. It will also require being willing to say “You’re wrong” without self-consciousness or rancor.

“Just War Is an Obligation of Charity” wasn’t just a column by Father Neuhaus. It was a way of life.

— {encode="[email protected]" title="Tom Hoopes"}