Update 3:58 p.m. Eastern time on January 20, 2023: Neumayr’s family released the following statement: “It is with great sadness that the family of George Neumayr announces his untimely passing on January 19, 2023. He was abroad in Côte d’Ivoire, Africa, living out his passion for defending the Catholic Faith and the Church’s mission to save souls. He passed away after contracting malaria. The family is devastated by this sudden loss and requests prayers for the happy repose of his soul and the consolation of his family.”
George Neumayr, an author and journalist who fearlessly exposed corruption in the Catholic Church, died of malaria last night. He was 50.
He had been in Africa since December 26, 2022, studying Christianity there and “what the Church in the West could learn from it, both good and bad,” according to his journalism fund updates and several articles he wrote from the former French colony.
Neumayr, who was once famously banned from entering Washington, D.C.’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception over his reporting on its rector, was a senior editor at The American Spectator and the author of The Political Pope: How Pope Francis Is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives (2017) and The Biden Deception: Moderate, Opportunist, or the Democrats’ Crypto-Socialist? (2020). In 2012, he co-authored No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom with social conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly.
Neumayr wrote numerous articles for LifeSiteNews and was beloved by many of our staff. He was known in the greater Catholic journalism sphere for his willingness to show up in person, when least expected, to ask the most uncomfortable of questions of men in the Church who lived the most comfortably.
“We have truly lost one of God’s great warriors for truth,” stated LifeSite’s Jim Hale. “Just before George left for Africa, we had a long conversation about his trip and a big story he was on. I am just heartbroken. There was simply no one like him: a real independent journalist who was absolutely fearless. At the end of our conversation he talked to me about how he wanted to bring justice to the innocent victims and that his goal was to build up the church.”
“He told me that he had decided a long time ago to devote his life to exposing sexual predators,” added Hale.
“We are completely stunned and deeply saddened to learn of the death of our good friend,” said Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute. “George was a bulldog of a journalist and a loyal son of Holy Mother Church. His tenacious pursuit of truth was only ever aimed at serving God and the Church he loved in the hopes of seeing Her restored to Glory in a time of deep crisis. His loss as an investigative journalist cannot be calculated and his warm friendship and dry wit will be sorely missed. We thank God for the hope of the resurrection and look forward to the time when we will see him again.”
