“I’m not aware that the word ‘apology’ appears anywhere in the scriptures - Bible or Book of Mormon,” Oaks reiterated the next day in a video chat with The Tribune.

Though the question focused on rhetoric surrounding LGBTQ members, Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court justice, generalized it to all of Mormon history. “We sometimes look back on issues and say, ‘Maybe that was counterproductive for what we wish to achieve.’” “I know that the history of the church is not to seek apologies or to give them,” Oaks told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2015.

Oaks, first counselor in the governing First Presidency.

Still, the 16.6 million-member church has not issued any kind of formal apology about the racist prohibition, and it appears not likely to, according to Dallin H. Indeed, some members have expressed their collective regret at the policy, abandoned in 1978, and church leaders have done much in recent years to make amends, condemning racism in all its forms from the pulpit and forming an alliance with the NAACP on ongoing projects serving the African American community. So why won’t The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apologize for the faith’s 126-year-long priesthood/temple ban against Black members? The Anglican Church of Canada recently apologized to victims of sex abuse in their denomination.

Dallin H. Oaks outlasting trials