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zum Thema Kath. und Mormonenkirche sind sich sehr ähnlich
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Datum: Mittwoch, den 13. März 2002, um 14:28 Uhr
Betrifft: Kath. und Mormonenkirche sind sich sehr ähnlich

Dennis Thomson, Politikwissenschaftler an der HLT-eigenen Brigham-Young-Universität hat in einer Rede, die er anlässlich seiner Martin B. Hickman-Auszeichnung als Herausragender Gelehrter vor 200 Personen an der BYU hielt, auf die auffälligen Ähnlichkeiten zwischen der Katholischen und der HLT-Kirche hingewiesen. Beide seien hierarchisch, zentralistisch und bürokratisch, erheben den Anspruch auf Ursprünglichkeit und Nachfolge von Petrus. Er meint, man empfände Respekt für einander, wobei er wohl vergisst, dass die Mormonen in der Kath. Kirche die im Buch Mormon erwähnte Kirche des Teufels ist, wenn auch die heutige Lesart alle anderen Kirchen darin einschließt. Weiterhin führte Thomas als Übereinstimmungen an:
• signifikantes Wachstum
• gemeinschaftlich ausgelebte Religion
• Erforderlichkeit der Kirche zur Erlösung
• missionarische Aktivitäten
• Business-Modell als Vorlage für die eigene Organisation
• Keine Veröffentlichung des Haushalts
Immerhin relativierte er im Anschluss seine eigenen Worte, indem er sagte: "Während die Katholische Kirche große Summen für Personal für soziale Dienste, Schulen und Krankenhäuse aufwendet, gibt die HLT-Kirche große Summen für Missionierungsarbeit, Tempel und Familienforschung aus."

Der englischsprachige Artikel dazu:

The Utah County Journal/Orem Daily Journal
News Section
Mittwoch, den 13. März 2002

BYU professor notes similarities in LDS and Catholic organizations

By Alf Pratte
Special to Utah County Journal

(March 11) — A BYU political scientist says that while the LDS and Catholic churches have followed divergent paths over time, administratively there is much that is similar and each can benefit from studying each other.

“Both churches are recognized as hierarchal, centralized and bureaucratic,” Dennis L. Thomson said Thursday in a speech at BYU comparing the two international churches. “Doctrine fundamental to their organizational structure lays claim of each to be primordial. Each in their own way traces their primacy back through Peter, as the successor to the original church – to Christ.

“While assuredly not seeking to emulate the other, the two churches have had a certain respect for the other.”

In a lecture recognizing him as the Martin B. Hickman Outstanding Scholar, Thomson saw the following similarities in the organizations of the Catholic church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

• Both have grown significantly, the LDS to 11 million since its founding in 1830, and the Catholics 1.15 billion in a history of 2000 years.

• Both LDS and Catholic view their religion communally, most Protestants face God individually.

• The Catholics and LDS view is that there is an institution that predates the individual to which one commits and joins.

• Mormons and Catholics believe that their membership conforms to the organization and while they are members of the church, the church is not theirs.

• Both engage in missionary activity

• Both churches often use modern corporations as organizational models.

• Neither church publishes its budget.

A nationally-recognized scholar who has spent all but two of his 20 years at BYU involved in administration, Thomson made no claims to being definitive or systematic in his observations of the two churches.

“Rather I have attempted to be suggestive that a superficial observation reveals that both churches which are remarkably similar in function though they use different terms to designate the components.”

Speaking on “A Semblance of Structure: Centralized Governance of the Roman Catholic and Latter-day Churches,” Thomson quoted LDS founder Joseph Smith who once said: “The old Catholic church traditions are worth more than all you have said.

“If the Catholic church is bad, how can anything good come out of it? The character of old churches have always been slandered by the apostates since the world began.”

Thompson also quoted from Msgr. Scanlon, the first Vicar Apostolic, and later the first Catholic Bishop in Salt Lake City who in 1882 wrote to the Vatican:

“A friendly feeling which may eventually result in some good, has been of late years manifested by the Mormons toward the Catholic church and her institutions.

“This owing to the fact, that I, with my priests have adopted reconciliatory policy toward them instead of abuse, which is unmercifully poured out against them from Protestant pulpits, we preach Catholic truth savoured with charity.”

In his prepared remarks Thomson said that both the leaders and the members of hierarchal churches understand that they belong to an organization which they did not design.

“The church exists with or without them,” Thomson said. “While member’s needs are important, they are not paramount. If one dissents, their option is to found another organization, because the hierarchal church is immutable.”

While outsiders may see changes in the LDS and Catholic churches, and use that as an argument as to why it is worthwhile to put pressure on the church and to bring further changes, internally, the church sees itself as not responding external pressure but to divine ordinance, Thomson said.

Speaking to nearly 200 persons in the James Talmage Building, Thomson said differences in the administration of the two churches reflect different doctrines.

While the Catholic church spends large amounts of money and personnel for social services, schools and hospitals, the LDS church spends large amounts of money on missionary work, temples and genealogy.

In addition Thomson said while evangelization, or missionary work, is important to both churches, taking their direction from Christ and the apostles, Catholic missionary work is only done in areas of non-Christian populations.

“The sheer growth of the church is a testament to its concern with evangelizing the non- Christian world.”

The major differences between the two churches and their finances is that the Vatican is responsible for raising its own budget as are the dioceses, Thomson said.

The attitude of both churches on financial matters is that they are of no concern to outsiders. Neither publishes as budget.

The LDS church annually shares an auditor’s report and the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See makes public a consolidated annual financial statement of the Holy See. Dioceses do as they wish.

Often writers about either church like to focus on large numbers of assets which is reality is a fruitless task.

“What is the real value of St. Peter’s Basilica, or the Salt Lake Temple, or of a painting of a shrine or a historical site?” Thomson asked.

“No one is going to sell them and they do not make money. In fact, they are costly to maintain and safeguard.”

http://www.ucjournal.com/ucjournal/pagespeed/url/News/print/479416

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