It is come to our attention that some people seem to remember women offering prayers in General Conference. While there is missing data from October 2007 that keeps that door cracked slightly, the overwhelming evidence is that members of the Seventy and Presiding Bishopric have offered all the General Conference prayers for the past ten years and likely beyond. For your reference, here is a listing of nearly all of the invocation/benedictions from the past ten years of General Conference.
This data is pulled from the summary of General Conference found in each Ensign (references below). October 2012 did not include a summary, so these were pulled from the session videos. October 2007 was unavailable in both the Ensign and video.
UPDATE: October 2007 data has been found (thanks, Ziff!).
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
So what you’re saying is that there was something unusual about the October 2007 GC and there is some sort of conspiracy to cover it up?
Here’s the missing data for October 2007:
2007
October
Saturday Morning
Invocation: Elder Gene R. Cook
Benediction: Elder David F. Evans
Saturday Afternoon
Invocation: Elder Kenneth Johnson
Benediction: Elder Richard G. Hinckley
Priesthood Session
Invocation: Elder Earl C. Tingey
Benediction: Elder Robert K. Dellenbach
Sunday Morning
Invocation: Elder W. Rolfe Kerr
Benediction: Elder Wolfgang H. Paul
Sunday Afternoon
Invocation: Elder Robert S. Wood
Benediction: Elder Paul K. Sybrowsky
Source: Conference Reports at the Internet Archive
Way to go Ziff!
The October 2007 Conference Report (plus conference reports going back to about April 1880) may be found here – http://archive.org/details/conferencereport
First Session Sat AM – Elder Gene R Cook, invocation; Elder David F Evans, benediction
Second Session Sat PM – Elder Kenneth Johnson, invocation; Elder Richard G. Hinckley, benediction
General Priesthood Session Sat PM – Elder Earl C. Tingey, invocation; Elder Robert K. Dellenbach, benediction
Fourth Session Sun AM – Elder W. Rolfe Kerr, invocation; Elder Wolfgang H. Paul, benediction
Fifth Session Sun PM – Elder Robert S. Wood, invocation; Elder Paul K. Sybrowsky, benediction
Ziff, you type too fast
Thanks, LRC! It’s rare to have that accusation leveled at me. :)
I was really hoping for a conspiracy :)
Thank you so much for pulling this data together. hoping the OP can update the original post to reflect the 2007 data given in the comments.
People have been saying that the Office of the Seventy assigns prayers within the Quorums of the Seventy. But if Presiding Bishops offer prayers this often, maybe that’s not true after all.
I notice several repeats here, so if the excuse is ” women don’t pray so all the 70 s get a chance” that is incorrect, too.
Sister Mary N. Cook gave the opening prayer at the 1st Pres. Christmas devotional this past year
http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/christmas-devotional/2012/12?lang=eng&vid=2006359549001
And Sister Barbara Thompson gave the closing prayer at the 1st Presidency Christmas devotional the year before that: http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/christmas-devotional/2011/12?lang=eng&vid=1309616245001
I’m confident that when people remember women praying at GC they are conflating events such as those Christmas devotionals.
Or remembering the semi-annual RS and YW conferences that are held the week prior to GC.
I’m not sure where to post this query; figured this spot is as good as any.
I, too, would love to see women pray and speak more in GC. I’m a big fan of breaking down those gender barriers in the church that are cultural, not doctrinal, though I recognize that not everyone agrees on how that culture/doctrine dichotomy shakes out.
Here’s my only hesitation: There are way more male GAs than the female equivalent, arguably Pr, RS, YW general presidencies, so 9 women total. (I would actually like some more exposure to the women who sit on those boards but that’s a different topic.) I think it’s good for members of the Church to be exposed to more GAs than just the Q12 and FP, partly because there is significantly more diversity among members of the Seventy* and partly because I like knowing who someone is when they are called to be an apostle. It’s interesting to scan this list and realize how many names I recognize because they are now apostles/Pres of the Seventy/another high profile calling. So here’s the question: How could someone in charge go about balancing these two needs, of giving more face time to women and at the same time continuing to expose us to members of the Seventy that we wouldn’t otherwise know?
*Think how much whiter GC would be if we traded talks and prayers by Seventies for more talks and prayers by female members of general presidencies.
@15-that’s the problem that you hear ocassionally from the brethren themselves, ‘we would have liked to have heard from them all” You can’t have days and days of conference and so you just need to give whatever the time there is to the 70’s and General Auxillary leadership to speak for 10 minutes maybe and most of them only speak once in their time in the general council’s of the Church. There are a few of the Apostles I would glady trade in to hear more from others! but that’s my hang up
@Anna, if we count the general boards of the Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary, the numbers start to even out a bit.
That’s an awful lot of repeats on that list, and a lot of them are seventies and presiding bishopric members that made impressions on me over the years. I was surprised by how many I remember both their faces and – in some cases – their accents!
I would not be opposed to a woman praying in conference, but dwelling on this topic is like Sports Center making most of its broadcast about the Manti Te’o/Lance Armstrong/Brett Favre etc. debacle for days upon end: it gets old. One miracle at a time people…
#19 – that allowing women to pray in GC can seriously be regarded a ‘miracle’ is exactly part of the problem.
Apparently the Church responded Wednesday:
“Decisions on speakers and prayers at General Conference were made several weeks ago and assignments were given to the men and women involved last week. Customarily, details of the conference programs are not announced until General Conference.”
If they did in fact assign a woman to give a prayer in conference this time around, this is definitely a win-win PR response to separate the Church from the “later” campaign. Clever usage of ‘speakers and prayers’ to allow the inclusion of the term “men and women” in the response while keeping it ambiguous! Well played!
Two easy to find examples.
Saturday Evening, March 24, 2012, General Young Women Meeting
Presiding: President Thomas S. Monson. Conducting: Elaine S. Dalton. Invocation: Abigail Pinegar. Benediction: Katee Elizabeth Garff
Saturday Evening, September 24, 2011, General Relief Society Meeting
Presiding: President Thomas S. Monson. Conducting: Julie B. Beck. Invocation: Barbara C. Bradshaw. Benediction: Sandra Rogers.
“The women get their own meeting the week before conference, and they get to pray there. That’s pretty much the exact same thing as praying at general conference.”
I thought it was well established that RS and YW are *not* conference sessions. The church newsroom states that clearly. Plus, they are annual, not semi-annual.
On an unrelated note, can I mention how awesome the name “Gerrit Gong” is? (under October 2012 Saturday morning session)
Just playing devil’s advocate…. They are inlcuded in the Conference Report, so maybe the RS and YW meetings get half credit?
Let’s be careful not to make the mistake of bashing the RS and YW meetings in the interest of equality. I’m not saying anyone here has done that exactly and I understand the intentions behind these statements, but I can think of plenty of instances of what you might term “reverse misogynism” by Mormon and non-Mormon feminists. If we want female leadership and counsel to be taken seriously in the Church then WE need to take female leadership and counsel seriously in the Church. Saying things like “RS and YW meetings get half credit” (25) and, with obvious sarcasm, that praying at those meetings is “pretty much the exact same thing as praying at general conference” (23) veers a little to close to this territory for my comfort.
Anna K, I take your point and agree to a certain extent. However, the bottom line is that the RS and YW meetings are held a week apart from General Conference, are presided over by a man, and have an audience that is exclusively women. They ARE different for these purposes.
Karen H, just so. And I think the all-female audience is the critically important piece–we already know that the powers that be are happy to let women have some degree of autonomy in their own organization. One of the important symbolic valences of a woman praying in General Conference would be the implication that women are regarded as important partners with men in the affairs of the whole church, not just in their separate and sorta kinda equal sphere.
Yep, I agree with you, Karen H (27) and Kristine (28). And I agree that asking women to pray at GC would send a message and serve a purpose that is different than asking women to pray at the RS and YW meetings, which already happens but is also valuable. My only point was that criticism of the venues and ways in which women DO already contribute–which I saw a hint of in a couple of these comments–doesn’t further the cause.
Anna K, while sarcastic/dismissive belittling of women’s meetings is uncalled for, it’s simply a fact that according to the church, the YW/RS Broadcasts are not part of General Conference. So, sure, we can try to make a cultural change by elevating their esteem in our minds at the grassroots level, and that’s not a bad idea. But it’s not “belittling” or “reverse misogyny” or “criticism of the venue” to state the (sad) fact that praying at those meetings does not count as praying in general conference. Not any more than saying “women can’t be called bishops in the church” belittles women or is reverse misogyny or criticism. Going around saying the opposite–“women can be called as bishops!” is just not true. These are statements about the standing of women and their meetings from the perspective of the church hierarchy, not the perspective of the person making the observation.
Just for a little continuation of these numbers. Of the 153 men who gave prayers in GC from 2002-2012:
4 of these men prayed 3 different times,
47 of these men prayed 2 different times, and
102 of these men prayed 1 time.
I haven’t looked up of these men, who have spoken as well as prayed, but I know just from memory (and a quick look up to verify my memory) that 2 of the men who prayed 1 time also each spoke 1 time in the past ten years (Cecil O. Samuelson Jr. and Gerrit W. Gong).
Chad H – you are confusing the Ensign conference issues with the official conference reports. The official reports do not include the women’s annual meetings. They don’t even mention the women’s annual meetings.
On the other hand, the official reports do report on and include the Priesthood meetings. And when we had Welfare sessions and Bishoprics sessions, they reported the times and dates when those meetings were held (but did not include any notes on those meetings).
And since General Conferences used to have 3 days of general sessions instead of 2 (until the mid-1970s), that means even more men were praying. Most often it was stake presidents or former mission presidents.
Clearly, we have a tradition of men only praying in General Conference. Now that we’ve got an established tradition of women speaking in conference, it seems reasonable that women should be included in the prayer shuffle as well.
The LDS Church Public Affairs Department is more than willing to tell the world how women preach and pray in meetings every Sunday. Isn’t it about time women prayed in General Conference meetings as well?