G20 Interfaith Forum Opening Ceremony Draws Largest Gathering of Interfaith Leaders in Utah History

Senior leaders of seven faith traditions addressed the Opening Ceremony at the Historic Tabernacle at Temple Square

SALT LAKE CITY, UT, UNITED STATES, October 16, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- President Dallin H. Oaks of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who hosted the evening, welcomed delegates of the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20) to the Church’s world headquarters and praised their work as advocates for peace.

“Surely this is the most prominent constellation of faith leaders that has ever gathered in Salt Lake City,” Oaks said. He pledged the Church’s support for the Forum’s peacemaking work: “We want to be part of your efforts.”

Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Secretary General of the Muslim World League, delivered the opening keynote as guest of honor. He warned that hate speech, increasingly amplified by digital platforms, is the gateway to violence, and that it often borrows the language of religion. “Optimism waits for things to improve on their own,” Al-Issa said. “Hope, however, is a decision taken by people of living conscience and a willingness to do hard work for tomorrow.” He was equally direct about violence in God’s name: any unjust war, “including those made in the name of religion, is not a divine banner, but a satanic one.”

Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, delivered a message on behalf of the Holy See that looked ahead to December, when G20 leaders will meet in Miami to take up economic growth, energy security and artificial intelligence. Beneath all three, he said, lies one question: whether the progress we seek will serve the human person. “Technology offers extraordinary possibilities, but it does not tell us what is good,” Caccia said. “We still need to ask the questions of whom progress is serving and whether it is serving them well. This is where faith leaders have something to offer.”

Michael O. Leavitt, President of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and a former Utah governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, conducted the ceremony. He recalled learning, first in Utah and later in Ethiopia’s fight against AIDS, that faith leaders can move people to act when government alone cannot. “A government can use taxes to build a clinic, but it often takes the trust of a faith leader to get people to walk through the door,” Leavitt said. “Faith cannot compel. It depends on freedom to survive. That is why protecting religious freedom must never end.”

IF20 President W. Cole Durham said that since 2014 the IF20 has worked to give faith-informed perspectives a seat at the diplomatic table and translate religious values into action. IF20 Vice President Katherine Marshall said questions of justice and fairness run through the economic agendas G20 leaders will take up in December. “Our test of prosperity must begin with what it means for those with the least resources and power,” Marshall said. “Peace, prosperity, and human development are possible everywhere, for everyone on our beautiful planet.”

Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazadeh, Chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Board, conveyed greetings from the President of Azerbaijan and thanked the United States and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for hosting the Forum.

Leaders from across the world’s traditions then took up the Forum’s theme, “Resilient Hope, Shared Future.” Pujya Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati, Secretary-General of the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, found it in the building itself. “A century and a half ago, the people who built this tabernacle had walked more than a thousand miles to be able to worship according to their own conscience, their own heart,” Saraswati said. “And when they built their great hall it was not a fortress: it was a place to sing. This is resilient hope. To create beauty and harmony in the face of suffering: a handcart that becomes a choir.” She urged G20 leaders to see the world as one family, in which “every decision the G20 makes is a family decision — and a family is measured by how it cares for its most vulnerable.”

Rabbi Mark Dratch, Chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, traced Jewish hope from Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones to concentration camp survivors who, days after their liberation, sang “Hatikvah” — “The Hope.” “We hold fast to God, to one another, and to a future we cannot yet see but we are willing to work for starting today,” Dratch said. “We are, each and every one of us, prisoners of hope.”

Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, noted that in Greek the word “shared” has the same root as “community,” and called for a shared future that includes care for the earth. “A crisis with man’s relationship with God becomes a crisis with his relationship with creation,” the Metropolitan said.

Dr. Francis Kuria Kagema, Secretary General of Religions for Peace, warned of a “polycrisis” of climate change, conflict and debt that falls hardest on the poor and most vulnerable. “As faith leaders, we share a moral responsibility to act,” Kuria said. “We must imagine a world of sacred shared flourishing.”

Bishop Alastair Redfern opened the evening in prayer. The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square performed throughout, ending with the pioneer hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” before Lord Russell Rook offered the closing prayer.

Marianna Richardson
G20 Interfaith Forum
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