The following is excerpted from the Church Newsroom. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

At Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on Wednesday, July 20, 2022 — just a couple of miles from the Vatican — President Dallin H. Oaks of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called for a global effort to protect religious freedom for all people.

This was the second time in as many years that a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ was invited to speak at the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit. Elder Quentin L. Cook participated last year at the conference in Indiana.

The First Counselor in the faith’s First Presidency said religious liberty faces serious challenges around the world. These include secularism, authoritarianism, political correctness and deteriorating attitudes toward religion.

Religious liberty demands unity among denominations, President Oaks said.

“When leaders join forces to confront religious liberty challenges, they do not need to examine doctrinal differences or identify their many common elements of belief,” he said during the opening day’s keynote. “All that is necessary for unity is our shared conviction that God has commanded us to love one another and has granted us freedom in matters of faith.”

President Oaks said religious freedom is in the DNA of the Church of Jesus Christ. He quoted Joseph Smith’s famous 1843 declaration that he was “ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination.”

“With the love and mutual respect taught by divine commandments,” President Oaks said, “we need to find ways to learn from one another and to reinforce the common commitments that hold us together and promote stable pluralistic societies. We should walk shoulder to shoulder along the path of religious freedom for all, while still exercising that freedom to pursue our distinctive beliefs.”

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.