Mormon baptism prompts apology

Jewish center calls ritual an outrage

SALT LAKE CITY — Mormon church leaders apologized to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were posthumously baptized, a controversial ritual that Mormons believe allows deceased people a way to the afterlife but offends members of many other religions.

Wiesenthal died in 2005 after surviving the Nazi death camps and spending his life documenting Holocaust crimes and hunting down perpetrators who remained at large. Jews are particularly offended by any attempt to alter the religion of Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their religion, and the baptism of Holocaust survivors was supposed to have been barred by a 1995 agreement.

Yet records indicate Wiesenthal’s parents were baptized in proxy ceremonies performed by Mormon church memSimon bers in JanWiesenthal uary at temples in Arizona and Utah.

In a statement, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the baptismal rites.

“We are outraged that such insensitive actions continue in the Mormon temples,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the center.

The church immediately apologized, saying it was the actions of an individual member of the church that led to the submission of Wiesenthal’s name.

“We consider this a serious breach of our protocol, and we have suspended indefinitely this person’s ability to access our genealogy records,” Michael Purdy, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, said in a statement issued Monday.

Mormons believe posthumous baptism by proxy allows deceased people to receive the Gospel in the afterlife. The church believes departed souls can then accept or reject the baptismal rites and contends the offerings are not intended to offend anyone.

Other religions, including the Catholic church, have also publicly objected to the baptism of its members, and it’s been widely reported that Mormon and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s atheist father-inlaw, Edward Davies, was posthumously baptized.