Baptism for the Dead: An Erroneous Practice? – Part 1
In a letter dated April 5th, and reported by the Catholic News Service on May 2nd, the Vatican issued an order to all Catholic dioceses throughout the world to not give genealogical information in parish registers to Latter-day Saints in an effort to “block posthumous rebaptisms” of LDS ancestors. The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had “grave reservations” about this LDS practice (no pun intended I’m sure), and labelled it “detrimental” and “erroneous.” Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, added that it was “unacceptable”:
As Catholics, we have to make very clear to them their practice of so-called rebaptism is unacceptable from the standpoint of Catholic truth.
Catholic World News reports that the Catholic church objects to this practice, again termed “rebaptism,” for two reasons: [Read more…]