# Are there any decent religious leaders? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 1, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263 "2017-09-01T18:25:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/41 "2017-09-03T14:39:50Z")
In general, decent religious leaders don’t attract a lot of fame. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/42 "2017-09-03T15:01:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > So far as I can tell, the only thing “pretty horrible” about Mother Theresa is that she didn’t single-handedly eradicate all poverty in Calcutta. She only provided a little bit of help to each person she helped, and she gets criticized for that, but there were a _lot_ of people to help, and she had very limited resources to help them with. Sure, she could have instead given a lot of help each to a small number of people. Would that have been better? I dunno. That’s not the criticism. The criticism is she didn’t give a damn about eradicating poverty, all she cared about was converting Indians. She felt suffering was good for the soul. There was no attempt to actually cure any of the sick only basic health care (if that) was provided. Her fame brought in millions of dollars in donations but her missions could at best be described as spartan. When she got sick she wasn’t cared for in her facilities with the poor, she went to Scripps Clinic. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/43 "2017-09-03T16:38:12Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > For the Catholic Church, he’s actually pretty progressive. Remember, it’s been less than 30 years since they started letting girls be altar servers. Nope. In the US, the Diocese of Chicago asked for permission to let girls be altar servers in the 1970s and received an answer of “ok, why are you asking for permission to do something which has never been banned?” and which other countries (such as Spain or Italy) had been doing for so long that nobody knows when the practice started. Some famous ladies which we know served regularly as altar girls between the 15th and 17th centuries: Isabel I of Castille, the Princess of Eboli, Magdalena Jaso Azpilicueta (St Francis Xavier’s favorite sister). Some non-famous ladies which we know served regularly as altar girls: over 300 years’ worth of students at the Company of Mary’s school in Tudela, founded in 1687. Back to the OP, he seems to define “decent” as “has never done nothing wrong”. To which the traditional answer is “there was a perfect man once and we hung Him from a cross”. ---
**Author:** ![etasyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9f8e36/32.png) [@etasyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etasyde)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/44 "2017-09-03T18:25:48Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Back to the OP, he seems to define “decent” as “has never done nothing wrong”. To which the traditional answer is “there was a perfect man once and we hung Him from a cross”. Tradtional? Yes. Accurate? [Of course not.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_Gospel_of_Thomas) People just like to pretend that _some_ dubious accounts of reality are somehow more credible than contemporaneous and otherwise equally dubious accounts because some old men decided to keep only the best propaganda… I mean gospel. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/45 "2017-09-03T20:33:05Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > The Reverend Martin Luther King. He plagiarized portions of his PhD dissertation and was unfaithful to his wife. I’m not sure where that fits on the grand scheme of things, though it does tend to bother me that colleges take that day off rather than have say a “Civil Rights” day. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/46 "2017-09-03T22:11:54Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > \<…\> Pope Francis, prior to becoming Pope, was criticized for his cooperation with the secret police repression while he was a Cardinal. Families of those dragged away by the secret police and never seen again didn’t consider his actions very Christ-like \<…\> Regarding Pope Francis, it would seem that his alleged cooperation with the Argentinian dictatorship is just that - alleged. There was the case of the two Jesuit priests who were arrested and almost killed in 1976, but although one of them (Orlando Yorio, who died in 2000) said in 1999 that “Bergoglio did not help us, but rather the opposite”, the other one (Franz Jalics) said on the record in 2013 that “\ kidnapping was because of a former lay colleague who became a guerrilla, was captured, and named Yorio and myself when interrogated” and that “it is wrong to assert that our capture took place at the initiative of Father Bergoglio … the fact is, Orlando Yorio and I were not denounced by Father Bergoglio.” There is testimony that says that, during his time as cardinal, he helped people flee Argentina. Alicia Oliveira, a former Argentine judge, has reported that Bergoglio helped people flee during the rule of the junta. Two dissidents, Gonzalo Mosca and José Caravias, have given accounts of how Bergoglio helped them flee the Argentine dictatorship. Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate in 1980 and human rights activist, has said: “Perhaps he didn’t have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship … Bergoglio was no accomplice of the dictatorship.” Graciela Fernández, of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, also said that there was no proof linking Bergoglio with the dictatorship. Other people have come forward denying that the current pope was in any way complicit with or a collaborator of the Argentine Junta. He may be not be particularly progressive (c’mon, he’s the _ **freaking Pope** _, what can you expect?)… But it appears that he was not cooperating with the repressive apparatus of the Junta. Yes; he was not openly resisting and he was not taking any kind of exceptional risks… but it definitely seems that he was not sending people to their doom at the hands of the secret police. Rather, the opposite. That marks him as a decent man in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/47 "2017-09-04T02:51:48Z")
What about Fulton Sheen? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/48 "2017-09-04T04:09:41Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > My mom used to watch his show. Franklin Graham teaches that you need to send him “seed money” in order to get a miracle to heal you or give you new money. That’s prosperity gospel, which is heretical. > > He’s also an outspoken defender of Trump. Rather than practice what the Bible teaches about morality and selecting moral leaders, he defends a man who embodies pretty much everything the Bible warned us against. > > By Christian standards, he is not “more than decent.” He is a false Christian. And that’s even allowing for being wrong on LGBT issues. Franklin Graham never taught any such thing. You are thinking of Oral Roberts’ son, Richard. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/49 "2017-09-04T04:14:39Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > What about Fulton Sheen? No personal scandal. Conservative Catholic, which if you project his probably views of sexual morality (he died in 1979) to today, the SDMB Left would consider him horrible. Also very anti-Communist. Would have supported Pope JPII against Liberation Theology & the USSR. All of which makes him great in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/50 "2017-09-04T20:05:51Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > The Dali Lama has a history of making anti-GLBT statements. Though he has moderated this a bit lately, instead of saying they are evil, he just calls them flawed & in need or correction. Hardly ‘equal rights for all’, which is part of my definition of ‘decent people’. The Dalai Lama is also critical / takes a conservative stance on mass migration into Europe. I agree with him here, but I would guess many liberals disagree with him: > **[Dalai Lama says Europe has accepted ‘too many’ refugees](https://www.rt.com/news/344983-dalai-lama-refugee-crisis/)** > > Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, thinks that Europe has accepted too many refugees, saying that they should stay only temporarily and return to rebuild their home countries once the conflicts there have been resolved. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/51 "2017-09-04T21:41:33Z")
So “decent” means “embraces the Sexual Revolution”? ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/52 "2017-09-04T23:12:47Z")
Well, I just read on a **[blog](http://kiricallaghan.com/top-5-reasons-ted-mosby-is-the-worst)** chatting about HIMYM a startling: **2. Transphobic – I’m sorry, but if you’re transphobic you’re just a freaking garbage human** So, I’m gonna go with the idea the moderns demand total submission to whatever damnfool thing they’re thinking, so yeah. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/53 "2017-09-04T23:20:21Z")
The clerk of my quaker meeting seems ok. ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/54 "2017-09-05T17:09:38Z")
I’ve always liked Dan Barker. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/55 "2017-09-05T17:52:30Z")
If historical figures are allowed, I’d nominate Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru. According to Sikh accounts at least, he willingly went before the Mughal Emperor to ask him to cease forced conversions - of Hindus. He was then killed, as he knew he would be. This marks what I think is one of the very few occasions on which a major religious figure was martyred - for supporting the rights of people who worshiped an entirely different religion to freedom of worship. This strikes me as noteworthy in terms of decency, though of course, I am not a Sikh. The accounts we have are somewhat of a hagiography and may not be totally accurate … [http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Martyrdom\_of\_Guru\_Tegh\_Bahadur](http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Martyrdom_of_Guru_Tegh_Bahadur) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/56 "2017-09-05T17:59:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Loach** : > > That’s not the criticism. The criticism is she didn’t give a damn about eradicating poverty, all she cared about was converting Indians. She felt suffering was good for the soul. There was no attempt to actually cure any of the sick only basic health care (if that) was provided. Her fame brought in millions of dollars in donations but her missions could at best be described as spartan. When she got sick she wasn’t cared for in her facilities with the poor, she went to Scripps Clinic. And how many Calcuttans have you provided basic health care for? Like I said, she used her limited resources to provide a little bit of help to a lot of people. No matter what anyone does or tries to do, there are going to be a heck of a lot of people in Calcutta suffering. If all you can afford to do for them is to give them a philosophy that might make that suffering a little more bearable for them, then that’s what you do. If you think there’s something more effective she could have done, then let us know how much it would have cost to do that for every single suffering person in Calcutta. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/57 "2017-09-05T19:55:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And how many Calcuttans have you provided basic health care for? Like I said, she used her limited resources to provide a little bit of help to a lot of people. > > No matter what anyone does or tries to do, there are going to be a heck of a lot of people in Calcutta suffering. If all you can afford to do for them is to give them a philosophy that might make that suffering a little more bearable for them, then that’s what you do. If you think there’s something more effective she could have done, then let us know how much it would have cost to do that for every single suffering person in Calcutta. Thank you, **Chronos**. ---
**Author:** ![epolo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@epolo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epolo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/58 "2017-09-05T21:44:57Z")
Jonathan Sacks seems a decent sort. > **[Jonathan Sacks, Baron Sacks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sacks)** > > Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks (8 March 1948 – 7 November 2020) was an English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and author. Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the United Kingdom, he was the Chief Rabbi of those Orthodox synagogues but was not recognized as the religious authority for the Haredi Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or f... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/59 "2017-09-05T22:08:06Z")
> [@epolo](#): > > Jonathan Sacks seems a decent sort. > [Jonathan Sacks, Baron Sacks - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sacks) > > Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk As far as Rabbis go, I very much admired the Rabbi of the congregation in which I grew up, Rabbi Gunther Plaut. He was head Rabbi at Holy Blossom in Toronto in the 1970s, when I was a kid. I don’t accept everything he stood for, but I admired him greatly as a man of real integrity. > **[The Globe and Mail: Canadian, World, Politics and Business News & Analysis](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/)** > > The Globe and Mail offers the most authoritative news in Canada, featuring national and international news ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2017, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263/60 "2017-09-06T01:58:37Z")
Yes. But you’ve never heard of him. He’s more interested in tending to his congregation, his community, his friends, and his family than he is in seeking personal fame. He’s the pastor of a local evangelical Christian church who I got to know entirely outside of a religious context. He’s a very good person all around and funny as hell to boot. And no, he never tried to convert this atheist Jew. His friendship comes with no strings attached. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-decent-religious-leaders/795263.md?page=4)