Elder Quentin L. Cook dinner of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moderates a panel of members of New York’s Fee of Spiritual Leaders at Brigham Younger College in Provo, Utah, on Thursday, June 16, 2022. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
Sister Shelley Bennett, spouse of Elder Randall Okay. Bennett of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, talks with Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, government director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of New York, throughout a lunch with members of the New York Metropolis Fee of Spiritual Leaders within the Joseph Smith Memorial Constructing in Salt Lake Metropolis on Thursday, June 16, 2022. Kristin Murphy, Deseret Information
Imam Tahir Kukaj, the Rev. Que English, Sister Mary G. Cook dinner and Elder Quentin L. Cook dinner of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meet in New York Metropolis on Thursday, March 3, 2022. The Rev. English joined a delegation from New York’s Fee of Spiritual Leaders that visited with the First Presidency and spoke at a BYU non secular freedom convention final week in Utah. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
The Rev. A.R. Bernard, president of the New York Fee of Spiritual Leaders, talks with Rabbi Diana Gerson, affiliate government vp of the New York Board of Rabbis, on the Joseph Smith Memorial Constructing in Salt Lake Metropolis on Thursday, June 16, 2022. The 2 leaders have been a part of a CORL delegation visiting Latter-day Saint leaders and taking part in a BYU convention. Kristin Murphy, Deseret Information
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Throughout my interview with Monsignor Kevin Sullivan a pair weeks in the past, I set my cellphone on the desk between us to file our dialog. The display screen lit up a couple of occasions with notifications, and after we have been carried out he requested to see the picture on the house display screen.
Once I confirmed it to him and defined that it was a Fifties emblem for the Boston Pink Sox, the New York Yankee fan unleashed a zinger.
“Nicely, you need to inform me that at first as a result of I wouldn’t have spoken to you if I knew you have been a Pink Sox fan,” he mentioned.
We shared a great snigger, however I used to be nonetheless fascinated by his reply to one of many questions I requested him and several other different members of the New York Fee of Spiritual Leaders throughout transient interviews earlier than their president and vp met with the First Presidency.
The query was how they cope with what we agreed is a rising dismissiveness and disdain for faith amongst some on social media.
“I feel very, very clearly now we have to double-down as non secular teams today in doing good and serving to and in addition participating in civil discourse, even when the discourse can develop into uncivil,” mentioned Monsignor Sullivan, who's the manager director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of New York. “And when a number of the damage and a number of the anger is directed towards us, now we have the duty to not reply in type. That’s our vital mission, proper now, to be sure that we maintain our dialogue civil.”
He barely completed that thought earlier than he started the subsequent.
“Now, that’s not the identical as not having ideas. That’s not the identical as not being devoted to our beliefs. However you don’t should shout, yell, scream or be outrageous to be devoted.”
The Rev. Que English mentioned she was grateful that the fee had added a Latter-day Saint Space Seventy to its board as a result of the collaboration had bolstered CORL’s capacity to answer political points concerning human trafficking, to feeding the hungry and to addressing maternal mortality charges.
She mentioned the fee’s interfaith work is “about our adherence to our religion and with the ability to be in tune with God’s coronary heart — it doesn't matter what faith — to create the pathways to justice that we have to create for our individuals.
“And what does that appear to be? It’s not rhetoric. We’re not there preaching faith. We’re serving humanity via our religions which have belief and religion in God. It’s the God of the faith that’s motivating us, extra so than our faith motivating us.”
The fee’s president mentioned the interfaith fee is a mannequin for easy methods to heal division.
“I feel that now we have to appreciate that going ahead, particularly in a really polarized America, it’s going to take partnerships and collaboration to answer the wants of society,” mentioned the Rev. A.R. Bernard, CEO and senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Heart.
He referred to as faith the conscience of society.
“Faith brings two crucial values to society,” he mentioned, “the life and dignity of the human individual and the frequent good, for which we're all accountable. We're our brother’s keeper.”
Then he requested the subsequent query.
“How will we handle the marginalized, the disenfranchised, what Jesus referred to as ‘the least of those,’ probably the most weak in our society, with out these partnerships? Homes of worship on the bottom, and authorities and partnerships throughout the non secular group that ought to transcend our theological variations, understanding that now we have an ethical duty to all of humanity.”
My latest tales
Latter-day Saint missionary dies after Mexico Metropolis accident (June 18)
Latter-day Saint apostle calls New York interfaith group a mannequin in its affect for good (June 16)
In regards to the church
Elder Cook dinner and Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles helped break floor for the Smithfield Utah Temple.
The church is filming the ultimate season of the E book of Mormon movies, which can embrace depictions of Captain Moroni and Helaman’s stripling warriors.
What I’m studying
McKay Coppins, a Latter-day Saint author for The Atlantic, printed this essay concerning the “Below the Banner of Heaven” collection on Hulu on the request of his editor. Right here’s one passage: “‘Below the Banner of Heaven’ is without doubt one of the most brazenly hostile therapies of a minority non secular group to seem in widespread American leisure this century.”
Glorious story by Deseret Information religion reporter Kelsey Dallas on the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom case that preserved door-to-door missionary work.
A Latter-day Saint Republican was front-and-center through the Jan. 6 Committee hearings this week. Right here’s a fast summation of what he mentioned and right here’s an extended take a look at the private toll his expertise took on him and his household, together with his dying daughter.
The New York Instances famous this week that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom is and has been pro-religion for a few years now.
Behind the scenes
Sister Shelley Bennett, spouse of Elder Randall Okay. Bennett of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, talks with Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, government director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of New York, throughout a lunch with members of the New York Metropolis Fee of Spiritual Leaders within the Joseph Smith Memorial Constructing in Salt Lake Metropolis on Thursday, June 16, 2022.
Kristin Murphy, Deseret Information
Imam Tahir Kukaj, the Rev. Que English, Sister Mary G. Cook dinner and Elder Quentin L. Cook dinner of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meet in New York Metropolis on Thursday, March 3, 2022. The Rev. English joined a delegation from New York’s Fee of Spiritual Leaders that visited with the First Presidency and spoke at a BYU non secular freedom convention final week in Utah.
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
The Rev. A.R. Bernard, president of the New York Fee of Spiritual Leaders, talks with Rabbi Diana Gerson, affiliate government vp of the New York Board of Rabbis, on the Joseph Smith Memorial Constructing in Salt Lake Metropolis on Thursday, June 16, 2022. The 2 leaders have been a part of a CORL delegation visiting Latter-day Saint leaders and taking part in a BYU convention.
Kristin Murphy, Deseret Information