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.
An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers.
The order came in light of "grave reservations" expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation’s letter said.
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.
In a telephone interview with CNS May 1, Otterson said he wanted a chance to review the contents of the letter before commenting on how it will affect the Mormons’ relationship with the Catholic Church.
"This dicastery is bringing this matter to the attention of the various conferences of bishops," the letter reads. "The congregation requests that the conference notifies each diocesan bishop in order to ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted in his territory, due to the confidentiality of the faithful and so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
26 comments
Thanks for posting. Interesting decision by the Congregation.
Re-baptizing the dead? Strange. Very strange. I never heard of this practice before. I don’t know what to think.
I do some genealogy, for personal curiosity, and have found the mormon research helpful at times in filling some blank spots.
I really don’t care if they know everything about every ancestor I ever had, as I do not believe you can posthumously baptise anyone. Its like the cat baptism I witnessed by a few of my younger neices a year or so back. It makes them feel good but it doesn’t do anything.
I’m sure there are more important things to do than to impower the beliefs of mormons by witholding information.
Its like someone telling you they have the power to make trees hate you, and you spend all your time chopping down trees.
The more resources and time they put into these meaningless “baptisms for the dead,” the fewer resources they are putting into missionary activity.
I say let them waste their time and money.
You know, I don’t want to sound like the odd one out here, but it doesn’t really bother me that Mormons perform posthumous baptisms on the dead.
Of course, they’re wrong in doing so, but practically speaking, I’m not sure it would be prudent to stop them. I mean, it’s a tenet of their religion, and we do have religious freedom here in America.
I know it’s not an ideal situation, but it’s a good situation, I think. Of course, objectively speaking, error doesn’t have any rights. But sometimes, in order to preserve people’s right to freedom and to truth, you’ve also got to give them a right to be wrong, within reason.
I’d say that people have a right to access information about their own family. As long as they don’t do anything harmful with that information, or show disrespect to their ancestors, I don’t think there’s any problems here.
Let the Mormons baptize the dead all they want. It won’t hurt a thing, especially since it doesn’t really do anything. It’s just the way they show love for the dearly departed.
However, I do acknowledge that the Mormon religion is false, and was intentionally fabricated. But what can we do about it? Make sure that they don’t exploit too many people, of course, but some of the stuff they do falls under their right to be wrong.
I mean, once we deny Mormons the ability to baptize the dead, what’s next? Should we forbid Confucians from venerating their ancestor’s spirits, under pain of death? Should the Protestants demand that we stop praying for those souls in Purgatory which belong to their family?
Come on guys, Mormons baptizing the dead isn’t that important. It’s a non-issue. The Congregation of the Clergy should be worrying about more important things, such as how and why those abominable footnotes got into the NAB Bible…and how many souls have been lost as a result.
I think it is about time that the Church “put the foot down” so to speak on this practice. We are to live our Faith, and this includes NOT participating in, nor helping to promote, those actions which are contradictory to our Faith.
Hence, while the mormons may do as they please for themselves, WE as Catholics should not and need not cooperate.
Firmness is a good and positive thing.
When they look you up to re-baptize you, they will do it in an effort to secure the recruitment of your descendant to their ‘church’. That SHOULD concern you.
Are they exhuming bodies to do this heretical practice?
Geoffery—The Mormons have every right to search public records and ‘baptise’ the dead, the Vatuican just told the bishops not to cooperate with them and give them church held information. I dont think the prohibition is a bad idea. Even though it can do nothing to the dead, it can upset the survivning relatives and friends.
Mormon relatives have “sealed” (that’s the real word for “baptized”) one set of my great-grandparents. It makes me slightly uncomfortable even though I know that it doesn’t make a difference.
But I also have spent a great deal of time in the last 30 years searching for the birthplaces of all of my great-grandparents and other relatives.
I have been successful with three sets of them and think I am with the fourth.
Mormon records and researchers have been extremely helpful in undertaking my searches. Access to their microfilm records is available at a very minor cost.
To my knowledge most of their microfilming efforts are probably completed. I don’t believe that they are doing any microfilming of parish records in the United States. They are probably concentrating on civil records that have not yet been filmed.
Right now they are in the process of digitizing their microfilm to make it more accessible to the public.
“Geoffery—The Mormons have every right to search public records and ‘baptise’ the dead, the Vatuican just told the bishops not to cooperate with them and give them church held information. I dont think the prohibition is a bad idea. Even though it can do nothing to the dead, it can upset the survivning relatives and friends.”
and just what “right” is that –
making a assertion of “i wanna” does not automatically translate into a “right” sorry not buying that.
but since fools and money part ways on a more or less predictable schedule i’d say lets charge these rubes $100 for each record – let them perform this farcical aquatic ceremony until the monkeys start flying out of my butt,
Dang. Mormon re-baptism of the dead was the one thing that made me never bother to look twice at their religion. Not because their theology concerns me, but because I always figured if they really turned out to be the One True Faith(tm) they’d just re-baptize me after I died and I’d get a free pass to Mormon Heaven anyway. 😉
“Geoffery—The Mormons have every right to search public records and ‘baptise’ the dead, the Vatuican just told the bishops not to cooperate with them and give them church held information. I dont think the prohibition is a bad idea. Even though it can do nothing to the dead, it can upset the survivning relatives and friends.”
Hmmm…good point. They can use public archives. Upon rethinking the issue, I see your point. By denying them records which belong to us, we aren’t infringing upon their rights to information. They can get information elsewhere. It is thus good for us not to cooperate in their erroneous practice.
I retract my original statement. This action by the Congregation is a good one after all, I think.
Does anyone have the right to rename you after you die? Or change your history to fit their beliefs?
It’s true that what they do has no effect on the dead, but it still isn’t RIGHT. Besides, what about the model the deceased has given future generations? Are his/her ancestors told of the posthumous baptism, or do the Latter Day Saints baptismal records erase official baptism in the same way that an adopted child’s birth certificate shows an adoptive parent as a biological parent? Do the “Saints” keep records? This whole thing is odd.
“Should we forbid Confucians from venerating their ancestor’s spirits, under pain of death?”
Come on Geoffrey, stop being silly. ‘Under pain of death’??? How did you jump from ‘not permitting this detrimental practise’ in a Bishop’s territory, to ‘under pain of death’?
Many local governments, esp. large ones, use the Mormons to help place their records on microfilm. The Mormons provide the staff, the local government provides the space, equipment, film, etc. Two silver copies of the film are made: one for the local government, one for the Mormons for their genalogical collection.
For many researchers, their collection is the treasure trove of birth, deaths and marriage information.
But I agree, why help them.
The first thing I noticed while skimming was “grave reservations”, and then I had to go back and check to make sure this article didn’t come from Roto Reuters.
My parents routinely use Mormon records for their research and have nothing but good things to say about how helpful all of their contacts with the Mormons have been.
There are plenty of places where church records are available where no public records exist and access to international records through the Mormons is a a godsend to those who can’t travel to the church to read the records themselves.
If we don’t believe that this “baptism” is effective, and we don’t, we shouldn’t be worried about it.
Did any one answer the “do they exhume” question? I was curious about that myself. If so, then that should be equivalent to grave robbing or desecration. Withholding the info is respecting the departed person and his/her (presumed) beliefs if she/he was Catholic.
I think you have to have a court order to do an exhumation, and that would necessitate reason or next of kin notification – plus the cost would be astronomical. I think it is very unlikely that they exhume bodies to baptise them.
One thing that has not been spoken of is free will – Catholics believe that each person possesses free will (for better or worse). If the person is dead, they cannot consent to the baptism. If Mormons believe that consent (with full knowledge of the act) is not required for a Mormon baptism, why are they waiting until people are dead? The could simply use the phone book and ~voila~ you got yourself a new crop of Mormons.
I wonder if they know Xenu.
For those asking about the exhumation: no, Mormons do not exhume the dead to baptize them. A Mormon with a temple recommend stands as a proxy for the dead person; the ritual indicates that the living person is being baptized on behalf of the dead person. A similar ritual is also provided for proxy marriage (sealing) of two dead people.
It’s like “retroactive continuity” in comics… revising a person’s history (or in this case, religion) in order to please the current audience.
An odd and disturbing thing.
Baptism for the dead was practiced in the early chrstian church. Do some research and you will see it is a valid doctrine.
Paul teaches about a group that did not believe in ressurection yet they were still baptizing for the dead. His point was that ressuction is a true doctrine but it is clear that baptism for the dead was a valid practice in the early church. There is other evidence as well. Do your research.
Baptism is a physical ordinance which must be performed with water in the proper way and with proper authority. A merciful and just God would provide a way for all of His children to have an opportunity to receive this essential ordinance. How many billions have died without the chance to receive the gospel and the necessary ordinance of baptism simply because it was never available or taught to them? Spirits obviously cannot be baptized with water, thus the need for a proxy baptism in their behalf.
Genealogical research and baptism for the dead will continue with or without catholic help because it is God’s work. Nothing can or will stop it.
Imagine the outrage if Catholics prayed for the conversion of Jews …
Just for the record, the LDS also believe in free will. They believe a deceased person is as free to accept or reject baptism (and that certainly includes any instances of re-baptism, which are obviously what would be indicated by people on Catholic parish registers) just as someone living on earth is.
It should also be noted that not everyone in the LDS’ vast amount of data is baptized by them. The information is available about people, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that any LDS ordinances are performed for them. Although some abuses have occurred, the rule of the LDS is that only with a direct descendant’s permission or request is any ordinance performed for anyone.
Beautiful design.
Thanks, admin.
Comments are closed.