Women’s healing blessings: Once authorized, later restricted

The original record

1842: Smith answered objections to women’s practice

The minutes record objections circulating about laying hands on the sick. Smith answered by applying the promise of spiritual gifts to believing women as well as men. His remarks concerned women actually administering, rather than simply believing in healing or receiving a blessing.

This is a contemporary meeting record, reproduced by the Church Historian’s Press. It reports Smith’s remarks in indirect speech; it is not a verbatim recording of his voice.

Continued authorization

1888: Woodruff approved washing and anointing

On April 27, 1888, Wilford Woodruff answered Emmeline B. Wells about women washing and anointing other women before childbirth. He permitted the practice while distinguishing it from a temple ordinance and from exercising priesthood office.

Woodruff was president of the Quorum of the Twelve and the Church’s presiding officer at that time. His letter treats these women as Church members exercising faith on behalf of other women. Its qualification about priesthood does not withdraw the permission it grants.

The Church’s historical account

The restriction developed over time

The Church’s history topic “Healing” acknowledges women’s participation. It reports a 1914 First Presidency letter still allowing women to bless the sick while giving priority to calling elders when available.

The same history describes standardization of priesthood procedures and a later emphasis on elders, reinforced in letters and periodicals in the 1940s and 1950s. It connects that development with the handbook restriction. These records support a gradual narrowing rather than one universal cutoff date.

The present rule

Administration is reserved to priesthood holders

Section 18.13 of the current handbook describes administration through anointing with oil and sealing the anointing with a blessing. Section 18.13.1 limits who may administer. Women’s ordinary prayers for healing are outside this comparison; the documented change concerns permission to perform healing ministrations.

Finding

What the record establishes

Women’s healing blessings were an acknowledged and authorized part of earlier Church practice. The current restriction cannot be used to establish that women never administered. The Church’s own historical publications preserve the evidence that they did.