Death of a Theologian

David Brooks of the NYTimes has a meditation on the recent death of theologian and priest Richard John Neuhaus. Fr. Neauhaus became somewhat controversial for advocating that American public life (politics) should never be divorced from a religiously-centred morality. He became embraced by both conservative Evangelicals and conservative Catholics for these and other views. He was a man who went through many changes: Canadian-to-American, Lutheran-to-Catholic, Democrat-to-Republican.

The focus of Brooks' essay, however, is death. The way Neuhaus approached death has the ring of wisdom for me, and it's notable for it's lack of sentimentality:

William D. Eddy was an Episcopal minister in Tarrytown, N.Y., and an admirer of the writer and theologian Richard John Neuhaus. When Rev. Eddy grew gravely ill about 20 years ago, I asked Neuhaus to write him a letter of comfort.

I was shocked when I read it a few weeks later. As I recall, Neuhaus’s message was this: There are comforting things you and I have learned to say in circumstances such as these, but we don’t need those things between ourselves.

Neuhaus then went on to talk frankly and extensively about death. Those two men were in a separate fraternity and could talk directly about things the rest avoided. (source)

In Brooks' request for "comfort" I see the problem of most pastoral care requests. People ask us religious types for words of comfort for loved ones. What they really want, usually, is to be comforted themselves!

-t