Salt Lake City, Utah, May 7, 2008 / 20:32 pm
In a letter sent to all of the Episcopal conferences of the world, the Congregation for the Clergy has reiterated the desire of the Holy See that Catholic parishes refrain from opening their archives to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, who often request information through the Genealogical Society of Utah.
The letter signed by the prefect for the Congregation, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, indicates that “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, through a letter dated January 29 of this year, has responded to a question—raised by some bishops—about the possibility of allowing the Genealogical Society of Utah (Mormons) to microfilm and digitalize the information contained in parish registries.”
“In complete agreement with the grave reservations expressed by that Congregation,” the letter continues, “this dicastery desires to notify your episcopal conference, so that each Diocesan Ordinary be instructed not to consent, in his respective territory, to the above-mentioned practice which violates the privacy of individuals and, in addition, would involve cooperation in the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
The “erroneous practices” referred to in the letter from Cardinal Hummes is the LDS belief that one’s ancestors can be saved through “posthumous baptism.”
The Genealogical Society of Utah uses the ancestral lines reconstructed from parish archives in order to determine which ancestors can be “saved” through “proxy baptism.”