This is at least partially inspired by a Mormon missionary presentation, where they expounded on the virtue of speaking with a real Prophet of God.
What top, or high level, religious leaders will actually respond to personal questions or requests, or meet with you personally? This question covers two main areas:
Personal requests for responses from or personal meetings with a top or high religious leader to express opinions, or seek guidance or wisdom, but that stop short of requesting changes in formal policy or doctrine or for formal exceptions to policy.
Requests for formal exceptions to policy. E.g., writing the Pope and asking him to override a local priest or bishop’s policy or practice. I will allow cases where the request is to override the policies of institutions such as schools that answer to a church (e.g., petition the Pope to let your son into Catholic school even though he was rejected by the local Catholic school board), but exclude cases where you are reporting per se, objective misconduct by a lower level leader (i.e. you aren’t just complaining that so and so local leader is being a dick, but are saying that he’s actually out of compliance himself with rules and should be disciplined or deposed)
This question is NOT about the truth or falsity of any religion, or about the sincerity or lack thereof about any religious leader.
High level or top leaders could include the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Prophet of the Church of JC of LDS, Orthodox patriarchs, members of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses or the entire board itself, or people just below that level. It doesn’t include local leadership or even the one above that if people regularly come into contact with it.
It’s possible to meet the Dalai Lama. He no longer holds public audiences, but he does grant private audiences as well as interviews with media. Of course, he’s a very busy man and you probably won’t get in, but evidently it’s possible.
ETA - here’s the bit from his website about scheduling a private audience. One assumes you’d have to go to India unless you managed to schedule it when he’s on a speaking tour or something.
This is exactly along the lines of what I was asking about. Thanks! Are there any other leaders that do this? Anyone know of an Average Joe (follower or not…) who got to speak personally with the LDS Prophet, The Pope, the Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center (Scientology), etc.
Btw: I hope it is clear from the question, but this question covers personal attention from the leader and an exercise of discretion by the leader themself. It doesn’t cover cases where low level leaders are acting “in the name of” the high level leader e.g. by issuing decrees “Buy the authority of the <great religious leader>” when authorized to do so by virtue of their position in the hierarchy, using an authorized automated signature machine, etc. It also doesn’t really include cases where you can get a postcard or something that was personally signed by the leader if the process for obtaining such a document is mechanical in nature and doesn’t let you actually talk to him or get a personal response.
I’ve known lay people to have met with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States. You specify the Archbishop of Canterbury for Anglicanism but technically they are equals (as are all the head bishops of the various national provinces of the Anglican Communion). I’m not a big fan of our current PB but she is quite beloved in some circles.
Wikipedia says the Archbishop of Canterbury is the “symbolic head” of the worldwide Anglican movement. Whatever “symbolic head” means. Plus “As spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop, although without legal authority outside England, is recognised by convention as primus inter pares (first among equals) of all Anglican primates worldwide.”
Also, as leader of the Church of England, he’s not quite at the top rung there - The Queen is the head of the CoE.
In fact she came and spoke at a local chuch here a year or two ago and afterward mingled with the crowd at a kind of reception. That might not be formal enough for what you’re thinking - no one made appointments to see her, they just walked up and talked to her.
It’s also a little different in the TEC because although she’s the titular head of the church, she doesn’t really have any authority at the local levels. She can’t overrule my own local bishop, for example, or come here and preach without his permission.
The pope regularly holds public audiences, but apparently they’re something of a letdown. There are private audiences, too, but I don’t know how you’d get one.
As a matter of fact I got an email (!!!) from the Dalai Lame once. I sent him a note requesting an interview for my newspaper during his tour a few years ago. He was very kind in turning me down because we couldn’t do it face to face.
Actually, Skammer is an Episcopalian (as am I), a member of the American national church in the Anglican Communion. We can assure you that the Wikipedia article, while often accurate, is not, erm, Gospel truth.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is (1) the bishop of Anglican parishes in the diocese of Canterbury, in Kent; (2) the ‘metropolitan’ archbishop over Anglican parishes and dioceses in the Province of Canterbury (roughly England south of the River Trent); (3) in the same role in the Province of York (the rest of England) when there is no Archbishop of York, and the person with authority to ‘insxtall’ the new Abp. of York; (4) as ‘Primate of All England’ and the senior Lord Spiritual in the House of Lords, the person whose comments on ethical issues carry a strong voice of moral authority, if not any legal force, in the U.K.; (5) the senior Archbishop/Primate of the Anglican Communion, which means (a) a similar moral authority in Anglican churches worldwide, though no direct legal authority. and (b) the person who effectively defines the Anglican Communion, because it is the Archbishop of Canterbury and all those with whom he is in communion; and (7) again from a moral authority role, like the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople for the Orthodox, the single person who speaks for the Anglican Communion to the world at large. His actual legal powers are thus quite limited but his moral authority quite broad.
The Queen is not “head of the Church of England” except in the sense that she embodies the sovereignty under which it exists. She is its head, Protector of the Church, in the same sense as she is Supreme Commander of the Royal Air Force and the Crown under which the Canadian legal system operates – nobody expects her to actually run a church any more than they expect her to jump into a jet and fly off to defend the Falklands from Argentina, or Sppons or Northern Piper to see her on the bench when they go to court to plead a case “before Her Majesty’s Court” in behalf of their clients. The one role she has beyond any other layman is that when a provincial synod advises the Prime Minister who should be elected Bishop for a diocese, he advises her, and she gives orders to the Cathedral Chapter that they are to elect a new bishop, and may not choose anyone other than ___. It’s all very formalized by the time it gets to her.
I had the, uh, honor of having a face-to-face mini-debate once with Mose Durst.
Who dat? I hear you ask!
An upper-level (I think the #2 guy, or perhaps one of several #2 guys) in the Unification Church,
a.k.a. “The Moonies”. This was circa 1972, when I visited their Moonie communal house in Berkeley.