In yet another public relations embarrassment for the Mormon Church, a Utah researcher has discovered that slain Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl was posthumously baptized last year in a serious breach of church protocol.
According to records, Pearl, who is Jewish, was baptized "by proxy" last summer in a Twin Falls, Idaho, temple -- much to the surprise of his parents, who learned of the event this week.
Reached by phone, Pearl's mother, Ruth, said she and her husband were dismayed when informed of the ceremony by a reporter from the Boston Globe, which first reported the news.
"We realize that the Mormon ministers who baptized our son posthumously meant to offer him salvation in the most honorable way they know how," she said in statement. "To them we say: We appreciate your good intentions but rest assured that Danny's soul was redeemed through the life that he lived and the values that he upheld. He lived as a proud Jew, died as a proud Jew and is currently facing his creator as a Jew -- blessed, accepted and redeemed."
Pearl, who was raised in Los Angeles, was working as a Wall Street Journal reporter when he was kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.
In a video that his captors forced him to record shortly before his execution, he professed his faith, saying: "My father's Jewish. My mother's Jewish. I'm Jewish."
His parents later released a book titled "I Am Jewish," which contains a collection of essays by Pearl.
Posthumous baptisms are common in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, generally referred to as the Mormon Church. The purpose of the sacrament is to ensure that ancestors can join church members in the afterlife.
The purpose of baptizing non members into the mormon church after death is just to show the world that it can be done, neener neener! ;0)