Mormon Mentality - Thoughts and Asides by Peculiar People

By Devyn S.

Aug. 19th, 2011 at 12:56 pm

With the sad passing of Elder Marion Hanks, the Church lost a great leader. One thing I found interesting is that the Church, a la the Deseret News, actually acknowledged he died of Alzheimer’s Disease which is a first in my view. Typically, we don’t acknowledge that our leaders would get such an ailment that would cause dementia (a la President Benson). However, data show that 1 in 8 people older than 65 years (approximately 13%) have Alzheimer’s Disease. Using these stats, you would assume that at least 1 of the Quorum of the 12 or First Presidency would suffer from the disease at any point in time (not saying any do). However, would the Church disclose this given it is a lifetime calling? Should it be disclosed? Should we allow someone to go “emeritus” if they suffer from a dementia?

18 Comments

| leave a comment

RSS 2.0 for this post | trackback

1. queuno

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 @ 1:26pm

It seems the pattern is for an apostle to let the process run its course. In many cases, the Lord may not actually need all 12 to fulfill his purposes at a given time, and letting them linger is one of those “in the Lord’s time” things, where his family might provide additional sacrifice and service.

2. queuno

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 @ 1:31pm

(For the 70, you can grant them emeritus status, but without major revelation/changes, we really can’t do that with an apostle.)

3. chris

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 @ 1:43pm

They used to call assistants to the quorum of the 12. President Hinckley, Pres. Romney, Elder Hales, and now that I looked it up Elder hanks was too. So when there is an Apostle who can’t do XYZ, whether for health or time limitations, it seems they call an assistant and often that assistant fills the vacancy when required.

4. Devyn S.

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 @ 2:18pm

queuno – but should we grant apostle’s emeritus status if they cannot serve? I don’t see why the calling has to be for a lifetime…

3. chris – do the 70 now fulfill that role?

5. a random John

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 @ 3:54pm

I believe that members of the 70 are given emeritus status at age 70.

It is nice to see an acknowledgement of the situation, especially given that it was widely known anyhow. I think that the situation with President Benson was interesting and put the Church in something of a bind as it is difficult to announce any new policy changes when the President is incapacitated. Unfortunately people can linger for years and years in a state in which they are incapable of serving. We don’t have a mechanism to deal with that other than simply waiting.

6. Nick Literski

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 @ 5:34pm

Emeritus status for members of the LDS Quorum of Twelve would be problematic, given the traditional method of succession to the First Presidency. No matter how high your regard might be for the sitting president of the LDS church, the fact remains that giving that individual the ability to declare an apostle “emeritus” would create strong temptation to manipulate future succession. Suppose a very strong, “hard-liner” president decided that one of the more senior apostles (i.e. one getting close to potentially outliving the others and becoming president) was too “liberal.” Such a president would unavoidably be tempted to “protect the church” (as he saw it) from such an influence by declaring that apostle “emeritus” and removing him from potential succession. Even if no LDS president could ever succumb to such temptation, he would be suspected of doing so any time he declared a sitting apostle “emeritus,” especially if it was one of the more senior ones.

7. Devyn S.

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 @ 9:37pm

ARJ – correct the 70 gets emeritus status at 70 – no exceptions. I agree it was nice to see it acknowledged.

Nick – wow – never thought of that scenario. But why let a member of the 12 “pretend” to be “all there” when they are not?

8. annegb

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 @ 9:54am

I love Elder Hanks. Elder Hanks and Cheiko Okazaki. Both gone. Seriously, life passes very quickly.

9. JMichael

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 @ 9:56am

#7 – Sort of, if you’re talking only about the First Quorum of Seventy, but even among that quorum there are exceptions. There have been many members of the Second Quorum of Seventy (who are also General Authorities)who have served after age 70, including Robert Oaks, Donald Staheli, and William Parmley, to name a few recent examples. The Second Quorum are released and are not designated “emeritus”. As to the First Quorum, I can think of three who are currently serving at age 70 – Elders Richard Hinckley, Cecil Samuelson, and Yoshihiko Kikuchi. They may be designated emeritus at the upcoming October General Conference, but maybe not. Other recent exceptions to the age 70 rule within the First Quorum include Earl Tingey, Lynn Mickelson, and Charles Didier, all age 74 at the time of their emeritus designation. Elders F. Burton Howard and Rolf Kerr were 72.

10. annegb

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 @ 12:38pm

#7, I think they’ve probably had many (a relative term?) senile members of the brethren, maybe starting from early church history, whose conditions haven’t been made public. It stands to reason statistically. I thought Elder Richards seemed a little off–albeit in a delightful way–and always wondered about President Hunter. Didn’t shake my faith. It worked out.

11. Left Field

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 @ 12:52pm

Marion G. Romney was given de facto emeritus status when he became president of the 12, and Howard W. Hunter was made acting president due to Romney’s ill health.

12. MCQ

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 @ 3:23pm

“Even if no LDS president could ever succumb to such temptation, he would be suspected of doing so any time he declared a sitting apostle “emeritus,” especially if it was one of the more senior ones.”

The way around this is to make emeritus status a power only the FP and Q12 can exercise together, by majority vote.

13. living in zion

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 @ 11:01pm

I was a teenager in Phx., AZ during the Pres. Benson years. I was an avid newspaper reader and followed the drama about Pres. Benson’s grandson who was a political cartoonist for the local newspaper. Before his grandpa was made prophet, the cartoonist poked gentle fun at the Church in a harmless way. As his grandpa became impaired and was not functioning, things became difficult for him. He ended up leaving the church over how the leadership around Benson kept up the charade that all was well, when it really wasn’t. It was a painful, public kind of thing.

14. Stephen M (Ethesis)

Sun, Aug 21, 2011 @ 9:31am

I think a real problem we have is President Kimball. During the last half of his presidency, doctors related to his doctor would put out the word that he was in final decline and certain to die within the month. Then Kimball would snap back and major things would occur. A friend joked that Kimball was clinging to life by grabbing onto new missions or assignments (a number of Church leaders have made on major impact and then died, leading to a folk belief that they had a mission and as soon as it was finished, so were they — thus Kimball was avoiding death by picking up new missions).

After that, for some time, people became very reluctant to write anyone off.

Benson did not snap back the same way, but what he did do was avoid endorsing many of the positions he had held earlier. The longer he served as President of the Church without endorsing the John Birch Society (for example), the more he weakened those earlier positions — something that did a great deal of good, all in all.

15. NewlyHousewife

Sun, Aug 21, 2011 @ 3:03pm

Do we know how many leaders currently have emeritus status? This is the first time I’ve ever heard of leaders being released for medical issues as I assume no on really openly talks about health outside of old age to the general membership. Always figured the youngest of the group were doing most of the work, where as the oldest were there to look pretty–which is probably why I don’t take 60% of what’s said in general conference seriously…

16. Devyn S.

Sun, Aug 21, 2011 @ 7:19pm

9. JMichael – wow – good details – where did you get that information?

10. annegb – yes at times some of the brethren do seem a little “shaky” at times in General Conference.

11. Left Field – correct on this one. However, President Romney was not “emeritus”

12. MCQ – yep that would work.

13. living in zion – yes the President Benson thing was pretty ugly. Too bad it ended that way.

14. Stephen M (Ethesis) – good point on President Benson. I guess the “illness” did benefit the rest of us…

15. NewlyHousewife – there are a lot of 70s who are emeritus – The key is that members of the 12 can NEVER be emeritus, although I think they should if they are mentally unable to do the job. I agree with your 60% conference assertion!

17. annegb

Sun, Aug 21, 2011 @ 8:11pm

#11, I, too, thought that was sad, but I think the reason that happens is people expect perfection and/or some kind of miracle, a sign whereby the prophet really is infallible. Almost a God.

In that, we need to lower our expectations. Yes, God is a God of miracles and they happen, but if they don’t, He is still a God of miracles. I always take my doubts back to The First Vision and The Plan of Salvation, which I do not doubt.

Or maybe we need not to take ourselves too seriously. The scenarios presented here, without naming any leaders’ name are actually kind of hilarious.

18. a random John

Sun, Aug 21, 2011 @ 11:08pm

Stephen M,

I don’t think long silence on controversial positions due to mental decline is a really strong point against those positions.