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Catholic Church buries aborted babies
Topic Started: Jan 24 2005, 09:49 AM (1,280 Views)
Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 05:28 PM
No Dante - you cannot say she has already exercised her belief so now anyone else can do what they want. That is why I brought in the second analogy of what some Mormons have done with baptizing Jews.

If everyone went around exercising thier beliefs after the fact there would be chaos. What do you do with competing beliefs in burial and cremation. Some cultures believe in cremation. Others (like Jews) believe the body must be buried. Can someone come along and dig up a body to cremate because the family has already exercised thier belief that the body should be buried???? Of course not. No one has the right to override someone elses wishes with regards to thier family or thier beliefs. It is not right.

And remember, we are not only talking abortions here. The second article clearly stated that it also involved the corpses of miscarried babies.

I do not see any of those examples as equitable. In the case with the baptizing Jews, or in a body that was berried, none of those things where thrown away or gotten rid off. When I berry a family member I am not getting rid of it, I am putting the body some where for safe keeping according to that persons beliefs. In the case of the baptizing Jews those Mormons where directly violating those Jews not something the Jews got rid off.

Do I have claim to all the garbage that I have thrown away that is now sitting in some land fill?
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Wichita
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The Adminstrator wRench
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 07:36 PM
Wichita
Jan 25 2005, 01:01 PM
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 04:54 PM
Wichita - I am thoroughly confused with your response.

Quote:
 

Again, an divergence of opinion between tradition and individual choice... I don't agree that one necessarily is the same as the other. The Holocaust victims were of all ages, economic and educational backgrounds, and nationalities. I have no idea what they individually believed.


Explain to me why if you have no idea what they believed then what gives anyone the right to even try and define it after thier death.


Personal Response

Given that you were the one telling me what they believed, how could I possibly respond to that?

Also, Mormons are not attempting to define it. You are the one telling me that you know what they believed. :shrug:

Quote:
 
Like all churches - the members therein need to understand that they should only act upon those people who consent to be acted upon. This is the cause of the upset in Jewish circles over the baptisms.


:headscratch:


Wichita - I am basing my thoughts on what they believed on eyewitness accounts of thier relatives. Not a list of names.

I found another article on this issue. It is a news article (from AP) so it discusses the issue a lot more dispassionately then the other.

Proxy Baptisms.

The article is very clear about the fact that Mormon church leaders have requested the practice be stopped. I only fault the individuals who insist on continuing. In fact I found another interesting piece from a Mormon. When you read this piece of filth maybe you will further understand our outrage. (Please note that I understand that this is the work of one individual and does not reflect the feelings of the Mormon church at large - I just don't see how anyone could try to defend this)

Jews try again to dictate Mormon religious practices

If the people who continue this practice all see us Jews as "sheenies" then I rest my case regarding why I feel they are devaluing others.

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Quote:
 
The people who stayed with the bodies after 9/11 did not insist that everyone be buried immediately. They only stayed with the bodies so that the Jewish bodies would not be neglected. The prayers and meditations were not said over any individual bodies and no one gave a Jewish burial to bodies that could not be identified.


Neither did the Catholics in the article we are discussing. In fact, it doesn't say that it was a Catholic ceremony. That has been an assumption we've been making.


You may have somewhat of a point here - however I was under the impression that Catholics (like Jews) have thier own cemetaries. It is rather difficult to imagine being buried in a Catholic cemetary without undergoing Catholic ritual.

Personal Response

I've just spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how I can possibly respond to this post and still have no idea.

I am simply going to say that you are continuing to misstate the Mormon perspective in your comments. I don't know if it is because I am not making myself clear or if you don't care to try and understand, but you still don't.

End of Personal Response



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Minuet
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Dandandat
Jan 25 2005, 06:28 PM
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 05:28 PM
No Dante - you cannot say she has already exercised her belief so now anyone else can do what they want. That is why I brought in the second analogy of what some Mormons have done with baptizing Jews.

If everyone went around exercising thier beliefs after the fact there would be chaos. What do you do with competing beliefs in burial and cremation. Some cultures believe in cremation. Others (like Jews) believe the body must be buried. Can someone come along and dig up a body to cremate because the family has already exercised thier belief that the body should be buried???? Of course not. No one has the right to override someone elses wishes with regards to thier family or thier beliefs. It is not right.

And remember, we are not only talking abortions here. The second article clearly stated that it also involved the corpses of miscarried babies.

I do not see any of those examples as equitable. In the case with the baptizing Jews, or in a body that was berried, none of those things where thrown away or gotten rid off. When I berry a family member I am not getting rid of it, I am putting the body some where for safe keeping according to that persons beliefs. In the case of the baptizing Jews those Mormons where directly violating those Jews not something the Jews got rid off.

Do I have claim to all the garbage that I have thrown away that is now sitting in some land fill?

Dante - I don't see the fetuses from the hospital as just being discarded and thrown away by the families.

Therefore I don't see how you can dismiss the analogy.
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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 10:09 PM

Dante - I don't see the fetuses from the hospital as just being discarded and thrown away by the families.

Therefore I don't see how you can dismiss the analogy.

by from the hospital are you talking about miscarriages?

if thats not what you mean , what would you consider it then?
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Minuet
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Wichita
Jan 25 2005, 09:23 PM
Personal Response

I've just spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how I can possibly respond to this post and still have no idea.

I am simply going to say that you are continuing to misstate the Mormon perspective in your comments. I don't know if it is because I am not making myself clear or if you don't care to try and understand, but you still don't.

End of Personal Response

Wichita - I am not mistating anything on purpose. I am trying to understand your perspective.

I wonder if you are understanding mine.

And just to clarify - I used the article from the obvious anti-semite for a reason. I am well aware that his perspective is NOT that of the majority of your church members. However - the first half of his treatise came off sounding very reasonable and much like your arguments. I found it quite interesting how reasonable he sounded until his obvious anti-semitism surfaced. (And no, I am not calling you an anti-semite for partially agreeing with him - the key word being partial)

What I am trying to say is that sometimes one can come up with all kinds of reasons to justify what they are doing - but maybe they need to stop and understand the perspective of the person they are doing it to - even if they mean well. I very much understand that the Mormons doing this do mean well. But these people should also pay attention to the church leadership who have clearly asked them to stop this practice.
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Minuet
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Dandandat
Jan 25 2005, 10:13 PM
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 10:09 PM

Dante - I don't see the fetuses from the hospital as just being discarded and thrown away by the families.

Therefore I don't see how you can dismiss the analogy.

by from the hospital are you talking about miscarriages?

if thats not what you mean , what would you consider it then?

Yes - I am talking about the miscarriages.
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Wichita
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Minuet
Jan 26 2005, 03:20 AM
Wichita - I am not mistating anything on purpose. I am trying to understand your perspective.

I wonder if you are understanding mine.

And just to clarify - I used the article from the obvious anti-semite for a reason. I am well aware that his perspective is NOT that of the majority of your church members. However - the first half of his treatise came off sounding very reasonable and much like your arguments. I found it quite interesting how reasonable he sounded until his obvious anti-semitism surfaced. (And no, I am not calling you an anti-semite for partially agreeing with him - the key word being partial)

What I am trying to say is that sometimes one can come up with all kinds of reasons to justify what they are doing - but maybe they need to stop and understand the perspective of the person they are doing it to - even if they mean well. I very much understand that the Mormons doing this do mean well. But these people should also pay attention to the church leadership who have clearly asked them to stop this practice.

Personal Response

As in your last post, you are again being inconsistent with your own previous comments.

The Mormon Church signed a document 10 years ago to stop the practice. Church leaders have told members not do so any longer. If you think that means we all got a memo - or a series of memos - you are sadly mistaken. It undoubtedly has been announced from the pulpit - which means all the people on time to church and whose children weren't being fussy - heard it. It is also probably posted in all the Family History Centers - which means about 10% (being sarcastic here) have seen it.

The church leadership has made the agreement and they are removing the names as fast as they can. That isn't the problem - the problem is that they are not doing it fast enough to suit the group who went to Clinton. So, did they sue the church - which would have made sense? No, the court might find that the Mormon Church is making a "good faith effort" and they don't want that. Instead they went to "the state" to have it impose their wishes on another church. Very hypocritical - and more than a little distasteful given the circumstance - of them.

And you called it dispassionate? I certainly hope you were speaking of the manner of how the article was written and not the content - it was anything but dispassionate. Supporting the action would certainly be inconsistent with your previous statements.

Rather than assume bigotry is the cause because you found one single bigot, there may be a rational explanation that you simply don't want to consider. The Mormon Church sends it's missionaries into the nations that allow them. Unitl about 1990, Eastern block nations - Poland, East Germany, Czechloslovakia, Russia - did not allow them. They do now. Therefore, the areas of greatest growth of the church in the last 10 years is the same areas from where the majority of victims of the Holocaust also lived.

The people submitting the names could be Holocaust survivors (because Jews were not the only ones in the camps) or former neighbors of Holocaust victims or even Jews who have converted and are submitting their own family members (which I believe is an exemption to the agreement). The people submitting the names could be far more personally familiar with the actual people's whose names were submitted than the people from New York making the complaint to Clinton. I honestly don't know, but I do know that it makes the job of removing names that don't belong that much more difficult.

Since you don't apparently know, the last time "the state" involved themselves in the affairs of the Mormon Church our leader was assasinated (with their blessing and assistance), other leaders were critically wounded or forced into hiding, and people's homes and businesses were stolen and they were driven to live outside in a Nebraska winter. Out of fear for their lives, our people were forced into moving west to find a safe place - most walking the whole 2000 miles. Thousands dies of exposure, disease and hunger along the way. After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the US Army was sent to eradicate the settlement (which didn't happen due to the honorable leader of the Army contingent) and later, the settlers were denied a vote for simply being Mormon.

Quote:
 
What I am trying to say is that sometimes one can come up with all kinds of reasons to justify what they are doing - but maybe they need to stop and understand the perspective of the person they are doing it to - even if they mean well.


That statement is equally true for those who went to Clinton for her intervention. :rolleyes: Maybe that's why they went to the government though - they DID know the history .....

Quote:
 
And just to clarify - I used the article from the obvious anti-semite for a reason.


Perhaps because you wanted to "paint" Mormons as bigots, but didn't want to come out and say it? That is certainly the impression I got. :rolleyes:

As you well know, there are any number of hardliners in Israel who views are not those of the majority of its citizens. Unitl seeing what you posted, I dismissed them and their views. Now, because you posted what you did, I am rethinking that response. If it is fair for you to have posted what you did, why would it not be fair for someone else to post those views? If they add a disclaimer as you did ...

I won't though because I do agree with this statement:

Quote:
 
What I am trying to say is that sometimes one can come up with all kinds of reasons to justify what they are doing - but maybe they need to stop and understand the perspective of the person they are doing it to - even if they mean well.


End of Personal Response








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Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 10:21 PM
Dandandat
Jan 25 2005, 10:13 PM
Minuet
Jan 25 2005, 10:09 PM

Dante - I don't see the fetuses from the hospital as just being discarded and thrown away by the families.

Therefore I don't see how you can dismiss the analogy.

by from the hospital are you talking about miscarriages?

if thats not what you mean , what would you consider it then?

Yes - I am talking about the miscarriages.

That’s fine, I already concede that its wrong in that case.
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Minuet
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Wichita - when I posted the article from the anti-semite I made a comment I should not have and which was wrong and did not really explain my point of view. That comment is the one that follows.

Quote:
 
If the people who continue this practice all see us Jews as "sheenies" then I rest my case regarding why I feel they are devaluing others.


I think I said that because I was in shock that I found that essay on the internet. I do understand that the people who have continued the practice do not see Jews as I described. In actual fact the man who wrote the article ridiculed his own people for continuing to try and do us the "favour" I apologize for the mistake.

Where did I use the word "dispassionate"? :headscratch:

As for the people who go into the Eastern Bloc nations - could they not be given instructions that this service should be provided only for proven family members - not neighbors or friends? Neighbors and friends could have ulterior motives. Those people in New York are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the victims of the holocaust. They know thier own family histories. My great grandparents were victims. I know enough family history to know what thier religious convictions were. My grandfathers parents were Reform Jews. They were typical German Jews that had assimilated into society much as I have assimilated today. My grandfather later made the personal choice to become Orthodox. My grandmothers parents were Orthodox Jews and my grandmother was raised in that particular stream.

In addition - I would like to give credit to the majority of churchgoing Mormons (and I would assume that those doing missionary work are regular churchgoers) If the word has been spread regularly and clearly from every pulpit then by now everyone should have heard that the request was put in to stop. That is why I do lay the blame on individuals and not collectively. Unless you are suggesting that church leaders have not worked hard enough to get the word out? :shrug:

You have kindly provided me with a historical background of why your people distrust government involvement. I do understand your concerns in this area. Now I think I need to provide a history lesson on my people and why we fear the concept of proxy baptisms.

Throughout history my people have been submitted to periods of forced conversion. The most well known period when this occurred was the Spanish Inquisition. To us a baptism done without the express consent of the LIVING person reminds us of these forced conversions. It is a reminder of torture and fear. People who did not comply were murdered in cold blood. Proxy baptisms provoke the same fears for us that government intervention provokes for you.

Please consider that.
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Wichita
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Minuet
Jan 26 2005, 02:38 PM
Wichita - when I posted the article from the anti-semite I made a comment I should not have and which was wrong and did not really explain my point of view.

Personal Response

Thank you for that.

Minuet
 
Where did I use the word "dispassionate"?  :headscratch:


Minuet
 
It is a news article (from AP) so it discusses the issue a lot more dispassionately then the other.


Quote:
 
As for the people who go into the Eastern Bloc nations - could they not be given instructions that this service should be provided only for proven family members - not neighbors or friends?


Confusion Alert!

The people going into the Eastern bloc nations would not submit a single name. They, however, are baptizing people who live in the region. Those people may be the people who submitted the names. It's a fairly common thing for new converts to start into their geneology.

Quote:
 
Those people in New York are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the victims of the holocaust. They know thier own family histories.


Are you claiming that there is not one single surving relative of any Holocaust survivor in any of the Eastern bloc countries? :headscratch:

They could as easily be the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of the victims of the Holocaust. Since, as you have said, some groups of Jews treat one who has left the religion as someone who has died, that person may have a whole different perspective than your or I do about the issue.

Quote:
 
If the word has been spread regularly and clearly from every pulpit then by now everyone should have heard that the request was put in to stop. That is why I do lay the blame on individuals and not collectively. Unless you are suggesting that church leaders have not worked hard enough to get the word out?


You are still not grasping the sheer magnitude of the amount of information involved or the process. :no:

Everyone Mormon is urged to submit 4 generations of their personal history. This is their own families, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. The number of people who have done even that is fairly small. (I haven't and I have been a member 25 years. My family names in the file come from a distant, distant cousin.)

Those who are interested in their genealogy enough to go beyond four generations will continue on their own line - not spend time on someone else's.

There is also a small group of people (both Mormon and non-Mormon, in fact) who make a living in assisting others in submitting names. My guess is the 9 spoken of in one of the articles came from that group (although they were most likely Mormon). That groups of people KNOWS the church's feelings on subject - I have no doubt about that.

The group probably responsible for the additions of the names are those in the second group. This is not to excuse their mistake, but to explain it. They know enough to help others, but not all the limits.

Also, it is quite possible that in looking at distant lines of their own families they have crossed into lines of other families. While they were investigating great, great, great Uncle Thomas, for example, they came across enough information on his wife Sarah and her family to fill out the Group Sheet so they submitted it as well. Sarah IS a part of their family (as are her children) and are therefore legitimate to submit, but Sarah's parents and siblings may be off limits because they are Jewish. It is wrong and should be corrected, but was not intentional. The person submitting may never have known Sarah's family was Jewish because Sarah and Thomas were married in a Christian church or in a civil ceremony.

I have no disagreement with your view on proxy baptisms. In fact, I don't think I have a right to have a "view" on it. It is the decision of your people.

However, Rome WASN'T built in a day. We are TRYING. Our two churches have collaborated on a number of projects over the years - including a study center in Israel - so the church leadership know there is a common ground. We have agreed to do what we can in this instance.

I have no problem with people searching the indexes (because there is more than one) for names that don't belong. I do think it undreasonable, however, to ASSUME that finding names in the index on a given day is proof that there is a conspiracy afoot. If Mormons are expected to control all the actions of all 11 million members relative to this issue 24/7, then should Sharon not be expected to control all the actions of the Israeli settlers 24/7 as well?

Has it occured to you yet that some Jewish people don't know about the issue either or perhaps don't care if they do? The Mormon Church has a facility carved into a mountain that is climate controlled and strong enough to withstand just about anything. Non-members of the church submit material all the time because it is a secure facility. It's possible some of the names come from the families of the Jewish people themselves. Not every religous person has the same committment to their faith or the same way of looking at it.

I'm just throwing it out there as a possibility ....

End of Personal Response
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Minuet
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Wichita - I think we are getting closer to understanding each other now. Thank you for letting me discuss this issue with you. I know it is tough to discuss religious beliefs without stepping on toes. :kiss:

First - now that I understand what you were saying about dispassionate I will say that I meant the style in which the article was written. I was trying to aknowledge the biases inherent in the very first article I posted. I was trying to strengthen my position by posting a less biased source for the events in question. It is obviously a subject about which many people, myself included, feel passionate.

As to my comments about putting on limitations that one could submit relatives only, it was in response to the following quote.

Quote:
 
The people submitting the names could be Holocaust survivors (because Jews were not the only ones in the camps) or former neighbors of Holocaust victims or even Jews who have converted and are submitting their own family members (which I believe is an exemption to the agreement). 


As you can see YOU were the one who mentioned neighbors submitting names, not I.

Quote:
 
Are you claiming that there is not one single surving relative of any Holocaust survivor in any of the Eastern bloc countries?  :headscratch:


The fact of the matter is that Jews remaining in those Eastern Bloc countries number in the hundreds, or even less. As to surviving relatives that are not Jewish - I suspect that there are not many of those either considering that Hitler looked at Jews from a biological standpoint, not a religious one. Converts and thier descendants were also sent to concentration camps and murdered in cold blood as Jews.

In that light I think it is reasonable to assume that the majority of the hundreds of thousands of names submitted did not come from relatives in Eastern Bloc countries. I know you can't answer this - but I would love to know where they did come from. :shrug:

Quote:
 
However, Rome WASN'T built in a day. We are TRYING. Our two churches have collaborated on a number of projects over the years - including a study center in Israel - so the church leadership know there is a common ground. We have agreed to do what we can in this instance.


I know and appreciate this. My intent was simply to show how good intentions can still go wrong. I am willing to bet that the individuals who buried the babies are generally good people, salt of the earth types. And what they did was still wrong and they should be told so. If we don't speak up then the situation will just repeat itself.

I wanted to look at this whole situation from a different perspective then our weekly abortion debates.



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Wichita
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Minuet
Jan 26 2005, 05:36 PM
As you can see YOU were the one who mentioned neighbors submitting names, not I.


Personal Response

Absolutely true - I'm just pointing out it would not be the missionaries doing this. We currently have one in Russia now and the poor kid has enough trouble just not getting beat up - he wouldn't have time for geneology. :)

As to the rest - agreed. It is nice to discuss things calmly.

End of Personal Response
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