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Mormons sorry for posthumous baptism of Anne Frank

February 22, 2012 11:24
Anne Frank

By

Jennifer Lipman,

Jennifer Lipman

1 min read

A week after Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel condemned the Mormon Church for adding his name to a list of those who could one day be eligible for posthumous baptism, members of the religion appear to have gone a step further and baptised Anne Frank.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has carried out the controversial practice of baptising non-members after their deaths for some 170 years. They do so in the belief it secures a place in heaven.

In 1995, after it emerged that Mormons had submitted the names of hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims to the Church's genealogical database for posthumous baptism, without regard to their religious origin, the Church agreed to stop the practice.

But cases continued to occur and it took a further 15 years for the Mormon Church to agree to better monitor the database.