Richard John Neuhaus: The Anti-Thinker?

The New Republic Online has a fantastic article [presently unavailable - January 09] by Damon Linker about Richard John Neuhaus, the editor-in-chief of the conservative Catholic journal First Things, and the author of a new book, Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth.

Linker, himself a former editor of First Things, summarises Neuhaus's theology of uncritical obedience:

A Catholic can have trouble affirming something taught by Rome, but in the end he must conclude that the difficulty arises from his own resistance to obedience or a misunderstanding and not from any error in the teaching itself. The pope, Neuhaus implies, is always right. (When politics intrudes, however, Neuhaus honors this idea in the breach: over the years he has shown himself to be perfectly willing to break from a suddenly fallible Vatican when it endorses economic and foreign policies that diverge from those preferred by the Republican Party.)

Even if you don't care a whit about Neuhaus, I would still recommend reading this article, because it's just so fascinating.