According to the Catholic News Service the Vatican Congregation for Clergy has ordered dioceses across the globe not to give information in parish registers to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"The congregation requests that the conference notifies each diocesan bishop in order to ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted in his territory, due to the confidentiality of the faithful and so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
I confess not to be aware of this doctrine of "confidentiality of the faithful." It must have a particular meaning, but to the outsider sounds like the antithesis of proclaiming your faith.
Moreover, if collecting Catholic records in pursuit of LDS's "erroneous" rebaptism is so odious one would think it would also be objectionable for Catholics to have anything to do with records collected to such ends. Will the Vatican be issuing an edict prohibiting Catholics from using any LDS-collected genealogy records?
09 May 2008
Waiting for the Vatican to drop the other shoe
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Several years ago, I heard a story (I don't remember where) that the LDS filmed Polish Catholic records after World War I. World War II destroyed many of these records, so after the war, the LDS gave copies of these records back to the various Catholic churches.
If this story is true, this latest ruling seems rather ironic.
"Rebaptism" of the dead either has an effect on our dear departed, or it does not. Most mainstream churches believe it has no effect on the dead, and so, presumably, the practice only serves to entertain the LDS faithful.
Other churches have no logical concerns about LDS practices that they (the other churches) believe are meaningless. LDS "microfilming" can provide a valuable service to the record keepers, at little cost to them.
Pierce Reid (no relation that we know of), Toronto
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