Information of course is the most powerful instrument of controlling a person, situation or for that matter the Catholic Church. Recently it was revealed that the uppermost echelons of the Vatican have directed information regarding baptismal records for Catholics be withheld from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, more commonly called the Mormons. Such a directive to withhold Catholic records from another church is being met with mixed emotions by the secular press and other religious organizations. The most popular argument is this information is public information and everyone has the right to know the genealogical foundations of their family origins. The Catholic Church maintains the withholding of this information is to prohibit the Mormon action of postmortem baptism on non-Mormons. Well, withholding the information is the right course of action, not because we are trying to hide anything from interested genealogical researchers, but because the Church has the obligation and responsibility to safeguard sensitive information contained in its records.
Catholic sacramental records are the tangible link each parish holds to the Catholic heritages of our ancestors. Before the information era, these records for over 1000 years have provided scholarly researchers and legitimate historians the opportunity to study and maintain a careful index of Catholic believers regardless of the world’s situation happening all around them. In the United States especially, the accuracy of proper recordkeeping in parish registers has always been one of the finest hallmarks of our Catholic clergy. These records provide not only a genealogical resource, but also a historical and sociological record that portrays the uniquely personal journey of Catholic faith for millions of believers from their Baptisms, and their subsequent Sacramental lives as Catholics. From a historical perspective Catholic Church Baptismal notations document an individual’s parents, sponsors and even circumstances surrounding the birth of an individual that might best remain private. Sometimes, not all births and Baptisms happened in the best of situations. Sometimes individuals were born out of wedlock, perhaps a father was unknown or a child might have even been adopted.
All of this information is contained within the Baptismal records of an individual parish. The best course for this information is on a need to know basis and withholding our sacramental records from another religious group of believers is indeed the best thing to do. Aside from the obvious concerns about Mormon postmortem baptism being applied to all of the faithful Catholic people that are listed in our parish records and indexes, the private and personal details of a person’s chronological journey of faith is contained in these journals, and should be considered as privileged information by all members of the Church.
Church records should be rightly considered as the medicinal records of the soul and should not be shared with anyone that does not have a legitimate reason to view these sensitive snippets of a person’s theological history. Catholic priests and parish administrators need to carefully observe the requirements of privacy as is applied to these Catholic canonical records, and securely safeguard this information in the same manner we protect ourselves today from electronic identity theft and information piracy. The postmortem practice of the Mormons of rebaptizing the Catholic faithful departed is comparative with piracy of not just a person’s personal information, but piracy of a person’s free will and soul as well. While the concept seems ridiculous to imagine, the faithful departed have the right to expect information protection and soul protection after their departure from a Catholic choice of life. After all, deceased Catholics now participate in the Body of Christ in a transformed manner and still deserve our adequate prayers and protection.
If indeed there is a legitimate request for information from the heirs or ancestors of a particular family, such requests should be made through the proper procedures and policies of the local Bishop. However, it seems that the discretion of the parish priest responsible for the preservation and care of these documents and information should always prevail and every precaution should be made to protect the reputation and good name of the person whose information is being requested. That of course brings with it other responsibilities regarding confidences and protection of information under a veil of confidentiality and so on. However, it seems very apparent we need to safeguard the theological integrity of all of our faithful members, living and dead from all types of pre and post mortem evangelization, however unusual from other faiths and religions.
While on the surface, the Vatican’s decision to keep this information from the Mormon’s seems to be a bit overbearing and perhaps un-ecumenical …it is indeed the correct and proper course of action for the Church on a global basis. In addition to recognizing the personal and confidential aspects of a person’s theological journey of faith, everyone needs to realize they do not have the right to casually review or gather information just because they have asked for it. Imagine if the Mormon Church requested information on every American’s social security number, or copies of all individual tax returns for the past century…what type of uproar would ensue?
Genealogical and historical research is an exemplary activity when information is gathered in the proper and correct context to reviewing that information. Catholic sacramental records are just that: CATHOLIC sacramental records and should be treated as valuable and sensitive information to be reviewed by a person or group with a legitimate cause and reason. Deviation from this policy and procedure violate
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14 users commented in " Catholic Sacramental Records…(For Catholic Eyes Only!) "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThe reasoning of expected privacy is at best a diversion of the real issue of ignorance and intolerance. Be assured that the ruling cannot stand and will only serve to erode the foundation of the Catholic church. This is what it means to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The mark of true Christianity is not merely symbolic hand-waving. To quote Matthew 7:16: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
Performing baptism vicariously on behalf of dead ancestors was practised by early christians before there was a Catholic church. LDS christians performing these baptisms do so as an act of love for their ancestors, many of whom had never heard of the Savior during their life, and do so in the belief that such persons can accept or reject the vicarious baptism. No deceased Catholic is baptised a Mormon by force. Such would be ridiculous.
As to Parish records, they should be available to all, regadless of religious belief. The Mormon family history libraries around the world are open free of charge to all faiths.
If the Catholic Church does not recognize the legitimacy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then it does not make sense that it would care whether vicarious baptisms are performed on behalf of those ancestors.
While non-mainstream LDS (Mormon) theology is logically consistent. If one believes, as Mormons and Catholics do, that baptism is a necessary sacrament to receive in order to return to God’s presence/heaven, then all should have the opportunity to receive it.
According to LDS theology, a vicarious baptism allows for individuals in the hereafter to accept or reject the baptism performed on their behalf. Otherwise only certain people will have the opportunity to receive the sacrament.
It is not the Catholic Church’s job to police what practices the Mormons should or should not adopt. Baptism for the dead does absolutely no harm to Catholics, who do not recognize the validity of the ordinance. And yet it has tremendous meaning for Mormons as a way of honoring their ancestors. Seeing as how baptism for the dead has absolutely no detrimental effect on Catholics, it’s hard not to see this latest policy chance as being mean-spirited. Click here to learn more about baptism for the dead.
In fact baptismal records are not public record. If indeed post mortem baptism is performed as an after life act of love, itis surely not an instituted sacrament. Catholic sacraments are intended for the living members of the Body of Christ, deceased members of faith no longer need the sacramental graces bestowed upon them by temporal sacraments.
In fact baptismal records are not public record. If indeed post mortem baptism is performed as an after life act of love, itis surely not an instituted sacrament. Catholic sacraments are intended for the living members of the Body of Christ, deceased members of faith no longer need the sacramental graces bestowed upon them by temporal sacraments.
Additionally, making Catholic records of baptism available for Mormon use only lends credibility to an action we see as sacramentally inpossible.
If they want members that badly, they should use the collective records of secular institutions to accomplish their evangelical and sacramental purposes, and not Catholic sacramental records.The Vatican is not mean spirited, it is rightly preserving and protecting the spiritual welfare of its members past, present and future.
This is a ridiculous article. Why is this about the Catholic Church defending their right to protect sensitive documents belonging to faithful Catholics and not about Mormons performing postmortem baptisms? Once a person dies their fate is sealed, they, nor anyone else can do anything to change that. These people died as Catholics of their own free will. Why isn’t this about how outrageous it is for the Mormons to be doing this? What in the world is going on here? We live in a strange, bizarre world. God, help us.
MarkG said “Performing baptism vicariously on behalf of dead ancestors was practised by early christians before there was a Catholic church.”[Sic] Dude, there weren’t any early Christians before the Catholic Church. Jesus, himself, founded the Catholic Church.
If anyone in the Mormon religion is doing it, it is because those records belong to those people just as much, if not more than the Catholic church. This is because the Mormon church dictates that you can only baptize those who are in your lineage – that means they have to be related to the person who is doing the proxy baptism. It is not the Mormon church as a whole who is just taking records and baptizing every name they receive. It is through members of the church who are doing this – but only if they are directly related.
Let’s say you wanted to know who your great-great-grandparents were, and lets say they happened to be Jewish. But you were not of the Jewish religion. Why then, shouldn’t you be able to receive that info? Those are your parents!
Please understand as well that the baptism is a proxy baptism and that it is not forced, but up to the deceased to decide if they wish to receive it or not.
This mishap by the Catholic church only solidifies the fact that they *must* believe the LDS church has the true priesthood – for if they didn’t believe that, why would this matter? If the Catholics truly believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a phony church – then what’s the problem? That would only mean to them that the baptism is nothing more than a bath.
Nick, I would respectfully suggest you study the history of Christianity.
Here’s a comparison. My sister was born in a Catholic hospital. The nurse insisted that the infant be baptized before they could be released from the hospital. My mother initially asked, “Why? She’s a baby and has no sin. We aren’t Catholic, and we aren’t raising her Catholic.” The nurse exclaimed that the baby would go to Hell if she died without baptism. So, my mother said to go ahead if it pleased her since she didn’t recognize the ordinance but saw no actual harm in it either.
So, apparently the Catholic church (at least in this case) can dish it out (to the living, no less), but not take it (even though the dead can refuse posthumous ordinances).
I dont understand because the Catholic church claims to not regonize Mormon baptism for the dead… then why do they care if they do it or not, if they have declared it useless and invalid??
The Catholic Church is opposed to re-baptism. It doesn’t want to be a party to it or facilitate it. As a private institution, the Catholic Church has the authority to make its own decisions and is not answerable to LDS.
Maybe the Catholic Church knows that LDS members posthumously baptize Jewish victims of the Holocaust, despite periodic promises since 1995 by LDS leadership to put a halt to it.
Catholics have obviously heard of the Savior, so the argument that they need to be baptized after they’re dead doesn’t hold water.
The Catholic Church isn’t policing what the Mormons do, it’s restating its policy on what it itself does.
The Mormon Church doesn’t make its ordnances public and shouldn’t have to, and there’s no reason that the Catholic Church should make its sacramental records public.
Dear Hugh,
Do you really believe you are protecting Catholic dead from Mormons in the after life by keeping ancestral records from them here on earth. Wow! What do you think is going on among the dead anyway? Are they powerless and must become Mormons if a proxy baptism is preformed here on earth? Do you think they are being evangelized and cannot resist because the Mormon’s are teaching them? Wow! If that is the case you had better hide your records or some dead Mormon in the after life will force you to be a Mormon. Then you will go straight to hell because that baptism is not recognized by God. Or perhaps if you run into a Mormon here you had better run for your life, least he forces you to become a member of that awful but very powerful church. Please!
wow, babtizm for the dead, I know so many Catholics who have passed, and never were taught the gospel. Give the dead in the afterlife the chance to recieve the ordinance if they choose.. I was a Catholic and now a convert to the Mormon Faith. The best thing I have everdone in my Life, it was Gods Plan. Catholic for 30 yrs and the church never , never taught about me about salvation, or to live the example Jesus Christ set for us. But I was taught to Babtize your baby right away, even though the scriptures say, all children belong to Christ. Repeat prayers (rosary) never being taught to pray from your heart. Forced to go to confession before recieving communion, even though I was not sinning age 5, so ridiculous. I never new of one Catholic that owened or read the Holy Bible. I everyone only new what the Church of Christ of Latter-Day Saints does for the members to help you in everyway to try to live a righteous life, thats what we all do is Love one another, and be their for each member or non member. This is what is important. Everything else falls in place according to Gods Plan. He will never fail you and will give you a true understanding to his Plan. Our Heavenly Father and Lord Jesus Christ need us all to help one another so we can return back home where we belong. Love You no matter what religion or belief….
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