Vatican refuses to give up its dead
In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms of dead Catholics by the Mormon Church, the Vatican has ordered Catholic dioceses throughout the world not to give parish baptismal information to the LDS Genealogical Society of Utah.Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, says the step was taken to prevent the Mormons from using records to posthumously baptize by proxy the ancestors of church members, "so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
LDS spokesman Mike Otterson said he wanted to review the Vatican's letter before commenting.
During his recent U.S. visit, Pope Benedict XVI presided over an papal prayer service attended, for the first time in history, by Mormon leaders.
Massa acknowledges the letter could strain relations between the two churches:
It certainly has that potential. ... As Catholics, we have to make very clear to them their practice of so-called rebaptism is unacceptable from the standpoint of Catholic truth.In 1995, Jewish groups were incensed when they learned that Holocaust victims were among those the LDS were baptizing by proxy. The Jewish groups said it was morally equivalent to the medieval Inquisitions that baptized Jews by force.
Above: Catholic like to hang on to their dead.
6 Comments:
Everyone, Jews and Catholics, should relax. The mormon practice is meaningless, like everything else about that "church." No harm done. If there is a god, she's laughing her rear end off.
If it's meaningless,why would they fear it so much?? HHMMmmmm
The Catholic church does not fear the practice of baptism of the dead, nor does anyone else. It is simply a condesending action performed by the LDS church. For the LDS church to assume that they are only ones fit, to offer eternal salvation is an insult. I am sure that God (you know, the entity tht created the heavens and earth) has the where with all to do as he/she see's fit. As if these people didn't have the where with all while alive to make a choice of their one??
It really is meaningless. Instead of trying to stop them from doing it, the Catholics should just say "you think we have weird beliefs, check these guys out. They're spending huge amounts of time and money to baptize dead people. That makes us look normal."
I understand the concern, I think. I can imagine objecting to people "doing things" in the name of my ancestors, when I do not believe they would want that thing done in their name.
But to the commenters above who are ascribing ill-will or arrogance to the Church as an institution or to its individual members who are engaged in proxy ordinances for the dead, you're just off-base. This is a labor of love, and a desire to be connected to our ancestors, most of whom would never have had a chance to hear about the Church, and therefore had no chance to be baptized into it. The current counsel for many years now has been to focus genealogical efforts on our own direct ancestry, so when we talk about doing baptisms for "these people" we are talking about doing baptisms for "our people," because we love them.
Let's do a thought experiment with the roles reversed. You're a Catholic, with a Mormon grandfather or great-grandfather. In accordance with Catholic doctrine, you do not accept the Mormon baptism as authoritative. Yet you also believe that baptism is required for salvation, as Christ in the New Testament teaches. Your grandfather, at best, is going to spend a long time in purgatory, maybe forever. Now (and this is hypothetical -- I realize there is no such Catholic doctrine) imagine that the Pope, in his office as head of the Church, standing in the place of Peter as revelator to the world, declares that you can perform this ordinance on your grandfather's behalf, and that if he will accept it as valid "on the other side," he can be released from purgatory Now. Would you do it? Would he be offended at his grandchild's impertinence? Or grateful that his grandchild cared -- even if the doctrine or practice was faulty?
And if you buy all of that, I've got a bri....never mind.
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