Mormon church to warn members of proxy baptisms

(AP) SALT LAKE CITY - Mormon church leaders say the church's policy of not performing posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims and others unrelated to its members will be reiterated worldwide during Sunday services.

The announcement this week follows outrage over recent claims that Mormon temples posthumously baptized the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal, along with Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager forced into hiding in Amsterdam during the Holocaust and killed in a concentration camp, and other notable Jewish figures.

"Without exception, Church members must not submit for proxy temple ordinances any names from unauthorized groups, such as celebrities and Jewish Holocaust victims," reads a letter sent to church leaders around the world.

It further states that disciplinary action will be taken against those who continue to perform proxy baptisms, and included directions that the letter be read to members during the next sacrament meeting.

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The Anti-Defamation League on Friday applauded the extra step to educate members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"We welcome this as an important step by the LDS Church to further educate its worldwide members about the Church's policies regarding posthumous baptism, particularly its prohibition of baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims," the league's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, said in a statement. "Church members should understand why proxy baptisms are so offensive to the Jewish people, who faced near annihilation during the Holocaust simply because they were Jewish, and who throughout history were often the victims of forced conversions."

Mormons believe the baptism ritual allows deceased people a way to the afterlife but it offends members of many other religions.

Jews are particularly offended by an attempt to alter the religion of Holocaust victims.

"I am a Holocaust survivor. It is so offensive in the sense that Holocaust victims were killed solely because they were Jews. And here comes the Mormon church taking away their Jewishness," Foxman said earlier this week. "It's like killing them twice."

The Anti-Defamation League had encouraged the church to provide further education to its members given the practice continues even after a 1990s agreement that it would end.

Researcher Helen Radkey, a former Mormon who revealed the Wiesenthal and Frank baptisms, also said this week she had found that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, a Jewish writer who was murdered while on assignment in Pakistan, also was posthumously baptized in Idaho.

In a previous statement, the church blamed deception and manipulation of records for the mistaken baptisms.

"While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions, we are committed to taking action against individual abusers by suspending the submitter's access privileges," the church said in its statement. "We will also consider whether other Church disciplinary action should be taken."

[Pretty-Sneaky]

wHATS THE bIG F~~~ING DEAL?


i DON'T Subscribe to, Believe, Imagine, eat~up
all this Ca~Ca the Morons dish out.


All it is, ... is work for the zombirs AKA the insane.


A far as VoMitt Romney...
he cares only 'bout his greedy self interest.


Just like buying companys; getting rid of employees,
unions, and sphioning the monies into his pockets.


Imagine as prez; slashing education, ss, health care,
all the saved $$$ http://www.nerdnexus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bus_money_03-432x300.jpg isn't going back to the us treasure.


All the monies will go stright to Vomits off shore banks

fortunate son....



http://stanfordreview.org/wp-content/uploads/romney-protesting-661.jpg


http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/ap_mitt_romney_protest_jp_120106_wmain.jpg


Your God VoMitt Romney...

[Jayne_Dough1967]

Oh, that's rich.

The uber-secretive Mormon church (just try to get anything resembling an annual report that offers detailed information about how it collects, spends its money and what it invests in) is now just going to stop doing "baptisms for the dead" as they call them. Even better, they're saying that "Without exception, Church members must not submit for proxy temple ordinances any names from unauthorized groups, such as celebrities and Jewish Holocaust victims."

Speaking as a former Mormon well versed in the culture / ideology of Mormonism, I find that hilarious. I bet anyone, including highly placed bonafide Mormons, would have a hard time getting their hands on the list of "unauthorized groups", or any explanation of how groups become "unauthorized" (i.e. who decides this? what makes someone enough of a celebrity that they would make the "unauthorized" list?). Now it's only Jewish holocaust victims and celebrities whose memories need not be dishonoured by this practice? That's generous.

What independently verifiable checks, if any, might be in place to see who's on their unauthorized list, and who's been/is being posthumously baptized? Not. Do they even have any idea of who's been baptized posthumously? Would they ever publish a complete list? Now that would be interesting reading.

Really, the media ought to be giving Mitt Romney a way tougher line of questioning about the extent of the quackery in Mormonism... ask him for example about the archeological/anthropological pipe-dreams that pepper the book of Mormon, which is supposed to be an account of peoples in the Americas. They ought to be asking Romney about the church's institutional racism towards black people, which forbade them from receiving the priesthood until a few decades ago. Ask about the long history of secret polygamy within the mainstream Mormon church, which began long before it was widely revealed to its own members, and continued long after it was outlawed officially in the US. Ask about their bizarre explanations for why polygamy was "restored to the earth" through Joseph and Brigham etc., and see how these explain why "prophets" with dozens of wives needed to marry *minors*, and women who were already married, and widowed women.

You really want people who subscribe to this type of stuff to be in charge of this country??

[ladyang]

you people who share romney's faith and religion will regret this action getting out! the other christians don't like you now! hahahahahahahahahaha

[jerryomara]

I wish all christians would go away and leave the rest of us atheists alone idiots

[MaxyRaddy]

So many so eager to bash someting they obviously know nothing about. Wonderful written displays of Ignorance with an emphasis on the I. Totally clueless.

[Jayne_Dough1967]

Buddy, I actually do know something about this. I am a former Mormon and very familiar with the doctrine. As a teenager, I did (was required to do) "baptisms for the dead". Read my post above under Jayne_Dough1967. As you probably know, post-humous baptism is not a weird little barely known quirk in the Mormon faith practiced only by a few extremists or something. It is a key doctrine, and all members eligible to visit temples are encouraged to do it.

[OnTheRoad01]

The mormans won't change! They have made this promise several times in the past and they are still doing it! What makes anyone beleive that this time will be different?

[Hutterite]

The problem I see is not what this does, or does not do, for the departed. It's the message it sends to the living. It tells me that the mormon church thinks that it and it alone has the correct path and that you are either mormon or you're wrong, which will be corrected posthumously. I think that's a pretty arrogant statement to make to the world.

[DebbieCorona]

Warning! Warning! Warning! Actually, LDS has done this before and the end result was members continued the actions. So really, how many warnings do members get before LDS really does something or is it just perpetual warnings?

[omnibus66]

Willard Mittens Romney will not lose because he has taken both sides of every issue. He will not lose because of an economic policy that favors the rich. He will not lose because of cave man woman's equality ideas.

He will lose because he is a Mormon. The more people learn about the magic underwear, the planet Koleb, the becoming of Gods and Goddesses after death, their plagiarized "holy" book, the non-existent golden plates, and on and on ad nauseum, the less likely they will be willing to cast a ballot in his direction.

[ladyang]

their views on women and people of color.

[arbeinstein]

Having a mormon as president really scares me.