LDS Church removes record of Wiesenthal

Los Angeles Times/December 19, 2006
By K. Connie Kang

Los Angeles -- A potential conflict between Jewish organizations and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over vicarious baptism was averted Monday when the church said Simon Wiesenthal's name was removed from the church's genealogical records.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center here had demanded earlier Monday that Wiesenthal's name be removed from the church's online International Genealogical Index, the database of posthumous "ordinances" or vicarious baptisms.

"We are astounded and dismayed that after assurances and promises by the LDS Church that Mr. Wiesenthal's life and memory, along with so many other Jews, would be trampled and disregarded," Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Center's founder and dean, said in a statement.

"Simon Wiesenthal was one of the great Jews in the post-Holocaust period. He proudly lived as a Jew, died as a Jew, demanded justice for the millions of the victims of the Holocaust, and, at his request was buried in the State of Israel. It is sacrilegious for the Mormon faith to desecrate his memory by suggesting that Jews on their own are not worthy enough to receive God's eternal blessing," Hier added.

Within hours after Hier released the statement to the media, LDS Church spokesman Bruce Olsen said Wiesenthal's name was removed from the international index.

"In response to a request by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and in accordance with the commitments the Church made in 1995, no Church ordinance was performed for Simon Wiesenthal and his name was immediately removed from the International Genealogical Index," Olsen said in a statement.

Heir said he was "happy" to receive the reassurance from a top church official.

Olsen said the Mormon church "continues to emphasize" its policy that church members submit only names of their own ancestors to the index, a step toward vicarious baptisms.