Quotes by Richard John Neuhaus

“Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion”

“Socialism is workable only in heaven where it isnt needed, and in hell where theyve got it”

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

“The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.”

“The vicissitudes of history, however, have not dissuaded them from their earnest search for a third way between socialism and capitalism, namely socialism”

“I became a Catholic in order to be more fully the Christian I was as a Lutheran, and that is what has happened.”

“In legal parlance, that is called the rational person test, ... Thats where somebody else says, Even though we have no idea what this person would want in this circumstance in which they cannot themselves tell us what they want, a rational person -- meaning, myself -- in that circumstance would want to die. So you move very quickly from so-called voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia. These legal and medical developments are not simply hypothetical: Theyre in the courts right now.”

“My eyes are wide open to the conflicts within the Church, but I dont think you can call it schism.”

“If a church offers no truth that is not available in the general culture - in, for instance, the editorials of the New York Times or, for that matter, of National Review - there is not much reason to pay it attention.”

“Religion as a human phenomenon is as riddled through with potential for both good and evil as any other phenomenon.”

“I think the barbarity of the English language currently used in the liturgy is cause enough for sorrow without further fiddling in terms of feminist inclusiveness.”

“On such questions, the church has clearly defined positions,”

Optimism is a matter optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you dont want to see. Hope, on the other hand, is a Christian virtue. It is the unblinking acknowledgment of all that militates against hope, and the unrelenting refusal to despair. We have not the right to despair, and, finally, we have not the reason to despair

Respect for the dignity of others includes treating them as rational creatures capable of being persuadad by rational argument, even in the face of frequent evidence to the contrary.

The propensity to say and do dumb things, and even wicked things, is simply part of human nature. One can blame the Church or Christianity for such things only on the thoroughly unwarranted assumption that Christianity claims to have abolished human nature. The truth is that Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular, is the mother of Western civilization, with all it strengths and weaknesses, including its frequently exaggerated penchant for self-criticism. Like others who know what it is to be a mother, she is not surprised, although sometimes disappointed, when she is blamed for everything and thanked for nothing.

Progress without the reasoned freedom to think and act is regression to slavery.