Comments on: Catholic Sacramental Records…(For Catholic Eyes Only!)

By: b rivers

b rivers — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:37:00 +0000

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….

By: Sgbuck2

Sgbuck2 — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:45:52 +0000

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!

By: Annette

Annette — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:39:21 +0000

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.

By: zwagner1

zwagner1 — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:19:27 +0000

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??

By: hawkgrrrl

hawkgrrrl — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:03:02 +0000

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).

By: MarkG

MarkG — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:09:14 +0000

Nick, I would respectfully suggest you study the history of Christianity.

By: this IS silly

this IS silly — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:59:35 +0000

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.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:52:33 +0000

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.

By: Hugh McNichol

Hugh McNichol — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:26:23 +0000

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.

By: Hugh McNichol

Hugh McNichol — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:22:31 +0000

By: JD

JD — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:59:14 +0000

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.

By: Jann

Jann — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:03:15 +0000

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.

By: MarkG

MarkG — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:58:25 +0000

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.

By: jgreep

jgreep — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:54:54 +0000

The 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?”