Mitt Romney’s speech to Belmont zoning board

Mitt Rom­ney rarely speaks about his in­volve­ment with the Mor­mon church, al­though he was a church lead­er in Bel­mont from 1981 to 1994. He counseled fam­il­ies, taught Sunday school and led the con­greg­a­tion in both a spir­itu­al and ad­min­is­trat­ive ca­pa­city. In this 1996 speech in a crowded high school aud­it­or­i­um, Rom­ney speaks about the im­port­ance of church steeples, say­ing that the town, state and na­tion “needs more steeples, not less steeples, point­ing sym­bol­ic­ally to heav­en, where I think the source of our bless­ings and the source of many of our ques­tions come from.” It is one of the few times he has spoken pub­licly in af­fil­i­ation with the Mor­mon church.