Saying the U.S. is in a moment of great division and that democracy is at “grave risk,” President Joe Biden said Thursday he believes faith can help bring Americans back together.

Speaking at the 70th annual National Prayer Breakfast at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Biden cited the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the building. 

“The issue is for us is unity,” he said. “How do we unite us again? Unity is elusive, but it's really actually necessary.

“Rather than driving us apart, faith can move us together because all the great confessional faiths have the same fundamental basic beliefs. Not just faith in a higher power, but faith to see each other as we should — not as enemies but as neighbors, not as adversaries but as fellow Americans.”

Biden said unity doesn’t mean Americans always have to agree but that enough of them share core beliefs about common good and the general welfare of the country.

Biden said in his earlier years in the Senate, liberals and segregationists would get into heated exchanges over policies but still treated each other with respect afterward. The president also said he’s found it difficult to dislike anyone after learning their about their families’ hardships, such as having a child battling addiction or cancer. 

“One of the things I pray for — and I mean it — is that we sort of get back to the place (where) … we get to really know each other. It's hard to really dislike someone when you know they're going through the same that you’ve gone through.”

Earlier in his speech, Biden addressed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying, “I don’t want to hurt your reputation, but we really are friends.”

Biden said he remains optimistic the country will grow more united. 

“One of the reasons why other countries sometimes think we're arrogant is we believe anything is possible,” he said. “Anything is possible. And faith in the American people will prove each and every day we're a great nation because we're at our heart a good people.”

Biden did not explicitly call out any lawmakers who have sought to downplay the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, engaged in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, or passed or defended voting legislation in several GOP-led states that Republicans say will improve election security, but which Democrats argue will restrict access to the polls. 

The president, however, did say that, “As leaders of this nation who work and pray together, there's an oath to God and country to uphold and a charge to keep, to stand in the breach and to protect our democracy.”

Biden quoted from the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s “The Cure of Troy,” saying, “Once in a lifetime, the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.”

“I honestly believe we're at one of those moments,” Biden said after reading the passage. “There's so much at stake. The division has become so palpable, not just here but around the world. We have a chance. We have a chance, a chance to make hope and history rhyme.”

The National Prayer Breakfast has been held every year since 1953, when President Dwight Eisenhower attended a meeting with members of Congress, as well as minister Abraham Vereide and the Rev. Billy Graham. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s breakfast was the first since 2019 to be held in person.