Catholicism and Freemasonry have often seemed to be in conflict, with Freemasonry tending to anticlericalism and the Roman Catholic Church forbidding Catholics from becoming freemasons.
Catholic attitudes towards Freemasonry
Freemasonry is seen by the church as being in fundamental competition with Christian doctrines for a number of reasons:
- It advocates a Deist view of religion
- It has been involved with anticlerical groups and events
- It advocated a radical seperation of church and state
- It was a secret society and its very secrecy created distrust
- It's belief that God's will could only be discerned by the few was contrary to the Christian view that God's will had been proclaimed to all by Jesus
- Avowedly anti-catholic groups such as the Orange Order in Ireland and the carbonari in the Papal States where based on Masonic organisation, although how influenced by Masonic ideas these organisations were is controversial
- The religious nature of Freemasonry together with the acceptance of people of any faith minimised the importance of religious dogma
- Masonic initiation rituals for the higher "degrees" are reputedly anti-Catholic
Ban on Membership
The first papal condemnation of Freemasonry came in 1738 from Pope Clement XII in his papal bull Eminenti Apostolatus Specula, repeated by several later popes, notably Pope Leo XIII in the encyclical Humanum Genus (1884).
The 1917 Code of Canon Law explicitly declares that joining Freemasonry entailed automatic excommunication; the revised Code issued in 1983 does not explicitly name Masonic orders among the secret societies condemned in canon 1374, which states:
A person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; one who promotes or takes office in such an association is to be punished with an interdict.
However, in a letter to the United States Bishops from the Office of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the interpretation was made clear—the prohibition against Catholics joining Masonic orders remains. Many Catholic Masons in the US choose to rely on the letter of the law. Masons allow Catholics as members.
Papal Encyclicals
See Also Anti-Masonry
External Links