Apostate Ex-Mormon Helen Radkey Hoisted Upon Her Own Petard; LDS Church Blocks Her Access To New Family Search Database

Apostate ex-Mormon Helen Radkey has been using the baptism records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to uncover the names of celebrities and Holocaust victims who've received proxy baptisms. She's publicized the information primarily because she has an axe to grind against the Church. After her latest series of revelations, in which she disclosed that Simon Wiesenthal's parents, the father and grandfather of Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, Daniel Pearl, and Mahatma Gandhi had been baptized posthumously, the Church cracked down and tightened access to their New.FamilySearch.org website while firmly counseling members in a First Presidency letter read to each congregation on March 4th to restrict such activity to their own ancestral lines.

And Radkey is one of those who is now frozen out of the website. Oh, the irony! Radkey admitted on March 7th, 2012 that she has been effectively stopped. Radkey was surreptitiously using the account information of Mormon confidants to access the system.

The Church is playing it close to the vest. Asked if the change was designed to specifically target Radkey, LDS Church spokesman Michael Purdy didn't even bother mentioning her name, instead issuing the following statement:

"The church is committed to preventing the misguided practice of submitting the names of Holocaust victims and prominent individuals for proxy baptism. In addition to reiterating its policy to members, the church has implemented a new technological barrier to prevent abuse of the New FamilySearch system. Anyone trying to access names that have been restricted will have their account suspended and be required to contact FamilySearch to establish their family relationship in order to have their access reinstated. Abuse of the system will result in the permanent loss of database access."

The new system is expected to help the Church live up to its agreement with Jewish groups by excluding Holocaust victims from proxy baptisms. Now, those names will trip the new censors, so FamilySearch users can neither input nor search for such names, unless they are family. Interesting that Radkey is upset about her sudden lack of access -- it's as if she wants to catch the Church inputting additional sensitive names in the future. Radkey now claims that her original intent wasn't to uncover the latest spate of Jewish names, but that she was merely doing research on Mitt Romney.

As explained in this December 2009 post, Helen Radkey is a former LDS member who was excommunicated for apostasy. In 1984, she developed a desire to "rescue Mormons from Mormonism" and, at the same time, began obsessing with the Holocaust. Thus began her obsessive-compulsive effort to publicize every posthumous LDS baptism that might offend others' religious sensibilities. But she wasn't motivated by mere principle; in October 2002, she met with Family History Library officials to offer them her research for a price -- $30,000 and a continuing fee of $18 an hour, according to the Jewish magazine Forward -- but the LDS Church declined. She's been on an anti-Mormon crusade ever since.

So although she hates the LDS Church, she had no objections to trying to take its money. Amazing the levels to which people will stoop when motivated by hatred, greed, and revenge.