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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has apologized for "a serious breach of protocol" in which the parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized as Mormons.

The Mormon faith of presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been one of the hot topics throughout the Republican's campaign. But a recent photo posted on social network website Twitter took speculation about the strength of his religious beliefs to new heights. It shows the GOP nominee wearing an unbuttoned white shirt with his Mormon underwear clearly visible underneath. Also known as a Temple garment, it typically covers the shoulders and extends to the knees, in deference to rules surrounding the Church of the Latter Day Saints' temples.

Nobel-laureate Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and a top official from the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Tuesday that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should use his stature in the Mormon church to block its members from posthumously baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims. Their comments followed reports that Mormons had baptized the deceased parents of Wiesenthal, the late Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter. A spokeswoman for Romney said his campaign would not comment, directing all inquiries to church officials. Posthumous baptisms of non-Mormons are a regular practice of the Mormon religion. Church members believe the ritual creates the possibility for the deceased to...

...Mormon church leaders apologized to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were posthumously baptized, a controversial ritual that Mormons believe allows deceased people a way to the afterlife but offends members of many other religions. Wiesenthal died in 2005 after surviving the Nazi death camps and spending his life documenting Holocaust crimes and hunting down perpetrators who remained at large. Jews are particularly offended by an attempt to alter the religion of Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their religion, and the baptism of Holocaust survivors was supposed to have been...

Pat Waldron asserts that Mormons are Christians and offers these reasons: First, Mormons call themselves "The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints." Second, Mormon temples contain pictures of Jesus. Third, the Mormon choir will "bring tears to your eyes, if you are a Christian." And, fourth, Mormons are nice people. But these "reasons" are hardly convincing because they deal only with superficial appearances. A more robust analysis reveals that Mormons reject absolutely essential Biblical beliefs that Christians have held for centuries. First, Mormons reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Christians believe that there is one God...

He took as many as 48 wives. Sources: [Official LDS website: FamilySearch.org] [A comprehensive PDF] [Wikipedia]Many were teenagers, as young as 13 years old. Many were already married to other men and continued in polyandry: having more than one husband.He married pairs of sisters, and even took a mother and her daughter for wives. The wives of the prophetsThe first seven Mormon prophets had at least 135 wives. Mormon prophet Number of wives Joseph Smith 48 Brigham Young 55 John Taylor 7 Wilford Woodruff 5 Lorenzo Snow 11 Joseph F. Smith 6 Heber J. Grant 3 Summary of Events...

The two groups with more than a few members are the FLDS (see Are members of the FLDS church “mormons”?) and the Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.) The Salt Lake based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 14M members, and the second largest of such groups has at most 40,000 members. Historically...the other groups are all splinters from from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... SNIP It is also reasonably argued that “mormon” should be allowed as a genericized noun. There are many famous cases...

The following is an essay by Robert L. Millet, professor of religion and emeritus dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University.The issue of whether Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are Christian is not a new one, but the current media climate has caused the question to be revisited in both private and public conversations. No matter the circumstances, the underlying question is an important one and a matter whose implications reach well beyond the momentary news cycle.BackgroundsIn the early decades of the 19th century, upstate New York came to be known as the “Burnt Over District” during the second Great Awakening...

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On January 22 (2012) on Fox News Sunday Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney answered a question from Chris Wallace regarding Mr. Romney’s generous financial gifts (tithing) to the Mormon Church. Mr. Romney said, "This is a country that believes in the Bible, the Bible speaks about providing tithes and offerings, I made a commitment to my church a long, long time ago that I would give 10 percent of my income to the church, and I’ve followed through on that commitment. And hopefully as people look at the various individuals who’re running for president they’d be pleased with someone who...

I’m LDS, and I fully realize that the Mormon vote is going for Romney. He’s going to take Utah. And Arizona. Pardon me for not joining. I know the thinking. When that LDS tag is attached, members of the Church all understand that the person is honest, loving, trustworthy, etc., and all the others are questionable. I don’t buy that. I’ve seen too much of life to just accept that premise without any question. The rough approximations of the assumption of the character of LDS people are true, but in specific instances, you can’t count on that as a perfectly...

The Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced recent the recent posthumous “baptism” of the parents of Simon Wiesenthal in Mormon temples (see image from website) “We are outraged that such insensitive actions continue in the Mormon Temples. Throughout his life, Simon Wiesenthal especially revered his beloved mother who was deported and murdered at Belzec death camp in 1942. Such actions make a mockery of the many meetings with the top leadership of the Mormon Church dating back to 1995 that focused on the unwanted and unwarranted posthumous baptisms of Jewish Victims of the Nazi Holocaust,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of...

Chicago—In 1835 a traveling curiosity peddler of Egyptian mummies arrived in the small town of Kirtland, Ohio. He caught the attention of Joseph Smith (1805-44), the controversial founder of the Mormon religion. Smith secured a large sum of money from his followers ($2,400, or $60,000 in today’s dollars) to purchase four Egyptian mummies with scrolls of papyri. Smith announced that he could do what no one else could do: translate the ancient hieroglyphics. Smith asserted that the papyri contained the writings of the biblical prophets Abraham and Joseph. He titled his translation of the papyri the “Book of Abraham.” Smith’s...

The United States may get its first Mormon president this year, if Republican candidate Mitt Romney prevails in his bid. But in France, the Mormon faith is viewed with deep suspicion and a project to build the country's first Mormon temple is proving to be controversial.  The temple is expected to be located in the Paris suburb of Chesnay, where the temple is expected to be located.  Until recently, Chesnay was mostly known because of its proximity to Versailles, the dazzling 18th-century palace that was home to French "Sun King" Louis XIV.  But today, this small town west of Paris...

DUCHESNE — A judge has ordered an LDS Church bishop to stand trial on charges of witness tampering and failure to report abuse. But the defense attorney for Bishop Gordon Moon called the judge's order "a far cry from a ringing endorsement of the prosecution's case." "I think anyone who reads the bindover order can see that," attorney David Leavitt said Wednesday. "From our perspective, the bindover was something we expected because the burden of proof is so low." Moon, 43, is accused of failing to notify police about a 17-year-old girl's disclosure that she had been sexually abused by...

<p>Despite major gains in pop and political culture, many Evangelicals remain wary of Mormons. Just ask Latter Day Saints (LDS) church member Mitt Romney who is currently struggling to claim front-runner status as the Republican nominee. Political pundits believe the lack of Evangelical support is crippling his campaign.</p>

Mitt Romney never has bad hair days, but yesterday was truly a bad political one. How bad? Consider this: • Romney did not win a single county in either Missouri or Minnesota. • He won the Minnesota caucus by 19 points in 2008, but finished third last night—28 points behind Santorum. • He won nearly 30 percent of the Missouri vote in 2008 in a tight three-man race, but won only 25 percent last night in a race with only one opponent whom the national media had given up for dead. • He won the Colorado caucus by over 40...

Brigham Youg University has the largest library of books on Muslims scholars. It has been in the forefront of taking old books and translating them into English and publishing them. The Morman are call themselves the Church of Christ and Latter Day Saints–believing that there are prophets after Jesus Christ. The Mormons are Unitarians and reject Trinity. The LDS position on Islam can be found in an August 2000 article by James Toronto, entitled “A Latter-day Saint Perspective on Muhammad,” from Ensign—the church’s flagship monthly magazine. In the clearest and most complete elucidation of its position on Muslims, Toronto, the...

Americans, from sea to shining sea, are hurting and confused. We are told, daily, that everything is getting better. America's best days are still in her future. The overwhelming evidence (continually declining home prices, escalating unemployment figures, massive cuts in defense as our enemies strengthen, etc.) point in the opposite direction. What are we to believe? Several politicians, who are all fine speakers, are running for the presidency. I fear that, metaphorically, our nation has hit a massive iceberg and has an irreparable rip from bow to stern. Like the RMS Titanic, we're going down. We don't need excellent orators;...

...I attended a luncheon for the Holocaust Museum...Each year I ask myself, Why am I here? ...Tis a gruesome tradition. I think of my grandfather, Rabbi Jacob Meyer Rakowski... My grandfather was the...last — descendant of a rabbinic dynasty hailing back to 11th century France. At age 82, grandpa was gassed in Auschwitz, together with 47 members of my parents' families. I last saw him two years earlier, when my parents, my brother and I were deported to Siberia. I'm retelling this old history because now, with Mitt Romney possibly becoming the Republican nominee, it's important to remember that his...

[Me: The title of the article says "hesitant," but the article says that 22% is a flat "no" in answer to the question ending with "would you vote for that person?"]Though the vast majority of Americans say they would vote for their party's nominee for president in 2012 if that person happens to be a Mormon, 22% say they would not, a figure largely unchanged since 1967. [Me: Is less than 4 out of 5 really considered "vast?"]The new Gallup poll, conducted June 9-12, finds nearly 20% of Republicans and independents saying they would not support a Mormon for president....

If Gingrich, Santorum or Paul were deacons or ministers of Catholic or Protestant churches, they would certainly be asked what their vows, promises and duties were and will they conflict with the oath of President of the US. I am asking the readers first if this is a fair question for Romney, second has it been asked and answered before, and third if it hasn't been asked who will most likely have the opportunity to ask this question during the GOP primary process?

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. The Anti-Christ Liberal Main-Stream-Media wants to FORCE "Christians" to accept the BLASPHEMY of Mormonism and Islam .... ===================================== There's a BIG difference between "Protestant vs. Catholic" theology ... versus "Christian vs. Mormon" theology ... Mormonism is really just a COMBINATION of Islam and Scientology ... they BOTH believe ... 1) Abraham and Christ "just good 'ol boys" ... 2) Multiple Wives are OK (wink, wink, fellas !) 3) We all just "Celestial Gods" in waiting ... for that "special" M-Class planet that "god" (whoever the heck is) has reserved for us ... 4) Drum Roll .... 4-A) Christ is...

So Trump drinks the Romulan Ale. What does that mean to us? (Personally I suspect the LDS organization, directly or indirectly is greasing palms. Mitt is not even close to being wealthy eough to bribe Trump but the LDS is enormously wealthy and in many businesses that might be strategic... Marriot is just one major company tied to theem... Drudge, I believe he's making an unmitigated fortune from the sleaze crusade. This election he did EXACTLY the same thing to Newt as he did Huckabee. Exactly)

You KNOW "The Donald" is all about himself and his interests. What say you?

...A religious studies class late last year at Utah State University...was unusual for two reasons. The small group of students, faculty and faithful there to hear Mormon Elder Marlin Jensen were openly troubled about the future...asking hard questions. And Jensen was uncharacteristically frank... Did the leaders...know that members are "leaving in droves?" a woman asked. "We are aware," said Jensen, according to a tape recording of his unscripted remarks. "And I'm speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church."... "My own daughter," he then added, "has come to me and said, 'Dad, why...

SNIP Until 1978, the LDS church banned men of African descent from its priesthood... SNIP The LDS church has neither formally apologized for the priesthood ban nor publicly repudiated many of the theories used to justify it for more than 125 years. SNIP ...many blacks perceive the LDS church as racist... ...Rev. O’Neal Dozier told The Palm Beach Post...“The Book of Mormon says the Negro skin is cursed.” ...another Mormon scripture, The Pearl of Great Price, says, “blackness came upon” Cain’s descendants, who were “despised among all people.” SNIP ...Tim Russert noted that Romney was 31 when the priesthood ban...

Richard L. Bushman...wrote in 2005 "Rough Stone Rolling..." "I first became aware of the problems shortly after 'Rough Stone Rolling' came out...I thought I was getting these emails asking for help..." Then Bushman heard that many other scholars were also being beset with queries from members of the LDS Church who had encountered something on the Internet that had shaken their faith. He began to hear the same thing from ordinary Mormons who had friends or family who were having problems. He also heard from people at BYU how it was a problem there as well. People were encountering things...

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is losing a record number of its membership. A new report quotes an LDS general authority who said more members are falling away today than any time in the past 175 years. At meetings like General Conference, Utahns may be used to seeing members of the LDS Church show up in record numbers. But according to a recent Reuters article citing LDS General Authority Marlin K. Jensen, for the church as a whole, the record in going in a different direction. Elder Jensen told the...

SALT LAKE CITY — A Minerva Teichert painting known as "The Law on the Plates of Brass" is at the heart of a legal dispute pitting a downtown art gallery against the painting's one-time owner, and the LDS Church . Thomas Alder, owner of Williams Fine Art Gallery, contends two unnamed representatives from the Church History Museum showed up with paperwork to "borrow" the painting from his business and never returned it. Instead, his lawsuit alleges the painting's owner breached their consignment contract and sold the painting to a member of the museum's acquisition committee without Alder's knowledge. A Dec....

The Salon article "Mitt and the White Horse Prophecy A close look at the roots of Romney's -- and the Mormon church's -- political ambitions" by Sally Denton will no doubt be dismissed as a religious smear by those inclined to support Mitt Romney... ...if we as an electorate truly did consider totally off limits all questions about what a candidate believes about God, the role of his faith in society and history and how his particular creed dictates that he behaves -- then I'd be fine with declaring articles like Denton's irrelevant if not beyond the pale. But it's...

I don’t mind Mormons, such as Chaffetz and Bay Buchanan pushing a candidate, such as Romney, but I still say Americans in general should look into and consider that Mormon pundits and politicians’ may be directed by the religious leaders such as the current Mormon president and prophet to act in the interest of Mormonism and Mormon business interests first and the American people second. Congressman Chaffetz and Bay Buchanan, Mormon converts, are following Gingrich campaign to distract news people from Newt's presentation. It seems that Romney followers are motivated by the orders of Mormon leaders. If you have children...

A Temple System Out of Control Or Unofficial Thumbs Up for Polygamy? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicates any church member who practices polygamy. The Church has publicly disowned Mormon fundamentalists, representing the sects of Mormonism which embrace early Mormon teachings that made polygamy a central part of the Mormon faith — the ongoing legacy of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. THIS SERIES• The Mormon Church & Polygamy: A Double Standard?• Mormon Fundamentalists from the Lists of the LDS Posthumously Baptized • Brother Ervil, Brother Ross, Brother Rulon… While the LDS Church says it does not...

Remember how Jeremiah Wright's influence on Obama was not thoroughly vetted in 2007 race? Let's not make the same mistake now. The GOP & Media Must investigate and expose, before the DEMs and mainstream do, Romney, who is a Mormon clergyman, and his Lifetime Promises to the Mormon Church and Mormon Objectives. We Must Find Out any Romney-Mormon Conflict of Interest Now! Romney is a Mormon priest and highest level member of the Mormon Church. Many Freepers have said that the Mormon Church is as much a business as it is a religion. I am appalled at the lack scrutiny...

After wondering aloud yesterday whether the Romneys converted Mitt's dead father-in-law to Mormonism...Yes. They did. Edward Davies, Ann Romney's father, was an atheist who was also strongly anti-religion. By the time he died, he was the only member of Ann Romney's immediate family to not convert to Mormonism. Fourteen months later, in 1993, he was baptized in a special ceremony at a Salt Lake City church. This practice requires a living person who has already been baptized to undergo the immersion in water again on behalf of the dead. No word on who this person might have been in Davies'...

There is an element of the Mormon faith that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but if Romney is the nominee, it will....the relatively recent racism of the Church...which practiced exclusion and contempt for African-Americans...and has yet to fully repudiate it. It wasn't until 1978 that the LDS church allowed African-American males into the priesthood -- an essential post that nearly all...males attain. Mormon men don't get to be god of their own planet without it. Yet Romney, as a Mormon missionary...tried to convert others into a faith that practiced overt racism...He was 31 years old before blacks were allowed...

Does the thought of Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon and Mormon leader, becoming President scare you? After reading this testimonial of an ex-Mormon ((http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_packham/why.html)), I am scared of Mitt Romney becoming President. Remember when Barack Obama was seeking the nomination in 2008, his 20 year attendance at Jerimiah Wright's church where radical preaching took place was glossed over by the American public and the press. I say we do not make the same mistake with Mitt Romney and his leadership role in the Mormon Church. In the GOP nominating process, let's explore Mitt's Mormon beliefs. Am I totally off base?...

Glenn Beck is hitting Newt pretty hard by his own admission. His reasons are primarily tangential as they focus less on Newt’s legislative record and more on Newt’s comments as a historian. He attacks Newt because he supposedly... (continued)

It is far too important to make sure the Republican Party does not again make the mistake of –attempting- to replace the Democrat impostor with our own impostor. Conservatives ARE the majority in this party and we must not allow the liberal tail to wag this dog any longer. We have listened to the moderates and fallen in line, year after year to our detriment. Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain. Where has it gotten us? When we did barely "win" an election here and there, we squandered every opportunity and even made things worse when we were handed a historic majority,...

Dear Mr. Joseph Smith, Is it a good work to vote my conscience or must I vote for elder Romney? Has anyone polled the mormon vote? Will the mormons vote their conscience or will they vote for Romney because he is a mormon? I voted for Romney because he's a mormon = I voted for Obama because he is black.

Mitt Romney's newly released tax returns provide more than an accounting of the Republican presidential candidate's remarkable personal wealth. The documents also give a rare glimpse into tithing to the Mormon church by one its most prominent members. Romney reports he will give a total of $4.13 million to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over two years as part of his overall charitable donations. The former Massachusetts governor reported income of about $43 million for the two years. Separately, over the past decade, Romney and his wife, Ann, have given more than $4.7 million to the denomination...

On his income taxes released today, we see that Romney gave $4 Million tithe donations to Mormon Church. Do Mormons help poor Americans with these donations? Do the Mormons have something similar to Catholic Charities, which helps thousands of Americans (both Catholic and non-Catholics) with basic life needs, medical help, childcare help, education help, etc. The main question is do Mormons use the $4 Million from Romney to ONLY advance the Mormon religion without helping the American poor. Does Romney even know or care what the Mormon Church does with his $4 Million donation? I think that is a fair...

SNIP ...a unique poll of more than 1,000 American Mormons, released this month by the respected and independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. It’s 125-page report is titled “Certain in their beliefs, uncertain in their place in society.“SNIP Here are just a few facts about Mormons from the Pew Forum’s extensive polling report:- Mormons make up two per cent of the U.S. population. They are concentrated in Utah (34 per cent), the Mountain states and the Pacific Northwest. - Nearly half (46%) of Mormons say that Mormons face a lot of discrimination in the U.S. today. That is...

Newt Gingrich, the winner in the Palmetto State's GOP primary, may have benefited from South Carolinians' uneasiness with Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. Exit polls show that 43 percent of voters who said that the candidates' religious beliefs mattered "a great deal" went for Gingrich. Only 9 percent went for Romney -- a lower percentage than he netted overall, where he is running in second. In contrast, of voters who said the religious beliefs of candidates didn't matter to them at all, Romney won 42 percent. SNIP Huckabee did add, however, that Romney may nevertheless have to address his faith to...

GREENVILLE, South Carolina--Outside Tommy's Ham House here this morning--where Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich scheduled back-to-back visits--a boisterous crowd of young, fresh-faced supporters was waving Romney signs and chanting, "MITT! MITT! MITT!"But this wasn't a grassroots youth movement rooted at the University of South Carolina. No, many of the students cheering on the candidate told BuzzFeed they were actually BYU students and young Mormons from D.C. and Virginia who traveled to the Palmetto State to give their coreligionist's presidential effort a much-needed jolt of energy.Kat Wardle, a 23-year-old BYU student who is spending the semester in Washington, D.C., said she...

Would you accept an ad from a religious sect touting a divine revelation given to a convicted sex abuser of two girls under 16? That's what the Star Tribune did Friday morning, running two ads from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One (on page A5 of my Minneapolis edition), simply says, "Jesus Christ, Son Ahman." The second, on A6, proclaimes "Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Given to President Warren Jeffs," and offers serveral writings for sale. Jeffs, the president of the polygamist sect, was convicted in 2011 of molesting two "child brides" aged 12 and...

In a new biography, two...Boston Globe reporters write about...Mitt Romney... On their hunt for The Real Romney, Scott Helman and Michael Kranish traced Romney's life... SNIP He...became a leader in the Mormon lay clergy...and eventually became the leader of more than a dozen congregations in eastern Massachusetts. SNIP Peggie HayesHelman: "One of the things the Mormon church does not look kindly upon is single parenthood. There was a woman named Peggie Hayes who had known Romney when she was in his ward. She had come from a family which had had some struggles, had looked to Mormonism to anchor them....

An author who grew up in the Mormon Church says she isn't surprised that a recent survey of Latter-day Saints (LDS) shows that they overwhelmingly consider themselves to be Christians. The survey, "Mormons in America: Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society," was conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. It shows that 97 percent of Mormons consider themselves Christians. But an earlier Pew survey of the general public found that only 51 percent of Americans agree. Tricia Erickson is the author of Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? The Mormon Church Versus the...

If you live in one of 13 select cities across the country, it’s likely you’ve seen the “I am a Mormon” ads on billboards, on TV or even on the side of a bus. The ads are a project of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “to break through the stereotypes of what people think they know about Mormons” and help make the country more comfortable with the faith of 14 million people. But while the “I am a Mormon” campaign started soon after the Republican presidential contest began heating up, church officials tell The Daily Caller it...