Did Mitt Romney Convert His Dead Atheist Father-in-Law to Mormonism?

[witchcurlgirl]

One of the creepier corners of Mitt Romney's uncannily flawless life story is the fact that he not only drew his bride, Ann Romney, over to his weird religion: He converted her entire family as well. This despite the fact that Ann's father, Edward Davies, was a committed atheist who insisted on raising his children without religion.

The story of how Mitt Romney infiltrated and colonized his future wife's family for Mormonism is known, but it bears repeating. Edward Davies, Ann Romney's Welsh father, was an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur who worked on designs for the Gemini space program and helped outfit aircraft carriers. He eventually became the mayor of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He was also a resolute atheist who insisted that his family be raised without participating in an organized religion. "He would say: 'I'm a scientist, show me the proof'," a former co-worker told the Telegraph. Davies thought of religion as "drudgery and hogwash," according to Boston Globe, and his son Roderick told the paper that Davies "considered people who were religious to be weak in the knees."

So it must have broken his heart when, after his only daughter began dating Mormon scion Mitt Romney, she converted to his religion with the help of Mitt's father. From the Globe:

[W]hen he wasn't crisscrossing the country, George Romney was guiding Ann Davies through her conversion into the Mormon faith.

With Mitt away, Ann told George she was interested in attending Mormon services. The governor headed straight for the Davies home. He asked Ann's parents for permission to send some US-based missionaries to meet with Ann. Her mother was an easy sell. But getting clearance from Ann's father, whose rejection of organized religion ran deep, would be a much tougher challenge.

Ultimately, Edward Davies and George Romney shook hands on an agreement: George could send the missionaries, provided Ann's mother sat in on the discussions.... The missionaries came for six straight sessions, sitting with Ann in the family room on the lower level of the Davies' split-level home, taking her through the Mormon conversion process....

Before long, George Romney was picking Ann up and driving her to services at the Mormon chapel, and Ann began bringing Jim along. When she decided to be baptized, she asked Mitt's father to do the honors. Dressed in white, she followed George into the baptismal font, where she was immersed while he said the prayers.

It didn't end there. Edward Davies didn't allow Ann's little brother Jim to sit in on her conversations with the missionaries Mitt's father dispatched, but he stood outside the window to listen in. Within months, Jim decided that he, too, wanted to join the Mormon faith. George Romney oversaw the process.

All the while, Ann's older brother Roderick was studying abroad in England. But Mitt arranged for missionaries to intercept him there and he, too, agreed to convert. "Thanks largely to Mitt Romney," the Globe reported, "in less than one year the entire progeny of anti-religious Edward Davies had joined the Mormon faith."

Still, it didn't stop. Edward Davies never renounced his atheism and died in 1992. A year later, as his wife lay dying, she asked her sons to convert her to Mormonism. Romney had successfully claimed the entire family of a staunchly irreligious man for one of the most organized and all-encompassing religious movements on the planet.

Mormons, of course, are known for their habit of posthumously converting dead souls. They also believe that families are reunited in eternity after death. So the incentive for Ann Romney to convert Edward Davies in death so that they may one day frolic together in the interplanetary afterlife was presumably fairly powerful. Did she posthumously baptize him, despite his belief while he lived that such a baptism and the beliefs that undergird it are pure "hogwash"? I have asked both the Romney camp and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints in the past; both declined to say.

But the list of baptized Mormons is available, as I understand it, to certain of those in the faith. So if any renegade Mormons out there feel like checking their Mormon computer to see if the soul of Edward Roderick Davies, who was born in June 1915 and died on September 8, 1992, has been claimed for the One True Church and rescued from the pits of Hell, do let us know.


Did Mitt Romney Convert His Dead Atheist Father-in-Law to Mormonism?

[A*O]

They've been doing posthumous conversions forever. They have probably the best archives of births/death/marriages (not just Mormon ones) in the world which are a great resource for genealogists, etc. I don't really see how an atheist would care about it because, being an atheist, there's no way they could know about it. Mormons get a bad rap for being a bit weird but as religions go it's pretty harmless compared to one or two others I could mention.

[faithanne]

How are they allowed to do this? When I was researching my family tree I found a whole branch of my family had been baptised into the Mormon faith some time in the last decade. Trouble is, they all died in the 1800s and my gggg-grandfather was an Anglican minister who was one of the first to preach in the convict colony in the 1790s and went on to build major churches in early Sydney and even converted the Maoris to Christianity. He would be outraged if he knew he was now posthumously baptised a Mormon. I was really disgusted when I discovered they had done this - what gives them the right?

[McJag]

How are they allowed to do this? When I was researching my family tree I found a whole branch of my family had been baptised into the Mormon faith some time in the last decade. Trouble is, they all died in the 1800s and my gggg-grandfather was an Anglican minister who was one of the first to preach in the convict colony in the 1790s and went on to build major churches in early Sydney and even converted the Maoris to Christianity. He would be outraged if he knew he was now posthumously baptised a Mormon. I was really disgusted when I discovered they had done this - what gives them the right?

You can't stop it. My cousin's daughter coverted. I am sure she had her devout Espiscopal mother converted asap. From what I read, they will have all of us converted after we die. Why? Because we have the misfortune to be related to 1 second cousin. Everyone who touches their family tree, no matter how remotely is fair game. Sick!

[olivia]

Mormons get a bad rap for being a bit weird but as religions go it's pretty harmless compared to one or two others I could mention.

They are sitting on a mountain of cash, hundred and hundreds of billions, that they use for no other charitable purpose than to rip off the Beast or the "gentiles" (any Xtians, since Mormons consider themselves the real Jews) and promote some really rotten, discriminatory, legislation in every country they inhabit.

I wouldn't call them harmless.

[NoNoRehab]

I have a lot of problems with the Mormon church. However, I don't like the tone of this article, which basically seems to be "sneaky Mitt Romney converted his wife's family!" The writer doesn't know if Ann's father was converted posthumously, but he describes Ann and her siblings and their mom converting voluntarily and as adults. Just because they were raised atheist and their dad/husband was an ardent atheist, doesn't mean that they don't have the right to make their own decisions about religion. The patriarchal vibe of this journalist as if the (adult) children should just have followed their father's views and were seduced away from what their dad wanted is no better than the patriarchal bullshit spewed by Mormonism. They're adults, they have the right to convert a religion if they want to just as it was their dad's right to be an atheist.

[Ravenna]

To my mind, getting upset about posthumous baptism lends it some sort of credence. It's just some silly symbolic ritual that has meaning to Mormons only. And even Mormons don't believe the baptism automatically makes your soul Mormon- your dead self still has to choose to accept it. So referring to it as a 'conversion' would be misleading even if it were true. It doesn't make sense to me to get angry about others' delusions when they have no real influence. I think it's worth no more than an eye roll and a 'whatever'.

The patriarchal vibe of this journalist as if the (adult) children should just have followed their father's views and were seduced away from what their dad wanted is no better than the patriarchal bullshit spewed by Mormonism. They're adults, they have the right to convert a religion if they want to just as it was their dad's right to be an atheist.

I agree. The idea that we should all follow the religious persuasion of our fathers is insulting regardless of who it's coming from.

[witchcurlgirl]

The mormons got their hands slapped for baptizing holocaust victims. They had agreed to stop in the early 90's, but 10 years later were still doing it. Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Wiesenthal Center put it best: ’If these people did not contact the Mormons themselves, the adage should be: Don't call me, I'll call you.’


The practice may be harmless, but it's deeply offensive, and it will obscure and make false historical record, which is part of the intention behind it.

A funny take on this vile practice: www.famous*deadmormon*s.com.

[witchcurlgirl]

Gawker's substantial Mormon readership has come through for us: Two readers have sent us confirmation that Edward Davies, Mitt Romney's militantly atheist father-in-law, was indeed posthumously converted to Mormonism by his family, despite the fact that when he was alive he regarded all religions as "hogwash."

As we mentioned yesterday, Ann Romney's Welsh-born father (who Mitt mentioned in last night's debate to shore up his pro-immigrant bona fides) was an engineer, inventor, and resolute atheist who disdained all organized religion and raised his children accordingly. Davies, his son Roderick told the Boston Globe in 2007, regarded the faithful as "weak in the knees." But when Mitt began seeing Davies' daughter Ann, the Romney family launched a concerted effort to convert not only Ann but her entire family to Mormonism. And they were wildly successful: Within a year of meeting Ann, Mitt and his father had converted all three of Edward Davies' children. Days before she died in 1993, Ann Romney's mother asked to be converted as well. Edward Davies was the only member of his clan whose soul the Romneys never claimed for their church.






Until he died. According to this entry in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' genealogical database, Davies was baptized as a Mormon at a "special family meeting" 14 months after his death: "All ordinances except sealing to spouse performed in Salt Lake Temple on 19 Nov 1993 in special family meeting," the entry says. (When we previously asked the church whether Davies had been baptized, a spokesperson told us that the information was available only to his family and church members. But it's apparently right there on the internet for those who know what to look for.)


According to our tipster, the "ordinances" performed on Davies' spectral remnants included the following:

[A] canonical series of rituals that Mormons undergo (in life or death) in order to qualify for admission to heaven, including baptism, confirmation, "washings and anointings," endowment, and, in the case of men, ordination to two levels of priesthood. The description seems to indicate that certain family members were present for all these rituals, in which a living male would have stood in "for and in behalf of" the late Mr. Davies.

A little under a year after the posthumous baptism, according to this entry at Ancestry.com, a Utah-based genealogical registry linked to the Mormon church, Edward Davies was "sealed" to his spouse for eternity in a ceremony that appears to have been performed in Atlanta, Ga.


Of course this is all empty superstition, as Davies realized. Being dead, he wasn't particularly in a place to care about whatever voodoo was performed in his name. But it's an exceedingly odd way for the Romney family to honor the memory of a man who was committed, for his entire life, to the notion that organized religion is a fraud.


The Mormon church has repeatedly been criticized for its practice of trawling for dead souls to convert to the faith. Catholic and Jewish organizations have expressed outrage when the names of dead popes and Holocaust victims have turned up on Mormon lists of the baptized. In 1995, the church pledged to "discontinue any future baptisms of deceased Jews" except for direct descendents of living Mormons, tacitly acknowledging that its creepy and weird to claim the souls of people who had no interest in Mormonism for their own. It's strange that the Romney and Davies families didn't accord Edward Davies' memory the same respect.


Yes, the Romneys Converted Mitt's Dead Atheist Father-in-Law to Mormonism

[AllieCat]

How are they allowed to do this? It's wrong on so many levels!

[faithanne]

To my mind, getting upset about posthumous baptism lends it some sort of credence. It's just some silly symbolic ritual that has meaning to Mormons only. And even Mormons don't believe the baptism automatically makes your soul Mormon- your dead self still has to choose to accept it. So referring to it as a 'conversion' would be misleading even if it were true. It doesn't make sense to me to get angry about others' delusions when they have no real influence. I think it's worth no more than an eye roll and a 'whatever'.

I know it's meaningless but to see my ancestors' names and details of their "baptisms" on the LDS family history page means it's out there for anyone to read and believe. I'm not religious but I'm still offended that they can do this to people who have no choice and at least in my ancestor's case there is a lot of historical record about his Anglican missionary work and I think he would be horrified that other historical records claim to renounce all that work and consider his soul is Mormon.

[olivia]

How are they allowed to do this? It's wrong on so many levels!

Not even Holocaust survivors could stop the Mormon's from baptizing Jews who died in the camps.

It's not illegal but it is tacky and just not decent.

[BBDSP]

What a strange and disrespectful custom, this posthumous conversion. I wish some person who got converted would materialize and strangle the person who did it.