Indeed, starting in 1951, every LDS "prophet, seer and revelator" has been clean-shaven, as has nearly every apostle. ... "Bearded men in Europe will tell you," Mauss writes in an email, "that they have been required to shave off beards of long-standing after being called as bishops and stake presidents."

Can LDS bishops have beards?

Unlike modesty, which is an eternal value in the sense of rightness or wrongness in the eyes of God, our rules against beards and long hair are contemporary and pragmatic. They are responsive to conditions and attitudes in our own society at this particular point in time.

Can popes have a beard?

In relatively modern times, the first pope to wear a beard was Pope Julius II, who in 1511–12 did so for a while as a sign of mourning for the loss of the city of Bologna. Pope Clement VII let his beard grow at the time of the Sack of Rome (1527) and kept it. ... Since then, no pope has worn a beard.