We Coulda Been Talking about Tax Returns

A couple of weeks ago, you may recall Ann Romney said that she and her husband wouldn't be releasing any more of his tax returns;

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," she said in her interview with Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things, or do things?"
-- ABC News

Of course, this led me to ponder other things, since there weren't decades of financial disclosures to analyze.  And I mused about the secret goings-on of his religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

When the South Florida Daily Blog linked the story, some anonymous commenter tried to paint me as some kind of latter-day Nazi.

Anonymous said...

Man or maniac sounds just like the nazis did in the twenties and thirties. I'll bet he won't attack Islam like he attacks the LDS.

July 23, 2012 11:15 AM

And I replied to that remark, and in that reply I made an offer;

C.L.J said...

...I'll be glad to post more information regarding their activities that they don't want the general public worrying about. Like why they're so interested in Genealogy.

July 23, 2012 7:30 PM

But by pro-active use of procrastination (put off a task long enough, and it will finish itself), I find that other outlets have picked up the story.

Romney Keeps Mum on Mormon Baptism of Jews
Pressure builds to respond to baptism of Nazi-hunter's parents
A researcher discovered that the late parents of famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal were baptized in Mormon ceremonies in Utah and Arizona last month. "Can you believe it?" a stunned Wiesel asked on MSNBC yesterday. Wiesel was also placed on the Mormon to-be-baptized list.

That's right; the Mormons are baptizing dead people into their faith.  The story continues:

The Mormons believe people can be baptized after death, and baptized hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims until they agreed to stop the practice in 1995. They have also baptized Anne Frank, Josef Stalin, and Adolph Hitler, notes MSNBC.

Technically, Mormons are only supposed to baptize ancestors, but obviously that has been loosely interpreted.

This is why they are so interested in Genealogy; once someone has been accepted into the faith, they trace that person's entire lineage so they can baptize every single one of their ancestors to make everyone in the family a member of their religion.

From  Mormon.org:

We learn in the New Testament that baptisms for the dead were done during the Apostle Paul’s time (see 1Corinthians 15:29). This practice has been restored with the establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Because all who have lived on the earth have not had the opportunity to be baptized by proper authority during life on earth, baptisms may be performed by proxy...

Baptisms for the dead are performed by Church members in temples throughout the world.

Now, if you don't have any religious convictions, this probable sounds like much ado about nothing.  It's not like they're digging up graves, or desecrating tombs.

But if you take your religion seriously, then this is an inexcusable attack on the sacred dead.  It's nothing less than spiritual abduction; the dead are not consulted, they are simply taken.  It's kidnapping.  It's rape.

The church insists the deceased have "the right to choose" whether to accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
-- The Huffington post

Do they really?  I can't recall the last time a dead person actually made any informed decision outside of their Last Will and Testament. 

Tell you what, let's ask Harry Houdini, the great magician and close friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Doyle, as you may know, was an avid spiritualist, while Houdini was a skeptic who spent the last years of his life debunking Spiritualism and exposing the trickery used by mediums and mentalists to con their patrons.

"I've said everything I intended to say from beyond the grave to Arthur Conan Doyle."

"But Harry - you didn't say anything!"

"EXACTLY!"

Dead men tell no tales, and they certainly can't ask to be baptized into the secretive Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Nor can the dead tell the Mormons to stop what they're doing.  That's part of the whole "being dead" thing. But that won't stop Mormons from doing it anyway.  After all, the dead are also very poor at holding public demonstrations.

Until the zombie apocalypse, that is.  
At which point, feel free to baptize as many as you can.

Right about now, I'll bet the Romneys are wishing they'd distracted us with two decades of tax documents instead of leaving us all this time to wonder about other stuff.

They Say It Ends Tomorrow

Reflecting on the end of the world, this song kept running through my head....

History Fun: Celibacy and the Catholic Church

I should start by declaring that I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Catholic Church. I don't proscribe to any organized religion, as my personal definition of religion is that it is the belief in someone else's divine realizations.

But one of the things I do believe in is truth and honesty. There are facts in this world, and no legitimate purpose is served by ignoring those facts. If one has to lie to bolster their faith, then it is not a faith worth holding.

Father Alberto Cutié's involvement with a woman has got people all up at arms: on the one side, his supporters who argue that celibacy is passé in the 21st Century, and on the other, the Catholic traditionalists who maintain that Father Cutié has violated some kind of sacred commandment.

But the reality is that celibacy has nothing to do with God or Jesus Christ, and was not included in the founding of the Church. Here's one version of what the Bible has to say on the matter:

1 Timothy 3

¹ This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

² A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

³ Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;

⁴ One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;

⁵ (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

Obviously, Jesus didn't have issues with the the priesthood from gettin' some. In fact, it seems he assumed that anyone interested in the job would have a family.

So why did the Church start making its initiates take vows of celibacy?

Money. Greed. Filth Lucre. Mammon. Oh, and politics.

Priests were leaving Church property to their heirs. And you know how big a Catholic family can be...

Basically, there was a scam going on: a priest or Bishop would inform someone with land and means that they might burn in hell for their actions (or inactions). But perhaps they could be absolved if they left their lands to the Church. The Duke or Earl or Baron or whoever would sign over his land in return for Salvation.

A lot of rulers started getting upset about this practice; the Church was getting mighty powerful.

Only it wasn't, really. The bishops were getting powerful, because they were leaving these acquisitions to their heirs. So the families of the Bishops were becoming wealthy and powerful, the heads of State were losing revenues from taxes and knights' fees (as a gift to the church, those lands usually became exempt from taxes), and the Pope was getting a lot of heated complaints and little gold out the arrangements.

In 1018, Pope Benedict began to get serious about the matter when he decreed that descendants of priests could not inherit property. The Second Lateran Council finally made celibacy a law of the Church in 1139. The matter was brought up again in the 16th century, when dissenters tried to return to original Church doctrine, but the Council of Trent finalized the doctrine of celibacy in 1563.

Now, to be fair, the Church had tried to instill celibacy as far back as the Spanish Council of Elvira, back in 305.

We decree that all bishops, priests and deacons in the service of the ministry are entirely forbidden to have conjugal relations with their wives and to beget children; should anyone do so, let him be excluded from the honour of the clergy.

Their argument was that when one dedicated one's life to the church, it required one's full attention. Well, you know what they say about Latin Lovers: the council might have had legitimate grounds for complaints.

But the fact remains that celibacy of the priesthood isn't a decree from God or Jesus Christ, it's the mandate of men, intended to solve the worldly problems of the Church, whether it's priests boning their parishioners to the exclusion of their duties or bishops making generous bequests out of the Church's pockets.

And that's absolutely the Church's right. It's a private institution, they can declare any criteria of admission they wish. Cutié knew the rules when he signed up: he took an oath, and he's broken it. They have the right to read him out of the Church if they like.

BTW, we should refer back to the Bible, for God's instructions to Mankind:

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth...
Genesis, 1:28

Best of luck, Mr. Cutié. I believe the Lord approves.

Happy Easter!