Leader of Mormon church dies at 90
THOMAS MONSON
Thomas Monson, who as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enlarged the ranks of female missionaries but rebuffed demands to ordain women as priests and alter church opposition to same-sex marriage, died Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City. He was 90.
Monson displayed an openness to scholars of Mormonism, however, allowing them remarkable access to church records. But as rising numbers of church members and critics joined the internet’s free-for-all culture of debate and expose, his church was confronted with troubling inconsistencies in Mormon history and Scripture. The church even found itself at odds with an old ally, the Boy Scouts of America, which admitted gay members and homosexual adults as scout leaders.
Monson’s watch began in 2008, and under it the church enlarged its global missionary force to 69,200 from 52,000 and doubled the number of young women in its missionary ranks, to 18,400, by lowering the minimum age for service to 18 from 19 for men and to 19 from 21 for unmarried women.
A printer by trade, the Salt Lake City native was a director and board chairman of the Deseret News Publishing Co. after rising through the ranks.
He rose steadily in the church, too. In the 1950s, he was bishop of a ward of 1,000 Mormons. From 1959 to 1962, he was president of the church’s Canada mission, covering Ontario and Quebec. In 1963, he joined the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, the church’s second-highest governing body.
Monson married Frances Beverly Johnson in 1948. She died in 2013. His survivors include their three children, Thomas and Clark Monson and Ann Dibb; eight grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
Russell Nelson, a 93-yearold former heart surgeon, is likely to be named to replace Monson in the coming days.