Romney Allows Rare Glimpse Into Mormon Faith

Unaware that he was being recorded on camera, a former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney — who is running as a Republican presidential candidate in 2008 — let rip about a subject he resists discussing in public: his Mormon faith.

Many Republicans suggest Mr. Romney's beliefs will be an impediment to his securing his party's nomination because many Christians, particularly Southern Baptists, view Mormonism as a cult. At the start of the interview, Mr. Romney, currently leading the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, was good-humored. But when his interviewer, Jan Mickelson, asked if Mr. Romney's comments in favor of abortion were compatible with his church, he became angry. "Give me the benefit of the doubt that, having been a leader of my church — a bishop and a state president — I understand my church better than you do," he said.

He was then drawn into a discussion of what Mormons did believe, including a second coming of Jesus. "Christ appears in Jerusalem, splits the Mount of Olives, and stops the war that's come to kill the Jews," he said. "Our church believes that. We also believe He will reign from two places ... Missouri and Jerusalem."

After the video was posted on YouTube, Mr. Romney responded with a shrug. "I expressed my views clearly," he told the Daily Telegraph.