Royal Watch News

Princess Diana baptised as a Mormon

Feb 29, 2012, 13:01 GMT

Princess Diana

Britain's late Princess Diana has been posthumously baptised a Mormon.

The royal - who was killed in a Paris car crash in August 1997 - was 'baptised' by the church after her death, even though she didn't belong to the religion.

Diana - former wife of heir to the throne Prince Charles - was listed by her maiden name, Diana Frances Spencer, with her address as the family seat of Althorp, Northamptonshire.

Her file also includes her birth and death date, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

Other late stars to have been 'baptised' posthumously include Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth.

The Mormon Church believes that in the afterlife no one is beyond redemption, no matter how evil they were, so the list also includes Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Helen Radkey has been investigating the Mormon Church - which is one of the world's fastest growing religions with 14 million followers, almost half in the US.

Using a computer log-on passed to her by a disaffected follower, she researched the databases in the Church's Family History Library and found that the names of hundreds of thousands of dead people had been logged, so they could be baptised as Mormons.