No Mormon baptism for Holocaust victims. Mormons who want to practice proxy baptism for the dead have been told to keep it in the family. The governing First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently issued a mandate to members: Do not submit names of Jewish Holocaust victims or celebrities for proxy baptism. Doing so could cost Mormons access to their church's genealogical data or even their good standing in the faith. The letter reminded members their "pre-eminent obligation" is to their own ancestors, and any name submitted for proxy rituals "should be related to the submitter." The Mormon practice known as "baptism for the dead" involves living people being baptized on behalf of the deceased. Mormons believe it is their moral obligation to do the temple rituals, while those in the hereafter can either accept or reject the ordinance.
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association makes cuts. Fifty people on the 500-member staff of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association will lose their jobs between mid-March and this summer, said Brent Rinehart, a BGEA spokesman. About 20 of the affected staffers work at the association headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. Others have worked as field staff across the globe or at The Cove, the BGEA's training center in Asheville, N.C. Rinehart insisted the layoffs are "not a reflection of the financial health of the organization." Rather, they are part of an effort to redeploy resources to focus on those areas of great impact, such as SearchforJesus.net, a website the association launched last April that includes a real-time count of decisions people make to become Christians. Famed evangelist Billy Graham remains the chairman of the association he founded in 1950. His son, Franklin, runs the day-to-day operations as the CEO and president. The BGEA's revenue dropped from $126 million in 2005 to $85.7 million in 2009, Rinehart said. In 2010, it totaled $91.6 million.
Slow progress at quake-damaged National Cathedral. It took 83 years to build the iconic Washington National Cathedral, but a rare East Coast earthquake last summer took only seconds to send carved stone finials tumbling from the heavens to the ground below. Six months after the 5.8-magnitude quake, the cathedral is facing repair costs of at least $20 million, and a reconstruction timeline that could stretch out a decade or more. The bill to fix the iconic church now is at least $5 million more than original estimates, said church officials, who still are working to stabilize the building, repair its intricate stonework and raise money to continue the restoration. So far, donations for repairs have reached $2 million, or 10 percent of the predicted cost.
Anglicans seek to stop copper thefts. The Church of England is spearheading a campaign to install high-tech movement sensors on scores of churches in a bid to stop a rash of lead and copper thieves who have targeted the roofs of religious buildings. The stolen metals are fetching increasingly higher prices on international markets. The insurance firm Ecclesiastical reported receiving a record 2,600 claims last year.
—Compiled from Religion News Service
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