The twice yearly general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is not usually an eventful occasion.
It normally provides an opportunity for Mormons from around the world to reunite with family and friends, and listen to uplifting talks from their leaders. Major doctrinal announcements are rare and controversy on the floor unheard of.
This month’s conference, however, has drawn attention because of imminent changes in the Mormon leadership. At the end of conference it was announced that senior Church apostle Robert Hales had died aged 85. More significantly, Church president Thomas Monson, who is 90 and in frail health, missed the conference for the first time in his decade-long tenure.
The LDS president is not merely the Church’s presiding officer; in Mormon theology he is “prophet, seer and revelator”, the final authority on Church affairs and the one man who can announce changes in doctrine. Mormons regard their president with much the same respect as Catholics have for the Pope.
Although the LDS Church is a strongly hierarchical religious group, its hierarchy often works in strikingly different ways from Catholic norms. Most obviously, since the Church leader is ailing, there is no Mormon counterpart to the drama and unpredictability of a papal conclave.
The reason for this lies in the Church’s succession crises of the 19th century. When Mormon founder Joseph Smith was assassinated in 1844, his brother and designated successor Hyrum was killed alongside him. There followed a period of confusion with numerous claimants to the leadership, ending with Brigham Young winning over most of the faithful by his force of personality.
When Young himself died in 1877 there was still no process for choosing a successor, except that none of the hierarchy wanted Young’s right-hand man, George Q Cannon, to take over. The solution agreed on was to have a rule of strict seniority, so that when the president died the longest-serving apostle would automatically succeed him. As late president Gordon Hinckley put it, you become church president by outliving everyone else.
The theory is that, by making the succession predictable, this reduces the pressures of factionalism. That isn’t quite the case – there have always been power struggles behind the scenes – but it does mean that manoeuvring for the top job doesn’t figure in those struggles.
Another difference is that, even before Benedict XVI’s retirement, bishops retiring to emeritus status at 75 and cardinals losing their conclave votes at 80 had long become the norm in Catholic practice. In Mormonism, only the lower members of the hierarchy retire. Members of the two top bodies – the three-man First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles – still hold their appointments for life. This means that top Church leaders are not only old, but often extremely old. Gordon Hinckley held the presidency until his death at 97, and the current most senior apostle, Russell Nelson, who is next in line to succeed, is 93. This is quite an advanced age to take over a large and complex organisation.
But, as medical advances mean the average age has risen over the years, that also means senior church leaders holding office while physically or mentally infirm. In the late 1960s, so many top Mormon leaders were incapacitated that apostle Hugh Brown, himself suffering from chronic ill health, proposed allowing apostles (though not the president) to retire on a voluntary basis at 85. This suggestion was not accepted, and has not been revisited since.
The problem of the leadership’s frailty has continued to recur. Ezra Taft Benson was LDS president between 1985 and 1994. Known as a fiery preacher in his younger years, by the time he succeeded to the presidency at 86 he was already suffering from dementia, and for much of his time in office he was comatose. The hierarchy’s attempts to pretend that Benson was still able to function as president drew sharp criticism from within Benson’s family. The resulting publicity has probably contributed to a limited increase in openness: it is acknowledged that Monson’s health is declining, which is something that previously wouldn’t have been admitted.
In practice, the Salt Lake hierarchy is used to working around the incapacity of senior leaders. Over recent years President Monson has been taking less of a role in day-to-day management, with his counsellors Henry Eyring and Dieter Uchtdorf becoming more prominent. The Quorum of the Twelve has always operated as a committee, with relatively younger members taking on workload from their elders. And rank and file Mormons are as used to a frail leader as a vigorous one.
The episcopal hierarchy we know in the Catholic tradition often frustrates the faithful; even a system tracing its origins to Christ’s Apostles can sometimes become dysfunctional, because it consists of imperfect human beings. But, by the same token, we can look at other communities and see that human beings have never managed to design a perfect alternative system of Church government.
Jon Anderson is a freelance writer
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