The Apostle Attending Mass in Santa Fe
So, Elder M. Russell Ballard, one of the LDS church’s apostles, was in Santa Fe yesterday for the installation of the Catholic church’s new archbishop (link), which stirs up various thoughts. I did the same thing last month at my corresponding level, skipping my own church meetings with my son to be present for his friend’s first communion. We invite neighbors to our children’s baptisms, and some come. There is an acknowledgement in such acts that others’ religious lives matter and are beneficial, even though we believe they are at least somewhat incorrect and could be improved upon.
Santa Fe is a place that several of this website’s writers are connected to. I first drove through it on a Monday evening in January of 1990, ate dinner, then crossed the Rio Grande and climbed the hill to Los Alamos. Four and half years later I would wed a woman who had lived on that hill since she was five. Her father was later president of the Santa Fe stake, and I wonder if his successor was present with Elder Ballard yesterday and somewhat expect that he wasn’t invited. I also wonder if Elder Ballard spent any time at the Santa Fe stake center before or after his time at St. Francis cathedral. I wonder because it’s the ugliest stake center I have experienced, sited by Interstate 25 like an outcast, in extreme contrast to the cathedral on the town plaza.
Vader
June 5, 2015
That stake center has always struck me as the religious equivalent of a big box store. Aesthetics have been almost completely sacrificed for utility.
I think that makes it very Mormon.
G.
June 5, 2015
Some of our temples are not uncharming, and there are old buildings we built that have something going for them. But almost all of our buildings, you grow to love them only because of the life and love that has passed through them. Which may be the point. There are several sayings of the Savior which suggest that the real architecture of the kingdom is made of flesh and blood.
People have noted that the more elaborate the wedding, the shabbier the marriage. Maybe there is some kind of inverse relationship between meeting house quality and the quality of the meeters, dunno.
Curiously and coincidentally, Bruce Charlton blogged on the same thing today:
–from here.
Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.
G.
June 5, 2015
Utah isn’t in the Santa Fe Archdiocese, so I was a bit puzzled until I read that the good Archbishop was coming from the diocese of SLC. Luck to him–this area could use a vigorous Catholic presence, not that we are likely to get it no matter what mountains the new Archbishop manages to move.
Muslims have there People of the Book and Jews have the Noachian covenant. I think there might be room for something similar in Mormonism. We recognize other religions authority to perform marriages, converting what would be a grave sin into a holy state, if unfortunately temporary. On my mission I met a woman who felt like she had a profound spiritual experience when she was baptized a Methodist. I believed her. Years later, during the administration of the sacrament, I was impressed that her eventual LDS baptism will not replace the earlier one but merely validate it. I expect that as of the date of her LDS baptism, her membership in the church will run from the date of her Methodist one.
bookslinger
June 5, 2015
Are new stake centers in the US still being built with a stage in the cultural hall/gym?
John Mansfield
June 5, 2015
I just corrected my slip on which apostle was in Santa Fe for Archbishop Wester’s installation. It was M. Russell Ballard, not Russell M. Nelson. Besides the Russell M./M. Russell thing, it was also running through my mind that Russell M. Nelson was the one who reorganized the Santa Fe stake in 2009 and set apart its current president. Yep, Russell M. released Russell T (the previous president).