Mormon leader Boyd K Packer dies aged 90

The president of the faith’s highest governing body dies in Salt Lake City

Mormon leader Boyd K Packer, president of the faith’s highest governing body, has died at the age of 90.

Packer died on Friday afternoon at his home in Salt Lake City from natural causes, according to church spokesman Eric Hawkins.

Packer, known for being a staunch advocate for a conservative form of Mormonism, was next in line to become president of the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He had been a member of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since 1970. The group is modelled on Jesus Christ’s apostles and serves under the church president and his two counsellors.

He is the second member of quorum to die in recent months. L Tom Perry died on 30 May from cancer. Replacements for both of them are expected to be named in the coming months, possibly at the church’s fall conference in October.

Packer was born on 10 September 1924 in Brigham City, Utah, and was a bomber pilot during the second world war. Fellow church leaders called him a true apostle for the religion.

“From the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, he represented the saviour of the world,” said quorum member M Russell Ballard. “President Packer always felt that if we could read the words of the Lord we would be far better off and much safer than speculating with our own ideas.”

Patrick Mason, chairman of the religion department and professor of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, said Packer spent most of his adult life working for the church and earned a reputation of being a tenacious advocate for his orthodox views on Mormonism Some called him a bulldog, but Packer preferred the biblical analogy of “watchman on the tower”, Mason said.

In 1993, he warned that the religion faced the greatest threat from three groups: feminists, homosexuals and intellectuals.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaK%2Bfp7mle5FpaG5nmqq5cHyTaKSoqp2ku264xJqbnqpdl7y6sIykZKmZk6Cys3nDopysZZGcsqV5mGk%3D