The mangrove tree filters toxins and provides stability around tropical coastlines.
Similarly, faith communities can serve as society’s moral filters and stabilizers, said Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Elder Soares used the mangrove analogy while speaking at the G20 Interfaith Forum in Brasília, Brazil, on Wednesday, Aug. 21, ChurchofJesusChrist.org reported.
“As a collective moral mangrove, we can protect future generations from forces of addiction, isolation, narcissism and moral relativism that could consume them,” he said. “A moral mangrove, and all the people who are part of it, are crucial to the fabric that strengthens and holds our society together and gives us faith in the future of the world.”
G20 is an annual forum that brings together representatives of the world’s major economies. Various meetings and associated events, including the interfaith forum, are being held in Brazil during 2024.
Elder Soares, a Brazil native, also spoke about the role of religious communities in creating safe spaces for the vulnerable and for the rising generation. Faith-based organizations should not be banished from the public square, he said, but should actively engage in crucial conversations and should promote understanding and cooperation.
If people of faith carry out their unique mission, he said, then “people, communities and countries can overcome polarization, the lack of civility and roadblocks burdening our future that has been affecting the world. ... It takes extraordinary women and great men to promote the societal moral mangroves the people of the world desperately need.”
Elder Soares ended with a call to action for people of faith to promote societal moral mangroves. He also expressed hope that, through collective efforts, future generations can be protected from toxic attitudes and beliefs.
Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt, a General Authority Seventy, also spoke at the conference and praised the mangrove metaphor, saying a healthy root system keeps the environment together.
“We very much believe that about our people, about religions generally and about believers and nonbelievers,” Elder Corbitt said. “If we can come together around specific principles, the basics, the ideals, the constitutional ideals that we all seek that are self-evident — life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, peace, unity — we will be effective and powerful.”
Sharon Eubank, the Church’s director of humanitarian services and former first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency, was an additional Church representative at the conference. Her remarks emphasized the importance of community.
“We are all interconnected,” Sister Eubank said, adding, “[The Church of Jesus Christ has] made a commitment that we cannot do this on our own. ... It’s why we’re active here. It’s why we want to bring groups together who have given evidence that they can help the most vulnerable.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has participated in previous G20 interfaith gatherings. For instance, Elder Ronald A. Rasband spoke in Italy in 2021, Elder David A. Bednar spoke during 2020′s virtual gathering, Elder Gerrit W. Gong spoke in Japan in 2019, and Elder D. Todd Christofferson spoke in Argentina in 2018.
