I’m not sure if this one goes in the Religion and Secularism section or in the Entertainment section.  But apparently, mormons are in the habit of baptizing people, without their consent, after they are dead.  And this includes people who had been baptized into some other dogma when they were alive.  Needless to say, other dogma groups are bound to take issue with the practice.  In this case catholics.

WASHINGTON (CNS)—In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons’ Genealogical Society of Utah

Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said the step was taken to prevent the Latter-day Saints from using records—such as baptismal documentation—to posthumously baptize by proxy the ancestors of church members.

Posthumous baptisms by proxy have been a common practice for the Latter-day Saints—commonly known as Mormons—for more than a century, allowing the church’s faithful to have their ancestors baptized into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife, said Mike Otterson, a spokesman in the church’s Salt Lake City headquarters.

Found HERE

Yes, I remember hearing about this when a group of Jewish people complained about it. I find the whole thing an amusing example of the absurdities of religion, since I can’t imagine what difference it could make to declare a dead person a member of your religion posthumously. I mean, do they get kicked out of the heaven they went to originally? Do you not get to see them when you die because now they’re a different faith? Isn’t their some kind of Celestial Review Board that adjudicates posthumous interfaith membership disputes? Sheeshh!

HERE is a website that documents some of the back-and-forth between the Mormons and some Jewish groups, in particular about the Mormons’ penchant for retroactively “baptizing” Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

On the other hand, I have found the LDS a fantastic resource for geneaology research. They’re welcome to baptize my dead ancestors as long as they go to the trouble of collecting and making public all the records around the world about them. Since I have a lot of Irish Catholics in my family, I’d be especially sorry to see them denied access to parish records, which I have found very useful as a research source and much easier to find and use via the LDS than the Catholic church. Especially when the underlying controversy is so inane.

mckenzievmd - 05 May 2008 03:06 PM

On the other hand, I have found the LDS a fantastic resource for geneaology research. They’re welcome to baptize my dead ancestors as long as they go to the trouble of collecting and making public all the records around the world about them. Since I have a lot of Irish Catholics in my family, I’d be especially sorry to see them denied access to parish records, which I have found very useful as a research source and much easier to find and use via the LDS than the Catholic church. Especially when the underlying controversy is so inane.

Brennan, it’s nice to read your posts again, after a long absence.

‘Inane’ is an assumption for some atheists, and for a religious man it’s a doubtful and implausible conclusion. But fancy what I was reading just an hour ago on the following forum! Shades of synchronicity:

http://forum.catholic.org/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=30032

Curiously, none of the posters have mentioned the Church document you’ve all been discussing! But the genealogist in the catholic forum said it well enough: the Mormons are a thorough and hard-working bunch, and they can go dig up the info themselves, and so it’s no moral duty to hand them parish records. (According to the genealogist, Anglican parishes in England have long resisted the requests of the LDS.)

Further, as also pointed out in the thread, the LDS genealogical records have a lot of chaff among the wheat. So take their pronunciamentos on family relations with care.

If someone here is interested in genealogy just on its own, the genealogist-poster in the above forum has some good pointers, and she makes the thread worth reading just in itself. You’ll also get a look at how the LDS thinks about these sorts of baptisms, and religiously ‘sealing’ married couples who are dead as well.

Chris Kirk

mckenzievmd - 05 May 2008 03:06 PM

On the other hand, I have found the LDS a fantastic resource for geneaology research. They’re welcome to baptize my dead ancestors as long as they go to the trouble of collecting and making public all the records around the world about them. Since I have a lot of Irish Catholics in my family, I’d be especially sorry to see them denied access to parish records, which I have found very useful as a research source and much easier to find and use via the LDS than the Catholic church. Especially when the underlying controversy is so inane.

I agree with Brennan that there is nothing to worry about and that Mormon theology is goofy.

Because the Mormons allow open access to their geneological records sharing the data is on balance a good thing.  It is much easier for Catholics to access their own genological records using the Mormon data base.  Part of our family goes back to a small town in Switzerland and it is easy for an experienced genologist to pull up the parish records from the 1400 or 1500s.
In addition this helps to ensure that the records are not lost.

Sure.  The catholic church’s decision to remain exclusive about their records is probably the more petty, and divisive, action in this case.  It is nice of the mormons to share their records, and they are amongst the best when it comes to genealogy.  They deserve some credit there.

But the decision of the catholic church is also party reactive to what amounts to a very aggressive motivation for genealogy on the part of mormons.  As someone who is not religious, posthumous baptism is silly at worst.  But for other dogmas, it is a declaration of “spiritual warfare.”