B
Bezant
Guest
And where’s the disclosure? I wouldn’t give my grandfather’s information to anyone if I knew he or she planned to “baptise” his soul by proxy, or if I knew his organisation would be careless with his information.
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P
PazzoGrande
Guest
But to be fair, the Mormons say that a posthumous baptism is only effective if the person in the afterlife accepts it. Let’s say their theology is right; it still would be up to the person to decide to accept it or not. It doesn’t seem disrespectful to give the dead person a choice. Their baptisms have no effect, it isn’t a forced baptism.
If the baptisms were done by force, then that’s a much different story and that would be disrespectful.
L
LemonAndLime
Guest
Okay, so how would you feel if a pagan said they were casting spells for your dead relative?
P
PazzoGrande
Guest
I’m afraid I fail to see the analogy. But I’d probably try to be suppressing my laughter if they did that.
L
LemonAndLime
Guest
A pagan casting a spell over your death relative isn’t that much difference to a posthumous baptism, if you look at it from a theological point of view.
P
PazzoGrande
Guest
Well, let’s try to clarify. What sort of spell do you mean, exactly?
Would it be a malediction, wishing the person suffer or go to hell? Then, yes, that is disrespectful.
Or would it be to wish that the dead person acheive heaven or get some other benefit? In which case, if you remove the labels, it’s no different than someone praying for the person’s soul.
The former attempts to harm; the latter attempts to care and help. Likewise, a posthumous baptism attempts to care and help.
L
LemonAndLime
Guest
But it’s a baptism into someone else’s faith. Can’t you understand how that would be contraversial?
F
FabiusMaximus
Guest
I can reasonably understand both sides.
I can’t fault an LDS person for wanting to baptize the dead. After all, they believe it can give them a chance at a happy afterlife. It’s done in good will. I don’t doubt that many Christians would try to do so if they believed it was a Christian teaching.
That being said, I don’t know how I’d react if a relative of mine was post-humously baptized as a Mormon.
I can’t fault an LDS person for wanting to baptize the dead. After all, they believe it can give them a chance at a happy afterlife. It’s done in good will. I don’t doubt that many Christians would try to do so if they believed it was a Christian teaching.
That being said, I don’t know how I’d react if a relative of mine was post-humously baptized as a Mormon.
M
MacroConnectome
Guest
This seems like a pretty hot, and divisive, topic as of late.
I predict a new (temporarily) banned topic in the works.
Let me know when you can start calling me a prophet
I predict a new (temporarily) banned topic in the works.
Let me know when you can start calling me a prophet
M
mark_a
Guest
Thank you for this thoughtful post.
K
KathleenGee
Guest
I was staying off this thread because I am already discussing it on another.
But I must take Mark’s lead to let the lady know here that she has my sympathy as well.
I realize the baptisms mean nothing…but it was the method, getting hold of our sacred records, and then the latter one of getting 1,000 year old records of priests and religious who were consecrated souls…it is nearing sacrilegious to me…the Vatican already told all parishes to longer give records to those seeking ancestor records…
And the other issue is that Mormons are taught they have to participate in these activities to get to celestial heavens, and it is giving the appearance they are running out of names because people are being re-baptized up to 6 times, as John Paul II…so I am also now seeing more issues being put on the Mormon followers themselves.
But I must take Mark’s lead to let the lady know here that she has my sympathy as well.
I realize the baptisms mean nothing…but it was the method, getting hold of our sacred records, and then the latter one of getting 1,000 year old records of priests and religious who were consecrated souls…it is nearing sacrilegious to me…the Vatican already told all parishes to longer give records to those seeking ancestor records…
And the other issue is that Mormons are taught they have to participate in these activities to get to celestial heavens, and it is giving the appearance they are running out of names because people are being re-baptized up to 6 times, as John Paul II…so I am also now seeing more issues being put on the Mormon followers themselves.
B
Bezant
Guest
But you didn’t answer Lemon’s question about disclosure. There are at least some people volunteering their family information to Mormons who wouldn’t do otherwise if they knew what would or could happen to it.
L
Lochias
Guest
For me, it’s because the methods that the LDS folks go about doing so are as shady and suspicious as many of the other things they do. They’ve blatantly lied about it, covered it up, and continued when people asked them not to do so.
And on a more personal note, me and my extended family have had some unpleasant dealings with the Mormon church in the past. I do not want any of my relatives listed as LDS on any record whatsoever.
And on a more personal note, me and my extended family have had some unpleasant dealings with the Mormon church in the past. I do not want any of my relatives listed as LDS on any record whatsoever.
V
venite_adoremus
Guest
Okay, why all the hubbub, from the standpoint of the use of Catholic records. First of all, the LDS have compiled a great many Catholic sacramental records.
(1) Some of these records (such as those for Quebec) were obtained many years ago because of local laws. These laws mandated that, since the Catholic baptismal, matrimonial, and sepultre records were the only records of their area they were, therefore, public records.
(2) Some of these records, such as in Chicago and Saint Louis, were compiled by the local ordinary being offered a free-of-charge microfilming program, out of which an archival quality film record would be given to the diocese. The microfilming contracts stated that the film could be used by the LDS. Maybe no one in the chancery read it closely enough to find out for what purpose the film was going to be used. And,
(3) Some of these records were obtained by direct purchase as antiquarian manuscripts when Catholic leaders were foolish enough to let them out of Church custody.
It is essential for LDS belief that the temple-worthy engage in their rituals. Failure to do so means that hopes for the eternal (exaltation = godhood) are stagnant. I subscribe to traditional Catholic belief that the proxy LDS rituals have no effect whatsoever on our faithful departed, not even that of normal prayer. Why, then, the fuss?
Because the LDS publish, or have in the past published, the rosters of individuals for whom the “proxy work” has been done and who are now declared to be on the path to exaltation themselves. It is claimed the “work” has the ability to change the fate of the individual in the afterlife. This is absolutely wrong. At the hour of death, a soul’s fate is judged. All souls in Purgatory are bound for heaven. No soul can be changed from damnation to salvation by any amount of indulgenced prayer; we can merely, through suffrage, speed those detained on their way.
Because General Authorities of the LDS church have emphasized, time and again, that by engaging in the rituals the LDS people are “saviors on Mount Zion”, e.g. surrogates for Christ in the work of redemption. Some General Authorities in the past have even claimed that those who perform the proxy work exert a sense of “ownership” over the souls of those thus serviced. Eternal slavery. Hoo boy. This is a status never claimed even for the Mediatrix of All Graces, the only Catholic who even comes close. We as members of the Body of Christ are bound to each other in charity; all our vicarious works are those of the grace of God through the treasury of merit of Christ and the saints; not of our own efforts are we or anyone else saved.
Because the one or two or three common members of an immediate family (which might be “done” by a well-meaning LDS relative) pale in insignificance and number to the work of “controlled extraction,” or wholesale data-entry, which has been going on from historical sources since 1969. Every type of source from the colonial vital records of Massachusetts to the medieval parish records of England to the 1880 census have been used as feeder data for the controlled extraction program. Visit www.familysearch.org and take a look at the records available and indexed there. Each and every source with a name readable index has been extracted, and the names in it are in the queue for potential proxy baptism &c.
Because there is duplicity with regard to data disclosure (see below).
Because the LDS church really does not care who your ancestor was or what they believed. All they want is the name. “Names for temple work” has been a rallying cry since the founding of the Genealogical Society of Utah.
Should the Church have a problem with this? Yes! The LDS church has not requested our records, they have demanded them. They, as the “one true church,” have the obligation, and the right, to these records (paraphrased from Joseph Fielding Smith), and the Catholic Church has no right to withhold them, because God has inspired us Catholics to write the names down for them. Uh-uh. We are entitled to privacy in our sacraments and devotions, as were our fathers in faith before us.
It should be noted that in the recent past the names of submitters to the LDS temple system were made no longer available. If one is clever and cultivates friendships with LDS members, these can eventually be culled out. It should also be noted that the defunct “International Genealogical Index,” for LDS the same source as the “Ordinance Index,” no longer makes readily available to the public the dates and places where this “work” is being done. This is a double standard which is intolerable.
In the New Family Search computer system, the one you’re reading about in reference to Elie Wiesel and Anne Franck this week, there is NO affirmative mechanism for blocking a name from names processing. The name is removed from the database. That means the next person to add it has nothing to stop them from doing it again, and again, and again. When it comes up anew, it will register as “READY.” On my genealogy blog last year I recounted the saga of a certain young lady of ancient Hebrew origin whose work was done, yet again, in 2010…on the feast of her Immaculate Conception, no less.
What is needed is a very, large red flag called “UNCLEARED” that can be posted for all to see, LDS and non-LDS alike. At that point I would gladly contribute my family’s names to the LDS databases, if I could be assured they were blocked from processing for time and eternity. Unfortunately, because each of us has had their names entered in many, many public records over the years, from birth to marriage to death and in census, Social Security, land and probate records, it is almost a certainty that the LDS will try to “catch us all” eventually.
Just not from my parish records, please.
(1) Some of these records (such as those for Quebec) were obtained many years ago because of local laws. These laws mandated that, since the Catholic baptismal, matrimonial, and sepultre records were the only records of their area they were, therefore, public records.
(2) Some of these records, such as in Chicago and Saint Louis, were compiled by the local ordinary being offered a free-of-charge microfilming program, out of which an archival quality film record would be given to the diocese. The microfilming contracts stated that the film could be used by the LDS. Maybe no one in the chancery read it closely enough to find out for what purpose the film was going to be used. And,
(3) Some of these records were obtained by direct purchase as antiquarian manuscripts when Catholic leaders were foolish enough to let them out of Church custody.
It is essential for LDS belief that the temple-worthy engage in their rituals. Failure to do so means that hopes for the eternal (exaltation = godhood) are stagnant. I subscribe to traditional Catholic belief that the proxy LDS rituals have no effect whatsoever on our faithful departed, not even that of normal prayer. Why, then, the fuss?
Because the LDS publish, or have in the past published, the rosters of individuals for whom the “proxy work” has been done and who are now declared to be on the path to exaltation themselves. It is claimed the “work” has the ability to change the fate of the individual in the afterlife. This is absolutely wrong. At the hour of death, a soul’s fate is judged. All souls in Purgatory are bound for heaven. No soul can be changed from damnation to salvation by any amount of indulgenced prayer; we can merely, through suffrage, speed those detained on their way.
Because General Authorities of the LDS church have emphasized, time and again, that by engaging in the rituals the LDS people are “saviors on Mount Zion”, e.g. surrogates for Christ in the work of redemption. Some General Authorities in the past have even claimed that those who perform the proxy work exert a sense of “ownership” over the souls of those thus serviced. Eternal slavery. Hoo boy. This is a status never claimed even for the Mediatrix of All Graces, the only Catholic who even comes close. We as members of the Body of Christ are bound to each other in charity; all our vicarious works are those of the grace of God through the treasury of merit of Christ and the saints; not of our own efforts are we or anyone else saved.
Because the one or two or three common members of an immediate family (which might be “done” by a well-meaning LDS relative) pale in insignificance and number to the work of “controlled extraction,” or wholesale data-entry, which has been going on from historical sources since 1969. Every type of source from the colonial vital records of Massachusetts to the medieval parish records of England to the 1880 census have been used as feeder data for the controlled extraction program. Visit www.familysearch.org and take a look at the records available and indexed there. Each and every source with a name readable index has been extracted, and the names in it are in the queue for potential proxy baptism &c.
Because there is duplicity with regard to data disclosure (see below).
Because the LDS church really does not care who your ancestor was or what they believed. All they want is the name. “Names for temple work” has been a rallying cry since the founding of the Genealogical Society of Utah.
Should the Church have a problem with this? Yes! The LDS church has not requested our records, they have demanded them. They, as the “one true church,” have the obligation, and the right, to these records (paraphrased from Joseph Fielding Smith), and the Catholic Church has no right to withhold them, because God has inspired us Catholics to write the names down for them. Uh-uh. We are entitled to privacy in our sacraments and devotions, as were our fathers in faith before us.
It should be noted that in the recent past the names of submitters to the LDS temple system were made no longer available. If one is clever and cultivates friendships with LDS members, these can eventually be culled out. It should also be noted that the defunct “International Genealogical Index,” for LDS the same source as the “Ordinance Index,” no longer makes readily available to the public the dates and places where this “work” is being done. This is a double standard which is intolerable.
In the New Family Search computer system, the one you’re reading about in reference to Elie Wiesel and Anne Franck this week, there is NO affirmative mechanism for blocking a name from names processing. The name is removed from the database. That means the next person to add it has nothing to stop them from doing it again, and again, and again. When it comes up anew, it will register as “READY.” On my genealogy blog last year I recounted the saga of a certain young lady of ancient Hebrew origin whose work was done, yet again, in 2010…on the feast of her Immaculate Conception, no less.
What is needed is a very, large red flag called “UNCLEARED” that can be posted for all to see, LDS and non-LDS alike. At that point I would gladly contribute my family’s names to the LDS databases, if I could be assured they were blocked from processing for time and eternity. Unfortunately, because each of us has had their names entered in many, many public records over the years, from birth to marriage to death and in census, Social Security, land and probate records, it is almost a certainty that the LDS will try to “catch us all” eventually.
Just not from my parish records, please.
V
venite_adoremus
Guest
My sympathies in your time of sorrow, and I will pray for you and for the repose of the soul of your late husband.
Now, to the more pressing matter. As surviving widow, you have what is called “Right of Precedence” under LDS instructions. You must have been, should have been, and had every right to have been, consulted before that name was submitted. So, somewhere on your husband’s family tree, there is an LDS member or two lurking.
The LDS do not “undo” their ordinances. They merely make them invisible. If you complain, the name will undoubtedly be removed from the New Family Search database. That’s the good news. The bad news is, the next LDS member so inclined could then re-submit it, and the process will go on–with greater insult each and every time. Better to leave it “completed” on the records so that it does not get repeated, repeated, repeated. The names of Christ’s faithful should not be used as temple fodder, but they often are.
Instead, enlist the help of the librarian at the LDS Family History Center nearest you. Make a visit, tell them your problem. They can get you into the hidden reaches of the New Family Search program and you can find out who the submitter was. Then, write a letter to that person’s bishop, requesting disciplinary action. LDS members can be disfellowshipped, excommunicated, or have their recommends revoked for both conspicuous name-gathering and for not respecting the right of precedence of the living.
Rome has spoken on this matter. LDS proxy ordinances have no effect. They just make us the living very angry from the lack of respect their submission generates.
Katerini, PM me if you need help reading what familysearch.org is actually saying.
Now, to the more pressing matter. As surviving widow, you have what is called “Right of Precedence” under LDS instructions. You must have been, should have been, and had every right to have been, consulted before that name was submitted. So, somewhere on your husband’s family tree, there is an LDS member or two lurking.
The LDS do not “undo” their ordinances. They merely make them invisible. If you complain, the name will undoubtedly be removed from the New Family Search database. That’s the good news. The bad news is, the next LDS member so inclined could then re-submit it, and the process will go on–with greater insult each and every time. Better to leave it “completed” on the records so that it does not get repeated, repeated, repeated. The names of Christ’s faithful should not be used as temple fodder, but they often are.
Instead, enlist the help of the librarian at the LDS Family History Center nearest you. Make a visit, tell them your problem. They can get you into the hidden reaches of the New Family Search program and you can find out who the submitter was. Then, write a letter to that person’s bishop, requesting disciplinary action. LDS members can be disfellowshipped, excommunicated, or have their recommends revoked for both conspicuous name-gathering and for not respecting the right of precedence of the living.
Rome has spoken on this matter. LDS proxy ordinances have no effect. They just make us the living very angry from the lack of respect their submission generates.
Katerini, PM me if you need help reading what familysearch.org is actually saying.
P
PazzoGrande
Guest
I understand that it is controversial because it’s a sensitive topic, as anything dealing with loved ones’ deaths is. But again, Mormons will say that the baptism is only effective if the person in the afterlife *accepts *it. If you accept that theology, then it means that the person in the afterlife is given the benefit of a choice. If the baptism into someone else’s faith were binding (say, surreptitiously validly baptising someone’e living infant), it’s a different story. The posthumous baptism isn’t binding, as far as Mormons consider it.
And again, if we do accept their theology, let’s say that the person in the afterlife accepts the baptism. In that case, it’s that person’s choice. But it is a choice, never forced upon the dead person. If the person were still living, I’d remind them of the richness of Catholicism and persuade them not to join another religion; but if they choose to, it’s their choice. I can see why it would cause irritation, but there are limits to what I can and can’t do, and I just have to accept the decisions of others, as stupid as they may be.
It isn’t as if I own my relatives. They have their own free will. If they choose to convert in this life or in the next one, it’s their choice. Like John Paul II always told people when trying to get them to make the right decisions, “You must decide.”
I guess it’s a matter of opinion and differing sensitivities. Of course, it’s a moot point because Mormon baptisms, posthumous and otherwise, don’t do squat as far as we’re concerned. I’m just saying, to be mad about it seems to be the equivalent of a non-Catholic saying “Hey you Catholics, don’t you dare pray for me when I die.” It’s being offended by what isn’t really that bad of an act, and it isn’t going to forcibly convert anyone living or dead.
In short, it isn’t really a “baptism into someone else’s faith” because the person in the afterlife can accept or reject it, as per Mormon theology.
P
PazzoGrande
Guest
On the issue of disclosure, it seems that to make a posthumous baptism, all they need to know is that the person existed. They can do this without violating private family records or Catholic Church registires.
For example, Anne Frank wasn’t a Catholic. She died as a Jew. All the Mormons needed to know was that she existed. They didn’t need to violate any privacies there.
They did it with other people who died in the Holocaust as well.
Kinda makes me wonder why they don’t just do it to everyone that’s ever existed (heck, they even posthumously baptised Hitler).
P
PazzoGrande
Guest
How bizarre. One wonders why they don’t just look into census records or ancestry.com or something.
I concur with you on the point that using the Catholic Church’s records is a violating the Church, which offends me as a defender of Church’s rights only.
But if all they need is to simply know that the person existed for them to posthumously baptise, then they need not bother our parishes. They can consult geneologists. They can consult their government birth records. They can go to the cemetery with a notebook and jot down every name. Even a decent library would have old birth announcements and obituaries.
Really, there are countless ways to get the info that they need, and frankly those ways are even more reliable and comprehensive than getting them off Catholic Church registries.
F
Filii_Dei
Guest
I’ll just weigh in here.
As a Catholic, I hold that an LDS baptism is completely inefficacious, hence it has absolutely zero religious value to me whatsoever. However, as a gesture, it is deeply offensive, as applies a faith which my relatives and I wholly reject. All this talk about the “person in the afterlife” being given a choice is absolutely meaningless because a posthumous baptism will never translate to my dead relatives in heaven, much less one we consider false. As a Catholic, I believe that it is about as real a choice to us as meeting Hades.
It is analogous to somebody giving me a Chick Tract and absolving themselves of all blame by simply saying that I have “a choice to accept or reject it”. Of course I reject it - by its very existence it is meaningless drivel to me and offends my beliefs, and it is disappointing that somebody would wish to apply it to me. Simply saying that it contains an element of choice does not make it any less offensive, because by itself it encapsulates false beliefs, and applying false beliefs are the issue to me. The same principle applies for LDS baptisms.
In the end, the issue is not about how their rites interact with my beliefs - because as a Catholic I hold these rites to be false anyway - but the fact that they want to involve their faith in non-Mormons under the veneer of “giving a choice”. In my view, that alone is offensive. They can have their faith, but just keep it out of my relatives’ and mine.
As a Catholic, I hold that an LDS baptism is completely inefficacious, hence it has absolutely zero religious value to me whatsoever. However, as a gesture, it is deeply offensive, as applies a faith which my relatives and I wholly reject. All this talk about the “person in the afterlife” being given a choice is absolutely meaningless because a posthumous baptism will never translate to my dead relatives in heaven, much less one we consider false. As a Catholic, I believe that it is about as real a choice to us as meeting Hades.
It is analogous to somebody giving me a Chick Tract and absolving themselves of all blame by simply saying that I have “a choice to accept or reject it”. Of course I reject it - by its very existence it is meaningless drivel to me and offends my beliefs, and it is disappointing that somebody would wish to apply it to me. Simply saying that it contains an element of choice does not make it any less offensive, because by itself it encapsulates false beliefs, and applying false beliefs are the issue to me. The same principle applies for LDS baptisms.
In the end, the issue is not about how their rites interact with my beliefs - because as a Catholic I hold these rites to be false anyway - but the fact that they want to involve their faith in non-Mormons under the veneer of “giving a choice”. In my view, that alone is offensive. They can have their faith, but just keep it out of my relatives’ and mine.
B
Bezant
Guest
I’m afraid you can’t pussyfoot around the deceptiveness.
As I’ve pointed out before, some of the names were volunteered by family members (often through work with Mormon genealogists) who a) either didn’t know about the posthumous baptism controversy (and therefore couldn’t make a fully informed decision to volunteer the names), or b) were assured that their loved ones’ information wouldn’t be used for posthumous baptisms. Sorry, but someone was deceitful.
Furthermore, someone decieved not only families, but also the Mormon Church, according to it’s promises. The Mormon Church agreed in 1995 not to posthumously baptise Holocaust survivors.
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