Richard John Neuhaus

December 8, 2014
Boyagoda (Beggar’s Feast), a novelist and professor of American studies at Ryerson University in Toronto, explores the fascinating life of Richard Neuhaus, a man not shy about sharing his opinions or taking controversial positions on public issues. From Neuhaus’s humble childhood in Canada, through his tenure as a Lutheran pastor, to his highly public conversion to Catholicism and ordination to the priesthood, the author investigates all facets of his subject’s life and the profound effect he had on people around the world. While Neuhaus could be a very polarizing figure and was referred to as the Theocon in Chief, the man encountered in these pages is also faithful, generous, and focused on doing God’s work. Most fascinating is Neuhaus’ transformation from civil rights activist and darling of the Christian left to spokesperson for conservative Catholicism as editor of the journal First Things; he was also consultant to presidents and popes. Anyone interested in the history of Catholicism in the 20th century will enjoy this stellar biography.

November 15, 2014
The many sides of Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009).Boyagoda (American Studies/Ryerson Univ.; Beggar's Feast, 2011, etc.) does a true service by offering this first full-length biography of the Christian cleric. Though Neuhaus was a man who defied labels, he was classified by many as a radical leftist, neoconservative, Lutheran, Catholic, activist, writer, etc. Boyagoda begins with a compelling account of Neuhaus' boyhood as the precocious son of a conservative Lutheran pastor in Canada. One of eight children, he nevertheless soon stood out as unique, playing preacher and giving sermons to his little sister. Despite largely misspent teen years, which Boyagoda does not blanch to reveal, Neuhaus finally settled into a life of the mind at a St. Louis Lutheran seminary. There, he caused trouble not so much through alcohol and pranks as through doctrinal difference. Eventually, Neuhaus pursued urban ministry in New York and fell headlong into the civil rights movement and liberal politics. By the end of the 1960s, however, his views had begun to change, and he began to move toward becoming one of America's most recognizable neoconservatives. Moreover, he continued on a spiritual road that would eventually bring about his conversion to Catholicism and ordination as a Catholic priest in 1990. Along the way came international fame, the editorship of First Things and such acclaimed books as The Naked Public Square (1984). Neuhaus also rubbed shoulders with legions of important politicians, activists, theologians, pundits and others during the course of his life. Boyagoda dispassionately describes this fascinating and active life, and he manages to blend skills as a folksy storyteller, researcher and unbiased historian, providing a biography that is balanced, interesting and relevant. A useful, provocative spotlight on one of the leading lights of the 20th century.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2015

Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009) was a lightning rod of controversy and was frequently the center of media attention in his day. As a Lutheran pastor for a predominantly African American and Latino congregation in Brooklyn in the 1960s, Neuhaus marched beside Martin Luther King Jr. and was arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in the infamous clash with Chicago police. In later life, he grew conservative--but no less vocal--and converted to Roman Catholicism, becoming a priest in that faith, and wrote caustic commentary on American society for First Things, the journal he founded. Novelist Boyadoga (American studies, Ryerson Univ.; Beggar's Feast) has written a workmanlike account of this prominent and still-baffling presence; there is rather little sense of Neuhaus's driving impulses, only a series of impressions of his unfailing courage to speak out. VERDICT The first major biographical monograph on Neuhaus, but perhaps not the last, this efficient account should be of interest to academic libraries.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2014
No public intellectual who abandoned the Left to embrace Reagan's Republicans was more important or visible than Richard John Neuhaus (19362009). He was a clergyman, initially a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor, and later a Roman Catholic priest. While serving black-majority congregations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, he raced to the front ranks of 1960s civil rights activism. But he left what he had christened the Movement when its Marxists alienated its nonliberal Christians by backing the communists in Vietnam. Even more prolific a writer than a speaker, he thereafter became a weighty neoconservative, eventually founding its most important religiously concerned journal, First Things, and simultaneously becoming a Catholic. He advocated church orthodoxy on abortion, homosexuality, and marriage as fiercely as he had civil rights, and he backed the War on Terror to the hilt. Although Boyagoda's prose is, like his subject's, often opaque and turgid, he recounts Neuhaus' life thoroughly and without bias, noting faults as well as virtues. He cannot, however, make this meddlesome priest seem more than calculatingly personable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)