does anyone know how apostles are selected?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

I don't think that is the case. From what his son describes, President Kimball was totally incapacitated. During conference, his secretary sat next to him and raised President Kimball's hand for him during sustainings. Kimball's secretary remarked that when two conferences passed without naming a replacement for Richards or for Romney, he didn't even believe President Kimball was aware that LeGrand Richards had passed away.

President Hinckley was called as an extra counselor because Richards and Romney were suffering from Parkinson's and because Kimball was incapacitated by fluid on the brain. After his surgery in 1979, Kimball's son commented that his father wondered why the Lord wouldn't let him die, and then became progressively unaware of his surroundings until he was totally gone mentally.

I think you meant N. Eldon Tanner and Romney in your first paragraph there.

As late as April 1983 (one year before Oaks and Nelson's calls), we have him saying the following in conference, re: President Kimball:

He is not in a coma, as some have said. He dresses each day. But he is weak, and his body is tired. ... President Kimball is unable to be with us in person. However, he presides and is in his hotel apartment across the street where he joins with us as the proceedings are carried to him by closed-circuit television. He is not in the hospital, as rumor would have it, nor has he been for many months.

Six months later he answers critics by saying: "So long as either of [two counselors] is able to function, there will be an active First Presidency with full powers of decision in all matters affecting the Church."

Does that include calling new apostles? Interesting question.

It's of course possible that Kimball took a phenomenally bad turn in the ensuing 12 months, or perhaps Hinckley was exaggerating (unlikely, IMO), but that April 83 description does not fit a man who is completely mentally incapacitated. Or, at least a man so incompetent as to be unable to sanction the calling of new apostles.

But as I said, I don't pretend to understand all the keys of the apostleship. In the end, I'm not sure it's possible to know how much Hinckley conferred with Kimball anyway. The two men who know best are both dead. But I maintain that Hinckley deciding more or less on his own to call and sustain two new apostles seems a little out of character. Choosing to believe that Kimball was at the very least aware of the move is the more logical route, IMO.

[MikeWaters]

Wait, we are to believe it is unlikely that any of the apostles have exaggerated the health of another apostle?

Didn't Benson's grandson quit the church because of that?

Does the church become untrue if a president is mentally unfit? Hardly. But certainly some mullahs would not understand that it could happen.