At some point in our lives, we have each done something that hurts another person. At some point in each organization’s existence, they have done something that hurts another person. That’s just life. We all make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes cause harm to others. The ethical and moral thing to do in those situations, is to apologize. If there is something you can do to rectify the situation, you should also do that, but let’s start with the apology.

An apology requires that you recognize that you have caused harm to another person. It requires recognizing a flaw or a weakness. For it to be an honest apology, it requires that you admit this to the person you have harmed, and that you feel and show remorse.

Recently, there was an article in the Salt Lake Tribune about a man in Hawaii that was released from his Sunday School calling because he taught about the Church’s essay on racism in church history. This got me reflecting on discussions about the essay when it was first released. One of the critiques, which I agree with, is that there is no apology. There has never been an apology from the church for the church’s racist past. Given Dallin Oak’s statement about not offering apologies, I don’t expect one to be forthcoming anytime soon.

“I know that the history of the church is not to seek apologies or to give them,” Oaks said in an interview Tuesday. “We sometimes look back on issues and say, ‘Maybe that was counterproductive for what we wish to achieve,’ but we look forward and not backward.” The church doesn’t “seek apologies,” he said, “and we don’t give them.”

This is a shocking and untenable position for Oaks to take. Even the church’s Gospel Principles manual, the Sunday School manual for new members, teaches that you should apologize and make restitution.

If we have sinned against another person, we should confess to the person we have injured. … Part of repentance is to make restitution. This means that as much as possible we must make right any wrong that we have done. For example, a thief should give back what he has stolen. A liar should make the truth known. A gossip who has slandered the character of a person should work to restore the good name of the person he has harmed.

To be clear, an apology won’t fix the past racism, but it would help with the healing process. In order for the church to really move on from its racist past, it has to own up to it first. Until then, there is no hope for removing this particular skeleton from its closet. With that being said, here’s the apology I think the church should give.

We are sorry. For more than a century, our church held on to racist beliefs. Our leaders preached racist teachings, and our members believed and lived according to those teachings. To some extent, we were influenced by the racism prevalent in the US at that time, but that is no excuse. We believe we are led by a prophet who is directed by God, and as such we should be held to a higher standard than societal norms. To be honest, many times the societal norms were a higher standard. While there are many aspects to racism in our history, we would like to address our apology to some noteworthy areas.

We are sorry for withholding admittance of black men to the priesthood in our church simply because of the color of their skin. We are sorry for withholding access to our temples for black men and women and their families. We are sorry for teaching that it is of utmost importance for a family to be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity, and yet withholding that blessing from our black members. We are sorry for teaching that black people were less valiant in the pre-existence, and that is why they have been cursed with a black skin. We are sorry for teaching that black skin is a curse. We are sorry for teaching that black people, while being able to make it to the Celestial Kingdom, will only ever be able to be servants there. We are sorry that our scriptures teach that dark skin is a curse due to unrighteousness, and that righteousness will cause the skin to become white again. We are sorry that dark skin is called loathsome, while white skin is called delightsome. We are sorry for the psychological damage these teachings have caused to black people who had to endure hearing them, and experiencing the denigration that resulted. We are sorry for perpetuating this racism to the white members of the church, rather than teaching them Christlike love regardless of race or skin color. We are sorry for putting a stumbling block in their way to reducing their racism.

In 1978, our church ended the race restrictions for the temple and the priesthood. An apology is long overdue, and for that we are also sorry. 37 years is too long, and inexcusable. In an effort to eliminate the remaining racism in our church, we will read this apology over the pulpit in each of our congregations so it is clear that the church no longer agrees with those past teachings. We will remove the racist parts from our scriptures with annotations for the original text so that this lesson is not forgotten in future generations. We will also work with experts who study racism to identify where it is still evident in our church, and what we can do to change.

Again, we are sorry for our racist past. We hope this will be a step in healing the wounds we inflicted, and that we can prevent inflicting those wounds on future generations.

If you could get the church to issue an apology, what would you want them to include? What parts of my apology would you change?