SALT LAKE CITY — If leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hold with tradition, the next president of the church will be a soft-spoken World War II veteran with a love for telling stories.
Succession to the presidency is historically based on seniority, and Thomas S. Monson, 80, is in line to succeed Gordon B. Hinckley as leader of the 13 million-member church.
Church presidents serve for life. The title usually passes to the senior-most member of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles when a president dies.
Like Hinckley, Monson was one of the youngest men ever called to the highest levels of church leadership when named a church apostle in 1963 at age 36. Before that he spent three years in Toronto, overseeing church missionary work.
Monson is known among Latter-day Saints for his folksy humor, delivered in speeches and parable-like stories during the twice-yearly church conferences in Salt Lake City that draw tens of thousands of people.
He’s also known for his ministerial concern for widows and the infirm.
“He’s affable, open and approachable,” Ed Firmage, a former Mormon and an emeritus professor of law at the University of Utah, said last year. “He’s just a very good man.”
A 1948 cum laude graduate of the University of Utah, Monson holds a master’s degree in business administration from the church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo.
His professional life has included stints in newspaper advertising for the church-owned Deseret Morning News and as general manager of the Deseret News Press, one of the West’s largest commercial printing companies.
