Mormons apologize for posthumous baptisms of Weisenthal's Parents.
The church also acknowledged that three relatives of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel were entered into the genealogy database, though not referred for baptism.
Asher Wiesenthal and Rosa Rapp were baptised in proxy ceremonies in temples in Utah and Arizona, according to the database records discovered by researcher Helen Radkey in Salt Lake City.
The Wiesenthal baptisms violated a 1995 pact in which the church agreed to stop baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims.
"We sincerely regret that the actions of an individual member of the church led to the inappropriate submission of these names," said church spokesman Michael Purdy.
"These submissions were clearly against the policy of the church. We consider this a serious breach of our protocol and we have suspended indefinitely this person's ability to access our genealogy records."
Mormons believe that they may be baptized by proxy for deceased ancestors who never had that opportunity.
Church members, however, are supposed to request such baptisms only for their own relatives, Purdy said.
The agreement over Holocaust victims came about after it was discovered that hundreds and thousands of names had been entered into Mormon records.
Jewish leaders said it was sacrilegious for Mormons to suggest Jews on their own were not worthy enough to receive God's eternal blessing. Radkey, who has been tracking Mormon genealogy records for a while for people who ought not to be there, said she inadvertently stumbled upon the Wiesenthal name a few weeks ago. Among others people she discovered had been baptized by proxy is President Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the baptisms.
Wiesenthal's father died in combat in World War I. His mother perished at the Belzec concentration camp in 1942. Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal died in 2005 after spending years hunting down Nazis.
"We are outraged that such insensitive actions continue in the Mormon Temples," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who participated in many of the high-level meetings between Jews and Mormon officials.
"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," he said in a written statement.
He expressed gratitude to Radkey for "exposing the latest outrage."
Radkey also found the names of relatives of Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
"In this case, the Wiesel family names were not submitted for baptisms but simply entered into a genealogical database," Purdy said. "Our system would have rejected those names had they been submitted."
Purdy said it was "distressing" that church members had violated policy and regretted that "an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention."
Radkey said the church makes such breaches possible because any member can submit a name not connected to their own family.
"There are way too many entries slipping through the cracks, including Jewish Holocaust victims," she said. "It's (the Mormons') belief to save the dead that is causing the problem."
Wiesel, meanwhile, told the Huffington Post that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, should speak to his own church and tell them to stop the practice of proxy baptisms on Jews.
The Romney family even posthumously baptized Ann Romney's atheist Father.
I mean, wow! How fucking crazy can you get?
Aside from the mere craziness of this and the belief that you can "baptize" someone after they die and they can choose accept it when they get to heaven (and that there is a heaven), let's examine the word baptize...I understand Catholics have a different interpretation of what baptize means and apparently Mormons are just making it up as they go but I was always under the impression that it meant you had to take an actual person (living presumably) and dunk them under water to spiritually cleanse them. And if spirits leave the body upon dying...How were the Mormons able to retrieve those spirits/souls??
And my question to any Mormon would be, HOW DO YOU KNOW?? Who was it that came up with this insane idea and why would you believe such nonsense?? And if you can baptize the dead, can I unbaptize dead Mormons? Or even unbaptize the dead people you baptized...And if you say "no"...Well, how do you know God didn't tell me I could in some gold tablets he gave me at the beach the other day??
And the other side of this is, WHO GIVES A SHIT!! Why would anyone care that Mormons and their phony religion are somehow changing the destiny of dead Jews or whomever...Jews don't believe this nonsense so why would they care any more than if a Wiccan somewhere was cursing the dead? And let's pretend it's all real; like any life long Jew is going to get to heaven and decide at the pearly gates that he is going to convert to Mormonism?? Apparently Mormons haven't met many Jews. But then again on the flip side, what if as it turns out, Mormonism IS the only way to get to heaven...Wouldn't these dead Jews (who invented this god in the first place) want to at least have that option on the table when it came down to their judgment day? I mean, why not...It's like an atheist doubling down on his death bed and accepting Christ or whatever...What harm could it do just in case?
Wow, look at me trying to make sense out of religion....I feel like a dog chasing it's tail.
