On January 8, 2009, Father Richard John Neuhaus, 72, died in New York City. Father Neuhaus was a great man. Some claim he was the most significant theologian, in and for American public life, since Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971).

This United Methodist pastor had the extraordinary opportunity to work with Richard Neuhaus from 1984 until 1990 in New York -- first at The Center on Religion and Society, and then at The Institute on Religion and Public Life. During those years, it became clear to this associate that Richard Neuhaus was a great man because he followed the truth. In his preaching and in his pastoral work, in his speaking and in his writing, he always served the truth.

For Richard John Neuhaus, the truth was first and foremost embodied in Jesus Christ and His Church. For decades, Neuhaus was a Lutheran pastor strongly committed to Word and Sacrament ministry. For many years, he pastored the Lutheran Church of St. John the Evangelist, an ethnic-minority congregation in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, NY. In 1991, he became a Roman Catholic priest, ordained at the hands of John Cardinal O'Connor of the Archdiocese of New York. During the last years of his life, Neuhaus, forsaking neither a Lutheran-like boldness in preaching nor a catholic commitment to the centrality of the Eucharist, celebrated the Mass daily at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on East 14th Street. Word and Sacrament, the truth spoken and enacted, formed the foundation of the life and ministry of Neuhaus.

Committed to the truth of the Church's faith, Father Neuhaus was all about making and maturing ecclesiastical Christians. As such, he was a constant and severe critic of "the American religion" (Harold Bloom), which is the experiential religion of the self, and "the sovereign self," which is the phrase he gave the secular counterpart of the religion of the self. Neuhaus believed that life in Christ and life in society, ideally and empirically, had to do with webs of relationships and communities, not isolation and privacy. For him, this was a matter of truth, not preference.

Richard Neuhaus knew that Christian unity was a mandate of the Christian faith. He excelled at bringing Christians, all different kinds of Christians, to the table, as is said these days. Over twenty years ago, he invited leaders of Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and leaders of Liberal Protestantism's National Council of Churches to engage one another, in conferences and consultations, on matters related to Church and society. He also initiated Evangelicals and Catholics Together to put Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics in serious theological conversation with each other. He led many Christians -- Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants -- to read and consider the popes' encyclicals. In addition, he was committed to deep Christian-Jewish dialogue that engaged theological, cultural, and political claims. Anchored in the truth, he offered friendship and engagement to many.

American public life was also Neuhaus' concern. Much of his ministry was spent insuring that "the naked public square" (as he called it), with its aim of eliminating moral content and religious reference from public life, was pushed back. In the early 1970s, Neuhaus paid a high personal price, as many of his friends and colleagues bid him farewell, for moving his major moral commitment from the Civil Rights Movement to the Pro-Life Movement. In his societal work, Richard John Neuhaus was always proposing, not imposing, the truth of the God-given dignity of the person.

It should be noted that Richard Neuhaus knew how to enjoy a good meal, a good drink (or two or three), and a good cigar. His conversation on such occasions was filled with jokes, joshing, and uncommon flashes of insight, which challenged conventional wisdom.

Now Richard John Neuhaus, this great man, is gone. He has crossed the Jordan, as he would say. But he has left much behind. First Things -- an influential, monthly journal on religion and public life, of which he was the editor in chief for 150 issues -- will continue publication. In addition, the ecumenical, interreligious community of authorship and discourse, formed around First Things, will grow. Projects such as Evangelicals and Catholics Together, regular table talks with theologians, and occasional scholars conferences will most probably persist. And the paper trail he leaves, which is miles and miles long, will remain open to investigation. His nearly thirty books and countless essays might well be read and engaged by a larger readership now than when he was alive.

If and as that occurs, Richard John Neuhaus will be a servant of truth in life and in the life beyond death.