I hope I am not invading private cyberspace!!! I am not a member of the LDS Church, but I certainly have had LDS friends over the years, and when I was a teenager, a member of an LDS Boy Scout Troop. I tried to find a blog on Mormons and Mormonism, and this one was the only one listed that was not done by a disgruntled former member.

I am an Episcopalian who taught in Roman Catholic Schools for years. And, of course, theological issues used to come up all the time. Due to the similarity of our faiths, I was allowed to prepare children for First Communion, which happens in the 2nd grade. The concept of purgatory and limbo have not been taught in Cathecism for over a generation now. No serious theologian in the Roman Church still believes in those concepts. They were dumped in the early 1960s as Vatican II began and the Catholic Church re-evaluated its place in the modern world.

Even the topic of hell is pretty much avoided in formal Catholic religious education. The concept of infant baptism, which is still performed in both the Anglican and the Roman traditions, is viewed now as more of an entrance into the Christian family and tradition.

Yes, those doctrines of purgatory and limbo really had their beginnings in the early middle ages. My church, the Episcopal Church (Church of England), commented they were “vain and foolish teachings, rather repugnant to the mind of God” in the First Book of Common Prayer. The early Christian Church radically changed after the reign of Constatine. During the First Century, we know that baptism was done only once a year, on Holy Saturday, the Saturday before Easter. It had to be done in “aquae vitae” (living water), which was interpreted as a river or ocean, or other moving water. It was considered so sacred, that converts were baptised only after a rigorous examination by a bishop; Constantine was not baptised until shortly before his death. The “sprinkling” we do became popular as infants were baptised and done as a practical matter.

We do know from secular writings that converts studied for at least a year prior to baptism, and that every hair on their head had to be immersed in water. There’s a trend in the Episcopal church to return to baptism by immersion, and the conversion process had returned to long study and baptism for adults only on Holy Saturday..

I tried to find a blog on Mormons and Mormonism, and this one was the only one listed that was not done by a disgruntled former member.

This is sad! Good LDS blogs can’t be found? We need to do some better SEO perhaps.

It’s time to add to my blogroll I guess.

Speaking of Mormon apostates, there was an Episcopal priest from Utah who spoke at a parish in Albany (California). He said he loved living around the Mormons, or “behind the Zion Curtain”. He did make one hilarious remark,though.

“If you think Mromon Missionaries can be annoying, wait until you meet some of their apostates. ” It does amaze me how much rage some of your former members have.

I realize this is an older post (in internet time), but what the heck.

Why can’t we be like the Catholics and just come out and say, “Hey, this doctrine isn’t really true, so we’re going to go on the record and make it officially false” about the black skin = curse teachings, Adam-God doctrine, etc.?

I’m not trying to be smart or negative or critical. I’m just saying, why can’t we get an announcement at conference or a FP letter that officially puts such teachings in the “uninspired” category? That way at least anti-Mormons couldn’t say that we actually believe such stuff. Officially denouncing uninspired teachings seems like a better policy than just ignoring them and hoping that everybody forgets about them.

Actually, limbo was never officially “decreed” in the Catholic Church. It was a hypothesis, part of a theological debate that some taught as truth, but was never made doctrine. Also, in regards to the Episcopal religious ed teacher – I am sorry to hear your experience was so watered down. The Church, in fact, does teach clearly that hell exists and that baptism is a Sacrament necessary for salvation (not merely an entrance into the Christian family). It’s all in the catechism which can be read online: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm. I too am involved in religious ed, and in my location this is made clear. It’s important to remember that the way some schools or parishes may practice or emphasize different aspects of the faith is not necessarily reflective of the official doctrine or dogma of the faith.

Your link to the Chicago Tribune only leads me to the home page. Google just shows some quotes in forums. Did the article get retracted? Did the pope go through with rejecting this idea?