Way to go, fellahs.
After 104 years, some bureaucrat in the depths of the Vatican finally noticed that the LDS church was collecting baptismal records from far and wide for their geneology collection…And (gasp! Horrors!) once in awhile, a good member of the LDS church will undergo a ceremony to baptise his ancestors so that they can join the extended family (if they want to) in the next life.
As a result, that narrow minded bureaucrat has decided to stop this “detrimental practice”.
Getta grip,guys.
Don’t you have enough sin and heresy in the Catholic church to worry about without stopping a practice that is harmless to the souls of Catholics, and extremely valuable for families and historians who wish to search the geneological records for information?
The LDS church has been collecting geneology records since 1894. Some came from converts’ own data (e.g. family bibles) but many of them came from baptismal records.
When civilization broke down, or when government data was sketchy, one treasure trove for historians is the birth and death records kept by Catholic priests in the parish records.
Government records might have information for the past 300 years, and some countries have other historical documents, (e.g. the Doomsday book) but a lot of historical data can be mined from baptismal records.
Want to find the death rate from the black plague in 1469? How about deaths from smallpox among the Pueblo Indians in 1776? Check the records.
Yet much of this data is in danger of destruction from various wars or simple fires.
So the LDS church has taken their collection to store underground, much of it on microfilm. And they have enabled anyone: LDS, gentile, expert historian or layperson, to access these record, simply by going on line to the Family Search website. Many of the records are copies of baptismal records, collected by various LDS members from local churches in the US and Europe, but it includes census and other records.
So why is the Vatican objecting now?
I can think of two reasons.
One, because a bureaucrat, noticing that since 1985, because of objections of Jewish leaders, the LDS church has stopped it’s members from baptising those who died in the Holocaust.
So that unnamed bureaucrat has decided to worry that an LDS convert with Catholic ancestry might do the same for his own family members.
So how to prevent this? Stop them from collecting and copying Catholic baptismal records.
Except that collecting baptismal records doesn’t mean that these people will be baptised, and that a lot of European baptismal records have been in the collection for decades. A little late, don’t ya think?
But the real reason behind this regulation is probably the “elephant in the living room”: That the strict morality and family orientation of the LDS church has attracted many converts in Catholic countries, especially those in which “liberation theology” has led to churches that preach Marxism rather than Jesus, and where hundreds of years of complacency due to lack of competition has led to lax church practice and a thin veneer of cultural Catholicism that quickly evaporates when moved into the modern world.
Here are some numbers from an LDS church website:
Mexico—1,043,718
Brazil—928,926
Philippines—553,121
Chile—539,193
Peru—416,060
Argentina—348,396
Guatemala—200,537
Here in the Philippines, the LDS church estimates a 17% growth. I don’t know if that number is accurate (a lot of converts revert, or go back to Protestant churches), however, in our small rural town, we have a large LDS church (technically, it is a stakehouse) down the street.
The LDS tithe, and stress the need to follow the commandements and cleanliness in living. Many who seek a stricter form of religion join these churches, or one of the many growing Protestant sects. And this has the local Catholic church worried.
So I suspect the Vatican edict came because they don’t want the LDS who are already converting live Catholics to now start in on baptising the dead too. But I suspect it is also a way to stop confusion in lands where Catholicism is cultural, and few know the basic beliefs of their religion.
As a Catholic who has worked in LDS areas, I have no problem with the geneology collection, including gathering baptismal records.
The Catholics should recognize their real problem in losing “cradle Catholics” is due to a lack of holiness in many prominent Catholics (e.g. crooked politicians) and an ignorance of what Catholics actually believe, since often their faith was transmitted by traditional, non intellectual methods (stories, fiestas, devotions).
Ironically, here in the Philippines, the competition has spurred lay movements toward prayer groups and bible study, so that the ultimate result is a vibrant renewal of the church, because Catholics are now more aware of what the church teaches, and why they teach that.
Yet the problems of this country is something that needs the cooperation of all men of good will.
The Vatican does not enhance this cooperation when some bureaucrat in the basement perceives an action of charity on the part of the LDS members as an insult.
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. Her website is Finest Kind Clinic and Fishmarket.
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9 users commented in " Vatican Bureaucrats: After 104 Years They Finally Notice "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI guess, I suppose, I suppose, I guess.
Guess again Doctor. These numbers are a blip on the overall number of faithful, Orthodox Catholics in each of the countries sited here. Nice try.
This isn’t just some bureaucrat : it is an ordinary declaration of the Church Magisterium. It has force of law for every diocese, every paprish and indeed every layperson.
Now, you are not Catholic in spite of the Church but because of it : the Church does not simply bow down to informal American individualism.
As for the delay, I persume this guideline is a bit late, but better late than never. In any case, the LDS ought to know what the Church thinks of its cultic activies, of which it disaprooves (ie false baptisms for dead people).
The Church, through its diocese and parishes, keeps its own records and genealogical data that clearly outmatch any kind of LDS bookkeeping, which basically copies from what Catholics have already done in a most admirable way. For instance, in Easten Canada, France and Mexico, the entire genealogy is kept by the Church.
I appreciate the fact that the Catholic Church has done such a good job at creating records. But I have a pressing question for those in that faith. Would you sacrifice those records, would you let them rot or be lost to a fire, rather than let the LDS Church, free of charge, photograph and provide free digital copies? There was an island in the pacific that allowed the LDS Church to come in and photograph it’s records. Latter a typhoon wiped out their records and they were lost to the storm surge. Yet they were all able to be restored, free of charge or obligation, by the LDS/Mormon Church. So at no cost they preserved the records. Would you rather see the records of ancestors go up in smoke or be lost to the forces of decay or disaster RATHER than allow the ‘evil MORMONS’ to make copies of such? Or will your church now engage in duplicating and preserving on a massive scale, through digital archiving and redundancy in recording, the massive swaths of records that, at present, have no back-up or replacement copies at present?
And one more question. Simply because your Church collected the records, does that mean the knowledge of people’s ancestors is the intellectual property of your Church? all the posterity of people who were Catholic, are they all not inherently entitled to know their parents, simply because they are not of the same faith, or of any faith at all? Is the right to know one’s ancestry at the whim of the Catholic Church just because they were so efficient at monopolizing a huge swath of our common history?
Very well said Dr. Reyes!
Does it make you feel feel superior to use pejoratives like “cultic activities”? I personally wouldn’t make the accusation, but I know people who would consider the doctrine of transubstantiation or the practice of infant baptism as “cultic”. In fact, many people would consider any religious practice as “cultic”.
Recently, a young LDS missionary got in trouble for defacing property at a Colorado Cathedral. It was a stupid and thoughtless act. The Catholic authorities could have had him prosecuted and nobody, including LDS, would have thought any the less of them. But, they forgave the action. This kid did something really dumb but the consequenses could have marred his young life. I was extremely impressed by the Catholic Church. In my mind, they were exhibiting the kind of Christ-like behavior that Jesus Christ taught all of His true disciples to do.
It’s a shame that both sides can’t live by that kind of example.
As the world turns faster, family records will become increasingly important to all people. While not advocating for the LDS church, their willingness to openly share their gathered information is a model for all faiths. A Church that values and more importantly shares family histories may do more to keep the faithful faithful than a narrow-minded edict.
The Catholic Church’s beliefs and practices should be changed so that LDS and genealogists will be happy.
LD, oh please, even if the catholic church turned a blind eye on North Korea for nuking all its churches around the globe, that “christ-like” behavior is peanuts to all it has done to makind — witch hunts, inquisition, crusades, centuries of psychological torment of threatening people to go to hell, sex abuse scandals, meddling in politics (let that process be left to people with logic please), highway robbery of the public in the form of catholic schools, catholic hospitals, misappropriation of public money (look at all the well-fed and well-equipped priests), centuries of tax-evasion in the name of religion (any politician who threatens to tax them is damned all the way to hell.), the list could go on. amen. <– offshoot of amon-ra (egyptian god) haha!
Oh Shit! The soul of my super duper great grandfather might go to hell if LDS baptizes them. jesus christ! Please let them do their stuff. It makes the catholic church at least sound important with all that serious-sounding concerns. Besides, they often provide us with a great deal of entertainment.
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