Transcript: Elder Holland Address to New York LDS Professionals Association

It is an immense privilege to join the New York chapter of the Latter-day Saint Professionals Association (made up, I should say, of a group of wonderful personal friends) and with all of you pay tribute to His Eminence Timothy M. Cardinal Dolan tonight.

It seems fitting that we are paying honor to Cardinal Dolan here in the Riverside Church, something of a legendary venue for interfaith activities, including our own professional association dinners in recent years. I for one am grateful that someone drove me here because I am not a New Yorker and probably couldn’t find the Riverside Church on my own even if someone gave me the address and told me the name of the river. Which brings to mind one of Cardinal Dolan’s favorite stories about Archbishop Fulton Sheen: Apparently many years ago the gifted and popular archbishop was to lecture at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The hall being only eight blocks from his hotel, he decided to walk—and got absolutely, totally, hopelessly lost. He summoned his courage and sidled up to a tough-looking crowd smoking and drinking on the curb.

“Pardon me, gentlemen. I am lost,” he said. “Can you help me get to Independence Hall where I am to give a talk?”

The leader eyed him up and down suspiciously, didn’t say anything for several minutes, then gave him the directions. As the archbishop started to leave, the tough-looking kid asked, “Father, what are you gonna talk about?”

Ever the evangelist, the famed speaker replied, “How to get to heaven.”

To which the ruffian laughed and said: “How to get to heaven? You can’t even get to Independence Hall.”

On a night of interfaith goodwill, I suppose I am in my own way the LDS Church’s rather pitiful contribution to such symbolism in that I am the only member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who comes from a Roman Catholic heritage. My grandfather Dennis was born in County Cork, a little farther south than County Cavan, where Cardinal Dolan’s great-great-grandfather Patrick was born. Unlike Patrick Dolan, who emigrated to St. Louis, where cardinals are born and cheered loudly, Dennis Holland followed his emigrating family to Montana, then Colorado, and finally Utah. How he and my grandmother fell into the clutches of the Mormons is too long a story to tell tonight, but suffice it to say that my presence on this program is meant to be a genuine Irish offering to Cardinal Dolan, uninspiring as that gesture obviously is.

Just after my call to the Quorum of the Twelve, I was invited to a farewell dinner for Archbishop William Wigand of the Salt Lake Diocese, who was being transferred to a new post in Sacramento. As I greeted him that night, wanting to present my finest bona fides, I said, “Bishop Wigand, I want you to know that I feel much more at home here than will any of my other apostolic brethren. You see, my grandparents worshipped and were married right here in the Cathedral of the Madeleine by one of your predecessors. Not one of my Latter-day Saint brethren can say that. Not one.”

Well, that wonderful cleric was absolutely speechless. He looked at me and looked at me, obviously stunned by what I had said. He started to speak but nothing came out. It was clearly beyond him how a Latter-day Saint couple, future grandparents to a future LDS Apostle, would ever have been married in a Roman Catholic cathedral by a Roman Catholic bishop. Sensing his consternation, I volunteered:

“Bishop, be peaceful. They were not Mormons at the time. They were a perfectly devoted Roman Catholic couple who were receiving the marriage sacrament of their Church just the way you would have wanted them to.”

His countenance darkened even a little more (which worried me), then it brightened with a beatific smile rivaling any Easter morning sunrise. “Why, young man, are you telling me you have Roman Catholic blood flowing in your veins?” he practically shouted. “That is the most encouraging thing I have ever heard about the Latter-day Saint leadership.” Then he embraced me and said, “Stay close to me, my boy—you are redeemable.”

My only other interfaith story from Utah is of the very popular and very funny longtime coach of the Utah Jazz basketball team, Coach Frank Layden. Frank is a very devout Catholic who loves his church and loves Salt Lake City, choosing to keep his residence there even though he retired from the Jazz organization decades ago. He simply loves the city, including his bottomless reservoir of Mormon friends and fans.

Once when Frank was speaking to a group of those Mormon fans, the folklore is that he said something like this: “This is a religious community and you are religious people. I just want you to know that I, too, am a God-fearing and prayerful Christian. I think you should know that before every home game the Jazz play here in Salt Lake City, I walk up to the Cathedral of the Madeleine to say a prayer for my team. It is a wonderful experience and a tradition I cherish. Then just in case the game might turn out to be close, I walk home by way of the Mormon temple. It doesn’t hurt for a man to cover all his bases.”

Well, enough of that. As we know, our theme for this year’s dinner is built around the collective work done in caring for the needy by organized religions in New York and environs. At last year’s event we announced the rollout of JustServe.org, a national program created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to coordinate and facilitate those who wish to give community service. JustServe has provided a wonderful contact with New York City’s Service Division of the Office of the Mayor, which is partnering with us to find volunteers for recurring community needs.

Other recent interaction between LDS leaders and our Catholic friends includes the partnership with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in one of the sweetest and strongest interfaith relationships that we have. We have been allies in fighting for the Russell amendment, which ensures that the hiring protections for religious institutions, such as those affiliated with the Catholic University and Brigham Young University, are preserved so we can continue to fulfill our religious missions according to the doctrines of our faith without fear of government punishment or reprisal.

     A sample of recent interactions in New York metro area include:

• Over 100 LDS volunteers from New Jersey stakes partnering with Catholic Charities of the Paterson New Jersey Diocese to refurbish the Straight and Narrow residential treatment facility for those addicted to drugs and alcohol—the oldest community-based treatment center in the country.
• Local LDS missionaries volunteering time at the New York Catholic Charities food pantry in Washington Heights.
• The Piscataway, New Jersey, LDS bishops’ storehouse making various in-kind donations to several Catholic Charities food pantries throughout the area.
• The Westchester New York Stake Relief Society making quilts for the refugee families that Catholic Charities are working with.
• LDS missionaries volunteering at the opening ceremony of the Catholic Charities’ South Bronx Food Hub and who are now assisting regularly at that marvelous facility. 
• The Westchester New York Stake cosponsoring a community event with the Office of the New York Attorney General, our Catholic friends, and several other denominations, which was designed to talk about religious freedom and educate people on their rights in New York State.

In a related but slightly different vein, may I thank so many of you here who attended our VIP open house for the recently dedicated Philadelphia Temple. That was an interfaith courtesy to us of the first order.

Regarding that experience, may I share a paragraph from Bishop James Massa, who attended our open house? To my colleague Elder Quentin Cook, who guided Bishop Massa and Monsignor Kieran Harrington through the temple, Bishop Massa wrote:

“Our visit confirms the important relationship that has developed in recent years between our two faith communities. Owning to the outreach of leaders from both our communities [in Salt Lake City] . . . that relationship has afforded us fruitful collaboration in the defense of marriage, human life and dignity, and religious freedom. Moreover, the relationship has also allowed many of us, in different parts of the country, rich opportunities to come to know one another as beloved friends and partners in a dialogue of ethical and cultural enrichment.”[1]

Let me say a word about our honored guest, His Eminence Cardinal Dolan. With his Irish charm and unshakeable faith, he has won our hearts. He has been as firm in his friendship to us in the LDS Church as he has been resolute in his many clerical responsibilities to his mother church. He is a delight in every way—as we have seen and heard tonight. It is personally meaningful to me that 15 years ago, when then newly ordained Bishop Dolan chose an episcopal motto, he chose “AdQuem Ibimus”—“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter’s confession before Christ in John 6:68. With physical violence, political chaos, and moral compromise swirling in and around our contemporary world, with people groping for meaning and stability everywhere, no question in holy writ seems more relevant nor urgent. The answer to that question holds the key to the future of the world, for, as Peter declared for us all, truly Christ “hast the words of eternal life.”[2]

In a recent homily Cardinal Dolan addressed that chaos, the plethora of broken things surrounding us in society, and asked, “[When we see these], do we seek solutions from discredited peddlers of anger, division, and more violence? Or, do we go to the Creator and consult the [User’s] Manual to fix what seems broken [?]”[3]

Timothy Michael Dolan has from his childhood upward looked to his Creator and devoted his life to the User’s Manual in an effort to fix broken things. All who have known him personally and millions more who know his ministry have been the beneficiaries of his talent and temperament for healing, for helping, for repairing what seems to be irreparable. This might be as good a time as any to show a video clip in which Cardinal Dolan said a wonderfully kind thing about our Mormon missionaries, specifically Elder Mason Wells, who needed healing—literally—after that horrific bombing incident in Brussels last March.

[Video][4]

His Eminence certainly has been a stalwart in defending religious freedom, another interfaith bond he has forged with us and others. When he was president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops he wrote to his constituents of “the urgent need . . . to safeguard religious liberty inherent in the dignity of the human person.” Calling it the foundational principle of our country—its First Freedom—he said to his fellow bishops, “We share a common and compelling responsibility to proclaim the truth of religious freedom for all, and so to protect our people from this assault which now appears to grow at an ever accelerating pace in ways most of us could never have imagined.” And that was 2011! It was at that time that he established an Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, inviting our great friend Bishop William Lori to chair it. How prescient that move was, and what great work they have done.[5]

Why is religious freedom worth defending? Why is the right of conscience worth defending? In short, who cares about religion and religious motivations in the 21st century anyway? It is obvious that believers, religious people, people like those who are gathered here tonight care, but before it is too late it should be obvious to everyone else why religion matters and why everyone should care.

Will and Ariel Durrant put the issue squarely years ago as they reflected on what they called the “lessons of history.” “There is no significant example in history,” they said, “of [any] society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”[6]

If that is true—and surely we feel it is—then we should be genuinely concerned over the assertion that the single most distinguishing feature of modern life is the rise of secularism with its attendant dismissal of, cynicism toward, or marked disenchantment with religion.[7]

Charles Taylor, in his book with the descriptive title A Secular Age, describes the cold dimming of socioreligious light this way. The shift of our time, he says, has been “from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is [only] one human possibility among [many] others.”[8] In the 21st century, he writes, “belief in God is no longer axiomatic.”[9] Indeed, in some quarters it is not even a convenient option; it is “an embattled option.”[10]

But in fact religion has been the principal influence—not the only one, but the principal one—that has kept Western social, political, and cultural life moral to the extent these have been moral. Granted, religion has no monopoly on moral action, but centuries of religious belief, including institutional church- or synagogue- or mosque-going, have clearly been preeminent in shaping our notions of right and wrong. Journalist Will Saletan puts it candidly: “Religion is the vehicle through which most folks learn and practice morality.”[11]

Brothers and sisters, friends, my declaration tonight is that “religious faith has proven itself to be the most powerful and enduring force in human history.”[12] Roman Catholic scholar Robert Royal also made that point, reaffirming that for many “religion remains deep, widespread, and persistent, to the surprise and irritation of those who claimed to have cast aside [religious] illusion”[13]—those who underestimated the indisputable power of faith.

And a lot of people have underestimated it. In his new book The Triumph of Faith, famed sociologist Rodney Stark writes that “for generations, the Soviet Union closed churches and persecuted believers. . . . It mandated that all students at all levels of education receive classes every year in ‘scientific atheism.’ . . . The Soviet government ‘thought of itself as pushing forward the inevitable process of secularization in which religion would disappear from the face of the earth.’ . . . And what was the result? A national survey conducted in 1990, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, found that [after] more than sixty years of [this intense anti-religious] instruction . . . [only] 6.6 percent of Russians [said] they were atheists—only slightly more than [those so identified] in the United States!”[14]

And what of that other great communist power in the world today? “One of China’s leading economists [said recently]: ‘In the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubts about this.”[15]

“The indisputable power of faith.”[16] The most powerful and enduring force in human history. The preeminent influence for good in the world. The heart of our culture. These are some of the reasons why religion matters. Voices of religious faith have elevated our vision, deepened our human conversation, and strengthened both our personal and collective aspiration since time began. May these voices never be silenced.

Let me close.

His Eminence Cardinal Dolan has often spoken of Pope John Paul II’s heroic and tumultuous 1979 return to Poland in what historians now call “nine days that changed the world”[17]—how, inspired by his presence and words, a crowd in Warsaw two million strong chanted at the top of their voices, to the grimaces of KGB and Polish communist officials, “We want God! We want God!”[18]

Of that scene Cardinal Dolan said, it was “the primitive cry of faith, humanity’s innate longing for the Divine. . . . A thirst denied, ignored, ridiculed, outlawed, and rationalized away for too long by the oppression of a regime that had vainly sought purpose in systems that forgot God! It was as if the Polish Pope had put on the lips of his people the pining of the Hebrew psalmist, ‘Like a deer that thirsts for water, so my soul longs for you, my god.’”[19]

Somewhere deep in every soul that cry still reverberates, and under the right—or perhaps it will be the wrong—conditions, it will find its way to expression. “We want God.”

Just a week ago I read in Time magazine a personal essay by Susanna Schrobsdorff, who considers herself one of the “Nones,” not affiliated with any religion. At 56 million strong she notes there are more Americans unaffiliated with institutional religion—Nones, if you will—than there are Catholics and mainline Protestants who are. With fewer than half of the young adults ages 18 through 30 even sure that God exists, she feels that in a few years the largest religion in the U.S. will be None. Then this personal reflection: She said her mother was Catholic until she eloped with her atheist German father, and though she was educated by the nuns and had a college degree from the Jesuits, she never went back to the church. That is, she did not go back until she entered the final terrible stage of emphysema that would kill her at 73. “Almost by accident, a month before she died she stopped at Our Lady of Sorrow’s church where she had celebrated her first communion.” Susanna said, “It was a freezing November day and for an hour [her] mom, . . . [her] oxygen tank, [her] uncle, and [her] atheist dad sat in the empty church. I don’t know if she prayed,” Susanna said, “but I do know that my mother had the certainty that she would go ‘home,’ as she called it, where her long-gone parents and my sister were.”[20]

Now here is my point in citing this essay tonight. Mrs. Schrobsdorff then said, “It was a comfort I envied as I watched her slip away a few days after Christmas. I could be grateful for the unending kindness of nurses and drugs . . . , but when she was gone, it felt like a void had opened up. Then, as now, I longed for faith. That essential human need might just be proof that God does exist. Or so argues an observant friend of mine. We have innate cravings for food and sleep and love, and so perhaps a desire to identify with a higher power is not an accident of our design. . . . That built-in yearning is there because there’s something worth yearning for. It’s the kind of logic that my mother, the student of Jesuits, would have loved,”[21] she concludes.

The “built-in yearning” one feels for religion, for faith, for God is there because it is something worth yearning for. It is also worth defending and worth living once we have defended it. I testify that instinct comes from before this world was and will continue after this world is no more. It is a light, a light that is endless, a light that can never be darkened. It is the light of the world, the incomparable light of Christ, which is not to be put under a bushel, but on a million candlesticks, until it brings hope to all of God’s children in their journey toward the beckoning glow of the city of God. We are grateful tonight to honor His Eminence Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan for the light he shines in such a selfless way. May his unique candle beam brightly for many years to come. Thank you and God bless you all.