ABC News has confirmed reports that Mormons posthumously baptized President Obama's mother five months before the election.
The baptism was first reported by AMERICAblog's John Aravosis, who found an ordinance record on the Mormon genealogical Web site, FamilySearch.org.
Mormon Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said that "the offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related. The Church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such."
According to "doctrinal background" from an LDS spokesman, "well-meaning Church members sometimes bypass this instruction and submit the names of non-relatives for temple baptism. Others -- perhaps pranksters or careless persons -- have submitted the names of unrelated famous or infamous people, or even wholly fictitious names. These rare acts are contrary to Church policy and sometimes cause pain and embarrassment."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints confirmed Tuesday afternoon that someone improperly, posthumously baptized the late mother of President Obama into the Mormon faith.
Last June 4 -- the day after then-Sen. Obama secured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nominee -- someone had the president's mother Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995 of cancer, baptized.
On June 11, she received the endowment.
The baptism was first reported by AMERICAblog's John Aravosis, who found an ordinance record on the Mormon genealogical Web site, FamilySearch.org.
Mormon Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said that "the offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related. The Church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such."
According to "doctrinal background" from an LDS spokesman, "well-meaning Church members sometimes bypass this instruction and submit the names of non-relatives for temple baptism. Others -- perhaps pranksters or careless persons -- have submitted the names of unrelated famous or infamous people, or even wholly fictitious names. These rare acts are contrary to Church policy and sometimes cause pain and embarrassment."
