Vatican confirms ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons
Vatican confirms ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons
The Vatican has confirmed a ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons, a centuries-old secretive society that the Catholic Church has long viewed with hostility and has an estimated global membership of up to six million.
They can't be creepy and secretive...that's our job!! -The cat licker church
The Free Masons have become nothing more than a redneck club where they pretend they're some secret order.
Redneck? Tell me more! Curious how they look in other places.
In major cities, definitely not rednecks. It is just a boys club of boomers. The folks I met were highly educated or former Vietnam vets. Then they have dinner parties where they mostly talk about a random history book from 1-2 decades ago. I'm assuming atheists, but I didn't ask.
I never heard of them much/from their members until I moved to the Midwest. It's definitely a boys club, but it seems to mostly consist of boisterous rednecks in the Midwest, who think they're some secret society badasses.
That's just my anecdotal experience tho.
More than likely deists like the founding fathers were. Buncha intellectuals
Are current members grandfathered in?
I don't think "Grandfather" would cut it since the ban's been in place since the 18th century.
Something the catholic church is against? Either they're secretly pretty good at being good role models for boys and getting them to open up after experiencing a genuinely warm mentoring relationship, which causes some catholic vices to be revealed and then prosecuted, or the catholic church doesn't want competition.
I think the idea of it being an alternative power structure is part of it, but their reasoning is that Freemasonry is Deist/Rationalist which is incompatible with the Catholic position that revelation is a source of truth. Anything that elevates Freemasonry inherently undermines Catholic dogma.
Catholics and Masons are welcome to weigh in though, I'm not either.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
VATICAN CITY, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The Vatican has confirmed a ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons, a centuries-old secretive society that the Catholic Church has long viewed with hostility and has an estimated global membership of up to six million.
The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, issued its opinion, dated Nov. 13 and countersigned by Pope Francis, in response to a bishop from the Philippines alarmed by the growing number of Freemasons in his country.
The same office said last week that transgender people can be baptized, serve as godparents and act as witnesses at Catholic weddings.
The letter on Freemasons cited a 1983 declaration, signed by the late Pope Benedict XVI, at the time the Vatican's doctrine chief, stating that Catholics "in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion".
According to the United Grand Lodge of England, modern Freemasonry "is one of the oldest social and charitable organisations in the world", rooted in the traditions of medieval stonemasons.
It lists the late Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip, former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, late actor Peter Sellers, former England soccer manager Alf Ramsey and authors Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle as famous Freemasons from the past.
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