Posted on 05/02/2008 12:03:45 PM PDT by colorcountry
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah.
An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers.
The order came in light of "grave reservations" expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation's letter said.
Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said the step was taken to prevent the Latter-day Saints from using records -- such as baptismal documentation -- to posthumously baptize by proxy the ancestors of church members.
Posthumous baptisms by proxy have been a common practice for the Latter-day Saints -- commonly known as Mormons -- for more than a century, allowing the church's faithful to have their ancestors baptized into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife, said Mike Otterson, a spokesman in the church's Salt Lake City headquarters.
In a telephone interview with CNS May 1, Otterson said he wanted a chance to review the contents of the letter before commenting on how it will affect the Mormons' relationship with the Catholic Church.
"This dicastery is bringing this matter to the attention of the various conferences of bishops," the letter reads. "The congregation requests that the conference notifies each diocesan bishop in order to ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted in his territory, due to the confidentiality of the faithful and so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
The letter is dated 10 days before Pope Benedict XVI's April 15-20 U.S. visit, during which he presided over an ecumenical prayer service attended by two Mormon leaders. It marked the first time Mormons had participated in a papal prayer service.
Father Massa said he could see how the policy stated in the letter could strain relations between the Catholic Church and the Latter-day Saints.
"It certainly has that potential," he said. "But I would also say that the purpose of interreligious dialogue is not to only identify agreements, but also to understand our differences. As Catholics, we have to make very clear to them their practice of so-called rebaptism is unacceptable from the standpoint of Catholic truth."
The Catholic Church will eventually open a dialogue with the Mormons about the rebaptism issue, Father Massa said, "but we are at the beginning of the beginning of a new relationship with the LDS. The first step in any dialogue is to establish trust and to seek friendship."
The two faiths share intrinsic viewpoints on key issues the United States is facing, particularly the pro-life position on abortion and an opposition to same-sex marriage.
However, theological differences have cropped up between Mormons and Catholics in the past.
In 2001 the Vatican's doctrinal congregation issued a ruling that baptism conferred by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot be considered a valid Christian baptism, thus requiring converts from that religion to Catholicism to receive a Catholic baptism.
"We don't have an issue with the fact that the Catholic Church doesn't recognize our baptisms, because we don't recognize theirs," Otterson said. "It's a difference of belief."
When issuing its 2001 ruling, the Vatican said that even though the Mormon baptismal rite refers to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the church's beliefs about the identity of the three persons are so different from Catholic and mainline Christian belief that the rite cannot be regarded as a Christian baptism.
Latter-day Saints regard Jesus and the Holy Spirit as children of the Father and the Heavenly Mother. They believe that baptism was instituted by the Father, not Christ, and that it goes back to Adam and Eve.
Msgr. J. Terrence Fitzgerald -- vicar general of the Diocese of Salt Lake City -- said he didn't understand why the Latter-day Saints church was singled out in this latest Vatican policy regarding parish records.
"We have a policy not to give out baptismal records to anyone unless they are entitled to have them," Msgr. Fitzgerald said of his diocese. "That isn't just for the Church of the Latter-day Saints. That is for all groups."
Though he said the Salt Lake City Diocese has enjoyed a long-standing dialogue with the Latter-day Saints, Msgr. Fitzgerald said the diocese does not support giving the Mormons names for the sake of rebaptism.
Mormons have been criticized by several other faiths -- perhaps most passionately by the Jews -- for the church's practice of posthumous baptism.
Members of the Latter-day Saints believe baptizing their ancestors by proxy gives the dead an opportunity to embrace the faith in the afterlife. The actual baptism-by-proxy ceremony occurs in a Mormon temple, and is intended to wash sins away for the commencement of church membership.
Jewish leaders have called the practice arrogant and said it is disrespectful to the dead, especially Holocaust victims.
"Baptism by proxy is a fundamentally important doctrine of the Latter-day Saints," Otterson said. "We have cooperative relationships with churches, governments -- both state and national -- going back to the last century. Our practice of negotiating for records and making them available for genealogical research is very well known."
Father Massa said he is not aware of aggressive attempts to obtain baptismal records at Catholic parishes in any of the U.S. dioceses.
He also said the Catholic Church will continue to reach out to the Mormons and carry on the efforts of understanding that have already begun, especially in Salt Lake City.
"Profound theological differences are not an excuse for avoiding dialogue, but a reason for pursuing dialogue," Father Massa said.
END
Is this what’s got the church’s back to the wall in the 2000s.
It must be tough when another church can convert your dead members.
I know you dear.
Hi TheDon:
For you and are other non-Catholic friends, Purgatory has to be understood in the context of how Catholics understand Grace and sin. Sin ruptures and breaks our communion with God and it is Grace that justifies us and makes us Holy. Thus, Grace, from the Catholic perspective is “transformative” and not just a covering of God’s Grace, which is the classic Protestant understanding. The Catechism discusses Grace in paragraph 1996 and 1997:
CCC 1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.
CCC 1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an “adopted son” he can henceforth call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.
The Catechism states that as sanctifying Grace, God shares his divine life and friendship with us in a habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that enables the soul to live with God and act by his love. As actual grace, God gives us the help to conform our lives to his will.
With respect to Purgatory, the Catechism states:
CCC 1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:
CCC 1031-contnued: As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.
So, when we see Christ state that only the pure of heart shall see God (cf. Mt 5:8) amd that “nothing unclean shall enter heaven” (cf Rev 21: 27). The CCC in para 1031 refers to Mt 12:32, which states that some “sins will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come” and St. Paul in 1 Cor 3:15 states that “but if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire”. A point here is that the Latin word purgation means to “pass through fire”, which is where the word purgatory comes from.
We also see in 1 Pet 3: 19 we see that “Christ went to speak to the spirits in prison” and later in 1 Pet 4:6 we read “For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead that condemned in the flesh in human estimation, they might live in the spirit in the estimation of God”. While these passages don’t prove purgatory, they do imply a spiritual state that is not hell or Heaven. Finally, we also read 2 Mac 12:46 that “prayers were offered for the dead”, which of course is in the Catholic and Orthodox OT canons, but not Protestant.
In summary, the doctrine of purgatory is consistent with the Catholic understanding of Grace and Sin and is supported by Sacred Scripture. In addition, the Sacred Tradition of the Church, as confirmed by the Church Fathers also supports the doctrine of Purgatory as prayers for the dead all clearly taught by the Fathers. For example,
ST Cyril of Jerusalem writes:
Then we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition; next, we make mention also of the holy fathers and bishops who have already fallen asleep, and, to put it simply, of all among us who have already fallen asleep. For we believe that it will be of very great benefit to the souls of those for whom the petition is carried up, while this holyand most solemn sacrifice is laid out” (Catechetical Lectures 23:5:9 [A.D. 350]).
ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA writes:
“If a man distinguish in himself what is peculiarly human from that which is irrational, and if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted, overcoming the irrational by reason. If he have inclined to the irrational pressure of the passions, using for the passions the cooperating hide of things irrational, he may afterward in a quite different manner be very much interested in what is better, when, after his departure out of the body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire” (Sermon on the Dead [A.D. 382]).
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM writes:
“Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice [Job 1:5], why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them” (Homilies on 1 Corinthians 41:5 [A.D. 392]).
ST. Augustine writes:
There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered. It is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended (Sermons 159:1 [A.D. 411]).
But by the prayers of the holy Church, and by the salvific sacrifice, and by the alms which are given for their spirits, there is no doubt that the dead are aided, that the Lord might deal more mercifully with them than their sins would deserve. The whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the body and blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf. If, then, works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead (ibid., 172:2).
Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment (The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 419]).
That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity 18:69 [A.D. 421]).
While you may not agree with the doctrine of Purgatory, the Catholic Church’s doctrine is well grounded in both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
Hope this helps
To say the practice is deplorable is an understatement. It’s like ID theft from the grave, and couldn’t be more inappropriate. The LSD should
As I understand it, the DAR will not accept the LDS geneological records to establish membership. It doesn’t have very high standing among people who take their geneological research seriously.
There isn't the faintest shadow in that passage of living Christians on earth going through a literal proxy baptism on behalf of the dead.
Thank God, because I don’t usually talk to strangers.
Some of their online services are not free.
They do not have to steal the US Social Security database. It is already online at their own websites, as well as others.
However, the DAR will accept Church records, as well as civil records, as evidence of an event such as a baptism/birth, marriage or death.
To say the practice is deplorable is an understatement. It’s like ID theft from the grave, and couldn’t be more inappropriate. The LSD should
****
It would be nice if you folks found out the facts before you started venting on the LDS.
There is no way the LDS can convert a soul that is between the decease and the Spirit of the Lord.
The LDS only provide a vicarious gift in reserve should the recipient choose to receive it.
Some how this seem to register in many minds here!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2010359/posts?page=64#64
1). If the Holy Ghost does it, why do you here on Earth need to be part of the process?
2). And if it is the right thing to do, why has the LDS Church agreed to not do it anymore?
3). And since they’ve previously agreed not to do it anymore, why do they continue to allow it?
I would appreciate an honest answer to those three questions.
I’ve been supportive of Mormons on this board, and bear no LSD animus, but the idea that they can take steps to baptize or posthumously take liberties with spirits of the dead is, I am sorry to say, outrageous. Not to mention just plain creepy.
The vatican is not prone to issuing statements like this without having a fine understanding of exactly what is done. I’ll take their word for it.
“Why would they worry about it?”
Makes no sense to oppose it.
You would think Catholics would be happy to have us Mormons spend our time and resources building, maintaining and attending temples that they think accomplish nothing. If we didn’t do that, we would have a more available to put into missionary work for the living.
By LDS doctrine, the person the baptism is done for has to want it to be done for it to have any validity, so opposing it is like saying a) the Mormons have the authority to do this and b) those they are done for will be happy for the chance to leave the Catholic church.
“Giving LDS the records (knowing that the LDS will then use them for “posthumous baptisms”) might be seen as recognising the legitimacy said “posthumous baptisms”. In fact, the Church considers any LDS “baptism” to be invalid, spurious, null-and-void, utterly without effect ...”
Then what is there to fear in our doing them? The church has done a great public service in gathering genological information, putting it in digital format and making it available to the world. If they think proxy baptism we do are pointless, what reason is there to try and stop us from doing it? Objecting like this does far more to portray it as legitimate then ignoring it would.
“Baptizing dead people by proxy is utterly ridiculous...”
Check out 1Cor15:29 sometime. It is a ancient Christian practice. Catholics kind of changed it to praying and lighting candles for the dead, but the idea is similar.
“Let’s go farther.
Let’s actually create a special Unsealing Ceremony for the Dead.”
Go ahead, it wouldn’t upset me in the least. In fact, why don’t you spend millions building temples to do this in, and be sure to make the ceremony take a significant amount of time. I would actually be quite happy to see you put so much time and effort into such a venture, it would show you really believe in it.
You aren’t just all talk now are you?
1). If the Holy Ghost does it, why do you here on Earth need to be part of the process?
As I said in one of my post the Holy Ghost witness to me than I investigated the Church and part of the Lord’s commandments is one has to be baptized.
The decease has no physical body that ordinance was to take place on earth the dead can not come back!
So it is done vicariously by those who generous and lovingly give up their time to help another be on their way in their journey preparing for the Great and Dreadful day of the Lord.
2). And if it is the right thing to do, why has the LDS Church agreed to not do it anymore?
3). And since they’ve previously agreed not to do it anymore, why do they continue to allow it?
I am a lay person I am sure there is more to understand than is being reported.
****
Whether the work gets done now or in the 1000 years of peace it will get done.
All will stand before God and be they clean or not if this option of vicarious baptism for the dead was not available many good souls would not be fit for the Kingdom and would be denied to fulfill the Lord’s ordinance and therefore would could not enter into the Kingdom of the Lord.
Romans 14
7 For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.
8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.
9 For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.
10 But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
Mark 16
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
John 3:
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the [Celestrial] kingdom of God.
***
The vatican is not prone to issuing statements like this without having a fine understanding of exactly what is done. I’ll take their word for it.
I think this should have been highlighted
snip
Msgr. J. Terrence Fitzgerald -- vicar general of the Diocese of Salt Lake City -- said he didn't understand why the Latter-day Saints church was singled out in this latest Vatican policy regarding parish records.
"We have a policy not to give out baptismal records to anyone unless they are entitled to have them," Msgr. Fitzgerald said of his diocese. "That isn't just for the Church of the Latter-day Saints. That is for all groups."
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