President [N. Eldon] Tanner called attention to a letter ... referring to a custom in the early days of the Church for a woman to be sealed to a good man in the Church, a General Authority or someone else who was still living, other than her deceased husband who died without accepting the gospel. The sealing was performed as an assurance for an eternal union in the hereafter. It is now recommended that inasmuch as President Wilford Woodruff received a revelation which altered this practice, that in such cases prior to 1890 when this ruling was made, if the woman was sealed to a deceased member of the Church or to a living member of the church but did not live with him as a wife, permission be granted for her to be sealed also to her nonmember deceased husband to whom she had been married in life. The original sealing will not, however, be cancelled. President Tanner said that it would seem that this would be particularly desirable when the woman had children by the non-member husband, that under this ruling the children could be sealed to their parents. President Tanner asked me if I could see anything wrong about such a ruling, and I said no.
[Source: David O. McKay diary, Mar. 6, 1969 as quoted in Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship]
No comments:
Post a Comment