Interesting that while American news outlets covered the meeting of the Pope and the Prophet, I can't find anything from the Vatican. Thanks to my Catholic friend, I happen to know Rome Reports is one of their main outlets. Can't find a thing. I'd like the RC/Italian angle on this and can't find either.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope.html

I couldn't find ANYTHING on this Catholic Church site.

I wonder if a donation was made to The Whore of all the Earth to make it worthwhile for the Pope's handlers to let their Pontiff have a wee little sit down with Russellmania.

Another thought: Did Russell ask the Pontiff, "What do you know about the Mormon Church?", followed by (no matter what the answer), "Would you like to know more?"

Obviously, every TBM knows that Russellmania, with God's help, could easily convert the Pope, but it's apparent that God doesn't want to make it THAT easy for the church to convert 1.2 billion Catholics. He'll send "signs" to a chosen few, but the rest of humanity is shit out 'o luck because God is shit out to lunch.

Or so I've heard.




Edited to correct personal reference (Shame on me!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2019 02:16PM by rocomop.

I expected there to be something. The Vaticsn has put out press releases about meeting with the Orthodox patriarchs, archbishop of Canterbury and the Dalai Lama. Can't see a thing - only people covering it are the American and LDS press AFAIK.

Pope turns to aid:

"Who was that guy again?"

aid: "what guy?"

Pope: "The one that gave me a toy Jesus."

As per the AP

"The Vatican offered no details of Francis’s Saturday audience "

That is why you can't find any coverage. Vatican had nothing to say

They did release pictures of the meeting, though

I saw a report from a Catholic agency on FB. It was short and to the point unlike Utah coverage which acted like it was a world shattering event. The pope probably saw it as just another audience while the Mormons see it as.much more. WE HAVE MADE IT AT LAST!!!!

This is an every day occurrence for the Pope--meeting with leaders of two bit religions from around the world. I doubt he'll remember tomorrow what church it was, the name of the leader, or anything else.

Just as politicians have to spend millions to play to their base in order to get campaign donations, stay elected and keep the party relevant, the Mormons do the same thing. The whole Rome temple and big kickoff thing is totally for their base. To keep the money coming in because they're gullible enough to believe that it means the mormon church is growing and becoming more relevant. It's not. But it works and will accomplish its purpose. In the meantime, the sheepies will totally ignore the statistics that show the growth of their religion is shrinking, defections are growing and will continue to do so.

Did Nelson kiss the pope's ring ?

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did Nelson kiss the pope's ring ?


Doubt it. Most Catholics don't, that includes bishops
It's not a requirement anymore.

I.don't think non Catholics were.ever expected to do that.

bona dea Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I.don't think non Catholics were.ever expected to
> do that.

You are probably right.
And, if I am not mistaken, the idea of kissing the ring isn't "kissing the pope's ring" but "kissing the ring of Peter"=giving honor to Peter

The DN opinion editor has now provided the PR gloss that the church wants to project. In short, it wants the Vatican visit to secure the LDS church's legitimacy, telling its members that despite the massive tide of defections Mormonism is a world religion. Three point strike me as particularly relevant.


--------

1) The LDS and Catholic churches enjoy equal status and importance.

"Today at the Vatican in Rome, a pope and a prophet, leaders of two great world religions, met for the first time."

"I can see these two grand souls and world religious leaders . . . sitting together drawing inspiration from their common connection to the apostle Peter and Paul who came to Rome in ancient times."


--------

2) The pope and the prophet are now fast friends.

"President M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who also attended the meeting, commented, 'They were friends from the very first word.'"

"Two world religious leaders forged a friendship that will bless the lives of not only members of the two churches, but of millions more who will benefit from the inspired, cooperative efforts."


----------

3) The Pope and the Prophet both care about each and every person who is suffering somewhere around the world.

The two men discussed "how to best minister to the isolated, lonely and downtrodden."

That sentence bothers me because I don't think either church, or either leader, cares about "the one." Hence the damage that the LDS church inflicts on families, gay people, and those who question Mormon doctrine. Meanwhile the Pope has protected at least one pedophile cardinal and has blocked systemic reforms in the US and perhaps elsewhere.

So the statement that the two leaders "share a very similar approach to ministering to the needs of the one" is true only in an ironic sense. They embody an identical arrogance and lack of concern for individual believers.


--------

So did Nelson achieve his desired equality with the pope?

Take a look at the second photo in the article. The pope is sitting in an almost regal chair looking down at his supplicants. This is presumably where Frank meets delegations from Lichtenstein, Tuvalu, and Uganda, and perhaps the occasional woman's organization. It is structured to show that the pope and his church are superior in every way.

Mormon claims of equality, nay comparability, are pipe dreams.



https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900059569/boyd-matheson-when-world-religious-leaders-meet-pope-francis-and-president-russell-m-nelson-meet-at-the-vatican-mormon-rome.html

Hah! Ballard was there? Watch him specifically insult Catholics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7c7Yz3Xkeg

At about 59m:

"And if they have a Catholic background, they don't know who God is. They don't know who the Savior is; nor do they know who the Holy Ghost is."

Bet no one told Francis what the real opinions of their visitors were. And that coward Ballard surely kept his pie hole shut.

logged out this weekend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Bet no one told Francis what the real opinions of
> their visitors were. And that coward Ballard
> surely kept his pie hole shut.


Bet he really doesn't care, one way or the other. He is a pretty busy guy with everything on his plate

That's right. He doesn't care.

Important political leaders do this sort of thing all the time. Their secretaries schedule a certain number of audiences every week; there are probably a couple of afternoons a week for this sort of things. The leader him- or herself won't know or care about these routine interactions. It's just public relations work.

The Q15 thrive on these superficial meetings because they are trying desperately to show the TBMs that they are important. There was the interview with Theresa May, when she was frantically trying to resurrect her Brexit plan; then this one with the Pope, who is busy promoting (or alternatively frustrating) hierarchical reforms. So anxious are the apostles and prophets to look significant that they take their own cameramen everywhere and they try to make the meetings look longer and more substantial than they actually are. My suspicion is that the conference with the pope was 30-35 minutes in the same way that Helen Mark Kimball was almost 15 years old when JS took her to wife.

Meanwhile May and Frank and the others go back to work, nothing at all having changed in their worlds.

I look at the picture and in my mind I can see the next frame in which after 4 1/4 minuets of Nelson with Pope, one of the assistants of the Pope says, "Next! Please come forward." And the line moves a few feet.

It would be a little subtler than that, but not much.

The Mormons would have spent 15-20 minutes sitting in the antechamber, then an aide would have ushered them in and seated them across from and below the pope. The usher would tell the pope who the visitors were, explain that they shared the RCC's views on family, secularism, etc. The pope would have smiled and expressed his approval, followed by a 5-10 minute chat through an interpreter, whose interjections would have reduced the amount of temporal space the pope had to fill.

Then an aide would have approached with a handwritten note. The pope would have looked at the note, expressed surprise, then told the Mormons that something urgent had arisen and that he must sadly excuse himself. He would then have stood up and, in response, Nelson and the others would have stood and the aide would have escorted them out. Back in the antechamber, another functionary would have thanked them for their visit, chatted a bit, and then shown them to the door.

The whole event would have taken 30-35 minutes. The pope probably said no more than 10 sentences.

As Bergoglio was Metropolian Archbishop of Buenos Aries and the Mormons have had great success there amongst the Catholics, at least in the past, Im gonna guess Mormonism isn't new to him.

I'm sure you are correct.

But when a man like that does audiences, formal receptions, he's busy and will want a brief introduction to refresh his memory, make the visitors feel appreciated, and occupy a bit of time. He might even nod and say, "Oh yes, yes. I know who these gentlemen are. How nice to see you!"

But the event will be scripted in the same way that the other interviews are. The primary goal, as when Queen Elizabeth meets people, will be to avoid any substantial conversations or commitments. It's a meet-and-greet, nothing more.

Agreed

Haha. I do believe the way you sized it up is spot on (although I like my exaggeration.) Which makes it all the more hysterical that the Mormons would be breaking their arms patting themselves on the back over this like they have "finally made it to the big time."

They know they are humble supplicants. They are aiming at a different audience.

Imagine the king of some tiny European principality a 1,000 years ago. He gets on his Monty-Python horse with his coconut-shell-bearing retinue and heads across the Alps to meet a minor factotum in the Vatican. Then he returns to Germany with a piece of wood he claims is from the cross.

The event doesn't register in the papacy, but the king looks like the bomb to his subjects. After all, the pope shook his hand and asked his sage advice on how to deal with France and separatists in Sicily. I ask you, could any mere royal achieve so much?

Thus Nelson and Ballard will return to Utah, having opened a temple in Rome and offered their political guidance to Pope Frank. Best buddies, doncha know. And this so soon after Jeff Holland offered Theresa May his strategic advice on Brexit and relations with the EU!

Why would anyone in the United States want to leave the LDS church when its leaders are so obviously players on the global stage? The stone rolleth forth!

Nice one, Centurion, liked it, liked it...(to continue with the Python refs)

I believe the appropriate response would be. . .

"Shut up!"

So, who speaks Spanish in the Mormons leadership present?
I've heard that the Pope isn't fluent in English

The last three popes have all lhad reasonable, though accented, English. I've heard them all speaking in it. English is one of the major working languages of the RC church.

Also, I would be amazed if none of the GAs spoke Spanish though - Latin America has been one of their priorities for some time. But Argentinian Spanish, Francis' native dialect, is a bit of a tough one for even native speakers of the language.

But even if this is the case, both churches could bring along their own interpreters. There are plenty of individuals in both churches fluent in both languages.

By his own admission, the present pope says his English is poor. JPII certainly was well known as a polyglot, and BXVI knew a few, besides those used by a Christian theologian

The great Chinese foreign minister, Zhou Enlai, spoke flawless English and French but always insisted on having an interpreter mediate in diplomatic meetings. Why? Because it gave him a few more seconds to formulate his response to each sentence.

OP mentioned something called "Rome Reports".
Seems like they only post official and public meetings with the Pope, not private audiences

Under category "Meeting with Leaders" Nada about Nelson and Ballard

https://www.romereports.com/en/categories/meeting-with-leaders/

I don't think it was a private audience as such. More like the Pope on a field trip.

One other thing should be mentioned. The current pope is a Jesuit - they are very cunning and devious, and part of their training is in subversive diplomacy. They are the storm troopers of Rome, invented to defeat the spread of Protestantism.

I checked the March 10th issue of L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, and the very bottom right corner of the front page has the following statement:

"Il Santo Padre ha ricevuto questa mattina in udienza il Signor Russell M. Nelson, Presidente della Chiesa di Gesù Cristo dei Santi degli Ultimi Giorni, e Seguito."

That's it. No picture, no commentary, no details.

Here is a link to the page: http://www.osservatoreromano.va/vaticanresources/pdf/QUO_2019_058_1003.pdf

(deep chuckle)

So, DN goes all out as they typically do, and the Vatican's paper just makes a note of it, along with two other notes about who the Pope met with that day

Another day at the.office for the pope who probably finds these audiences a bore and would rather be doing something else

"Il Santo Padre ha ricevuto questa mattina in udienza il Signor Russell M. Nelson, Presidente della Chiesa di Gesù Cristo dei Santi degli Ultimi Giorni, e Seguito."


Il Signor, not even Dr.! hahaha!!!!!

When our beloved holy prophet Nelson met with the chief prostitute of the Whore of all the Earth this week then I would have loved to be a fly on the wall as the mighty prophet Nrlson set things straight on who was the representative of the most true, honest, and transparent church and who was thus a leader in the Great and Abominable Church of the devil. I suppose that some may consider my words to be outlandish but as long as you are truly assimilated by the beloved Correlation program then they make sense as being part of our peculiar wondrous unchangeable legacy we have in [long]ism.

I think back to the running joke that one would hear in my BYU days.

It goes something like this

"The Pope was working at his desk when the phone rings."Hello, this is the Pope."
He immediately recognized the voice at the other end of the line. "My son, this is Jesus Christ. I have called you to give you some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I have returned to the Earth to lead the faithful to Heaven."
The Pope was ecstatic! He said, "My Lord,what could possibly be bad news on this wonderful day?"
Jesus replied, "I'm calling from Salt Lake City."

That looses whatever punch it may have had since it was the President going to see the Pope, and not vice versa.

I find it SO ironic that the church seeks legitimacy by chumming up to the very church that they've been crapping on for the last 188 years.

https://goo.gl/images/oDRuD3
Caption: Pope and Prophet meeting included some hors d'oeuvre - Crème de Christ on a platter of crushed velvet blood pudding and a tray of Family-size Proclamation ala Prejudice.


https://goo.gl/images/zKnqmS
Caption: "Has it a name?" "I will give it to you." "Hypocrisy in the navel, meanness in the mind, power in our combined priesthoods be upon us and our successors through all generations of time and throughout the eternities."

https://goo.gl/images/ufBCqT
Caption: "Taking my vitamins and getting plenty of rest I was able to get this big!"

The Seattle Times newspaper published Sunday's edition with the Washington Post's article on the meeting.

Seattle's Howard Schultz of Starbuck coffee fame is also the owner of the Washington Post and possible independent candidate for president.

I think it is Bezos who owns the Washington Post.

Probably nothing was written because the morg is such a small and insignificant worldwide church: Roman Catholic Church - 1.2 billion members, LDS Church - 16 million members. That means the morg is only 1.3% the size of the Catholic Church. Numbers really show the smallness and tiny percent of the world population who are Mormons.

Catholics could care less about Nelson so it is not newsworthy for Catholic readers.

How would Russell Nelson reply if the Pope asked what ceremonies go on in the new temple?

I'm shocked that Nelson didn't wither in the presence of all the crucifix hung on the walls.

Not from the Vatican, just the Catholic News Service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AigNKjr0wzI

Interesting when compared to the Deseret News article. This one points out that Mormon baptisms are not recognized by the Catholic Church. Also says that Mormon beliefs about the identities of the three persons of the Godhead are so different from Catholic and mainline Christianity that it can't even be considered a heresy arising from false understanding of Christian doctrine.

question?

Did The pope shun nelson?

I have it on good/inside word that the Holy Father's parting words (thru an interpreter, of course) were (Pope looking away, at the floor, seemingly impatient):

Well Russ, thanks for coming, help yourself to as many of those bizarre red Cardinal's caps on the way out as you'd like, and... (hesitating) be sure to look us up next time you're in the neighborhood!

(quickly turns to an aid & grimaces)


Then to the second in Command: YESH! He didn't even kiss my ring!

Almost 200 years ago, Jesus the very Christ restored his true Church through a young prophet named Joseph Smith, who was raised up as a prophet specifically to bring truth and light back to a world that had fallen into apostasy and darkness under centuries of corruption, maladministration and the promulgation of false teachings by the Catholic Church and its illegitimate offspring.

The new and fully restored Church brought forth, through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the only true and authorized priesthoods and offices ordained by God. No other church on earth has the true priesthoods and offices...and no other church's leaders are called of God to speak on his behalf to the world.

Therefore the Pope is little more than a pretender in a fancy nightgown and he has no more authority to act or speak to the world in the name of God than Randy Buttinski, the night manager for the Lucky Pins bowling alley in Peoria. He has control over money and political power. But no true authority from God or from Jesus the very Christ.

I think we all know that the above is what has been taught in the LDS Church throughout most of its history on earth.

This is the part I'm confused about.

After 200 years and 17 genuine and TRUE prophets called by God to serve as his only duly anointed and authorized mouthpieces on earth, the current true leader of the one and only fully restored true church of Jesus the very Christ is proud...PROUD...to report back to the members of the ONE and ONLY TRUE Church, that he, the only duly anointed top prophet, seer and revelator on earth, was able to get an audience with some guy in a fancy nightgown and sash who lives in a nice gated community in the area of Rome? The nightgown guy is nothing more than the pretender who is the titular head of the fallen, apostate, corrupt organization that Jesus the very Christ decided was so useless that his only choice was to start over again by restoring his real church through Joseph Smith? That guy?

No, seriously, here's the part that's hardest to understand. It's 200 years AFTER the real church has been restored and righteously led by 17 REAL prophets...

BUT....

It's not the pretender guy (who incidentally uses the title of a pagan Roman emperor ("Pontiff")) who is begging for an audience with the leader of the one and only true church. It's the other way around. The leader of the one and only true church is the one who had to come hat in hand, who had to beg for some face time with the pretender...and now is like a school girl who got Justin Bieber's autograph on her t-shirt. It's the one and only true Prophet O' God on earth who is now obviously having the biggest ego trip of his life simply due to the fact that he had the great honor and privilege of chatting with the pretender for a few minutes.

What's wrong with this picture?

I think we can see what's wrong with this picture. But I'm amazed that the majority of church-going Mormons still can't get a clue. They're falling right into lockstep with the Nelson ego trip without missing a beat. Orwell would find the LSD Church fascintating: "The Catholic Church has always been the fallen whore of Babylon, leading the world astray with falsehoods!" "The Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are a great team!" We have always been at war with Oceania!" "Oceania has always been our greatest ally!"

They don't call it Mormondumb for nothing.