Mitt Romney's family baptized Ann Romney's atheist father into Mormon church a year AFTER his death
By Meghan Keneally
Last updated at 10:40 PM on 28th January 2012
More questions are being raised about presidential candidate Mitt Romney's religion after it was revealed that he helped baptize his adamantly atheist father-in-law years after the man had died.
Edward Roderick Davies was Ann Romney's father and died in 1992 after living as a staunch atheist all his life.
Recently-discovered records show that, in keeping with their controversial tradition of posthumously baptizing non-Mormons, a ceremony was held to invite Mr Davies into the Church of Latter Day Saints one year after he died.
Devout: Mitt Romney's Mormon faith has been a point of contention among the Republican party's many conservative Christian supporters who have issues with the religion and
Mitt Romney's father George took an active role in converting Ann to Mormonism when she was a teenager
The practice of performing baptisms for the dead has drawn criticism after the Mormon church began doing so for well-known Catholics- including former popes- and Jews- including Holocaust survivors.
According to the religion's official website, the baptisms are seen as a way to offer those souls an option of joining the Church even once they have died. A key point is that it is seen as an option- as the souls are believed to have the ability to either accept or reject the baptism.
Mitt's wife Ann converted to Mormonism when she was 17 years old, shortly after she had started dating her husband-to-be.
Because Mitt was in France doing his missionary work at the time, his father George Romney helped usher Ann into the religion and arranged for missionaries to teach her about the faith.
Edward Davies was a staunch atheist and believed organized religions to be 'hogwash'
Shortly after Ann converted, her two brothers followed suit and converted as well.
Mr Davies died in 1992 and his wife died a year later. When she was on her deathbed, however, she asked her sons to help her convert to Mormonism, and she was baptized just before she died.
Unlike his wife, Mr Davies had no such last-minute requests for religious salvation.
He remained true to his convictions and considered organized religion 'drudgery' and 'hogwash'.
Ann's brother Roderick is quoted as saying that their father 'considered people who were religious to be weak in the knees'.
His well-known distaste for religion didn't stop members of his family from baptizing him by proxy a year after he died, however.
The proxy baptisms are typically done with a member of the dead subject's family standing in for them at the ceremony and going through the actions on the deceased person's behalf.
Because all three of Mr Davies' children had been long-time members of the religion at that point, any of them could have been the proxy.
Little else is known about the specifics of the 'special family meeting' which resulted in Mr Davies' baptism, except that it took place in the famed Salt Lake Temple in Utah on September 13, 1993. Whether or not Mitt Romney was present is unknown, but it seems likely that his wife Ann certainly was.
The Romney family's pride in converting members of the Davies family to their religion is well-documented.
When Mitt was disheartened after having a difficult time converting the French to Mormonism while he was doing his missionary work, his father George wrote him a letter saying that their work with the Davies family was more important anyhow.
'I was thrilled to stand in for you in connection with (Ann's brother) Jim's baptism,' the elder Mr Romney wrote on March 6, 1967.
'This makes two converts here that are certainly yours so don't worry about your difficulty in converting those Frenchmen!
'I am sure you can appreciate that Ann and Jim are each worth a dozen of them, at least to us.'
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Originally Posted by vandeleur
