Church And State: France turns on Mormons over `baptism of dead' Outcry over use of genealogical records on internet to secure conversions by Church of Latter-day Saints

THE FRENCH state is growing increasingly anxious about the"baptism of ancestors" by the Mormon Church.

According to an investigation in yesterday's Liberation newspaper,Paris is having second thoughts about a 13-year-old agreementallowing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to microfilmall birth and death registers and parish records in France up to thebeginning of the 20th century. Under the agreement, made in 1987, theMormon church agreed that the records would not be resold and wouldbe used only by its members.

According to their doctrine, Mormons must "baptise the dead", orattempt to baptise their ancestors as far back as they can be traced.In return for allowing Mormon researchers to film the records -anyone is entitled to write them down - the French governmentreceived two free copies of each microfilm for its own archives.

But the agreement failed to take account of the internet. Theinformation gathered so far, covering 56 of the 100 Frenchmetropolitan and overseas departements, and containing the names of400 million dead French people, is now available on the Mormonwebsite, familysearch.org.

Similar efforts are under way to trace ancestors in othercountries, including Britain (where most parish records can be freelyconsulted). This drive - officially an effort to "bring together thehuman family" - has produced a vast archive of three billion names,which are stored in a "genealogical library" contained within cellarshollowed out of a hillside near Salt Lake City.

The information is an invaluable source for genealogists andindividuals tracing their roots, whether they are Mormons or not. Butthe French government fears it is being used, subtly, by the Mormonsas a recruitment tool. French civil liberties organisations fear itamounts to a creation of a "secret file" on the human race.

It also raises the odd possibility that many of us are post-factodescended from newly baptised Mormons, without knowing it.

Although not officially admitted, ex-Mormons have spoken of "massbaptisms" of the dead, using names gathered by researchers. In otherwords, the Mormons are gradually kidnapping all our ancestors.

Christian Euvrard, a spokesman for the Mormons, said it wasimpossible to know whether "the spirits of the dead" accepted theinvitation to become Mormons. He said: "We are not hijacking them.The dead have their own independent referee. Between his death andhis resurrection, Christ preached the gospel to the dead.

"Our belief is that men and women can be converted in the spiritworld, after their death. For us, there is no one more alive than adead person."

The posting of the French records on the internet - whichimplicitly breaks the 1987 agreement - was raised with the Mormonchurch by the director- general of the French archives, PhilippeBelaval, in June. The French Ministry of Culture is to meet civilrights groups next month to hear their complaints.

The French national committee for information and liberty fearsthat the Mormon file could allow living people to be classifiedaccording to their race or religion or enable the health history oftheir ancestors to be investigated without their knowledge oragreement.

Mr Belaval acknowledged to Liberation that there was a potentialproblem. "The existence of this website has led us to question theway the state and the [Mormons] agreed to use this information. Whyis the church putting this information on the web? For what purposeand in what context?

"The 1987 agreement failed to foresee the coming of newtechnologies. We cannot remain with the status quo."