Voices: The LDS Church taught me what sanctuary should feel like. Why is it silent now?

It has been one year since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reaffirmed its stance on immigration as being “love thy neighbor,” while also firmly restating the faith’s policy of “obeying the law.”

Of course, church leaders did not clarify what to do if the law is blatantly wrong, twisted or ignored by the lawmakers who put your neighbors on the run. Hopes that Latter-day Saint leaders might add their voices to those of other faiths in the call for sanctuary, both physical and emotional, were unmet for the entirety of 2025.

Donald Trump has made it clear that churches today do not have immunity for harboring asylum seekers as they did in the past — but a call for sanctuary can mean many things in the modern world. However, the Latter-day Saint leaders may further hesitate to draw attention after the attack on a chapel in Michigan left four dead; on the other hand, the tragedy could have been an opportunity to encourage action and justice for other innocent victims. On still another hand, the church is headquartered in a state where the majority elected Trump twice, so silence may look like, and is rightly critiqued, as the faith’s support for the administration’s selfish and harmful actions.

“Separation of church and state” may be the mantra, but no arguments hold water for a wealthy church, with a primarily white leadership, and a large global platform. From such a place of privilege, a silence about the abuse of law and the abuse of people, both in our country’s borders and across the world, is ironically deafening.

Like many, I share the frustration at my church’s seeming total lack of response to the violence and unlawfulness being caused by this administration. My anger is enhanced by my conviction that the faith is where I learned what sanctuary is supposed to feel like.

I have never seen such strength as I have when I attended a chapter of the church’s Sexual Addiction Support Group for Women, where I saw the invisible made visible, heard their truths of how healing and sexuality could be embraced together, and heard cheers as a young woman announced she had taken the sacrament for the first time in years.

I have never seen such pride as when I sat with a group of elderly Mexican American women, who laughingly told me in their native tongue, “My Indigenous ancestors wrote the Book of Mormon. Aren’t you lucky to read it?” A belief often overlooked in the church’s dominating white narrative of history but one cradled close by that smiling circle of women.

I have never seen such true faith as in my childhood, when my single mother opened the doors of our impoverished home for anyone struggling. The dwindling food in our cupboards was put there by SNAP, and when that failed to come, it was put there by the church. Yet my mother taught me to set extra plates on the table without question. She taught me to walk to the disabled neighbor down the street, to style her hair and listen to her stories. She taught me love when she accepted my coming out, and she continues to teach me as she advocates for the vulnerable hearts of queer Latter-day Saint teens, many of whom can’t find sanctuary in their own homes.

I have seen sanctuaries built and sanctuaries filled to the brim. I have been raised on the idea that a peacekeeper leads to sanctuaries, and where there is none, they build them.

Calls for “loving thy neighbor” include rewriting laws that hurt thy neighbor. Offering asylum means feeding the poor, protecting the weak and making sure persecutors are held accountable.

“But first obedience —.” No, first faith, hope and charity.

The gospel I learned was centered on Christ’s commandments to bring love and hope to the furthest reaches of the human experience, to make the unseen feel seen and to give the powerless freedom to live.

The fight for love, hope and freedom is now happening on the streets of America daily, as the good nature of humanity pushes back against the ugliest parts of humanity. Neighbors rally, strangers stand, votes are cast. How embarrassing if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has such lofty claims on love and truth, were to be left behind in such a fight.

If the church will stay silent, I will be loud. My faith and my humanity demand for the cry and the building of sanctuary.

Emily Regan is from Springville and is a graduate student currently studying at the University of Edinburgh. She has a background in communication, as master of arts in death, religion and culture, and is finishing a master of science in narrative futures and futures studies.

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