Mitt Romney, A Discreet Mormon

For 13years in Boston, the Republican candidate for the White House was one of the main leaders of this very conservative and poorly understood church. Special Envoy in Boston Lorraine Millot Special Envoy presents testimony on a crucial experiment.

At the visitor center of the Mormon temple in Boston, Mass., insiders point some notables among the pictures pinned to the wall: those of Romney grandchildren.

“Here it is Thomas, who we call Tommy, the son of Tagg [the eldest of Mitt Romney’s five sons],” shows Tony Kimball, a devotee who has offered to play the mahouts. “And here, look at the organ: it is there with the money given by Romney,” says our guide, pointing to the majestic pipes that adorn the prayer room.

In his campaign to try to remove Barack Obama from the White House in November, the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, is very discreet about his Mormon faith – a religion still poorly understood and not always well accepted in the United States. This somewhat strange cult was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who claimed to have discovered holy scriptures (the Book of Mormon) engraved on gold plates in the state of New York. He played an essential formative role for Romney. Long before Romney entered politics, he served as a “bishop” and a “stake president” (in charge of several parishes) within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.

“He Was Doing Good Sermons”

The Mormon Church requires a lot from his followers: one tenth of their income, services of three hours each Sunday, giving up not only alcohol and tobacco but also coffee or tea, and Romney respects perfectly all the rules, say his churchmates, who know aspects of his personality that have not yet come to light.

“From the age of 4 or 5 years old, we teach children to give small speeches in public,” said Tony Kimball, while showing the community center in Boston, where school classrooms transition seamlessly with classrooms chairs of different, smaller sized classrooms for Sunday school.

“Mitt is probably not a Bill Clinton, gifted with a kind of natural empathy,” says our guide, “but he has certainly learned from us to introduce him in public and to make speeches. Even if he is not the best of speakers, I remember that he was giving good sermons; he knew how to motivate the faithful. “

Tony Kimball says he knew Mitt in the ’70s, who then moved to Boston after he returned from overseas in Europe. Like all young Mormons, Romney had to serve two years his Church, which had sent him to France.

“That meant having doors constantly slammed in his face and having to live very frugally with what people gave to us,” Tony Kimball said. “Mitt has nevertheless retained positive memories of his experience in France. He often spoke about it. Later, he also used his knowledge of French to take care of Haitians who have joined our community of Boston. “

Salvation for the Dead

Of those years when the future Republican candidate was a student at Harvard, prior to beginning a career in finance, another faithful best remembers going back and forth by bus to the Washington Temple. Before the Boston temple was built, the faithful had to go to the federal capital to do the “salvation for the dead,” an essential ritual in the Mormon cult.

“We would leave on Friday night to arrive early on Saturday at the temple where it was our service to the dead, before returning Saturday night”, says Helen Claire Sievers, director of World Teach, an organization from Harvard who sends students to teach in poor countries.

”Of all bus passengers, Mitt was the only one working during the day,” she recalls, still amazed. “This struck me because I knew he was coming from a rather privileged family and I saw him work hard.”

“Upon the arrival at the temple in Washington, after the bus overnight trip, everyone was assigned the name of a deceased person and had to pray to God to accept the dead in his kingdom”, says Helen Claire, not repressing a smile about those practices. “Do not try too hard on this topic please, or Mitt will kill me!” she implores, aware that these “baptisms for the dead” lend themselves to controversy. The Mormon Church is particularly criticized for baptizing hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims, and the mother of Barack Obama.

But the Mormon religion is not the only effective “oddities,” says Helen Claire. “It’s not us, anyway, who have imagined the birth from the womb of virgin a woman or partition of the Red Sea …”

In 1981, at 34, Romney was appointed bishop of the Boston community, now numbering some 400 worshipers.

“He was very young to be ordained, but he was obviously very bright and energetic,” says Ron Scott, another co-religionist, author of a recent unauthorized biography of his old prelate. Romney then simultaneously began his career with Bain & Company, a consulting group which included “approximately sixty hours of work” a week, says Ron Scott.

He said Romney added “20 or 30 hours a week for his work as bishop: visiting the sick of the community council to those who do not find jobs, aid to the poor …”

To all those who are now finding him “detached” and “very far from the concerns” of the average American, the Mormons of Boston may well ensure that the contender for the White House had a long practice of care and compassion for his next. The problem for the candidate is that it does not emphasize this Mormon experience, so as not to draw attention to his religion.

Very popular at the time for his effectiveness, commitment and interpersonal skills, Romney in was promoted to stake president in 1986, bringing a total of about 4,000 faithful. He performed that function until his debut in politics in 1994 when he tried unsuccessfully to seize the seat of Ted Kennedy in the Senate. But during those thirteen years where he served as bishop of a church known t be particularly conservative, Romney would have shown some “coldheartedness,” denouncing some parishioners, including women.

Renouncing Abortion

A single mother, Peggie Hayes, for example, told how Romney had come to her house to convince her to abandon her baby and to entrust the adoption of the Church, threatening of excommunication if she would not comply. Another woman, whose sixth pregnancy was announced risky for herself as well as for the baby, has yet been recommended by the bishop Romney “to consider the unborn child” and to waive any idea of abortion.

“At a time when I would have liked to receive the support and comfort from my spiritual leaders and friends, I only got judgments, criticism, bad advice and rejection,” the parishioner said to Exponent II group , a “feminist” movement seeking to change the Mormon Church from within.

Others, however, emphasize that in the straitjacket of his duties, Bishop Romney showed himself always very attentive to the problems of his community, generous with his time as his money, and also as “liberal” as possible.

“When he became stake president, Mitt asked me to be his secretary even though I was not married [an anomaly among Mormons, who tend to marry young and have many children]”, shows Tony Kimball, our guide at the temple of Boston.

“He also kept an employee who was divorced,” he says, suggesting openness of its former president.

Lobster Salad

At that time, Tony Kimball was also invited several times by the Romney in their large house of Belmont, an upscale suburb in west Boston where the Mormon temple stands. Mitt’s wife Ann was very friendly and, above all, an “extraordinary cook,” recalls the host, remembering her lobster salad or her gazpacho.

But the inside of the Romney’s house had also struck the visitor: “We would meet in their library where every book had the exact same leather cover. This surprised me because, at home, not a single book has the same binding” he added, obviously assuming that these books were purchased to decorate rather than to be read.

“I do not think Mitt is very concerned about the arts,” says his former colleague. “Musically, he listened to mostly pop.”

Even those whose path has since diverged from that of Mitt Romney, and who will not vote for him in November, agreed on a “capacity for work”, a “serious” and an unusual “efficiency.”

“I loved working with him,” said Helen Claire Sievers, formerly in charge of public relations for the Mormon Church in Boston under his tutelage. “Mitt is not someone who pushes the neck or put himself in the front line without reason. Its strength is rather to make projects, and carry them out.” A Democrat, Sievers will vote for Obama and plans to be involved in the campaign.

In political terms, what she noticed most about Romney is his “weather vane” side, a trait often denounced and one she confirms.

“Mitt has some profound attachment that he cares about,” she attests. “When he speaks of his wife, his family or his Church, we can be sure that this is not the cliché. But for the rest, whether its immigration policy, foreign policy and aid to poorest, I do not think that there are topics which he has given much thought. For this, it does not hurt to change your mind …”

To have long observed this former bishop, the Democratic co-religionist holds one campaign slogan in particular: “You can vote Romney, she joked, but he does not believe a word of what he says.”