Debate over illegal immigrants' status in Church

Comments made by an LDS Church leader this week again stirred debate in

Mormon circles about whether the church should baptize illegal

immigrants or allow them to enter its temples.

"The church's view of someone in undocumented status is akin, in a way,

to a civil trespass," said Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy,

relating it to coming onto someone's property uninvited. "There is

nothing inherent or wrong about that status."

Elder Jensen's comment came Wednesday during an interfaith forum on

immigration at Westminster College in response to an audience question.

The LDS Church has no official policy on illegal immigration nor does

it ask local clergy to question prospective converts or members seeking

temple privileges about their citizenship status.

"The church does not see itself as an enforcement agency," Mark Tuttle,

a spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said

Thursday, repeating earlier church statements.

That doesn't sit well with some Latter-day Saints who wonder why the

church baptizes people and issues temple recommends to members who live

in the country illegally. To qualify for a recommend, they must avow to

a bishop and a stake president that they are honest in their dealings

with others.

Some members can't reconcile church membership and illegal status,

particularly in light of one of the church's Articles of Faith that

states, "We believe ... in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law."

"I wonder how they'd feel about the second great commandment, to love