Mountain Meadows: Church asked to turn over site, take names off records

After nearly a century and a half of angst over what occurred there, top LDS leaders have attempted in recent years to properly memorialize the victims by erecting monuments, walking paths and parking lots at the site. This month, the church's widely circulated magazine, the Ensign, contains an article for Latter-day Saints that acknowledges the part local leaders of the church in that area played in planning and carrying out the massacre.

The church maintains that then-church President Brigham Young did not order the massacre, and in fact, sent word — which arrived too late — to let the party pass through the area unharmed. A book by three LDS Church historians detailing their research into the events is scheduled for publication by Oxford University Press in the near future.

Other historical accounts — and a new fictionalized feature film, "September Dawn" — have portrayed Young as the one who ordered the massacre.

The Ensign article, which was first posted on the church's Web site in June after a PBS documentary film "The Mormons" explored the massacre, is believed to be the church's first detailed public examination of LDS leadership and participation in the murders in more than a century.

As to whether the church will offer a formal apology for the massacre, Elder Jensen said he doesn't know. "I know that the (church's) First Presidency will authorize a statement to be made" during the Sept. 11 commemoration. "I'm sure it will be a statement in the spirit of that occasion, but I don't know the exact content at this point."

Only one local church leader, John D. Lee, was tried, convicted and executed in the 19th century for his leadership and participation in the massacre.

As next weekend's events unfold, members of the MMMF also are expected to discuss whether to formally request that the LDS Church remove the names of all wagon train victims and survivors from the church's baptismal data base. Latter-day Saints perform vicarious baptisms for the dead in their temples with the belief that such ordinances are required for exaltation in heaven after death.

Elder Jensen said such requests are considered on an individual basis and "under appropriate circumstances, we do grant requests to the extent that we no longer display those records in our public data bases. We have no way, as a church, of undoing ordinances that have been performed.

"But out of courtesy, if there is a strong relationship demonstrated between the submitter and the party for whom ordinance work was done, in some limited instances we've limited the view of those names in our public data bases out of respect to those making the request and out of respect to the dead."