He has a light hand and Bach’s Prelude in the ears. Soon the room filled with people. By carve high-flown songs, devotional processions and incense so dense that little body almost disappears during the Sunday Mass. Alter boy Stian Berger Røsland are accustomed to lavish surroundings.
Now, 30 years later, he glides course into his stately office in Oslo City Hall. Impeccably dressed, slicked hair, Right needle visible placed on dressers chest pocket.
– I’ll just from a meeting where the height of a retaining wall was discussed. Now I’m ready for some major questions, smiles Røsland and settles down behind mahogany table.
– What do you think when I say the word faith?
– Faith can mean wonder, hope, and for some – which are close to a security. In recent decades has taken significant leaps in explaining how it is that we are here. For me faith a wonder of what we do not understand. There are some fundamental questions again, as they also wrestled with several thousand years ago. Why are we here? Is there a bigger underlying reason? Hopes carries a meaning of it all.
Little wonder Adult
As the only Catholic in the class, was Stian Berger Røsland the somewhat puzzling boy who went to church every Sunday. There was much he even wondered too. How can it be that such a barbaric wars being hailed as a saint, marveled little Stian. He looked up at the big picture that hung in St. Olav’s Church: Olav the not so holy. So he knew, after plowing through world history before he could fill ten.
– As an only child I spent a lot of time with adults and was interested in history and society. I was especially excited about a story in the Bible about Jesus as a young man homework up for priests in the temple about how the world really was to understand. There was another story I could relate to me. There were many who thought I was pretty precocious, smiling Røsland.
Positive faith
youth rebellion stretched to stop going to church every Sunday. Then he was 18. Faith did not disappear completely, it just was not the same need for refills.
– I think that faith is something you have or have not. And so will the different phases of life will be greater or less present. Many seek solace in faith when life is painful and difficult, but for me it is actually the opposite. Faith has always been associated with something positive. After I had children, I knew how important it is that they also get to be a part of this tradition. Therefore, I sometimes started to go to Mass again.
– What do you want to pass on to your children when it comes to faith?
– I just want them to have a relationship with the faith, so they side can make the choice whether they want to take it further in life or not. They could probably figured it out on my own, but I think it is more demanding. It is difficult to go into this without having been part of it from one small. I do not feel any disappointment if my kids would rather choose to be a member of the NHA. At the political level there is a couple of organizations I’m a little more worried.
Dimmed religion
Although he attached early Right to their chest. After law school, it did not take long before young Røsland did lynkarriere. Only 32 years old he took as Governing Mayor of Oslo.
– You control a city where religions have become clearer after several mosques have emerged. We have received solidarity rings, but also an increasing number of threats. What challenges lie in it?
– diversity is fundamentally a good. We get multiple perspectives and experiences, ways to view issues. Being rigged for an international reality. Meanwhile, immigrants be a source of conflicts and misunderstandings, because they come from a society where the religious dimension is much larger.
Røsland refers to a study from the United States on the choice of president: A large majority felt it was important that the president was Christian. Quite a few wanted a Muslim president. But even fewer would have an atheist.
– We must remember that we distinguish ourselves because we have toned down religion. It disclosing that it is how we do it here, take another generation or two. We must not expect that the integration will take place 20 minutes after landing at the airport. Kindergarten, school and workplace are important public meeting places for those who move to Norway and we already living here.
We are the unusual
Røsland is concerned that there is we that are atypical. Unlike the rest of the world has Western Europeans uncoupled religion from politics and society. He talks about the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The ending with the major wars of religion in Europe. The religion was taken out of the equation.
– I think it’s a big advantage not to mix faith and politics. It helps that they can live together regardless of religious views and personal convictions. Discussion on the Sunday open stores is interesting, because the rationale was originally religious character. Today it’s about those who work shall be exempt of work environmental causes. Thus it becomes a discussion everyone can participate. I hold general nor the Sabbath day holy.
– You belong to a church that is under investigation. How do you perceive it?
– This is a serious issue that tear down confidence in both the church, but I also believe communities in general. This’ve also been a problem in both the Norwegian Church and Muslim communities. There was much discussion and debate for five or six years ago. I also remember that the Catholic Church took the initiative that religious communities could get a better cooperation with several state governments to get a correct registration of members and support, which I thought seemed reasonable. But one must follow the rules that apply at any time.
Abilities to laziness
With a job as Chief Commissioner, a wife who is undersecretary for Erna Solberg and two children aged 4 and 6 years, he must hang in strap to get everyday to go hop. He admits that he has some good qualities to laziness.
– I am keen cost-benefit, the best possible result to the appropriate effort. I have gradually learned to simulate if needed. So it may look like I’m well prepared without being there. Sometimes I have seen on “West Wing” instead of reading report number 27.
– For a Catholic prayer and Exhibition often important. How do you get the time?
– I get passed occasionally and did not feel in any guilty that it is not often. I’ve never been any visible Catholic, because I think it is private. In our secularized society, which I think is the one good that we have, I think one should be a little reticent. I am keen not to mix religion and politics.
– What is it you do not find in Protestant Christianity?
– I’ve never easy for belonging somewhere else, because I experience the Catholic Church little judgmental little moralizing. Paradoxically, the church has the their moves.
He feels that it is not all convictions you need to share. That room for differing opinions are great.
– I think for example the church ought to reconsider their view of homosexuality, committed cohabitation and female priests. I think it comes eventually. Currently celibacy beginning to loosen up a little, but this is the one business that is not just running fast after changing. Perhaps it is also part of the reason that it has existed for 2000 years.
Back to the mystique
It is said that Stian Berger Røsland is patient – up to a point. As inmates Governing Mayor he could irritate his green over punctuation in a note. Or when someone hung with cornering.
– But the surroundings do something with you. I have learned to hide their impatience, prejudice people who submit a report even though I have taken the point. Try to listen to things I think is so exciting. Nåx mean someone I should attempt to drop a little more loose. I can probably perceived in excess of self-control. I do not give so much. But this is not a place one berates people, says Røsland and nods explanatory to his own office with sea views, columns and a whisper of history in the walls.
– Can you “talk to death» Christianity and so lose some of the mystique?
– The beauty of Catholicism is that it has a less fear that rituals can help to explain what we do not see. What we do not understand. The tangible has a value. Catholic sermons are quite short. One reads the lyrics and get a quick explanation from the priest, so you come back to the mystique. It puzzled where you can reflect on your own. They manage the still not explaining this. But they will have to experiment, smiles Røsland.
During the Sunday Masses he can feel how the story comes closer. The lines extending from church bench he sits on, and infinitely far back in time. It is the same hymns, the same texts, the same beautiful tones.
– Through the concrete and close one gets perhaps a stronger relationship to faith than many who are members of the Norwegian Church. The rituals are a part of who you are, regardless of the strength of faith of all time. Because it can be varied. But you do not stop the rituals, it’s a part of growing up, the small family culture, says Røsland.
– What does it take you to lose faith?
Commissioner manager looks with one little puzzled. The problem has never occurred because he. Born into a Catholic tradition, as for his own part, managed to become 38 years long. It takes a lot to sweep stuff off.
– A new scientific study perhaps?
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