Reader comments
Holocaust survivors halt talks with LDS

here we go again...

It's disturbing that this keeps happening. "The Church" has been asked to stop this a number of times and they have said they will stop doing it.

It's about time they actually live up to their word and respect others beliefs.

"We do not ask for, or want your love"
I'm LDS, and would be touched if a Jew, Catholic, Muslim, etc...would devote any resources to my salvation, whether or not I believed it would help.

I'm LDS and know Baptisms for the Dead is a valid practice, whether anyone believes it or not. If someone who is Catholic prays for a Jewish friend who then died and had a mass service to bless the Jewish friend, what effect does it have upon Judaism? Zero. It is simply a gesture of goodwill faith and charity towards one another, not taking away the Jewish identity nor any other religion for that matter. I've had friends who are Baptists, Lutherans, among other non-denominatal religions pray for my Catholic father at his funeral and I appreciate that very much. Wouldn�t it be sad if the younger Jewish generation didn�t know whose ancestors were in the holocaust? I think it builds faith and family bonding for everyone and takes nothing away from us.

If the Jewish group does not believe in the practice that the Mormons are doing, what does it matter if the Mormons continue? What are they afraid that this practice will do to their deceased loved ones? Could someone explain why this is such a big deal?

If the Jews, like the Catholics who also have pulled back on the availability of their geneological records, don't believe that the Mormons are the 'true faith' anyway, then why the concern over the proxy practices of the LDS Church? If a person leaves the LDS faith and decides to join another, will the new denomination accept his Mormon baptism? Of course not, and if the sect requires baptism for entrance, he will be baptized again. Call me simplistic, but if you don't recognize the spiritual authority of a religion in this life, why are you worried about it's standing in the next? With all due respect to the Jewish (and Catholic) leadership, their position couldn't be more intellectually inconsistent. Mormons let all other faiths worship "how, where and what they may," and simply ask the same privilege in return.

Why don't you stick to baptizing your own? Leave the Holocaust families alone -- you have no idea how the idea of Baptism hurts Jews.

Would they be angry if Catholics were lighting candles for them? I guess I feel that in this way we are saying "we will never forget" those who perished. We will keep these names connected to their other family members safe. We are Christians who take the responsibility of caring for others very seriously indeed- we do not talk, but we act.

Compassion for the living should outweigh concern for the dead: Leave Holocaust victims out of the geneology/temple work program. If this is the Lord's work, it will all get sorted out in the eternities.

What happened?
I thought LDS authorities had promised this practice was to be halted?!!!

If Jews do not believe the LDS religion is a true religion then why do they worry so much about this? If they don't believe in it then why are they so upset? I am hurt that it was said that the Jews from the Holocaust have been hurt enough and that they don't need any more pain (through doing baptisms for the dead). Baptisms for the dead do not hurt anyone it quite does the opposite.

Members of the Church can add names of their ancestors; it is not necessarily the Church itself putting the names in.

Time and time again the LDS church has violated their agreement with the Jewish community to cease baptizing holocaust victims. With the sophisticated computers and equipment the LDS Church uses to track geneology and baptisms, surely its an easy proposition to flag the names of these victims as ineligible for baptism. It seems extremely hypocritical for church spokesman Mike Otterman to accuse the Jewish community of belying mutual respect when it is the LDS church who first violates that respect. This issue and the agreements were made over a decade ago, how long does it take to ensure this practice stops? The statements and agreements and expressed respect for the Jewish community that have been made by the LDS Church appear to be more and more hollow every time they violate their agreement. How can the church possibly expect to be respected when they are the first to repeatedly violate that mutual respect themselves?

No one can be baptized for another person, especially if that person is dead. That person can be baptized only if he/she believes in Christ and wishes to be saved per Christ's teaching. There can be no baptism of the dead as practiced by the Mormon church. You can do proxy baptism until you are as WRINKLED AS A PRUNE and it will still not be valid. You can only pray for people's eternal souls. If they didn't get baptized while they were alive, then you can't do it when they're dead. It was THEIR choice and IS NOT YOURS OR ANYONE ELSE'S. Worry about your own souls!

I am by Jewish tradition a Jew although I am a fifth generation active Mormon. My mother's mother was a Jew as my LDS geneolgy has turned up. I have therefore submitted a few names of that line for temple ordinances. None were holocaust survivors, but had they been I would have submitted the names.

For the life of me, I cannot see the problem

Not only is Ricky right but what organization in this world has a greater right than that of a literal descendant? I say none!

When my father died, the Filipino Roman Catholics in my office collected donations and sent them to a monastery in Mississippi to have his name prayed over. At first, I was taken aback. He was not Catholic. But after thinking about gesture, I realized that my co-workers were trying to show me their love in the way that was most meaningful to them. I do not consider it disrespectful, just different. People should accept genuine love when it is shown to them.

I've never understood the anger over this. If you're not LDS and don't believe the baptism is valid or has any effect, what could it possibly hurt to allow it to be carried out? I had a baby sister (born three years before I, over 50 years ago) who lived only three days. She (as I) was born in a Catholic hospital, and when the nuns realized she was not going to survive, they made arrangements to have her baptized. Now we were not Catholic, but the nuns felt they were doing the right thing, and one of them came apologetically to my mother following my sister's death to tell her what she had done and ask for my mother's "forgiveness" for doing this without her consent. I always remember that my mother told the nun she had nothing to worry about -- that the baptism had not "hurt" my sister since we didn't believe in infant baptism anyway or the validity of it. She knew the nun's heart was in the right place and that there had been no ill intention on her part. The same would seem true in this instance.

How magnanimous of you to tell me it's a valid practice. Mormons spend so much time telling everyone else that they have the real way to salvation, that they think little of trampling on other religions. How about if I, as a Catholic, knocked on your door repeatedly to tell you the "one true way?" I'm sure you'd be as welcoming as I am to your Missionaries.

Ricky,

Why wouldn't younger Jewish generations know whose ancestors were in the Holocaust? Please explain yourself.