On Tue, 6 May 2008 20:52:38 -0700 (PDT), "the_verminator@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"
<the_verminator@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On May 6, 9:57 pm, carol...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Carole Allen) wrote:
>> On Tue, 06 May 2008 09:43:08 -0500, clifto <cli...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >http://www.sltrib.com/ci_9155036
>>
>> >"The Roman Catholic Church has recently directed dioceses worldwide
not
>> >to give parish information to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
>> >Saints. The move is to prevent LDS Church members from baptizing by
proxy
>> >Catholic ancestors."
>>
>> This is discouraging.
>>
>
>Blame it on the Mormons.
>
>I have no problem with them "sealing" those who were actually members
>of their faith;
>but to run around willy-nilly doing it to practically anyone they can
>make a connection to -
>even those long dead before Mormonism was founded- strikes me as odd
>in the extreme.
The problem is, it is precisely their interest in preselytising ancestors
that
motivated them to collect genealogical records kept by other religious
bodies
in the first place.
Genealogists of all religions or none have indirectly benefited from this
since it is often easier to use the copies of the records the LDS have
collected than it is to use the originals, but that doesn't dispose of the
theological objections, which in this case are that the information in the
registers will be misused, in the view of the body theat collected the
information in the first place.
Some Anglicans have had similar objections, which is why the IGI coverage
of
some parts of England has been much much thinner than in others.
For myself, When I first started doing genealogy some 30 years ago, I was
quite surprised to see that my grandparents, who were Methodists when they
died, had been baptised into the LDS Church, and wondered which relative
had
done the proxy baptism on their behalf.
Again, speaking personally, though I am not a member of the LDS, I think
that
the theological objection can be overcome by the thought that if the LDS
religion is not true, proxy baptism on their behalf will make no
difference
whatever to the eternal destiny of my ancestors or those of anyone else.
But I suggest that prolonged discussion of the theological points involved
preferably not take place in genealogy newsgroups.
[Crossposted to some religious NGs, suggest that follow-ups be set to
those
groups if discussion gets too theological ]
--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: hayesmstw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(see web page if it doesn't work)
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/famhist1.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7783/
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