Split at the Font (Catholic Controversy of the week)

WITL ^ | May 8, 2008 | Rocco Palmo

[Rameumptom]

>>I think (and please, someone correct me if I remember wrong), that they represent the 12 tribes of Israel. Don, you are better then I am at this kind of stuff, am I right?

Yes.

Some modern Christians like to mock what they don't understand about Mormonism not realizing that it also is a part of their own tradition. 1 Kings gives a basic explanation along with the meaning of other Christian smybolism in the rest of the chapter.

1 Kings 7:23 ¶ And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. 24 And under the brim of it round about there were knops compassing it, ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about: the knops were cast in two rows, when it was cast. 25 It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east: and the sea was set above upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward. 26 And it was an hand breadth thick, and the brim thereof was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies: it contained two athousand baths.

Here is a 12th century "orthodox" version.

Liège (Belgium), St. Barhélemy (Bartholomew) - Baptismal font of Renier de Huy (first part of the XIIth century).

[greyfoxx39]

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[narses]

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[Osage Orange]

Some modern Christians like to mock what they don't understand about Mormonism not realizing that it also is a part of their own tradition

And some folks are continually deceived by the half-truths, and clever deceptions of Satan.

[NYer]

The people who will lose out will be people doing genealogical research.

This is an invasion of personal privacy.

Genealogical research? What does that accomplish? We are all descended from Adam and Eve and that is their point in gathering these documents. They require that all converts to the mormon faith document their genealogy in order to have their ancestors baptized. in the process, they have discovered that after 10 generations one can trace their ancestry all the way back to the first two humans.

[AnAmericanMother]

As long as they get them from a neutral source, I don't see any problem.

What I think is being prohibited is parishes materially assisting LDS heresy by providing records directly to them.

And I'm a genealogical researcher, AND I've used the LDS records.

By the way, they are not all that accurate, as they are submitted by all sorts of people of varying expertise -- some of them are worse than the little old ladies in tennis shoes who keep trying to find some family descent from Bonnie Prince Charlie (vide Florence King's Southern Ladies and Gentlemen). There are some awful errors in the LDS databases. I don't enter anything in my database proper unless I have verified it directly by seeing the actual records - otherwise it stays in my working notes.

[AnAmericanMother]

I figured there had to be some biblical connection, but I was not sure.

Mormonism is not "part of [Christians'] own tradition", though, just because Joseph Smith borrowed a lot of stuff from the Bible. So did Islam.

[Notwithstanding]

I like the oxen.

I am Catholic, and so I LOVE symbolism - espcially OT symbolism that foreshadows the Christological truths of the NT.

And the oxen in the white mormon font also have a dual symbolism of the American West, which I would imagine is a source of pride for mormons.

[AnAmericanMother]

Actually, genealogical research can be quite useful. It can even be a work of charity.

My dear Aunt Ruth was the youngest daughter of a lady (her grandmother, my great-grandmother) who was the youngest of 11 children. Our ancestress died very young and had not imparted any family knowledge to Aunt Ruth, so that that branch of the family was cut off (my grandfather died years ago). Aunt Ruth did not even know her grandparents' names. I got started on that branch of that family and was able to provide for Aunt Ruth before she died the names of her grandparents, where they were born, where their parents came from, and quite a bit of interesting information about them, including the names of all their children. She told me she was so happy, that she had always wondered who they were!

It is very much a Southern thing to know where your family hails from. It is also necessary if you want to join the D.A.R. or the Daughters of the Confederacy. We aren't descended from a "Signer" -- but we ARE descended from the brother of one - the elder brother of George Walton, who signed for Georgia.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think Mark Twain said that the morality of the Book of Mormon was "smouched" from the New Testament.

With a lot of the old church records, probably no one else is going to go to the trouble and expense of filming them if the Mormons don't. In some cases the original records were later destroyed so that all that survives is the microfilm. If only they had microfilmed the Irish records which were destroyed in 1922.

I wouldn't trust the records submitted for the LDS ceremonies, since errors could have crept in, but only the original records. (Of course there's always a chance that an error was made when the record was first made.)

[Verginius Rufus]

It's also necessary if you want to join the D.A.R. or the Daughters of the Confederacy...

The same goes for the S.A.R. or the S.C.V., of course.

I joined the SAR on the basis of descent from a member of the Virginia militia who was present at the siege of Yorktown. I don't need to know that I had an ancestor who fought in the American Revolution, but I find it interesting.

[AnAmericanMother]

Actually, I did a lot of research in South Carolina (which is a genealogist's nightmare - no statewide records until after WWII) without going near the LDS records.

Almost 100 percent of their stuff is duplicated by other genealogists (mostly the D.A.R., Colonial Dames, F.F.V., and other such organizations). Not only microfilm (the complete U.S. Census handwritten returns are available in any branch of the U.S. Archives), but actual books such as "Marriage Announcements from Upcountry Carolina Newspapers" - this book actually exists, I consulted it to find one of my gggg grandfather's marriages.

The destruction of the Irish records, btw, is unfortunately due to an attempt to preserve them by consolidating them in a central location -- which was then torched by the IRA. Microfilm if it existed at all was in its infancy, but if it had been instituted the same centralization would have had to take place, and they AND the microfilm would have gone up in smoke just the same.

[JRochelle]

That is the first thing I thought of too!

Weird!

[PennsylvaniaMom]

I may be in the minority here, but I find it ‘dis-honoring’ the life intentions and faiths of the departed. I checked the list (a link was provided on another thread) and to my dismay, both my deceased parents and great aunts (who were Catholic nuns!!!) were there. So my profoundly Catholic dearly departed could have been baptized (I know in name only) into a faith they knew nothing about. Why should their names, their existance on earth be ‘used’ for the faith of someone alive today who knows nothing of them? If they did know of their lives, why would they ‘baptize’ a Catholic nun Mornon? Why can’t the departed be left to rest in peace?

[Verginius Rufus]

I was thinking mainly of records in other countries.

I believe the group that caused the destruction of the Irish records wasn't even the main IRA, but an extremist die-hard faction.

A lot of Virginia records were lost because they were taken to Richmond for safekeeping, and then burned in 1865.

[Tennessee Nana]

BTTT

[fproy2222]

thanks

[AnAmericanMother]

German records are very good, although some were lost in WWII.

English records are also first class. They've done a good job keeping them, and they were doing a good job long before Joseph Smith quit treasure-hunting and crystal gazing and took on a new line of work.

The Irish records have always been a problem, long before the IRA was even thought of. Irish government has always been a bit lackadaisical in the matter of efficiency. Btw, Pearse and Connnolly are not what I would call an "extremist die-hard faction," even though the IRB was not the IRA (I guess you could call it a predecessor). And Collins was involved in both the IRB and the IRA.

[NYer]

I may be in the minority here, but I find it ‘dis-honoring’ the life intentions and faiths of the departed. I checked the list (a link was provided on another thread) and to my dismay, both my deceased parents and great aunts (who were Catholic nuns!!!) were there.

I totally agreee! In one of my previous jobs, my boss was a mormon. When he explained about their baptism for the dead, he said I had the right to file a document with the LDS Church stating that I did not want to be baptized by them now or in the future. What arrogance!!

BTW - can you post the link from the other thread. I would like to see how many of my ancestors have been baptized by them.

[Verginius Rufus]

I wasn't thinking of the Eastern Rebellion of 1916 but of the fighting that broke out after the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 that set up the Irish Free State. The destruction of the records took place in 1922 in the Irish Civil War. The anti-treaty side seems to have represented the minority opinion in the 26 counties.

English parish records in theory are available from 1538 on, when Thomas Cromwell ordered them kept (I think not every parish has fully-preserved records). The contrast with Scotland is stark, where the records even in the 1700s are far from complete.

From what I've read, even before 1922 the Irish records were far less complete than those of England. Apparently the Catholic parish records were not kept at the Four Courts in Dublin but in local parishes, so may survive, but you have to know which parish and get permission to look at the records from the pastor--at least that was true in the early 1980s. Possibly things have improved since then.