[Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint of an Australian Catholic Truth Society pamphlet continued from the previous issue.]

The ‘Book of Mormon’ – Divinely Inspired? The origins of the Book of Mormon are open to still further devastating criticism. One would think, for instance, that if part of the miraculous translation from the golden plates was lost in the initial stage, it should not have been too difficult for a genuine ‘seer’ to translate the missing portion again, as long as he still had the plates and the miraculous translation stones (the "Urim and Thummin") in his possession. The following incident alone, therefore, should be sufficient to persuade all but the most credulous that there was something ‘fishy’ about the whole business.

As the LDS historian Barrett recounts it, the first 116 pages of English transcript, taken down by the scribe Martin Harris at Smith’s dictation, were lost irretrievably after Harris took them home to show to his skeptical wife. Mrs. Harris either lost, destroyed, or concealed the manuscript. She refused to disclose what had happened to it, and Harris had to return empty-handed to the furious prophet. Smith’s behavior in the face of this new set-back is exactly what we should expect from a none-too-subtle hoaxer who has loudly claimed to possess an infallible, supernatural translating technique, and now sees that he risks exposure by being unable to reproduce the original translation.

Does he start all over again, humbly trusting in the power of God to vindicate the truth of his claims? Not at all. He now receives yet another ‘revelation’ from God, commanding him not to re-translate the first part, because "Satan" has inspired "thieves" to alter the stolen manuscript, so that if he produces another true and identical version of the first 116 pages, they will publish their "altered" version as the original, in order to discredit him! Fortunately, however, it turns out that the missing portion can be dispensed with anyway: the Lord ‘reveals’ that it is only an "abridgement" by the ancient historian Mormon of a fuller narrative written by the still earlier patriarch Nephi. Very conveniently, Nephi’s plates are also there in Joseph’s collection, so he translates them instead! (Barrett 1973, pp.84-87). (If Smith had been sincere in claiming the ability to produce another identical translation of "Mormon’s abridgement," he would not have been frightened to go ahead and do so. To succeed in discrediting a genuine revelation, his enemies would obviously have needed to produce the original 116 pages for public inspection, and to alter it with such consummate skills that impartial scrutineers would be unable to detect the slightest signs of erasure, thinning of paper, or difference in handwriting – a well-nigh impossible task!)

Perhaps the most irrefutable evidence for the fraudulent character of the Book of Mormon is that which has come to light as recently as the mid-1970’s, through the research of three young Americans, Wayne Cowdrey, Howard Davis, and Donald Scales.

From a very early date, the relatives and acquaintances of a retired Congregationalist minister, Rev. Solomon Spalding, who died in 1816, had complained very vocally against the Latter-Day Saints that their new "Bible," that is the Book of Mormon was really a plagiarized version of an unpublished novel, Manuscript Found, which was written by the deceased clergyman and circulated at the time amongst his friends. A number of affidavits were sworn to this effect, but their publication and propagation was sporadic and poorly organized, while the LDS Church launched a massive counter-attack which capitalized on the fact that the original draft of Manuscript Found could not be produced to verify the affidavits. The Mormons naturally claimed that these were malicious, satanically inspired falsehoods. All that remained was an earlier Spalding novel, Manuscript Story, which shows some definite stylistic similarities with the Book of Mormon, but also some marked differences. Eventually, most anti-Mormon writers stopped appealing to the Spalding theory as an explanation for the Book of Mormon, because the available evidence seemed too flimsy and unsubstantiated.

Cowdrey, Davis and Scales, however, now pieced together a long chain of events connecting Smith and Spalding. The chief link in the chain was an itinerant evangelist named Sidney Rigdon, who had a close friend who worked at the print shop in Pittsburgh from which Spalding’s second manuscript disappeared. A Dr. Winter later claimed to have been shown the manuscript by Rigdon in 1822. Rigdon was eventually baptized into the Mormon Church in November 1830, and always claimed that he had known nothing of Smith or Mormonism until late that year. However, Cowdrey et al have now found at least ten people who testified that they had seen Smith and Rigdon together a number of times from 1827 onwards – the very period when Smith was preparing the Book of Mormon.

The climax came in 1976 when Cowdrey and his friends were examining some old manuscripts in an LDS Church library. They came across a few pages from the Book of Mormon in handwriting no one had been able to identify. The researchers, however, had managed to track down some undisputed samples of Spalding’s handwriting at Oberlin College, Ohio, including a deed of January 1811 bearing his signature. And there, amidst the quiet and rather dull surroundings of paper and bookshelves, the awesome truth dawned on them that these harmless-looking scraps of aging paper had the potential to shatter once and for all the myth of Joseph Smith the saint and prophet: a great historic American myth for which men and women had lived and died and suffered and killed; a myth which had pioneered part of the ‘wild west’, built the state of Utah, and now ruled the hearts and lives and fortunes of millions round the world. This extract from the Book of Mormon ("translated" from "golden plates" in 1828) was in the handwriting of Solomon Spalding (died 1816)! The young men had stumbled on part of the long lost manuscript of Spalding’s second novel – crushing evidence of Smith’s plagiarism and deceit, which had ironically been preserved by the unsuspecting Mormons themselves!

They proceeded to write a book detailing the results of their research (Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? Santa Ana, Vision House Publishers, 1977). The LDS Church has issued denials of the identification, and has prohibited any further examination of the relevant manuscript. But the detailed testimonies of two independent handwriting experts, William Kaye and Henry Silver, are photographically reproduced for all to see: the unquestioned Spalding documents and the supposed Book of Mormon extract are judged professionally to be definitely in the same hand (Martin, 1978, pp.62-64).

The ‘Book of Abraham’. As if this were not sufficient indication of the true character of Joseph Smith, still further evidence has come to light in recent years, in connection with the so called Book of Abraham. This is another ‘translation’ produced by Smith and included in the volume Pearl of Great Price as inspired Mormon scripture.

In 1835, Smith acquired some ancient Egyptian papyri, and with the help of Oliver Cowdery and (supposedly) the miraculous "Urim and Thummim", he ‘translated’ the documents, making the astounding announcement that they were none other than the story of the Patriarch Abraham, written the best part of 4,000 years ago!

The papyri were lost for well over a century, but came to light again in 1967 at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Identified beyond dispute as those actually used by Smith, they were accepted enthusiastically by the LDS Church in Utah, as a golden opportunity to vindicate the divine inspiration of their prophet. The Church’s only well-qualified Egyptologist, Professor Dee Jay Nelson, was asked to translate the papyri into English. He did so, and within the next few years, several of the world’s leading Egyptologists verified that his translation was an accurate one. However, eventually he and his family resigned from the Mormon Church in 1975 – a decision which must have been painful indeed for former devout followers of Joseph Smith. Why was Nelson’s faith in the ‘prophet’ destroyed? Simply because he and the other experts verified conclusively that the so-called Book of Abraham is an ordinary pagan Egyptian funeral text, dating from somewhere between 200 B.C. and 100 A.D. (at least 1,500 years after the time of Abraham). Its contents have nothing whatever to do with the biblical patriarch, and bear no relation to Smith’s English ‘translation’, published as the ‘Word of God’ in the Pearl of Great Price. Since then, the LDS Church leaders have kept as quiet as possible about the whole issue, no doubt praying that some miracle will eventually occur to vindicate in some unimaginable way the veracity of their founder. (Detailed documentation on this affair, including reproductions of relevant correspondence, can be found in Martin 1978, pp.150-170).

The Witnesses to the ‘Golden Plates’. The evidence against Joseph Smith’s own credibility is now so overwhelming that corroboration of his testimony even by persons of otherwise unquestioned reliability could scarcely restore any real confidence in his ‘revelations’. And Smith’s associates scarcely seem to fall into that category, even by the Mormons’ own standards. The principal witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, always stuck to their story of having seen the plates in the presence of an angel, but all three subsequently left the LDS Church.

For a man who allegedly believed in Smith as a prophet of God, Cowdery showed a strange lack of faith in his leader. The Mormon historian Ivan Barrett relates how he was excommunicated in 1838 for (amongst other things) attempting to "destroy the character of President Joseph Smith", for selling his own land in defiance of one of Smith’s very down-to-earth ‘revelations’, and for disgracing the Church by his dishonest business practices (Barrett 1973, p.370). David Whitmer was also accused by the Church council of defaming Smith, of neglecting his duties as a Church official, and of disobeying the ‘Word of Wisdom’ (another of Smith’s ‘revelations’ forbidding the use of tobacco, alcohol, and "hot drinks"). Harris appears as a very credulous man. On other occasions he solemnly reported that he had seen and talked to Jesus in the form of a deer, as well as seeing the devil, who resembled a "jackass with short, smooth hair, like a mouse" (Brodie 1946, p.81). Although he swore to having seen the golden plates, Harris later admitted under cross-examination that he only saw them "with the eye of faith" – whatever that might mean. "I did not see them as I do that pencil case", he said, "(but) I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me – although at the time they were covered with a cloth" (Whalen 1967, p.32). Finally, of the eight further witnesses who claimed to have seen and handled the plates (but without any angels) in June 1829, three subsequently abandoned the LDS Church (Barrett 1973, pp.110-111).

What can we conclude about the trustworthiness of the men on whose testimony of plates and angels, marvelous stones and silver bows, the entire Mormon religion depends absolutely? The exact details will probably never be known, but it is clear that Joseph Smith was certainly dishonest and probably superstitious. The Spalding manuscript; the connivance of Sidney Rigdon and possibly others; the fabrication, very possibly, of some bogus ‘plates’ to end credence to the story; Smith’s superstitious interest in crystal-gazing, which may have resulted in a partly genuine belief that he possessed a secret key to knowledge; and a number of ill-educated and not very saintly associates – these now appear as the main ingredients in the original Mormon recipe.

Some Catholics are aware of the demonic dimension of reality, and of the extensive, well-documented evidence of strange preternatural phenomena which sometimes occur in connection with dabblings in the occult. They will not need to insist that the whole phenomenon must necessarily be explained in entirely ‘natural’ terms. The Scriptures predict the arrival of false prophets with deceptive ‘signs and wonders’, and testify to Satan’s ability to disguise himself as an "angel of light" (2 Cor. 11). If there were indeed some extraordinary phenomena – visions, voices, automatic writing or whatever – this could help to explain the early growth of the Mormon Church. Such phenomena, coupled with the success of the movement and the adulation of ever-growing crowds of converts, may well have led Smith to believe increasingly in his own divine mission, regardless of his duplicity. Such self-deception seems to be a fairly common psychological phenomenon amongst cult-leaders.

IV. MORMON THEOLOGY

I argued earlier that the credentials of a self-styled messenger from God may often be the crucial factor in deciding whether or not we should believe him – quite independently of the actual doctrines he asks us to believe. I put it to the fair-minded reader (of any religion or none) that the solid evidence we have adduced so far, regarding the credentials and character of the ‘founding fathers’ of Mormonism, should convince us that it would be extremely foolish to accept anything at all on their say-so; and especially on Joseph Smith’s say-so. To put it bluntly, I would not buy a used religion from this man (much less a brand new one) even if it should turn out to offer an internally consistent and plausible-sounding theology, or perhaps certain Bible verses which seem to lend support to its distinctive doctrines.

Whether or not the LDS gospel does in fact sound consistent and appealing readers can now judge for themselves: we shall conclude our little survey of the Mormons and their Church be setting out briefly the main distinguishing features of their creed, and how this differs from Catholic teaching.

The ‘Book of Mormon’s’ Message. Smith’s new "Bible" tells how ancient peoples from the Near East migrated to America and were visited by Jesus Christ after his resurrection. They are believed to be God’s true people. However, the civilization, great cities, advanced metallurgical technology, and agricultural resources which it attributes to the ‘Nephites’, ‘Jaredites’, and other alleged ancient Americans are quite incompatible with what archaeologists have discovered. This contrasts sharply with the way in which excavations in the Near East are frequently found to corroborate the genuine antiquity and authenticity of the historical narratives in the Bible.

Also, we cannot help wondering what a book which was supposed to have been miraculously translated, word for word, should have undergone more than two thousand textual changes between the original edition and the ones in use today (Whalen 1967, p.49). In I Nephi 11:21, for instance, the original edition says that the "Lamb of God" is "the eternal Father", while the same verse in today’s version equates the "Lamb of God" with "the Son of the Eternal Father". There are many anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, large slabs of which (about 27,000 words in all) are direct quotations from the King James Bible of 1611. It perpetuates some of the errors of that translation, such as the word "torn" instead of "refuse" or "offal" as a translation of the Hebrew suchah in Isaiah 5:25. In some places we find really astonishing reports: in Ether 15:31 we read of a gentleman named Shiz who "struggles for breath" after his head has been cut off – and then finally dies! (More extensive criticism of the Book of Mormon can be found in Whalen 1967, pp.40-50, and Martin 1978, pp.47-59.)

God and Creation. The first article of the Christian creed is held in common with all great monotheistic religions: God is One; he is infinite, self-subsistent Spirit, the Almighty "Creator of Heaven and Earth". All limited and finite beings depend utterly on him for their existence.

LDS doctrine, however, denies this fundamental theistic premise. The ‘inspired’ Doctrine and Covenants (DC) 93:3 states that the "elements are eternal" and indestructible. The things we see were not created out of nothing, but only "framed" or "organized" out of preexisting matter (DC 20:17). The Mormon world-view is in fact very materialistic, because it makes the mistake of assuming that if something is real, we ought to be able to make a mental ‘picture’ or image of it. This leaves no room for truly spiritual being. Mormon ‘revelation’ asserts that "all spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes" (DC 131:7).

For Mormons, God is an essentially material being in time and space, who is only partly responsible for our existence. From a Catholic viewpoint, this reduces him to an idol, unworthy of human worship and adoration. Although at times he is said to be "unchangeable" in some sense (e.g., DC 20:17), he is in fact believed to be capable of ‘growth’ and ‘maturation’. In fact, he was once a quite lowly figure, as we are, and has now taken on a celestial body: "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s" (DC 130:22). Because the Bible tells us that God made man "in his own image" (Gen. 1:26-7), Latter-Day Saints conclude that he must fully share our nature. (If such reasoning were valid, then the "image" I see in the bathroom mirror must also be a three-dimensional being, composed of "flesh and bones".) The prophet Joseph proclaimed:

Brigham Young, who like all Smith’s successors as President, Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the LDS Church is supposed to enjoy infallibility, declared on many occasions as "revelation" that the earth where God once lived was in fact this earth; and that he and Adam are one and the same person. Modern Mormons, however, do not generally accept this, and try to argue that Young was not speaking ex cathedra, so to speak – not with his full authority.

‘Gods’ and Men – Essentially the Same. Although Mormons commonly talk about ‘God’ in a way that might easily create an impression of the unique Being of orthodox Christianity, they actually believe in the existence of many ‘Gods’ ruling the many worlds scattered throughout the universe. Whether one or more of these is supreme over the rest seems rather obscure. In any case, we are to worship our ‘Heavenly Father’ - the God of this world, who ‘organized’ it into its present condition. Smith asserted that, "The heads of the Gods appointed one God for us" (History of the Church 6:475). Thus, by their own admission, Mormons worship a being who is not necessarily the Supreme Being – merely our local deity. To Catholics, that sort of worship would be idolatrous.

On the basis of certain biblical texts which speak of various ‘gods’ (understood by Catholics to mean either false gods or lesser spiritual beings), the Latter-Day Saints’ polytheistic gospel proclaims a whole race or ‘species’ of divine beings of which ‘Heavenly Father’ is only one member. Unable to form a clear picture in their minds of the Christian mystery of three Persons in one God, Mormons reject this doctrine, and ‘reinterpret’ the Trinity in a way that posits three quite separate members of the God-species who happen to be of particular importance to us on planet Earth. Joseph Smith declared:

Our Father in Heaven is married to at least one female deity, and together they procreated all the billions of human beings as ‘spirit children’: all of us are claimed to have lived in heaven as spirits before entering a body here on earth. Devout ‘saints’ sing a hymn written by one of Smith’s widows, Eliza Snow:

In the heavens are parents single?

No; the thought makes reason stare!

Truth is reason, truth eternal tells

me I’ve a mother there.

Some of these spirit children rebelled, and became the Devil and his angels. Their punishment is that they are eternally denied the opportunity of eternal progress. If we accept the Mormon gospel and live virtuously, we shall not only rise again physically, along with all mankind, but will keep on developing until we are Gods ourselves. If not, we will only reach a lower ‘kingdom’ in the future life. (Heaven consists of a hierarchy of three ‘kingdoms’ – ‘celestial,’ ‘terrestrial’ and ‘telestial’; few if any of us will be bad enough to join the devils in Hell, or the ‘Second Death’).

The essence of the Mormon gospel is summed up very clearly by the contemporary LDS theologian Glenn L. Pearson:

Still more succinctly, another Mormon leader, Lorenzo Snow, summed up the ‘restored and everlasting gospel’ in a widely quoted aphorism: "As man is, God once was, and as God is, man may become". Catholics, on the other hand, believe that by grace we will be transformed into more perfect ‘images’ of God in the Mystical Body of Christ, and live forever in his direct presence. The suggestion that any human creature might eventually rise to equality with his Creator would be seen as both absurd and blasphemous.

The Mormon Idea of Christ. How does Jesus Christ fit into the LDS theological scheme? In common with orthodox Christians, Mormons believe that Christ by his suffering, death, and resurrection is our Saviour, and made possible our ‘exaltation’. (However, by this ‘exaltation’, of course, they mean the un-Christian notion of becoming equal with God). Since Mormons believe that we, no less than Jesus, were begotten in a very literal way in the spirit world by two heavenly parents, a problem arises for them. A recent Mormon catechetical text, glossy and profusely illustrated, deals with it under the heading, "Jenny’s Question":

The lesson goes on to suggest that "Jenny’s Question" is answered well in the words of a "modern prophet", Joseph Fielding Smith (President of the LDS Church early this century):

Brigham Young emphatically denied that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost (Journal of Discourses 1:511). Mormon doctrine is really a denial of Jesus’ virginal conception, as we can see from above: "older ones" know how children are begotten, and that is just how Jesus was begotten, so we are told. God himself – a God of ‘flesh and bones’ – is the father ‘in the flesh’ of Jesus, rather than a ‘mortal’ man. In plain language, God the Father appeared at Nazareth and had sexual intercourse with Mary. Such was the ‘miraculous’ conception of Jesus, in Mormon theology.

Marriage – Polygamous and Eternal. Orthodox Christians believe that the union of one man and one woman, for the duration of this earthly life, is God’s true and original plan for the family (although polygamy, having more than one wife, was tolerated for a time amongst the ancient Hebrews). The Book of Mormon itself is severely opposed to polygamy, stating that David’s and Solomon’s plural marriages were "abominable" before the Lord, who explicitly commands his people to practice monogamy (Jacob 2:24,27).

However, this did not prevent Smith from subsequently taking a keen interest in women other than his wife Emma, who was most unhappy about her husband’s behaviour. Eventually, on 12 July 1843, Smith received the divine seal of approval in the form of a new revelation to the effect that polygamy was now commanded by the Lord: "And let Mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto My servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me". This "new and everlasting covenant" had to be practiced by all Mormons, as far as possible, on pain of eternal damnation (DC 52:132).

The "covenant" was certainly "new", but not quite "everlasting". During the next few decades, leaders such as Smith, Young, and Heber C. Kimball took dozens of wives each, but there were not enough women available for most LDS men to take more than one wife – two or three at the most. At length, when the U.S. government threatened to confiscate Mormon property, and deny statehood to Utah, the danger of eternal damnation for refusing to practice polygamy faded away: President Wilford Woodruff, in a Manifesto of 24 September 1890, instructed Mormons to "refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land".

Monogamy, however, is regarded still as an evil to be tolerated only because of unjust civil laws. Polygamy is still seen as the theoretical norm, and Mormons believe it will be practiced in the next life. (LDS ‘fundamentalists’ still practice it quietly in pockets of Utah). Respected LDS theological opinion surmises that Jesus himself married Mary Magdalene, Martha, and possibly others, and naturally appeared first to "his own dear wives" after the resurrection (Whalen 1967, p.123).

Jesus taught that there is no marriage in heaven (Matt. 22:30), but Mormons ‘seal’ their marriages for eternity, where they believe they will go on procreating more and more ‘spirit children’ forever, in order to populate more and more worlds. Indeed, they believe that this ‘celestial marriage’ is essential in order to reach the ‘celestial kingdom’ – the supreme level of heavenly glory. Women can enter there only by virtue of the priesthood of their husbands. There is a complex Mormon hierarchy, headed by a council of twelve "apostles": virtually all LDS men are priests of one rank or another, in either the "Aaronic" or "Melchisedek" priesthood.

Racist Theology. From a Christian point of view, one of the most offensive themes in Mormonism is the racist theology. Until 1978, the LDS Church taught the following doctrine, as expressed in a recent standard theological test:

Although no missions were organized to convert black people, they were accepted into the Church as non-ordained members if they applied of their own accord. According to the ‘inspired’ Book of Abraham (whose credibility we have discussed above), those who are descended from Canaan are "cursed….as pertaining to the priesthood" (1:26). The general opinion was that the Negroes’ lineage goes back from Canaan through Ham to Cain: the ‘prophet’ Brigham Young declared that the "mark of Cain", divinely imposed on him as a punishment for murdering Abel, was "the flat nose and black skin" (Journal of Discourses 7:290). Negroes in general, however, were thought to have been set into black bodies here on earth because of their own previous misdemeanors in the spirit world – they were ‘fellow-travelers’ with Lucifer and the rebellious angels. In the words of Mark E. Petersen addressing a religion teachers’ convention at Brigham Young University, 27/8/54:

According to Brigham Young, it was the "decree of God" that Cain’s descendants should eventually be given the priesthood, when the "mark" (i.e. the black skin) was lifted from them; and that this in turn would occur only when "the seed of Abel shall be redeemed" (Martin 1978, p.185). Since Negroes are still black, the conditions anticipated by this "decree of God" have clearly not yet arrived. However, on 9 June 1978, faced with a growing and embarrassing pressure from the civil rights movement, and with a rapidly increasing number of part-Negro converts to Mormonism in Brazil, the current Prophet, Seer and Revelator, President Spencer W. Kimball, received a contradictory revelation from God, affirming that the "long promised day" had in fact arrived: race was henceforth to be no longer a barrier to the priesthood or any other privileges in the LDS Church. This is now to be added to the Mormon scriptures in further editions of the Pearl of Great Price.

One other racist prophecy of Brigham Young, however, still lingers on in a milder form. Young thundered against intermarriage between whites and Negroes, declaring that "the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be the case" (Journal of Discourses 10:110). President Joseph F. Smith, in a letter of 9 May 1966, still asserted that "It would be a serious error for a white person to marry a Negro, for the Lord forbad it". And even after the new revelation of 1978, Apostle Le Grand Richards told an interviewer that intermarriage has not thereby been approved, and that the Church’s position is still that "people (should) live within their own races". (Martin 1978, p.192).

V. FACING THE FACTS

We have argued in this booklet that, although it is unreasonable to demand absolute proof in this life for the validity of religious faith, faith must be rationally defensible and grounded in some strong and objective evidence. From a Catholic viewpoint, the Mormon faith does not pass this test. It is unworthy of any honest and rational person, for instance, to keep trusting in the divine inspiration of Joseph Smith’s Book of Abraham, after Dee Jay Nelson and other Egyptologists have exposed its fraudulence, simply because he "feels his heart burning within him" when he reads that book. (This poignant plea was urged by a devout Mormon elder who wrote to Professor Nelson, begging him to return to the LDS Church – Martin 1978, p.161).

Catholicism need not depend for its credibility only on subjective inward experiences, no matter how comforting or uplifting. It makes good sense to explain the existence of the vast number of composite, limited, and changeable beings in the universe by the appeal to traditional theism, belief in one creator God. It does not make sense to "explain" them (as Mormonism does) by postulating a multiplicity of finite ‘Gods’, basically similar in nature to ourselves, whose own existence cries out for explanation as much as ours does.

It makes sense to believe that if the Son of God himself organized the nucleus of a community which was supposed to carry on his teaching in perpetuity, he would then assist this community always to remain faithful – as indeed he promised it would (Matt. 16:18). It does not make sense to maintain that while Christ’s original Church was not only fallible, but in fact became totally corrupt and apostate for fifteen centuries or more (in spite of his promise to the contrary), a brand new Church, ‘restored’ by a patently dishonest ‘prophet’, is to be trusted as an infallible interpreter of the original revelation – especially when its new ‘revelations’ sometimes contradict each other.

It makes sense to believe that the constant and unrivalled stream of well-testified miracles over two millennia, often in association with men and women of great holiness of life (think of Lourdes, of Fatima, of the inexplicable picture at Guadalupe, of the dozens of marvelously incorrupt bodies of saints) is a pointer to the authenticity of the Catholic Church. It does not make sense to ignore all of this – and to brand all of these saints as hypocrites who worshipped God only "with their lips" – in favor of a few ‘visions’ and other unusual phenomena, reported over a very limited time, and in a very limited locality, by persons who for the most part were not noted either for consistency or for sanctity.

The Latter-Day Saints are generally good and devoted people, whom many Catholics could do well to emulate in their zeal and spirit of sacrifice, in their concern to build loving Christian communities, and in their positive approach towards family values and the sanctity of life. Nevertheless, their ‘gospel’ is a sad travesty of Christ’s Gospel. If this pamphlet can assist some Catholics to be more aware of this, and perhaps help some Mormons to find the painful, yet joyful, path to the true home of all Jesus' followers, it will have served its purpose.

REFERENCES:

Mormon Publications:
• The Book of Mormon. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1978.
• Doctrine and Covenants. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1976.
• Pearl of Great Price. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1978.
  (These three, together with the Bible, constitute the ‘standard works’ of the LDS Church. They are regarded as inspired scripture.)
• Barrett, Ivan J. Joseph Smith and the Restoration: A History of the Church to 1846. Brigham Young University Press, 1973.
• Family Home Evening: No. 1 – Personal Commitment. Salt Lake City, 1972.
• McConkie, Bruce R. Mormon Doctrine. Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1966.
• Nibley, Hugh. The Myth Makers. Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1961.
• Salt Lake City, 1973, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri. Deseret Book Co.
• Pearson, Glenn L. Know Your Religion. Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1961.
• Petersen, Mark E. Race Problems, As They Affect the Church. Address at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level. Brigham Young University, 1954.
• Roberts, B. H. The Mormon Doctrine of Deity. Salt Lake City, 1915.
• Smith, Joseph, Jr. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Vols. 1-7. Deseret Book Co. Salt Lake City, 1976.

Non-Mormon Publications:
• Brodie, Fawn M. No Man Knows My History. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1946.
• Burrell, Maurice C. & Wright, J. Stafford. Some Modern Faiths. Inter-Varsity Press, 1973.
• Cowdrey, Wayne, Davis, Howard A., & Scales, Donald R. Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? Vision House Publishers, Santa Ana, 1977.
• Marquardt, H. M. The Book of Abraham Papyrus Found. Modern Microfilm Co., 1975.
• Martin, Walter. The Maze of Mormonism (revised and enlarged edition.) Vision House Publisher, Santa Ana, California, 1978.
• Nelson, Dee Jay. The Joseph Smith Papyri – a Translation and Preliminary Survey. Modern Microfilm Co., Salt Lake City, 1968.
• O'Dea, Thomas F. The Mormons. University of Chicago Press, 1957.
• Rumble, Leslie, M.S.C. The Mormons or Latter-Day Saints. (revised Australian edition.) A.C.T.S. Publications, Melbourne, 1966.
• Whalen, William J. The Latter-Day Saints in the Modern World. University of Notre Dame Press, 1967.
• Young, Kimball. Isn't One Wife Enough? Henry Holt & Co. N.Y. 1954.

Finis