The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a theologian and writer who founded the journal First Things and an influential Catholic conservative (who occasionally advised President Bush and is said to have helped guide the administration’s policy on embryonic stem cell research and other issues), died from side effects of cancer treatment yesterday in New York. He was 72.

Robert Nylen, the magazine entrepreneur who co-founded the spirituality Web site Beliefnet with Steven Waldman in 1999, died of cancer on December 23 at his home in Ashfield, Massachusetts. He was 64.

Charles Townes, winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 2005 winner of the Templeton Prize, sent us the following note in response to the death of Sir John Templeton yesterday at the age of 95:

“Sir John Templeton was a truly remarkable person. He was very open-minded, but deeply committed and devoted to some of the most important aspects of life. We have all benefitted from his insight and remarkable work, and humans will continue to benefit. We can all be thankful.”

Thanks, Professor Townes, for sharing your thoughts.

Sir John Templeton, a mutual fund manager turned philanthropist who established the Templeton Foundation to explore the “big questions” of science and religion (and who many believe is, in large part, responsible for the modern movement to study the relationship between the two), died today of pneumonia in the Bahamas. He was 95.