Father Neuhaus, leading intellectual and writer, dead at 72

"Any religious believer who raises his or her voice in the public square today owes a debt of gratitude to the indomitable, irreplaceable
Richard John Neuhaus." -- from "Richard John Neuhaus, public intellectual," editorial in the Friday, January 9, 2009 Dallas News

Father Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor turned Catholic priest and leading intellectual and writer on orthodoxy (founder of First Things: A Journal of Religion, Culture and Public Life and author of The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America and more than 20 other books and regular commentator on EWTN's World Over Live and named four years ago by Time Magazine one of "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicas in the America") died of cancer in mid-morning Thursday, January 8, 2009. He was 72.