Rules on baptism for the dead

[Sunday21]

There are complaints that Carrie Fisher’s grandparents have been baptized. Could this be legit? Eddie Fisher (the Jewish parent, I assume unless Debbie Reynolds converted) was born  in 1928. If he had a sibling who converted to mormonism, then they could legitimately baptism their grandparents but not otherwise, right? As I understand it, the person who submits the name must be the nearest living relative or have the permission of the nearest living relative. I am not sure the space of time between death and baptism for grandparents. 

Could we get those who illegitimately submit names to the temple to quit submitting the names of people to whom they are not related? We have their address and we could send a gently worded letter. I volunteer to write the letter!

IF the Grandparents of Carrie Fisher have been baptized AND there was a legitimate reason for this (the nearest living relative has given permission) could we put a note on Lds Newsroom? 

 

Edited January 2, 2018 by Sunday21

[Grunt]

7 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

Things I want to change: Can we get those who submit names to the temple to quit submitting the names of people to whom they are not related? We have their address and we could send a gently worded letter. I volunteer to write the letter!

There are complaints that the Grandparents of Carrie Fisher have been baptized. If these are someone’s relatives, can we put a note on Lds Newsroom? 

 

Is that a rule?  Must you be related to names you submit?  Is the only method of submission the genealogy app?

[Sunday21]

Dear @Grunt

Are you having naughty ideas with respect to baptism for the dead? Thinking of baptizing CS Lewis? (He has been done!)

I am not sure of the rules but I think it goes like this:

Person must be dead for...This length of time keeps lengthening or perhaps I am mistaken? I think it used to be 100 years, then 115 years and now?

I think you need to be the nearest relative for those who are recently deceased. So I think if you are the nearest relative, you can do the baptism after a year and a bit.

You are strictly forbidden to do anyone who in not in your own family. You have to do things in a logical order so I can’t just baptise someone with the same last name as me, I need to follow the family tree.

i would ask my family history consultants but...they are very old, and thus all activity is very, very, slow and habitually crabby and perpetually offended. I don’t ask for help unless very desperate.

Edited January 2, 2018 by Sunday21

[the Ogre]

12 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Must you be related to names you submit? 

Here is the complication I have: I am Jewish through my mother's side of the family. My Jewish ancestors converted to the church in the early 1900s and moved to Utah. They were disowned by the family who remained behind in the Pale and in Germany. ALL, All of the family who remained were killed in the holocaust unless they had the good fortune to die before (except for a few cousins in Philly who snuck out just in time). I can not do their temple work since I am not their direct ancestor. Honestly, I'm okay. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my great-uncles have already done the work and did so many years prior to the 1980s and 90s agreement to stop doing temple work for deceased Jews, particularly holocaust Jews.

Now I have found a great many names from the trio of shtetls where those relatives came from that I am a direct descendant of and I am in the hunt for many more, but out of respect for the church's agreement (the agreement that those members who did the work for Carrie Fisher's family are in violation of), I have not submitted any of those names and will wait until the time is right. Maybe my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be able to do the work for them. Who knows, but world-wide Judaism is still recovering from the holocaust and right now, doing this temple work would hurt the church and its relationship with Judaism and simply be in bad taste.

The work will wait.

[pam]

1 hour ago, the Ogre said:

Here is the complication I have: I am Jewish through my mother's side of the family. My Jewish ancestors converted to the church in the early 1900s and moved to Utah. They were disowned by the family who remained behind in the Pale and in Germany. ALL, All of the family who remained were killed in the holocaust unless they had the good fortune to die before (except for a few cousins in Philly who snuck out just in time). I can not do their temple work since I am not their direct ancestor. Honestly, I'm okay. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my great-uncles have already done the work and did so many years prior to the 1980s and 90s agreement to stop doing temple work for deceased Jews, particularly holocaust Jews.

Now I have found a great many names from the trio of shtetls where those relatives came from that I am a direct descendant of and I am in the hunt for many more, but out of respect for the church's agreement (the agreement that those members who did the work for Carrie Fisher's family are in violation of), I have not submitted any of those names and will wait until the time is right. Maybe my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be able to do the work for them. Who knows, but world-wide Judaism is still recovering from the holocaust and right now, doing this temple work would hurt the church and its relationship with Judaism and simply be in bad taste.

The work will wait.

@the Ogre  Wow...this is a name I haven't seen in a long time. Welcome back. 

[the Ogre]

1 hour ago, pam said:

@the Ogre  Wow...this is a name I haven't seen in a long time. Welcome back. 

Thanks Pam  

[Jane_Doe]

Frankly, why does it matter to us?   

If someone broke the rules, that's on them (with consequences) and none of our concern.  If someone followed  the rules, that's on them (with consequences) and none of our concern.

[Jane_Doe]

4 hours ago, Grunt said:

Is that a rule?  Must you be related to names you submit?  Is the only method of submission the genealogy app?

The basic set of guidelines/rules for submittal (which regretfully are not always followed, but should be).  There are additional rules for dealing with famous people and Holocaust people:

 

[Guest MormonGator]

2 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

The basic set of guidelines/rules for submittal (which regretfully are not always followed, but should be).  There are additional rules for dealing with famous people and Holocaust people:

 

@Jane_Doe-I remember reading about an apostle apologizing to a Jewish foundation because some victims of the holocaust were baptized without their permission. Any truth to that? Just curious, nothing more. 

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

@Jane_Doe-I remember reading about an apostle apologizing to a Jewish foundation because some victims of the holocaust were baptized without their permission. Any truth to that? Just curious, nothing more. 

That was my understanding as well.  We had been baptizing people who were killed in the Holocaust.  Jews raised a fuss about it for some reason.  I still don't really understand this.  As a PR move, we agreed that the procedures for vicarious work for Holocaust victims would be restricted to those who were direct relatives of those victims.  We couldn't restrict people from doing work for their own relatives.

Prior to that, pretty much anyone who had been found by anyone could submit names for the temple.  Similar restrictions apply to celebrities.  e.g. lots of people tried to submit Elvis' name to the temple.  And they did so without checking through Temple Ready.  That was the coordination tool used to verify that we weren't double dipping on the ordinances.

[Midwest LDS]

The necessity for this policy always annoyed me. I fully support the church, and absolutely believe we should only baptize our direct ancestors nor do I council disregarding it. When the Lord's leaders speak we should listen. I just don't get why we are the only religion that's required to modify what we do for our beliefs because it annoys other people. Especially since this kind of thing only gets reported because anti's busily sift through our records so they can get us in trouble. I wish people would stop disregarding the church's policies, but I also wish people would stop bothering us about it too.

Edited January 2, 2018 by Midwest LDS

[Maureen]

6 minutes ago, Midwest LDS said:

...I just don't get why we are the only religion that's required to modify what we do for our beliefs because it annoys other people....

Can you give an example of any other religion that you feel should modify what they do because it annoys other people?

M.

[Guest MormonGator]

29 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

That was my understanding as well.  We had been baptizing people who were killed in the Holocaust.  Jews raised a fuss about it for some reason.  I still don't really understand this. 

You don't understand why a Jewish person would get angry over their relative being baptized without their permission? 

[Midwest LDS]

@Maureen No because other religions and their practices are their business and my thoughts on what they do should never force them to change something ( which was the point of my post)

Edited January 2, 2018 by Midwest LDS

[the Ogre]

5 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

You don't understand why a Jewish person would get angry over their relative being baptized without their permission? 

Here is a recent news article from Religion News Service that gives a little Jewish perspective.

Edit: Here is an article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency on the issue.

Edited January 2, 2018 by the Ogre

[zil]

9 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

You don't understand why a Jewish person would get angry over their relative being baptized without their permission? 

His point being that if you don't believe in the religion doing the proxy baptism, how does it rate more than eye-rolling.

I sort of understand why people get upset - we're irrational and emotional when it comes to family and a few other things.  Rationally, it makes no sense to get upset.  Emotionally, well, stuff happens.

And the article posted by @the Ogre baffles me - the author says "and if I ever find out that [my grandmother] is now a Mormon, I will go totally ballistic" - Huh?  She's only a Mormon if she chooses to be.  Go ballistic because she chooses to be?  You don't even believe this stuff is true, so it's nothing more than idle nonsense done by a bunch of dedicated whackos.  It's as if he thinks a non-true religion's ordinances have power in an of themselves.

But still, rational or not, people get upset.

Edited January 2, 2018 by zil

[Guest MormonGator]

Just now, zil said:

His point being that if you don't believe in the religion doing the proxy baptism, how does it rate more than eye-rolling.

I vehemently disagree.

It's easy for us to say "Oh, if you don't believe in the religion, why get upset?"

Imagine if 6 million LDS were murdered by a psychopathic  regime. That would wipe us out completely. But a small group is left. The Catholics, out of charity and compassion, start saying masses on the behalf of the souls of the six million LDS that were killed. Of  course right now in 2017 where that didn't happen we will say "Oh, it's no big deal. I don't believe in the religion anyway, so it's just those Catholics being nice." 

I think LDS would be extremely sensitive about the issue, and with complete justification. 

Especially since in Judaism, any kind of Christian baptism is like cutting yourself off from your entire family. 

[Maureen]

15 minutes ago, Midwest LDS said:

@Maureen No because other religions and their practices are their business and my thoughts on what they do should never force them to change something ( which was the point of my post)

But you said "...I just don't get why we are the only religion that's required to modify what we do...", implying that you think there are other religions doing things you disapprove of and only the Mormon religion is being picked on. That's how I read it. So you're really saying that even if other religions are doing things you do not approve of, they should be left alone do to as they please, just like the Mormon church should be left alone do to as they please (with regards to baptisms for the dead).

M.

[zil]

Just now, MormonGator said:

I vehemently disagree.

It's easy for us to say "Oh, if you don't believe in the religion, why get upset?"

Imagine if 6 million LDS were murdered by a psychopathic  regime. That would wipe us out completely. But a small group is left. The Catholics, out of charity and compassion, start saying masses on the behalf of the souls of the six million LDS that were killed. Of  course right now in 2017 where that didn't happen we will say "Oh, it's no big deal. I don't believe in the religion anyway, so it's just those Catholics being nice." 

I think LDS would be extremely sensitive about the issue, and with complete justification. 

Especially since in Judaism, any kind of Christian baptism is like cutting yourself off from your entire family. 

Catholics saying masses on behalf of the souls of the Mormons killed, say, in the 1800s in Illinois and Missouri wouldn't bother me at all.

But I understand that there are people who are bothered - and I understand that they've got reasons they consider valid and important enough to make demands on the Church they don't believe in.  And that's OK.  It's irrational (rational being something which excludes emotion from the pictue), but these things aren't driven by facts and rationality, but by the deep emotions experienced in relation to family and the holocaust - and that's OK.

And the Church is trying to respect their wishes, we just have some idiot members who are being jerks about it (and liars too, apparently) - and that's not OK.

(In other words, I understand what Carb was saying (and many others have said); and I understand why that is irrelevant to a huge percentage of the Jewish population.)

[Guest MormonGator]

5 minutes ago, zil said:

Catholics saying masses on behalf of the souls of the Mormons killed, say, in the 1800s in Illinois and Missouri wouldn't bother me at all.

 

You say that as a believing LDS in 2017. Your entire religion wasn't on the verge of being eradicated. I'm sure you are telling the truth, and for all I know, if Jewish people were replaced with LDS during the 1930's and placed in Germany-and your family managed to survive you still might be telling the truth. 

But the reality is that you, I, and everyone here doesn't know how we'd feel about it because it didn't happen to us. For this issue (and every issue regarding the holocaust) we need to tread extremely careful and remember that we don't know what we don't know and we don't feel a certain way because it didn't happen to us. 

It's obviously a very passionate issue for me, for sure. 

Edited January 2, 2018 by MormonGator

[Midwest LDS]

@Maureen yes that was my intent (sorry if I phrased it confusingly).

[zil]

3 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

You say that as a believing LDS in 2017. Your entire religion wasn't on the verge of being eradicated. I'm sure you are telling the truth, and for all I know, if Jewish people were replaced with LDS during the 1930's and placed in Germany-and your family managed to survive you still might be telling the truth. 

But the reality is that you, I, and everyone here doesn't know how we'd feel about it because it didn't happen to us. For this issue (and every issue regarding the holocaust) we need to tread extremely careful and remember that we don't know what we don't know and we don't feel a certain way because it didn't happen to us. 

It's obviously a very passionate issue for me, for sure. 

No one's disagreeing with you here.

I keep trying to say that their feelings about it are OK, and the Church is (rightly, IMO) trying to accommodate them, and members who fail to do so are jerks (and liars, I think, since they would have to have lied when they submitted the names).  I'm siding (functionally) with the Jewish people who want us to stop doing proxy work for their ancestors.

To describe the nature of a reaction is not to belittle it.  To understand both sides, or differing observations, is not to belittle or dismiss either - only to express intellectual comprehension of what's being said.

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, zil said:

No one's disagreeing with you here.

I keep trying to say that their feelings about it are OK, and the Church is (rightly, IMO) trying to accommodate them, and members who fail to do so are jerks (and liars, I think, since they would have to have lied when they submitted the names).  I'm siding (functionally) with the Jewish people who want us to stop doing proxy work for their ancestors.

Oh, I know. I think my responses are more general thoughts than aimed at you. 

[zil]

Just now, MormonGator said:

Oh, I know. I think my responses are more general thoughts than aimed at you. 

Very heated general thoughts. The Jewish people should thank you for making sure their wishes are defended. (Truly, meant in the kindest of ways.  I wish the jerks wrongfully submitting these names would have a fraction of your feelings on the topic.)

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, zil said:

Very heated general thoughts.

Glad something is heated today. The compound was at 64 degrees this morning when I woke up. Do you forget to pay the heating bill? We're going to have to move you from accounts payable back to secretarial if this keeps up. 

Edited January 2, 2018 by MormonGator