\u201cIt\u2019s a new fact of news life: Reporters have to start reading the alternative Catholic press\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Incidentally, I think it\u2019s instructive to be informed on these developments, even if one is a Latter-day Saint. \u00a0Not because I\u2019m anti-Catholic. \u00a0I\u2019m emphatically not<\/em> anti-Catholic. \u00a0On the contrary, I have great respect for the Catholic Church and for many of its current leaders, including the handful of very senior cardinals (principally at the Vatican) with whom I had some dealings back when I was a leader with BYU\u2019s Maxwell Institute. \u00a0I\u2019m deeply saddened by the recent scandals. \u00a0I think it\u2019s instructive to watch the Catholics, though, because, in a sense and mutatis mutandis<\/em>, we\u2019re all attempting to navigate the same waters through which the Vatican is sailing. \u00a0So watching them \u2014 as they succeed and as they fail \u2014 can be helpful to us.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Incidentally, my respect for Catholic clergy goes back to at least the days of my mission in German-speaking Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
With one very notable exception \u2014 which deserves its own autobiographical blog entry \u2014 I was mostly rather unimpressed with the state church Protestant clergy that I met in Switzerland. \u00a0Pastors of the\u00a0Evangelisch-reformierte Kirchen der Schweiz\u00a0<\/i>seemed to live very comfortable lives, drawing a solid salary and living in parsonages that were frequently among the largest and nicest houses in a village or a neighborhood, with relatively light and pleasant duties. \u00a0For a cultured and educated person, it wasn\u2019t a bad career choice. \u00a0And \u2014 I won\u2019t say that this was true of all<\/em> of them, by any means \u2014 more than a few of the official state church Protestant pastors with whom I spoke seemed, when push came to shove, to believe very little. \u00a0Their faith seemed to me a very vague and airy thing, full of abstractions but offering little confidence on burning questions like the resurrection of the dead and life beyond the grave or, even, the existence of God. \u00a0(I wasn\u2019t surprised that their pews were often quite empty on Sundays.)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was quite different with the Catholic priests whom I encountered. \u00a0(It was, I admit, a smaller sample.) \u00a0They seemed really to believe, and I had several good and mutually respectful conversations with them about meaty issues that we both took very seriously. \u00a0It occurred to me than that a significant difference lay in the fact that they had actually given something up \u2014 marriage and family, to say nothing of material wealth and a considerable degree of personal autonomy \u2014 in order to take up their vocation. \u00a0Theirs certainly wasn\u2019t just a solid and prudent career option.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Park City, Utah<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 A perhaps unexpected gathering on the Provo campus of Brigham Young University: \u00a0 \u201cNCAA Common Ground IV at BYU: Asking sincere questions, finding radical hope\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 Although I\u2019m obviously not a Catholic, I found this quite interesting and worthy of recommending to other non-Catholics. \u00a0It raises an issue that, in many […]<\/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-67338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Der](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/06\/bern-switzerland-temple-lds-784290-gallery.jpg\")
<\/a>