George Neumayr, Requiescat in Pace
Neumayr in front of Our Lady of Yamoussoukro.
I am shocked and saddened by news from Côte d’Ivoire that George Neumayr, senior editor at the American Spectator, author of The Political Pope, and faithful authentic Catholic man, has died.
I was set to interview George on our podcast just this past Wednesday. When he did not show up for our intercontinental Zoom, I suspected something was amiss given that he had always been so gracious with me and stated that looked forward to our conversation.
George was in Côte d’Ivoire investigating the state of the Church in West Africa, one which he lamented, is in a state of observable decline given the social justice bend Catholic leadership has taken the Church there in recent decades. The Church as immanent NGO has been the disastrous ecclesiology of Pope Francis and his lemmings for the entirety of his pontificate, and it has rendered once boisterous and thriving young churches in Africa and beyond as empty of both people and spirit.
While his critique of modernists, relativists, and abusers in the Church was deservedly dogged and unrelenting, it was with a similar level of passion that George complemented the Ivorians whom he met on what turned out to be the final pilgrimage of his life. He tweeted about their generosity and joie de vivre even in the midst of crushing poverty. He relished their joviality and respect for the divine, and thus opined that what the Catholic Church had become did not suit their righteous fancy. Ivorians seek the transcendent, the God who casts down the mighty from their thrones and Who lifts up the lowly, not some feckless, meaningless charity outreach; one that, given the doctrinal hemming and hawing, appeared to lack confidence in proclaiming the Gospel. As it turns out, Ivorians don’t seek to revere and worship “African man” or anything that self-loathing Europeans wish they would so that Europeans might attain some false self-absolution. The Ivorians, according to Neumayr, are searching for the God Who they know loves them and knows the beauty of their love. Simple. Real. Humble.
Neumayr, like the greatest of Catholic thinkers before him–most notably G.K. Chesterton–enjoyed an occasional fine cigar.
I pray that he is enjoying the finest with the Lord of Hosts, He with Whom he conversed on earth and in Whose company he now revels.
Rest in peace.
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George Neumayr on the Tom Woods Podcast: https://tomwoods.com/ep-952-pope-francis-the-political-pope/
Links to his books:
The Political Pope: How Pope Francis Is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives
The Biden Deception: Moderate, Opportunist, or the Democrats’ Crypto-Socialist?
