Mormon Leaders Warn Followers To Stop Controversial Baptisms
02:47 pm
March 3, 2012
by Howard Berkes
Mormons around the world are getting this warning Sunday: Stop posthumous baptisms of "unauthorized groups, such as celebrities and Jewish Holocaust victims."
"Our preeminent obligation is to seek out and identify our own ancestors," says a letter to be read in every Mormon congregation. "Those whose names are submitted for proxy [baptisms] should be related to the submitter."
Mormons who continue to embarrass the faith by submitting the names of celebrities and Holocaust victims for the proxy baptism rite will lose access to the Mormon genealogical records, the letter warns. "Other corrective action may also be taken," it says.
The letter is signed by church President Thomas Monson and his two "counselors" in the Mormon First Presidency, the top leadership of the faith.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/03/03/147877754/mormon-leaders-warn-followers-to-stop-controversial-baptisms
