Romney Has A "Jewish Problem"

This is awkward: Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has called upon Mitt Romney to get the Mormon church to cease posthumous baptism of Jews.  This from MSNBC (emphasis added) --

Wiesel to Romney: Tell Mormons to stop baptizing dead Jews

Prominent Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has called on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to “speak to his own church” and ask them to stop performing posthumous proxy baptisms on Jews.

The demand, reported on the Huffington Post website, comes after members of the Mormon church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), baptized the dead parents of famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, an act that provoked a storm of criticism and led to an apology from the church.

The site also reported that Wiesel’s name, as well as those of his father and maternal grandfather, had been entered into a database for the deceased, sometimes an early part of the process leading toward posthumous baptism. The members involved apparently were unaware that the Nobel Peace Prize winner was still alive.

"I think it's scandalous. Not only objectionable, it's scandalous," Wiesel, 83, told the HuffPost.

Wiesel told the site that the situation has gotten so out of hand that the most prominent Mormon in the country should speak out about it.
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LDS officials in Salt Lake City were quick to apologize Monday, telling the Salt Lake Tribune that the Utah-based faith "sincerely regret[s] that the actions of an individual member ... led to the inappropriate submission of these names," which were "clearly against the policy of the church."

"We consider this a serious breach of our protocol," spokesman Scott Trotter said in a statement, "and we have suspended indefinitely this person’s ability to access our genealogy records."

Moral obligation
In the practice, known as "baptism for the dead," living people stand in for the deceased to offer that person a chance to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the afterlife, according to an account in the Tribune. Mormons believe it is their moral obligation to do the temple rituals, while those on the other side can choose whether to accept the action or not.

According to the HuffPost, negotiations between Mormon and Jewish leaders led to an agreement in 1995 for the church to stop the posthumous baptism of all Jews, except in the case of direct ancestors of Mormons, but some Mormons failed to adhere to the agreement. Wiesel was among a group of Jewish leaders who campaigned against the practice and prompted a 2010 pact by which the Mormon Church promised to at least prevent proxy baptism requests for Holocaust victims. Wiesel said that proxy baptisms have been performed on behalf of 650,000 Holocaust dead.
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A few thoughts of mine ...

1) It is a report from "The HuffPo" ... so who knows, although Wiesel is quite upset about it, so perhaps there is some veracity to the story;

2)  I remember visiting a Mormon temple when it was opened to the public before its final dedication.  I was with a group of friends from my church and recall how we were a bit shocked at this notion of someone possibly having us baptized as Mormons after our passing.

3) I have some disagreements with Mormonism ... this being one of them.  But, I don't know if it's Romney's role to be the Great Mediator between the Church of LDS and the rest of the world.