Father Neuhaus R.I.P.

I read on some blog earlier this morning that Father Richard John Neuhaus had died. [How does Wikipedia do that? Only a few hours after his death it is already in their entry!] I knew that he was gravely ill, having read about it some days ago on another blog, so I was not surprised.

Now that I come to think on it, I was surprised by his long survival after what sounded like the relatively smooth draft of the early stages of his final illness, which he published in 2002 in As I Lay Dying.

Of course, he wrote it after he somehow, against all odds, survived. But if you have what you think of as some medical sophistication you know that he is not long for this world. But then he goes on for 6 or 7 years, editing and writing brilliantly for First Things, one of the best monthly magazines available, and writing the excellent Catholic Matters published in 2006, and probably doing all sorts of other things that I am unaware of. So you are glad your prognosis wasn't very accurate.

He was one of my mentors, unknown to Father Neuhaus, of course. I suspect that he was a mentor to many. Having a mentor die always starts trains of thought that go in all kinds of directions. The first thought was to re-read his book, or perhaps several of them.

And then, oddly enough, I thought of a pilgrimage to Compostela. I'm not sure why. Possibly because of the allusion to Faulkner's novel, possibly because the thought of taking a trip before one dies seems natural.

Requiescat in Pace.

[Update: Apparently the original illness and brush with death took place in 1995. Seven years later he published the book, and then seven years after that he quickly developed multiple metastases, from the original cancer or not is not clear to me.]