The new Rome Temple will make a ton of money for L-d$,inc.

Will come in the form if travel dollars through the many travel agencies associated with the church. Not through Italian member tithing - since so few mormons are in Italy.

Will be bigger than "Book of Mormon lands" tours for the church.

All the fees. All the trinket sales. Rental clothes in the Temple. Cafeteria sales. One and all can come home with a Rome Temple snow globe! A Rome Temple Christus Statue from the soon to be built Deseret Book store. A statue like the one given to the Pope - maybe even a Russel Nelson autographed model? That should get a good price.

It is business - the one thing L-d$,inc really does understand.

I think you're being overly optimistic. I seriously doubt they'll recoup their costs.

Devoted Exmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think you're being overly optimistic. I
> seriously doubt they'll recoup their costs.


I agree.

Once the novelty wears off, and for a time there will be an "oh, ah, let's go to the Rome temple" influx, but it will subside and what is left is the mundane routine of "everyday stir the oatmeal" that all temples end up defaulting to.

I bet The Rome Temple just took devoteeism in Mormonism to the next level.

That is what Nelson is all about - their next level.

Now if you are truly devoted you refuse to use the word Mormon, you have to go on a mission, you have to have a calling, not drink caffeine, have to get married young, have to have lots of children, actually have FHE and the new Sunday study hour and of course do a session in the whore of Babylon's neighborhood.

Exotic pilgrimage destinations for wealthy LDS keep them paying tithing. With the mall, catering to the elite seems to be a pattern.

Mormonism at the end of the 21st Century will be small but very rich and powerful. Nelson is just getting started on this...

All I know is that I was getting sick and tired of the pop up ads on FB for the Rome Cruise to visit the new temple. Can you imagine being stuck on a cruise ship with a bunch of TBM's gushing about how great TCOTPOTCOJCOLDS is? I'd jump overboard.

Probably more fun to push them overboard.

The Rome Temple probably will be a significant money maker.

But not in the obvious way. It may well stand idle almost all the time; they could even run it just 10 hours a week. So on its own, the temple will be a financial loss.

Where it matters, however, is in giving the Mormons in the US and other countries the sense that the LDS religion is important. All this public relations work--Theresa May, Pope, Rome Temple--gives fence-sitters a little more reason to stay active.

That's where the strategic focus lies: encouraging the existing tithe-payer base in order to keep their funds flowing.

I still doubt that for the average member here in the US, wondering if the church is true, or in any way a good thing in their life, and if their hard earned dollars are being well spent on tithing, would consider that there is a temple in Rome, therefore, stay, pray and obey.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2019 01:18PM by Devoted Exmo.

I see that.

Two points. First, the people you describe are probably beyond redemption, one foot out the door, already. The target in my mind would be those who still WANT to be Mormon, those who feel guilty after wistfully stealing a glance through the window. That's where I'd focus my efforts if I were the church.

Second, the strategic calculation may be wrong. The Q15 may have opted for the Roman holiday in order to impress the members but their effort may fail. I suspect the gambit is a small net-positive in financial terms, but no guarantees obviously.

After all, I am not a prophet.

You are the wrong gender. :)

The TBMs in my life have mentioned the temple is beautiful but they see no significance in it.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You are the wrong gender. :)


Yes, there is that. . .

Perhaps I should go see if I can get someone to share an apple with me.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> The TBMs in my life have mentioned the temple is
> beautiful but they see no significance in it.

I've seen that as well on the few Mormon boards I went and lurked on.

They really aren't going all over the top about it. Or even the meeting with the Pope.

This seems to have meant more to the leadership and perhaps those members in that part of the world. But here? Not so much.

It is, after all, only a temple, and it does the exact same thing as any other temple. Exact same ceremony.

Based on the lack of excite I saw on those boards, the "rolling out of the Rome temple" fell sorta of flat. Not completely, but certainly no "hip hip hooray! We have a temple in ROME!"

The people for whom the Rome temple is a big justification, would likely have used any other irrelevant reasons to stay. Therefore, the temple is likely solely a vanity project for the leadership. And, not to discount it, quite a Roman Holiday.

But that won't bring in the dollars and that won't staunch the steady and increasing flow towards the exits, in my opinion. But then again, I'm also the wrong gender. So even an apple won't entice me. LOL!

I totally agree. It is a non-important thing. It may be historic but it isn't like Nelson is performing miracles there and getting hisself sainted.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2019 01:26PM by Elder Berry.

Building bridges with the RC church is important. It’s a sea change, a major evolutionary crossing of the Rubicon that unfortunately extends the useful life of TSCC.

I’ll give credit where credit is due. It was a great symbolic gesture and strategic move. One more indicator that the Q15 know the situation they’re in.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2019 01:57PM by babyloncansuckit.

My thoughts:

People, or institutions created by people, who want to increase their fortunes generally find some way to track their investments. A means needs to exist to 'judge' the quality of the investment, usually by measuring the growth of the value over set periods of time. One obvious judgment point is, "Is the investment earning more than it would have had that money been parked in a bank account?"

I don't see any way to take the total sum invested in the Rome temple and then measure the impact of this investment. Does the church have an average daily or weekly income figure? If so, can it be reliably stated that in the days, weeks and months following the opening of the temple, that any increase in the daily or weekly income is the result of the new temple?

And I think to be fair, the comparisons would have to involve the same year to year time periods. Meaning that next December, if the monthly gross increases over 2018's December, a claim could be made that the Rome Temple is responsible.

One amusing fact to look at would be the number of tithe payors, 2018 v. 2019, but I doubt that that number would be made public. Will there be a spike in daily or weekly income for this March v. March, 2018? If so, that would be one 'proof' that the Rome temple has had a positive effect on the church's income.

But there's a fly in the ointment!!

To my knowledge, the church does not and has not ever published any accounting of tithing income. They used to try to give some accounting of their expenditures, but most of us know that they stopped doing that in the mid-1950s, with the major reason given by critics being that Henry D. Moyle was bankrupting their blessed behinds with all his meeting house constructions.

So from a practical standpoint, this discussion is moot. We have no practical, efficient, provable way to determine the church's income, nor to track its expenditures. We can all have our opinions but without facts, we can't know who came closest to being correct.

Below are links to various April Conference Reports that you may peruse at your leisure, which I apparently have too much of. I believe each link opens to the appropriate financial report, or what they construe to be a financial report. I apologize if the links are not 'live'.


https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1908a/page/n121

https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1928a/page/n5

https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1952a/page/n11

https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1956a/page/n27

https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1957a/page/n41

https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1958a/page/n29


Added bonus: create your own link to this site, with all the church annual and semi-annual reports, so that if you find yourself unable to sleep, pick out some old report and any talk at random in it, and insomnia cured!

Hey, thanks for the links, P-Bag! I think they'll be a lot more useful than for insomnia.

I'd always thought that the church had published their income, as well as their expenses. But I guess that wasn't the case.

Is there a Marriott Hotel convenient to the temple? Or, is there maybe another LDS, Inc. owned hotel and/or apartments nearby?

Just in time for Christmas--a hard-bound coffee-table book, "Christians in Rome: The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints Conquers Rome". (It will be a large book to accommodate the long title.) Full-page photos of the Holy 15 in Rome, the Rome temple, including the historic tour with Bednar and that other dude he was hugging. $79.99. Special book-signing with Wendy and Sheri, at the City Creek Mall, Christmas Eve.

Coming to a testimony meeting near you soon:



"It was such a blessing to go to the temple in Rome."

(Translation: We just took a grand vacation and want you to know.)


"The people in Rome love and respect us as fellow Christians as the Prophet and Pope have shown."

(Translation: We need to parrot the new narrative as often as possible.)


"A women we met in the Rome temple was Catholic and converted to Mormonism. It's so wonderful."

(Translation: It's not just tourists that go. Our missionaries are so successful!)

>>"The people in Rome love and respect us as fellow Christians as the Prophet and Pope have shown."

The people might, in some cases, but the Pope does not. AFAIK, the official doctrine and position of the Catholic church is that the Mormon faith is not Christian because Mormons are not trinitarian (believers in the triune God.) This is why the Catholic church does not officially accept a Mormon baptism as being valid.

My interpretation is that the Pope met with Nelson as the leader of another faith tradition -- not as a fellow Christian (although he may have been perfectly polite and non-argumentative if Nelson referred to himself or his church as such.)

I'm guessing that the Pope and the Vatican vs. Nelson, etc. saw the meeting in two very different ways.

like Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco or EVEN the Vatican. Make a contract with the State of Italy and the EU. Join the EU Monetary Union (i.e. Euro). Than they should have their own colorful postal stamps like the other mini-states and surely their own security force, sort of "Utah Guard" or the "Rocky Mountain Danites" or "Danish Guard". Sell pioneer produce. Bus, bus business assured... On the coins they will show the image of the Prophet and on special issues event from church history. And as head of State a 13th Apostle will be set apart - not ordained - the gouvernment will consisit of a council of 12 Highpriests under the leadership of that Apostle. What else? What name should that state have?

Deseret

That's a good one.

What should be the official language and script? English? Italian? Latin? All of of them? The might even revise the Deseret Alphabet. And later they might add statues of late leade like BY or so.

Surely the language should be Pure Adamic. That way you get the ancestor of all the European (and world) tongues.

ETA: Including your language and its derivative, the inimitable Reformed Egyptian.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2019 03:41AM by Lot's Wife.

Added bonus: the Deseret Alphabet is already included in UniCode. I've always wondered if it was added as a joke, but whatever, it is in fact there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet

> Added bonus: the Deseret Alphabet is already
> included in UniCode.


Just curious. Has anyone ever accused you of being a nerd?

Yes! there's an EU vacancy coming up soon! Or not...

The vacancy is coming one way or another. It's just a question of whether the newcomer can sit right down or needs to shove the corpse out of the way first.

I think it's about retaining membership more than making money. The church studies cause and effect. If you send people on a mission they tend to stay in the church and marry another member. If the church didn't have missions to send the young men on there would be a lot more exits from the church.

The church has also discovered that when there is a temple nearby the church stays stronger.

Why build a temple in Rome where there aren't a lot of members? It's a show piece. It's to show the members back home look at what we are doing. The church figures it will generate excitement and make the members in the US think they are part of something big and dynamic. Russel M Nelson is actually pretty good and selling the fasten your seat belts members the church is taking off.

Of course reality is much different but the church is not in the business of selling reality. It sells illusion.

^^^THIS^^^.

It is about showing that LDS Inc can go toe to toe with the big boys, and if not win, at least be allowed to stay in the room.

Rubicon nailed it. It's selling the illusion of success.

Why do members look forward to GC?

Aside from slacking off in their own homes on Sunday, they want to hear about church growth (the illusion). More missions, more stakes, more temples...

It's all to sell the Mormon trip to the CK.

Remember when Nelson went to Africa to demand tithing from the poor?

That was all grandstanding for US members. It was to reassure paying members that there's not going to be a free-ride for anybody. Everyone will have to pay his/her way to go to the temple.

Definitely not a money-maker. Nowhere in Europe, in fact. That real estate was very dear, construction costs extremely high, hard-to-obtain permits costing tons of money, and few regional members who even pay tithing or any other offerings. Most of the members there are of very limited means, and not enthusiastic about parting with their money. Many pool their money with other extended family, and seldom are those family members LDS and willing let some of the money go toward someone's weird church. I think it's just a way of putting down a stake and saying, "We're here! Suck it!"

are there any other temples in major world cities that attract US Mormon visitors in droves? or is Rome likely to be considered special because of its religious significance?

Religious significance. Not even Mormons are foolish enough to go to Rome and waste an afternoon at the temple.