Religious Scholar Praises Valpo in First Things

One of the foremost authorities on the role of religion in the contemporary world—who spoke at Valparaiso University earlier this year—has adapted his comments to an article in the journal First Things.

Father Richard John Neuhaus ’87 L.H.D. is president of The Institute on Religion and Public Life, a nonpartisan interreligious research and education institute in New York City, and editor in chief of its influential journal First Things. He visited Valpo this past February to deliver the 2007 Albert G. Huegli Lecture on Church-Related Higher Education.

Neuhaus’ lecture has been adapted for an article that appeared in the April 2007 issue of First Things. Titled “A University of a Particular Kind,” it explores the crisis of the Christian university.

“In speaking about the crisis of the Christian university, I have been generalizing, and I am assured by some that Valparaiso University is an exception—that it is determined to be what it was founded to be,” the article concludes. “I pray this is the case, for I cannot forget the Valparaiso that helped form me and innumerable others in the high adventure of responding to the church’s heart for learning.”

Neuhaus was ordained as a Lutheran minister and served 17 years as pastor of an African-American congregation in Brooklyn. He converted to Catholicism and was ordained as a priest in 1991, and has played a leading role in organizations dealing with civil rights, international justice and ecumenism.

Neuhaus’ article is available online at www.firstthings.com with a subscription.