At the Parker Stake Center in my town, it's done all the time. When asked about it, members of the Mormon church openly explain that is one of the purposes attached to their dedication to researching family history. As one Mormon genealogist who spoke at a local breakfast meeting on Monday explained (and I'm paraphrasing from memory), "If baptism of those who were not baptized is required to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, a member of the church (in this case the Church of Latter Day Saints) can stand in for the dead so that they would be baptized into the Mormon church. If we're wrong, then it's all a mute issue and the Mormon Church has wasted a lot of time and money in the effort. If we're correct, we've done them a favor by bringing them into the Mormon Church so that they can enter the Kingdom of Heaven." While it would be nice if all churches recognized that their church books have a limited shelf-life. They will (and are) becoming extremely fragile -- some records are too fragile to handle any longer. Lessons should be learned from the leading archives throughout the world and take great care in preserving the documents in a digital form that can be upgraded as technology changes without disrupting the fragility of the original source. This has nothing to do with a priest's responsibility to protect the church books -- it can be argued that not preserving the documents is actually a blatant case of NOT protecting the church books. Now, it comes down to an issues of WHO shall preserve the records. Most archives do not have the funds to launch into a full-scale effort to digitize their records. The Mormons offer to do the work at their expense, but with the stigma attached to it that SOME people who use the microfilm will use it for the Baptism of the Dead. Those who use the files at Ancestry or go to local town halls to view the original records, or visit local parishes to view those records -- MAY also use that information for the Baptism of the Dead. Even though I have no empirical data to support my opinion, but I would venture to say that most of us who use the myriad of sources available online or in archives for research purposes OTHER than Baptizing the Dead into our own particular religious beliefs. The Roman Catholic Church does not appreciate their church members (as indicated by their church records) being baptized into another faith. It would be like a group of any other faith coming to town and saying they would like access to all the Mormon records so the visiting religious group can convert those members into the other faith. To me, that's a reflection of religious arrogance of some people. When I was doing research at the Lawrence Massachusetts City Hall, I got into a conversation with a city council member after overhearing his conversation with the clerk. They were complaining that much of their time was being spent pulling books for people looking for genealogy information. Since I was the only one in the room that was making genealogy requests, I decided to speak up. I told the council member that more and more communities are microfilming or digitizing their public records so that citizens can do their own work. He informed me the city did not have the money to do that. I told them the Mormons would probably be more than happy to do the work for them at their expenses. The council member never heard of the Mormons (even though Mitt Romney was their governor at the time), but the city clerk immediately started rolling her eyes over the mention of "Mormons". Again, we could have argued the religious implications of making public records public -- or we could have argued the importance of preserving those records. Or we could have argued how digitizing or microfilming public records will actually save staff-hours of public employees. Either way, it would have been more valuable if there was an organized effort to help educate the decision-makers about the importance and value of preserving these records. This includes the town clerks in small towns where our ancestors immigrated, lived, and raised a family. And it includes the decision-makers at the Roman Catholic Churches who want to further block the Mormons from microfilming their records. -- Alan On May 7, 2008, at 9:16 AM, Anne Keen wrote: > Denise, Marie, > > None of my German/ Polish ancestors were Catholic, so this issue > does not > affect me directly. I can see both points of view here, and both are > equally > valid. > > Is there any evidence that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day > Saints > has rebapitzed people's ancestors ( after death) without their > descendents' > knowledge or agreement? Or is the practice restricted to living > members of > the LDS Church? - That is, living members of the Church have agreed > to their > ancestors' rebaptism, so that they will meet again in the afterlife? > > I'm not especially religious, and know very little about the LDS > Church, its > doctrines and rules, but I cannot see it baptizing people's > ancestors on an > ad hoc basis, as it were. > > Anne

Although I am a lapsed Catholic (so perhaps my opinion is irrelevant), it would seem to me that if you believed that you were a member of the one true Faith (whichever one it was), it wouldn't matter if another church tried to baptize one of your own: it would be invalid anyway and thus have no effect. Carol Goodson Carrollton GA

I have to agree with you, Carol. Also, any extra prayers, etc. wouldn't hurt at all, I would think. I was raised in the Methodist Episcopal church, became Lutheran when I married, Catholic after I divorced, and after my son was killed, I went back to my home ME church. In all my years, and experiences, I have studied a lot. I've had some friends who were Mormons and they were good people. In a lot of what they did, they seemed to be very much like the churches that I knew. I do know there are some big differences. I told one friend that I would be out of luck if I were Mormon because I couldn't wait around for a man to make sure that I was safe, etc. I saw some records on ancestors that mentioned sealing and the Temple in Atlanta. At first, I thought that must have been something they did in the old days at a big Methodist Church. But one of my Mormon friends explained it to me. And, actually, I thought that it was a nice thing to do, in case there were no relatives around, and they wouldn't have known if the deceased had ever belonged to a church. I guess some look at it as an attempt to make everyone a Mormon (just as a lot of other religions try to make everyone belong to their church). I just looked at it as a nice gesture, and if people want to keep their ancestors as a certain thing, fine. If they consider the deceased as being Mormons after the sealing, then that is okay. It may not matter once the person is dead, to my way of thinking. They can longer do any deeds or practice any kind of religion, make choices, etc. Cecelia > Although I am a lapsed Catholic (so perhaps my opinion is > irrelevant), it would seem to me that if you believed that you were a > member of the one true Faith (whichever one it was), it wouldn't > matter if another church tried to baptize one of your own: it would > be invalid anyway and thus have no effect. > > Carol Goodson > Carrollton GA >