So doing family research...I'm pissed.

My grandmother's grandmother (Delia Sheridan) was born in Aclare, Ireland in 1864. My grandmother's grandfather (John Thomas Cassidy) was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854. They both moved to the United States and had 4 children (one of them being my grandmother).

They were VERY good Catholic, however one faction of the family split and joined the LDS Church when they arrived in Utah.

My great grandmother, Winnifred Mary Cassidy, loved her faith. I happened to be doing research and found out that the LDS Church, in 1992, did the Baptism for the dead. Now Winnifred had been dead since 1954. I also found out that her mother, Delia, has been baptized LDS. She was baptized in 1999. She died in 1929.

I'm sure some of you know that my grandmother died in November of 2003. With her mother being baptized LDS, and her grandmother being baptized LDS....I wonder if the LDS faction within our family has plans of doing the same to her.

This not only pisses me off, it makes me sick.

How fucked up can a religion be that baptizes DEAD people?!?

what is the harm in it? They are performing a ritual they believe in, and not hurting anybody. I wish the same could be said for some other religions.

Don't you think it's hurting the direct descendants of the person that has been baptized? Honestly I think it's morbid and it hurts to know that my great grandmother poured so much into her faith, just to have someone take it away from her in death. You may not have a problem with it, but my grandmother was adamantly opposed to it in life...and if she ends up on their registry I'm gonna be pissed.

You give their faith too much credit. Its the same as if after death someone tried to make her as a Republican if she had been a life long Democrat. It isn't so just because someone said it is.

There are so many things to get upset about this is a non-issue. I am not LDS and half my cousins are Catholic. I have problems with parts of all organized religions but I am not going to spend my life worrying about it except when they try to change the Constitition or deny me a job because of my religion.

So what if my great-great-great-great grandfather is baptised? Without the LDS church's help, it would have been much harder for me to find out who those people were. They can baptise my grandparents too, for all I care. What difference does it make? Either they are in heaven, and how does it hurt them? Or they are in nothingness, and how does it hurt them? Or they are in hell and it saves them, so how does that hurt? Or they are in hell and it doesn't save them, but probably they have bigger problems to worry about than that.
You seem like you do not hate the church because of the baptism of the dead, but you hate the baptism of the dead because you first hated the LDS church.
I am a huge fan of the church for how much they have helped me with my hobby. I wish they were not such big Republicans though.

Guess the church gets the 'body count ' up higher and sorry for the pun.

my death (OK, I realize I wouldn't know, but...). Or to find out that my relatives have been.

I think it shows total disrespect of other religions to do something like that.

Debbi

(Though the missionaries that they have in my local town are pretty damn cute at times, and so I do frequently chat to them). But it strikes me that this whole process is an expression of love to the person concerned.

It can certainly be highly insensitive - especially if surviving close relatives of the person are still around - but I cannot accuse them of anything worse than that - insensitivity.

I'm guessing that you're on the Catholic side of the family (f.w.i.w. I by myself am the Catholic side of mine), in which case the ceremonies performed do not have any real effects (as far as you're concerned). It will certainly feel iritating, and I know that I'm speaking from a theoretical position rather than a personal one, but it is best to let it drop if you can.

There is nothing I can do about it. But you're right, I believe it's very insensitive. Not only to the person, but their faith. You're correct, I'm on the Catholic side of my family...the LDS side is actually a very small portion of the group that came over from Ireland. And they were only LDS because, believe it or not, one of them was sold into LDS slavery. Well maybe slavery is a harsh word, but an LDS 'family' bought them and brought them to Utah to work for them.

They try to keep records of everybody who ever lived and they have more weird things like an enormous collection of film (more than 2.2 million rolls of film)

Do the L.D.S. famiLy members know how strongLy you (and the other non-L.D.S. reLatives) feeL?

It might be worth taLking it over with them...I'm sure that they're doing it with the very best of intentions, though it is grossLy insensitive (to my mind).

body have been violated. My husband is an agnostic/atheist. My parents (I know this to be true) have baptized my son using kitchen water even though we had no plans to baptize him in the Catholic Church believing it is his own decision to make. I just move on. They're happy...I'm happy. Perhaps, for your own conscience, write them a letter based upon your feelings.

Take care.

In 1995 the Church agreed to halt proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims and other deceased Jews, and to remove the names of all Holocaust victims from the files. Such names are now only accepted if they are resubmitted by a direct descendant or if consent is obtained from the dead person's immediate family.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/mormon/features/rites/baptismdead.shtml

What they do is another matter, however; they have been caught numerous time 'baptizing' Jewish dead. I'm sure it doesn't matter to the dead, but it pisses off the living relatives, as Jews have bad memories of people trying to force another religion on them.

Baptism of the dead changes neither the faith nor the fate of the baptised, but it officious and arrogant behavior to their living relatives. I found that the LDS had 'baptized' some of my Congregationalist and Jewish ancestors; while their ceremony means nothing to me and those so 'baptized' probably would have laughed at it, I do not like the presumptiousness. It's just offensive and unnecessary.