Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Excerpts from the Meeting of the Patriarchs of the Church with General Authorities (October 11, 1958)

The following are excerpts from:

 

Digest of the minutes of the meeting of the Patriarchs of the Church with the General Authorities held in Barratt Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, Saturday, October 11, 1958, at 8:00 A.M.

 

On the topic of the children of children in marriages where (1) a woman, sealed to her dead husband, has kids with her new (civilly married) husband and (2) the exaltation of faithful family members if a parent apostasies:

 

A question came from one of our patriarchs a few days ago concerning temple marriage where children are involved. If a woman marries in the temple for the first time, has several children and her husband dies and she remarries and has more children, who would the second set of children belong to? They would belong to the mother and her dead husband. She was married under the covenant and when married the second time for time only, the father of these children has no claim on them. This comes out of the law given anciently that if a woman married and the husband died without leaving a son to carry on the name it was the law that the nearest male member of the family would take the widow and the issue of such marriage would belong to the dead husband. Of course, that did not permit a man from having a wife of his own in that day. We cannot do those things today.

 

In a case where a man and a woman are married in the temple for time and eternity and the man become immoral and forfeits his rights by violation of his covenants, that is another problem. The woman should first get a cancellation of her sealing, which must be done by the President of the Church, and then a second man can take that woman for time and eternity. (H. Michael Marquardt, comp., Later Patriarchal Blessings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: The Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2012], 560)

 

On black members of the Church (reading this will result in whiplash: they are said, prior to 1978, to be heirs to exaltation [which is great], and then, the “less valiant in the pre-existence” nonsense is repeated):

 

Now here is a problem which to me is serious. A patriarch gave a blessing to an individual who had Negro blood in his veins and said you are of the House of Israel and entitled to all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A Negro cannot hold the priesthood and not holding the priesthood they cannot, until the Lord removes the restriction, enter into the exaltation of the kingdom of God and that would not entitle them to all of the blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is a very serious matter and we should be extremely careful to know the Lord is speaking to us because Negroes cannot receive of the fullness. A negro may come into the church and we can do more for him than any other church on the face of the earth. If he is baptized and is faithful and true, he can enter the celestial kingdom, but he does not get exaltation, but as I understand it, the Lord will, in due time, remove the restrictions. Not in this world but the time will come, if the Negro receives the gospel and is true to the end, he may go to the celestial kingdom and when the right time comes the restriction will be removed and he may receive all the blessings. Now the reason as stated by President Brigham Young and some of the other brethren that the Negro cannot receive the priesthood is two fold. One if their own fault because of their attitude in the spirit world. They were not valiant for some cause which the Lord does not explain, and they were barred from receiving the priesthood but they were not barred from birth into this world, and were not denied the right to have a body. If he is faithful in his second estate, the time will come when these restrictions will be removed. (Ibid.)

 On the Priesthood/Temple restriction, be sure to check out:


Gospel Topics Essay: Race and the Priesthood


Russell W. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013