Here are a few people who the Mormons recently baptized, or almost baptized, posthumously:

• President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham

• The parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal

• Three dead relatives of Holocaust survivor Elie Wisesel (were almost baptized)

• Holocaust victim Anne Frank

Now you can add Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, with whom I feel a bit of a kinship because we attended the same high school, so this particular inappropriate baptism makes me even more livid than usual.

Pearl was kidnapped and executed by his captors in 2002, not all that long ago. I can’t begin to imagine the pain this is causing his family.

Not only is it another embarrassment for the Mormon church, but it’s also “a serious breach of church protocol.”

Via The Salt Lake Tribune:

According to records, Pearl, who is Jewish, was baptized “by proxy” last summer in a Twin Falls, Idaho, temple — much to the surprise of his parents, who learned of the event this week.

Reached by phone, Pearl’s mother, Ruth, said she and her husband were dismayed when informed of the ceremony by a reporter from the Boston Globe, which first reported the news.

A little respect for others would go a long way, Mormon ministers, because good intentions just aren’t enough.