LDS official disputes Tribune's member count

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disputed The Salt Lake Tribune's calculation on how many Utah residents are Mormon.

Elder Merrill Bateman of the First Quorum of the Seventy said on radio station KUER that the newspaper's calculations were drawn from county-by-county membership data the church provides state government, which did not include one in 10 Mormons who changed residences.

The Tribune figured the Mormon share of Utah's population declined from 70.4 percent in 1989 to 62.4 percent in 2004, and if the trend continued Mormons would be a minority group by 2030. Bateman said church tabulations showed 70.5 percent of Utahns were Mormons in 2003.