{"id":27442,"date":"2015-10-24T12:35:35","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T18:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=27442"},"modified":"2015-10-24T13:01:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T19:01:49","slug":"elder-ballards-supposed-anti-catholic-bigotry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/10\/elder-ballards-supposed-anti-catholic-bigotry.html","title":{"rendered":"Elder Ballard’s supposed anti-Catholic bigotry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"JP<\/a>
My beloved teacher, Father Georges Anawati OP (1905-1994), with Pope Saint John Paul II
(Click to enlarge; click again to enlarge further.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You may or may not have noticed the very recent tempest \u2014 there\u2019s always a tempest, but its focus constantly changes \u2014 concerning a brief, passing, unscripted remark made during February 2014 by Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Council of Twelve in Buenos Aires, Argentina.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Referring to\u00a0Catholics, he remarked before a local group of Latter-day Saints that \u201cthey don\u2019t know who God is. They don\u2019t know who the Savior is; nor do they know who the Holy Ghost is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a critical reaction to his remark\u00a0that isn\u2019t rendered basically unreadable\u00a0by deep and unreasoning hostility \u2014 the same can\u2019t be said, unfortunately, for all of the comments posted in response \u2014 see Jana Riess\u2019s blogged reply\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elder Ballard is being pilloried in certain predictable quarters as a bigot, an out-of-touch throwback to the supposedly bad old days of Mormonism<\/a>, full of hate, and so forth. \u00a0He\u2019s portrayed as having \u201cdenounced\u201d Catholicism. \u00a0Even more moderate quarters, though, have expressed regret. \u00a0And some have voiced the confident hope that a more-univeralist, less exclusive Church is on the horizon, and that that glorious dawn will arrive once the current generation finally exits the scene.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To the last, I\u2019ll simply say, in passing, that a non-exclusivist Mormonism would be unrecognizable as<\/em> Mormonism. \u00a0Joseph Smith\u2019s claim of Restoration would be both pointless and incomprehensible without the implication of an apostasy. \u00a0Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery\u2019s reception of Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood authority would be redundant if other claims to such authority were deemed valid.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, I would like to very briefly address the regret that some commenters have voiced. \u00a0(I know that little can be done to win over those who want to portray Elder Ballard as a hateful anti-Catholic bigot, which I\u2019m entirely confident that he\u2019s not. \u00a0But perhaps I can help a little bit even there, if somebody is willing to listen.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The critics should perhaps dial it back a bit, and consider the principle of charity in reading others.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elder Ballard was presumably speaking more or less off the cuff, as Latter-day Saint speakers and especially Latter-day Saint leaders commonly do on such occasions. \u00a0Had he been speaking from a carefully prepared text, he might have nuanced his remark more, or differently. \u00a0He can certainly clarify it\u00a0and\/or defend himself, if he chooses to do so. \u00a0(Perhaps he already has, and I\u2019ve missed it.) \u00a0But what he said doesn\u2019t seem to me untrue (from a standard-issue, mainstream Mormon viewpoint) nor even remotely novel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some have\u00a0purported to summarize what Elder Ballard said by representing him as declaring that Catholics don\u2019t know God<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, in an important respect, that\u2019s certainly true: \u00a0They don\u2019t. \u00a0None of us does. \u00a0Not fully. \u00a0Not adequately. \u00a0Not as completely as, someday, we hope<\/em> to know him. \u00a0\u201cFor now we see through a glass, darkly,\u201d wrote even the great Apostle Paul at 1 Corinthians 13:12, \u201cbut then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Elder Ballard wasn\u2019t referring to that. \u00a0He was plainly suggesting that Latter-day Saints know who God is in a way that Catholics don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Please notice, though, the way in which I formulated that: \u00a0I spoke of knowing who God<\/em> is, not of knowing God<\/em>. \u00a0There is, to my mind, a clear significant difference between the two modes of expression. \u00a0And it\u2019s significant that Elder Ballard, too, used the first, not the second.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lots and lots of stories tell of princes in disguise, and similar things. \u00a0Clearly, it\u2019s possible to know a person and not to know who that person is \u2014 at least, not fully. \u00a0There are, for example, accounts of kids going door to door singing Christmas carols in Princeton, New Jersey. \u00a0At one house, the long-haired old man who answers the door tells them to wait for just a minute, goes and fetches his violin, and then accompanies them on several carols. \u00a0Did all of them realize that he was named Albert Einstein, and that he was among the greatest scientific thinkers in history? \u00a0Did the people who went to that nightclub on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena and heard the guy playing the drums there know that the drummer, Richard Feynman, was a professor at Caltech, a Nobel laureate in physics, and one of the foremost authorities in the world on quantum\u00a0theory? \u00a0The peasant girl might know her young suitor very well and love him dearly, but she may not realize that he\u2019s the heir to the throne.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elder Ballard seemed to be saying, simply, that Catholics are theologically wrong about God in several respects. \u00a0That they misunderstand precisely who he is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing whatever new in this. \u00a0Catholics and Mormons<\/a> disagree about the nature of the Godhead in dramatic ways. \u00a0Mormons believe God to be embodied. \u00a0Catholics don\u2019t. \u00a0Catholics believe in Nicene ontological trinitarianism. \u00a0Mormons don\u2019t. \u00a0Mormons believe humanity to be genetically related to God, as it were, in a very literal way that Catholics don\u2019t. \u00a0Catholic theologians often speak of God as the Unmoved Mover; Mormons don\u2019t. \u00a0And so forth.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Catholicism is precisely as far from Mormonism on such points as Mormonism is from Catholicism, and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I suspect that Elder Ballard didn\u2019t mean a whole lot more than that in the two sentences that have so inflamed some critics.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jana Riess, speaking up against what she sees as a rather total devaluation of Catholicism by Elder Ballard \u2014 a devaluation that I simply don\u2019t see in his comments \u2014 tells of how much certain Catholic music has meant to her, as well as certain other things Catholic, including the writing of Thomas Merton.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t take a back seat to her in that regard. \u00a0I hope that my respect for Catholicism has been evident over the years, here on this blog, in various newspaper columns, in other things I\u2019ve written, and in many public lectures and firesides that I\u2019ve delivered.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I read Thomas Merton while still in high school.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve met with very high Catholic leaders at the Vatican and elsewhere \u2014 one of them even invited me and some friends, as his guests, to attend a function with Pope John Paul II at the Roman Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls \u2014 and I respect them enormously.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September 2006, while I was on a lecture tour in Australia and New Zealand that was focused on\u00a0Islam, Pope Benedict XVI gave a lecture at the University of Regensburg, in Germany. \u00a0Some of his remarks struck both Muslim and non-Muslim observers as bigoted toward Islam, and an international controversy ensued. \u00a0I soon found myself being asked to respond to him both in lectures and during several radio interviews. \u00a0Unlike Elder Ballard\u2019s comment, the Pope\u2019s speech was written out, and I managed to find a copy of the German original online. \u00a0And, although I\u2019m both a Mormon and an Islamicist, I was perfectly happy and willing to defend him,\u00a0on multiple occasions in both countries, against what I regarded as gross and inflammatory misinterpretations.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I, too, love much Catholic music. \u00a0(Singing Schubert\u2019s Mass in G<\/em> with a choir in Cairo, for example, remains, for my wife and for me, one of the musical \u2014 and spiritual \u2014 high points of our lives; I\u2019ve written about it several times.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I studied one-on-one for several months with Father Georges Anawati<\/a> at the\u00a0Institut Dominicain d\u2019Etudes Orientales in Cairo, and, like most everyone else who knew him, loved him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of my sons is named after St. Thomas Aquinas.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve drawn considerably from Catholic liberation theologians for my thinking about Mormonism and social trinitarianism (some of which will shortly appear in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t consider it even remotely \u201cbigoted\u201d or \u201chateful\u201d or \u201cdenunciatory\u201d to acknowledge that, from the standpoint of Mormonism, Catholicism gets some things quite wrong about \u201cwho God is,\u201d \u201cwho the Savior is,\u201d and \u201cwho the Holy Ghost is.\u201d \u00a0And I fully expect that informed, believing Catholics will sometimes do us the credit of frankly saying precisely the same thing about Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from San Francisco, California<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 You may or may not have noticed the very recent tempest \u2014 there\u2019s always a tempest, but its focus constantly changes \u2014 concerning a brief, passing, unscripted remark made during February 2014 by Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Council of Twelve in Buenos Aires, Argentina. \u00a0 Referring to\u00a0Catholics, he remarked before a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nElder Ballard's supposed anti-Catholic bigotry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    You may or may not have noticed the very recent tempest -- there's always a tempest, but its focus constantly changes -- concerning a brief,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/10\/elder-ballards-supposed-anti-catholic-bigotry.html\" \/>\n<meta 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