The Vatican's doctrine office released a document on Wednesday (November 15) reaffirming its position that Catholics are discouraged and forbidden from becoming Freemasons.
In a document signed by Pope Francis and Vatican doctrine chief Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the Catholic Church responded to a concern raised by a bishop from the Philippines regarding what EWTN reported as "the growing number of Catholics in his diocese who are taking part in Freemasonry."
The bishop - identified as Julito Cortes of Dumaguete in the central Philippine island of Negros - also asked the Holy See for suggestions on how to respond in a pastoral manner.
The Philippine Star revealed that Cortes's concern was rooted in 2020 after Freemasons in his city broke ground for a Masonic obelisk dubbed the "Dumaguete Tower" on a public park opposite the cathedral.
The cathedral's parish council petitioned the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) to disallow the construction of the 18-story tower, which the Manila-based commission considered.
NHCP chair Rene Escalante was quoted by local media saying that the commission already declared "all Spanish and American colonial period plazas and public squares in the country as national historical sites."
A general view shows St. Peter's Basilica during a holy mass for the closing of the 16th general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on October 29, 2023, in The Vatican.
Recommendations from the Vatican
The Vatican's response - dated November 13 and available in English and Italian - called for a "coordinated strategy" involving all of the members of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to promote catechesis "in all parishes regarding the reasons for the irreconcilability between the Catholic faith and Freemasonry."
The Freemasons are the largest worldwide oath-bound secret society which was founded in England in 1717. Freemasonry promotes ideas and rituals incompatible with the Catholic faith, including indifferentism, or the position that a person can be equally pleasing to God while remaining in any religion, and a deistic concept of a "Great Architect of the Universe."
The society also swears oaths of secrecy, fellowship, and fraternity among members and has accumulated a vast catalog of rituals, ceremonial attire, and secret signals between masons, as well as using Christian imagery for non-Christian rituals, Fox News reported.
The document from Rome effectively reaffirmed the Vatican's position that "those who are formally and knowingly enrolled in Masonic Lodges and have embraced Masonic principles" fell under the church's 1983 "Declaration of Masonic Associations," which was signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI.
In part, the declaration said that Catholics who enrolled in Masonic associations were "in a state of grave sin and may not receive holy Communion."
Cardinal Fernandez's office added that the declaration also applied "to any clerics enrolled in Freemasonry," and urged Filipino bishops to consider making a public statement on the Vatican's stance on Freemasonry.
"Membership in Freemasonry is very significant in the Philippines; it involves not only those who are formally enrolled in Masonic Lodges but, more generally, a large number of sympathizers and associates who are personally convinced that there is no opposition between membership in the Catholic Church and in Masonic Lodges," the document said.
"On the doctrinal level, it should be remembered that active membership in Freemasonry by a member of the faithful is forbidden because of the irreconcilability between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry."
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Filipino Connection to Catholicism and Freemasonry
The Catholic Church's prohibition on Freemasonry could be traced back to Pope Clement XII, who formally condemned it in the papal bull "In eminenti apostolatus" in 1738.
The Philippines, despite its deep Hispanic Catholic roots since the 16th century, had a Masonic underside due to the affiliation of some of the nation's key revolutionary and republican figures at the tail-end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th.
In particular, many reckon that the ophthalmologist and key Filipino intellectual named Jose Rizal was a Freemason until he allegedly retracted his affiliation to the forbidden society - at the behest of his Jesuit mentors - prior to his execution in 1896.
In the early 1900s, American Catholic soldiers who were stationed in Manila founded the first council of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic society founded in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882 by the Rev. Michael McGivney as a mutual aid society for Catholic men in the New England region in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Subsequently, the organization became the Catholic response to Freemasonic societies in the US, Canada, Mexico, and beyond.
McGivney was beatified by Pope Francis in 2020.
Since then, the Knights of Columbus flourished as a key Catholic men's society in the country. At four jurisdictions strong, the Philippines has the largest membership outside North America.
Earlier this year, UCA News reported that Filipino Catholics raised concerns that some of the participants in the diocesan and national consultations of the recently initiated Synod on Synodality were Freemasons, which some reported had created confusion regarding the church's teaching on the matter.
Last March, the CBCP issued a clarification declaring that bishops in the Philippines have "always maintained and defended the official Catholic (magisterial) position on the unacceptability of Masonry, given its serious errors both in doctrine (philosophical tenets) and practices."
Cardinal Fernandez also recommended Cortes refer to the CBCP's 2003 pastoral guidelines on the matter.
According to the Vatican's 1983 Code of Canon Law, it stated that a person joining an association "which plots against the Church" would be punished with a "just penalty," and those promoting or taking office in such associations were to be "punished with an interdict," which banned the individual to participate in certain Catholic rites, including the Mass.
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