Baptizing the dead from WW II death camps

[ayin jade]

Hi, this is my first time posting in this forum, I hope I follow the proper procedures here. This story just piled more tragedy on top of a terrible horror. And promoted false doctrine.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...tizing_the_dead

Mormons still baptizing Holocaust dead

SALT LAKE CITY - Researchers say that Mormons have continued to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims into their faith despite a promise to discontinue the practice.

We are very hopeful that we will be able to convince the church to stop," Ernest Michel, chairman of the New York-based World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, said Friday. If not, Michel said, his group will consider other options, "possibly legal steps."

Church spokesman Dale Bills said in a statement Friday evening that church officials "do not know what may come of these discussions, but we welcome the involvement of any who seek to resolve amicably the concerns expressed by some of our Jewish friends."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long collected names from government documents and other records worldwide for posthumous baptisms. Church members stand in to be baptized in the names of the deceased non-Mormons, a ritual the church says is required for them to reach heaven.

The practice is primarily intended to give salvation to the ancestors of Mormons, but many others are included, since the church believes that individuals' ability to choose a religion continues beyond the grave. Non-Mormon faiths have objected to the baptisms.

"It's ridiculous for people to pretend they have the key to heaven," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "And even if they say they want to do somebody a favor ... it's not a symbol of love. It's a symbol of arrogance."

In 1995, the Mormon church acceded to demands by Jewish leaders that the denomination stop posthumously baptizing Jews. But Helen Radkey, a Salt Lake City researcher, said on Friday that the process still hasn't ended.

She said she has found posthumous baptism records for 268 Dutch Jews killed in Polish concentration camps, which she described as a "small sampling." All the death camp victims, incorrectly listed in the Mormon database as dying in "Auschwitz, Germany," were posthumously baptized well after the 1995 agreement.

Mormon leaders reaffirmed the 1995 pact in December 2002, after Radkey found at least 20,000 Jews in the church's International Genealogical Index. The church says proxy baptisms have been performed for nearly every one of the 400 million names in the database.

"The Jews have to either accept what the Mormons are doing or take legal action," Radkey said.

Michel's group asked Sen. Hillary Clinton (news - web sites) to intervene in the matter and the New York Democrat met last month with Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and LDS member, though neither side would comment on the session.

The church directed its members after the 1995 agreement to not include the names of unrelated persons, celebrities and non-approved groups, such as Jewish Holocaust victims, for the baptisms, according to documentation the Mormon church provided Friday to The Associated Press.

The church also assumes that the closest living relative of the deceased being offered for proxy baptism has consented.

The pact, however, "did not guarantee that no future vicarious baptisms for deceased Jews would occur," according to church documents.

In a Nov. 14, 2003, letter, church elder D. Todd Christofferson wrote Michel that the church did not agree to find and remove the names of all deceased Jews in its database of 400 million names. "That would be an impossible undertaking," Christofferson wrote.

There is no way this will save anyone, salvation does not come from baptism, but from acceptance of Jesus Christ.

[SevenofNine]

That so wronggggg

Can you imagine what this thing do to descendant of Jews who were kill in WW2 that be hurtful

Nice goin Mormons

[papasangel]

What about the rights of the dead? These Mormons who engage in this practice is showing arrogance for sure. Its probally the only way they can bolster their numbers as a religion

[Anonymous]

That's Mormonism for you!

[refugepsa91]

wow...I thought I heard it all!! Guess not....how weird.

Love and Blessings,

Angel

[mobile21]

This is what happens when you stay separated from the one, true Church founded by Jesus Christ for too long: madness.

[papasangel]

And may we ask what the "One True Church" is Mobile?

[Guest Calamity]

Mormon leaders reaffirmed the 1995 pact in December 2002, after Radkey found at least 20,000 Jews in the church's International Genealogical Index. The church says proxy baptisms have been performed for nearly every one of the 400 million names in the database.

This is awful, for the Jews, and for all the 400 million others whose names are in their records. I've done a lot of genealogy, and have ancestors who are recorded there. They were not Mormon, but someone had turned in their genealogy work to them, and they are listed there. Wonder if they've been 'baptized' also?

[mobile21]

And may we ask what the "One True Church" is Mobile?

Yes, you may

[refugepsa91]

And may we ask what the "One True Church" is Mobile?

Yes, you may

:oww: I KNEW IT...I KNEW IT...I knew you were gonna say that... Where do I go to collect my prize? :suspect:

Love and Blessings,

Angel