Church has opposed gay marriage, homosexual activity amid social acceptance Ex- heart surgeon to be next Mormon prez
Salt Lake City, Jan. 4: The man set to become the next Mormon church president is a 93- year- old former heart surgeon whose conservative track record on the religion’s leadership panel has led Mormon scholars to predict he won’t make any major changes.
Russell M. Nelson is likely to be formally named to the post in the coming days under longstanding church protocol designed to ensure a smooth handover by giving the post to the longest- tenured member of the governing Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Nelson has been on the panel for three decades.
President Thomas S. Monson died on Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City after leading the church for nearly decade. He was 90.
Nelson would become the second- oldest person to be named president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day a Saints.
Only Joseph Fielding Smith was older, by one month, when he became church president in 1970.
Expect more “continuity than change” from Nelson, who seems to maintain a conservative interpretation of church doctrine while trying not to alienate anyone, said Patrick Mason, associate professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University in California and the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies.
“He has a generous impulse within him, but it coexists alongside a fierce commitment to orthodoxy,” Mason said. “There’s no indication from his previous service that Nelson sees himself as a reformer.”