LDS seeks to end Holocaust victim baptism

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- The Mormon church has upgraded its database to keep the names of Jews killed by Nazis from being submitted for posthumous proxy baptisms, officials said.

A new computer system and explicit church policy statements related to the baptism practice will likely resolve a 16-year disagreement over the baptisms, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants said in a joint statement.

Since 1840, 10 years after the church was founded, faithful practitioners have sought to gather the names of every person of any faith who ever lived to offer their souls the choice of baptism.

They view baptism, even in the afterlife, as a requirement for entering heaven. The dead can choose to accept the baptism or not.

But members of the Jewish Holocaust survivors group were offended by the idea that Mormons sought to change the religion of Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their religion.

After meeting with Jewish genealogist Gary Mokotoff and a delegation, the church agreed in 1995 to remove hundreds of thousands of names of Jews killed in the Holocaust from its master list.

But the church remained unable to stop names of Jews killed by Nazis, and Holocaust survivors who died later, from being submitted, since any church member could submit any name for baptism for the dead, the church-owned Deseret News said.

The new computer system, however, and a more explicit church policy will seek to eliminate the issue without compromising church doctrine, Mormon and Jewish leaders said.

Church members are now asked to certify that their submissions meet church policy, the church said. And the church staff regularly searches records for inappropriate submissions.

If names of Jewish Holocaust victims are identified, the new system can delete them and submitters are contacted to ensure such errors are not repeated, the church said.