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Mormonism and its various historical claims simply don’t stand up to serious scrutiny. In that regard, see this Catholic Answers Magazine article and also this one.
As the aforementioned articles demonstrate, Joseph Smith preached doctrines contrary to what the real church of Jesus Christ—i.e., the Catholic Church—taught for almost 2,000 years. Consequently, he had to develop his doctrine of the “Great Apostasy,” which contradicts Christ’s proclamation that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church (Matt. 16:18-19). I’ve heard Mormons more than once say, “It’s either us or the Catholics” as to which is the real Church. Well, charitably stated, they are at least half right on that one.
Many Mormons are good, family-oriented people. But their religion is not worthy of belief. For further information on Mormonism, simply use “Mormonism” as a search term in our general search engine at the top of the homepage at Catholic.com.