The following is excerpted from the Church Newsroom. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
Chicago’s interfaith community gathered on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, for a day of learning and connection at a symposium hosted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Representatives from more than a dozen religious traditions spoke on the symposium’s theme, “Sacred Spaces for Challenging Times,” to an audience that filled the chapel of the Church’s meetinghouse in downtown Chicago.
Embracing the theme, many speakers said that while we seek to commune with God in sacred spaces, fostering human relationships is another important reason we gather there.
Elder Steven D. Shumway of the Seventy was among those who explained the dual purpose of such spaces.
“Though we have differences in faith, and we come from very different backgrounds, we share a common belief that sacred spaces not only connect us with the divine but connect us with each other,” he said. “That is especially needed during challenging times.”
Similarly, the Rev. Richard Fragomeni, Catholic Theological Union professor and presbyter of the diocese of Albany, New York, called Catholic churches “houses wherein the temple of God gathers — the temple being community, the temple being people.”
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