Will Mother's Baptism Come Up At Obama's Mormon Meeting?
(CBS/Dan Baruch)
President Obama will meet Monday afternoon with Thomas Monson, the head of the Mormon church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).*
The chair of the church's genealogical committee, Elder Dallin Oaks, will also be present at the meeting, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports. According to the White House, LDS leaders have in the past offered presidents detailed records of their family history.
But there is a bit of family history that might be glossed over at the meeting: The posthumous baptism of the president's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, into the Mormon faith.
Dunham died of cancer in 1995. Blogger John Aravosis, using the LDS Web site FamilySearch.org, discovered records earlier this year indicating that someone had baptized Dunham into the church on June 4th of last year, the day after Mr. Obama secured the Democratic presidential nomination.
The church later confirmed that the baptism had taken place, but said that it had been improper; LDS spokeswoman Kim Farah emailed a statement to news organizations saying that baptizing the dead "is a sacred practice to us" but that "it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related."
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