That was what it was made to look like by the Catholic Church to save face among the Christians; but its real purpose was to appease the anger of the Moslems and repare the damage done to Moslem/Catholic relations.
Again, that trip was in the works before B-XVI became Pope. The meeting with the moslems was a continuance of interactions begun under John Paul II, and were peripheral to the main purpose of the trip. Still, it would be disengenuous to suggest that there weren’t overtones of earlier tensions, brought about by moslem anger. “Save face”? “Appease anger”? These are characterizations one might expect from either an anti-Christian, or a moslem, or maybe a Mormon.
Okay, the Pope (JP2) was there too, ahead of Hinckley; but don’t forget that the Catholics constitute 24% of the population of the US, while Mormons make up 2%. Who do you think most Catholics would vote for, the Pope or GBH?
I don’t know. Given the backslidden nature of most American Catholics, that is an open question, and one which I wouldn’t wish to bet my life on. I know how
I’d vote, but I wasn’t asked. I never HEARD of this survey until you mentioned it here in support of the popularity of Dr. Hinckley, so I naturally assumed that he was right at the top of the list. It never occurred to me that the Pope was way up at the top of the list. Given the claim that you made that Rev. Hinckley has traveled considerably more around the world than the Pope, one might expect another result. Yet, outside of SLC, few people ever heard of him, but pretty much everyone knows who the Pope is.
And also don’t forget that the LDS Church has been the most viciously attacked and maligned Church by the corrupt and apostate Christendom ever since it was created until now.
I don’t know about “the most” because you’ve also got to share the honors with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Moonies, the Millerites, and whatnot. What brought about the particular vicousness of so-called persecutions of Mormons had mostly to do with polygamy and Mormon recuiting of Christian women to fill their harems. There weren’t enough Mormon women to provide 16 wives for every Mormon Great Man of God, so they had to go lookin’.
What Hinckley said on that occasion was perfectly correct and appropriate.
I don’t know about correct. He sounded like a man with something to hide. His mumbling response may have fit the hardness of the question in terms of public relations, but it made him look like one of two things: an idiot, or someone thinking about taking the 5th. We KNOW the man is not an idiot, so the second possibility is the most likely. But look at the interviewer, Larry King, whose wife is a Mormon. One wouldn’t expect truly hard questions from him, and for sure he is not known to be a penetrating interviewer. Even so, His Eminence was reduced to dissembling mish-mash.
All the General Authorities of the Church travel extensively throughout the world as part of their world wide ministry in the Church. They travel practically every week.
I’m not questioning that Mormon leaders spend a lot of time on junkets at the expense of tithing Mormons.
I don’t know offhand of a source of information that lists them all in one place. If you have the back issues of the Ensign (or of Church News) they are usually mentioned in the news section at the back of the Ensign. zerinus
Oh. OK. You had stated that Mr. Hinckley has traveled many times more than the Pope, so I thought you had some hard numbers to back up the claim. You don’t, so we can leave that one alone. FWIW I am not contending about miles traveled. I don’t think that makes a bit of difference. If the Mormon Prophet has, in fact, done more traveling than the Pope, one would expect him to be better known. That’s all. Unless he’s spending most of his time visiting venues like Polynesian Cultural Center, which I suspect he is.