Posted on 12/21/2003 4:41:40 AM PST by Pharmboy
Jewish group says it is considering legal action in an effort to stop the Mormon Church from posthumously baptizing many Jews, especially Holocaust victims.
Under the practice, known by Mormons as vicarious baptism — a significant rite of the church — the dead are baptized by living church members who stand in as proxies.
But in 1995, after evidence emerged that at least 380,000 names of Jewish Holocaust victims were on baptismal lists in the church's extensive archives in Salt Lake City, the church agreed to end vicarious baptism without consent from the descendants of the dead. Church officials also said the church would remove the names of Holocaust victims placed on the lists before 1995.
"For the last seven years, we've had entirely cordial relations with the Mormons," said Ernest Michel, who negotiated the agreement on behalf of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, which is based in New York and claims 180,000 members. "But the agreement is clear and they have not held up their end."
Last year, Helen Radkey, an independent researcher in Salt Lake City, gave Mr. Michel evidence that the Mormon lists still included the names of at least 20,000 Jews, many of them Holocaust victims and prominent figures like the philosopher Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel. Ms. Radkey also provided Mr. Michel with evidence that many of these Jews had been baptized after the 1995 agreement.
But Mormon officials say they remain in full compliance with the 1995 agreement.
"We have actually gone above and beyond," said D. Todd Christofferson, a church official involved with the negotiations. The church removed the names of Holocaust victims listed before 1995 and continues to instruct its members to avoid baptizing Jews who are not directly related to living Mormons or whose immediate family has not given written consent, Mr. Christofferson said.
But he said it was not the church's responsibility to monitor the archives to ensure that no new Jewish names appear. "We never had in mind that we would, on a continual basis, go in and ferret out the Jewish names," Mr. Christofferson said, adding that the labor involved in constantly sifting through an ever-expanding archive, which contains more than 400 million names, would represent an "intolerable burden."
"When the church is made aware of documented concerns, action is taken in compliance with the agreement," he said.
Some Jewish genealogists agree with the Mormon interpretation of the agreement. "I have a copy of the agreement," said Gary Mokotoff, the publisher of Avotaynu, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy. "The wording is vague in some places, but it definitely does not obligate the Mormons to scour their own archives on an ongoing basis."
But Mr. Michel, who said he became involved in the issue after reading about posthumous baptisms in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, contends that the agreement obliges the Mormon Church to monitor the post-1995 lists and remove the names of Jews that appear.
"They put the names in there, they should have to take them out, and the agreement says as much," he said. "Why should we have to do their job for them?" He said the group was considering legal action but would not provide details.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom Mr. Michel contacted, said she planned to take up the matter with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican and a Mormon. "Senator Hatch was immensely helpful in brokering the 1995 agreement, so we're hoping he can get involved again now," she said in a telephone interview.
With approximately 11 million members worldwide, the Mormon Church, known formally as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is one of the fastest-growing in the world, partly because of a strong missionary effort. The importance of the family structure is central to church doctrine and is a reason for the extensive archives kept by the International Genealogical Index in Salt Lake City. The archives include detailed biographical information of 400 million people going back centuries. The names of those to be posthumously baptized are drawn from the archives.
According to Mormon theology, all people, living or dead, possess "free agency," and posthumous baptisms provide only an option, not an obligation, to join the religion in the afterlife. Church membership numbers do not include those baptized after death, Mr. Christofferson said.
Originally, the practice was reserved for ancestors of church members, but over the years many other people have been baptized posthumously. "There is no way to prevent overzealous members doing mission work from submitting names that don't belong," Mr. Christofferson said.
Ms. Radkey, an Australian-born Christian, said she began researching the Mormon practice in 1999 after discovering that the teenage diarist Anne Frank had been posthumously baptized.
the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that only 144,000 will be in heaven. It is interesting to note that every one that I talk with, is one of the 144K!
I w'ont get into what the Roman church believes. I hope there are RC's who believe in something besides membership, and confessions!
Nice people can be well-intentioed, and socially acceptable. They can also end up in Hell!
I'll bet the Scientologeezers are pissed that the Mormons beat 'em to the draw on this freeky farce... but then again, I don't think Mormons use a phony lie detector to extract info from their members the way L.Ron's gang does !!! ;-))
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Yes, you are correct. I guess I was thinking of the "effect" on the souls of the deceased. But the survivors must be not just brokenhearted but infuriated when they hear of this kind of presumptuous nonsense. Just one more reason why I left...
What, do you think they are robbing graves and dunking the bodies in holy water?
They are just praying for them and performing a ritual on their behalf. It may be stupid but its no different from the Catholic ritual of praying for the dead, which I think is stupid too. But would you consider that the Catholics are desecrating the dead by praying for them?
Hey, how about the Hindus? They believe that the dead are their pets and the feed them and pet them. You got a problem with that?
And how about Spiritualists? They wake up the dead and drag them into dark rooms with crystal balls and chanting. What could be more disturbing to a dead guy that to be brought out of the comforts of the spirit world and dragged into a darkened room full of whack-jobs?
This has been a part of Mormon religious practice for quite a while and that is why the LDS puts so much time and money into collecting geneological data from around the world.
There is absolutely nothing in it for the Mormons other than believing that they are helping a total stranger that died long ago to get into Heaven.
If you don't believe in Mormonism, and I don't, it can't possibly hurt your ancestors any more than the Pope blessing America can hurt a Southern Baptist. If you want to research your geneology, the Mormons have already done a lot of work for you.
The practice is of as purely religious nature as it can be. As such, it is fully protected by the First Amendment and this lawsuit will get nowhere in my opinion.
If the lawsuit does succeed, be prepared to get socked with a lawsuit if word ever gets out that you prayed for anybody outside of your own particular religious affiliation at your place of worship.
You speak from ignorance. They are not "singling out Jews". They believe they have been commanded to baptize everyone. They have probably baptized Pope Paul and Pope John Paul I and they will probably baptize Pope John Paul II the minute the smoke clears at the Vatican. They are doing what their religion commands them to do. Would you demand of them that they do less?
How would you feel if someone told you that you ought not to do something that you believe God commanded you to do because it might just offend someone's oversensitive sensibilities. Geez, talk about a left wing liberal easily offended knee jerk reaction.
Go find yourself something important to get offended about. This is nothing. If you are offended, then the problem lies in you, not in the Mormons.
I totally agree. Those who have faith in God and His moral absolutes need to stop fighting with each other and fight the atheists, secularists, etc. We can have debates about theology later. After we win the culture war.
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