Elie Wiesel asks Mitt Romney to denounce baptisms

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize laureate, whose name was entered into a database so that he could be baptized in a Mormon ritual after his death, said yesterday he wants Mitt Romney to speak out against the Mormon practice of posthumously baptizing Jews.

“He is a Mormon, and since he’s running for president - the highest office in the world, not only in America - he should know what is happening, and he should have said simply, ‘It is wrong,’ ’’ Wiesel, a professor at Boston University, said in an interview.

Advertisement

Wiesel’s comments could put Romney in the uncomfortable position of defending one of his church’s rituals that is little understood outside the world of Mormonism and has been the source of controversy with Jews in the past.

Romney’s campaign said yesterday that any questions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should be directed to the church.

The church acknowledged earlier this week that Wiesel’s name and the names of his late father and grandfather had been entered into a genealogical database as candidates ready for posthumous rites.

“None of the three names were submitted for baptism, and they would not have been under the church’s guidelines and procedures,’’ Michael Purdy, a church spokesman, said in a statement. “The names were simply entered into a genealogical database. Submission for proxy baptism is a separate process.’’

The church acknowledged that the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal’s father and mother were recently baptized, in violation of the church’s policy of not baptizing victims of the Holocaust.

Advertisement

“We sincerely regret that the actions of an individual member of the church led to the inappropriate submission’’ of the Wiesenthal family, Purdy said. “These submissions were clearly against the policy of the church. We consider this a serious breach of our protocol, and we have suspended indefinitely this person’s ability to access our genealogy records.’’

Members of the Mormon Church baptize the names of the dead in a common rite designed to allow them access to heaven. Mormon theology teaches that the deceased can then choose whether or not to join the church as Mormons.

“It’s an impetus toward generosity, not toward covert conversion of the dead to Mormonism,’’ said Terryl L. Givens, a scholar of Mormonism at the University of Richmond. “It’s like putting somebody’s name on a guest list. They might have no interest whatsoever in the party, but at least the door is now open to them.’’

In a 2007 Newsweek interview, Romney was asked if he had ever performed baptisms of the dead, and said, “I have in my life, but I haven’t recently.’’ His campaign did not respond to an inquiry on whether he baptized Holocaust victims.

The practice has long upset many Jews. In 1995, after it was discovered that church members had submitted the names of thousands of Holocaust victims for baptism, leaders of the church met with representatives from Jewish organizations and agreed to stop the practice. The church said it also removed the names of 260,000 Holocaust victims from its database. Church policy now encourages members to baptize their ancestors, but does not specifically exempt the baptizing of deceased Jews or members of other faiths.

Wiesel’s listing in the database and the proxy baptism of Wiesenthal’s parents were uncovered by Helen Radkey, an excommunicated Mormon who has dedicated herself to sifting through the church’s genealogical archives in Utah. She had previously revealed that Mormons baptized President Obama’s late mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that he was outraged that Mormons continue to baptize Holocaust victims and that he believes the church must do a better job educating its members about why the practice offends Jews.

“Mitt Romney is not at all responsible for any of this, but if he were to say something about the issue or make a gesture, it’s something that would have a profound impact on American Jews,’’ he said. “He is a prominent member of the church, and it would be a positive thing.’’

Wiesel, 83, said a church leader had called him to apologize, but not Romney, a former bishop and stake president who once oversaw about a dozen congregations with close to 4,000 members in Eastern Massachusetts. Wiesel said he was not trying to politicize the debate about proxy baptisms by urging Romney to speak out.

But Givens said he believes it is unfair to draw Romney into a controversy facing his church “any more than one would call on Newt Gingrich to chastise the Catholic Church for something its members have done.’’

“Continually, we’re finding in this election cycle, connections drawn between Mitt Romney and his religion that no one is drawing between any other candidate and his religion,’’ Givens said.

Jan Shipps, a scholar of Mormonism and professor emeritus at Indiana University, said she doubts Romney will speak out about proxy baptisms, because he has long been reluctant to discuss his religion in public. Church leaders, she said, also want to avoid any suggestion that they are taking orders from Romney.

“The church is so afraid to be seen to be doing what Mitt Romney wants, they wouldn’t give him credit for it, even if he did it,’’ she said.

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.