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Some years ago, when FIRST THINGS was new, I met Diane, a young Episcopalian woman affiliated with the Institute on Religion and Democracy. We got to talking about FIRST THINGS, our favorite monthly magazine.

Diane was in the habit of reading the longer articles first, then rewarding herself with Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’ various commentaries in his While We’re At It section.

I jumped immediately to Fr. Neuhaus’ pages. It was like sitting down with an old friend.  He saw right through sham and he consistently skewered woolly-headed thinking with wit and grace.

AP reporter Rachel Zoll, writing for The New York Times tries to get it right today by describing Fr. Neuhaus’ life as moving from left to right:

A native of Canada and the son of a Lutheran pastor, Neuhaus began his own work as a Lutheran minister at St. John the Evangelist Lutheran Church in a predominantly African-American Brooklyn neighborhood. He was active in the civil rights movement and other liberal causes. In 1964, he joined the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Rev. Daniel Berrigan as the first co-chairmen of the anti-war group Clergy Concerned About Vietnam.

But he eventually broke with the left, partly over the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. In 1990, he converted to Catholicism and a year later was ordained by New York Cardinal John O’Connor.

But Fr. Neuhaus did not break with the left in order to become a conservative: as he saw it, he broke with the left in order to continue being an authentic Christian.

Christianity compelled him to denounce segregation and bigotry and Christianity compelled him to denounce Roe v. Wade. He saw the many parallels and acted on them.

I, too, had worked in the civil rights movement — a widow’s mite in my case — and I, too, started making what seemed at the time a wrenching journey away from liberalism, a liberalism that had become increasingly smug, contemptuous, arrogant –  and powerful.

Roe v. Wade tipped whatever balance was left.

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May Fr. Richard John Neuhaus rest in peace.