President Packer Addresses Diplomats

Family values and the standards of the world were topics addressed by President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, when he spoke at a 1995 Brigham Young University Management Society dinner held in Washington, D.C.

“Like a ship without a compass, society drifts from the family values which anchored us in the past,” President Packer told the crowd of thirteen hundred, which included ambassadors and members of the diplomatic community from twenty-six nations.

“We are caught in a current of moral pollution so strong that unless we correct our course, civilization, as we know it, will surely be wrecked to pieces. The standards of the world are constantly adjusted to what is. The standards of the Church are fixed on what ought to be.”

During the evening’s activities, President Packer and Beverly Campbell, director of International Affairs for the Church in Washington, D.C., received the BYU Management Society’s Distinguished Public Service Award. Lew Cramer, president of the chapter, noted that “both have been exemplars in their own spheres of influence as they have served extensively in the public sector and in the Church.”