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Mormons Baptize Anne Frank

By Jspace Staff on 2/22/2012 at 5:28 PM

Categories: Religion, History

Mormons Baptize Anne Frank

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allegedly baptized holocaust victim and famed dairy-keeper Anne Frank on Saturday. Whistleblower Helen Radkey, a former member of the Church, discovered and publicized the entry in the Mormon database.

The February 18 ceremony, which took place in a LDS temple in the Dominican Republic, is not the first time Annelies Marie Frank has been posthumously baptized by proxy. The process occurred at least a dozen times under various names between 1989 and 1999, Radkey told the Huffington Post.

This is the first time in more than a decade that Frank’s name has been discovered in the Mormon database, which can be used for both genealogy and proxy baptism. This latest episode is especially egregious considering the Church’s recent emphasis on only allowing members to submit the names of their ancestors. Frank died in Bergen Belsen at the age of 15, leaving no descendants.

This discovery comes hot on the heels of the revelation that Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal’s parents, also victims of the Holocaust, had been baptized last month.

"The security of the names submissions process for posthumous rites must be questioned, in view of the rash of prominent Jewish Holocaust names that have recently appeared on Mormon temple rolls," Radkey said about her latest find to the Huffington Post. "This one sailed straight through, with Anne's correct name in their 'secure' database."

The Mormon Church responded to the story Tuesday, "The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism."

"While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions we are committed to taking action against individual abusers," the Church’s statement says, "It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church’s policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention."

Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel has called on GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to speak out against his church’s proxy baptism practices.

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