The Church and Freemasonry: the Secret February 16 Meeting in Milan -- by Roberto de Mattei

Rorate Caeli ^ | February 22, 2024 | Roberto de Mattei

[ebb tide]

The Church and Freemasonry: the Secret February 16 Meeting in Milan -- by Roberto de Mattei

On Feb. 16, 2024, representatives of the main Italian Masonic lodges and a number of influential Catholic prelates gathered in Milan for a day of study. The seminar, sponsored at the Ambrosianum Foundation by the Gris (Group for Socio-Religious Research and Information), was attended by the three Grand Masters of Italian Freemasonry: Stefano Bisi for the Grand Orient of Italy (GOI), Luciano Romoli for the Grand Lodge of Italy of the ALAMs (GLDI,  and Fabio Venzi (in connection) for the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy (GLRI). On the Catholic side, Archbishop Mario Delpini of Milan, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, former president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Franciscan theologian Father Zbigniew Suchecki, and Bishop Antonio Staglianò, president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, participated in the meeting. Archbishop Delpini gave the opening address and Cardinal Coccopalmerio the closing one. The meeting was behind closed doors, but the relevance of the participants leaked its contents, which Riccardo Cascioli first brought to light in The New Daily Compass on Feb. 19.

On Feb. 20, the website of the Grand Orient of Italy in turn carried the full report of Grand Master Bisi, who has led Italy's leading Masonic organization for ten years. "In the course of its more than 300 years of existence, no institution has been opposed, fought, misrepresented, besmirched, and so much feared as Universal Freemasonry," Bisi said, criticizing for this the Catholic Church, "which has seen Freemasonry as a potential competitor in the spiritualization and elevation of Man," but forgetting to say that it was precisely Freemasonry that has opposed, fought, misrepresented, and besmirched the Church over the past three centuries.

"Why is the Masonic lodge beautiful and why don't church authorities like it?" explained Bisi: "Because under the same sky -- which represents Creation -- each man is a brother to the other, the bond of brotherhood is independent of faith. It is only necessary to believe in the Great Architect of the Universe. The starry sky is the same for the Buddhist, for the Catholic, for the Waldensian, for the Islamic, for all those who believe in a supreme being. (...) Absolute truths and walls of the mind do not belong to us and for us they must be torn down."  For Bisi, who had the effrontery to ask the Pope to gather around the monument of the heretic and apostate Giordano Bruno, among the truths that must be torn down is, of course, the Catholic faith, which presents itself as absolute and universal. Bisi's wish that it be "declared that membership in a Masonic lodge is reconcilable with membership in the Catholic faith," is nothing more than a request to the Church to turn its back on its doctrine and join the Masonic, Gnostic and relativist Pantheon. And the fact that the Grand Master recalled the names of Cardinal Ravasi and Cardinal Martini as patrons confirms this impression.

Bisi recalled that Cardinal Martini "was at home" in Masonic circles and praised Cardinal Ravasi's well-known article "Dear Brother Masons" published in Il Sole24Ore on Feb. 14, 2016. Their pioneering work seems to want to be carried on by Cardinal Coccopalmerio who, in the Milan seminar, said, among other things, "Fifty years ago there was less knowledge but things have moved on and I hope that these meetings do not stop here. I wonder if we cannot think of a permanent panel, even at the level of authorities, to discuss things better."

Archbishop Staglianò for his part criticized the Nov. 13, 2023 document of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and approved ex audientia, by Pope Francis, according to which it is forbidden for Catholics to join Masonic lodges, "because of the irreconcilability between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry." This document confirms the Church's centuries-old condemnation, which apparently was only recalled during the seminar by Father Zbigniew Suchecki. But we will have to wait for the publication of all the speeches to be able to make an accurate judgment on the proceedings.

What is certain is that, according to the Grand Lodge of Italy of the ALAM (Ancient Free and Accepted Masons), the meeting "culminated in a unanimous consensus on the advisability of establishing a permanent discussion panel."

It is worth mentioning at this point that relativism constitutes the soul of Freemasonry, although it does not encapsulate its entire essence. Freemasonry, in fact, presumes to be a "universal religion," the repository of a secret of which the Freemason gradually becomes aware through the rites, symbols, and texts he assimilates, but also through the atmosphere he breathes in the lodges in which he is placed.

It should be added that there is no such thing as a "bad," atheistic, and anticlerical Freemasonry, and a "good" "religious" and "spiritualist" Freemasonry, as one often hears people repeat, distinguishing between the Latin (left-wing) and the Anglo-American (right-wing) Freemasonry. In reality, in all lodges, the first degrees are overlaid with Masonic High Degree systems called "Rites," which are characterized by magical and "Kabbalistic" content. Not all affiliates of Freemasonry know its ultimate ends, learned only from the initiated to the highest degrees, who swear, under penalty of death, not to reveal them, but behind the different rites and obediences, there is the same worldview, diametrically opposed to that of the Catholic Church. Jean-Claude Lozac'hmeur's studies on the occult origins of Freemasonry show that it inherits faith and customs from Gnosticism (Fils de la veuve: essai sur le symbolisme maçonnique, Éditions Sainte Jeanne d'Arc, Chiré 1990), and Father Paolo Siano has devoted in-depth studies to Masonic Luciferism, refuting the thesis of those who believe that it is cultivated only by "fringe," i.e., marginal, Freemasonry, but is alien to regular Freemasonry (Studi vari sulla Libera Muratoria, Casa Mariana Editrice, Frigento 2012). 

Father Siano himself, who has devoted many essays to Freemasonry, including recent ones, in "Corrispondenza Romana," in a polite controversy with Gaetano Masciullo, author of La tiara e la loggia. Freemasonry versus the Church (Faith and Culture, Verona 2023), showed that Freemasonry is far from declining, but is still alive and operational (https://www.fidescatholica.com/1828-2/ and https://www.corrispondenzaromana.it/in-merito-alla-mia-recensione-al-libro-la-tiara-e-la-loggiadi-g-masciullo-e-la-replica-dellautore/).

The danger is to divert attention away from Freemasonry in order to pursue forms of neo-complottery, which denounce the action of "plutocratic elites," and "Cabals" of different kinds, forgetting the presence of what Leo XIII, in his encyclical Custodi di quella fede of December 8, 1892, calls "a sect which after nineteen centuries of Christian civilization strives to bring down the Catholic Church." If Freemasonry no longer poses a threat, even meetings like the one in Milan find their own reason to take place.

[Jumper]

You should thank my lucky stars that I am not an ancient Greek with many God’s, because surely Greeks would put you to death for not acknowledging other religions.

People like make good Crusaders but not reasonable men of peace.

[Jamestown1630]

'The freemasons never mention nor acknowledge Jesus Christ.'

Exactly. They are not a church or religion. Your 'deep problem' is trying to make them into one - and your church's deep problem has been an often psychotic fear of what they assume is a rival institution.

[mdmathis6]

Oh but they have so much to say about religion for their claims about not being one!

[mdmathis6]

Acts 17 showed the Athenians at least were intrigued with what Paul had to say.

Your statement shows you not to be a person of peace yourself!

[Jumper]

There you go ago with the inability to comprehend sentences and their meaning.

If you are in a lodge of Christian Mason’s, you will be expelled per the example in this case being Adultry, or murder, homosexuality, thievery, lying....

A Mason must be of good standing in his community and remain so.

Hypothetically, would Jesus rather have a group of Christians following God/Ten Commandants or the gaggle of abortion practing, homosexuality friendly church congeration? I have attended over 70 churches and maybe one or two would uphold God’s Laws. The Mason’s don’t want “practicing sinners living in sin. Very select group. Keep your Commandants and you will remain in good standing. I speak for the Christian Mason’s.

You are an emotional lighting rod. It prevents you from understanding simple words as written. You simply pick fights. Very judgmental in that narrow mind.

[Jamestown1630]

I believe they hold belief in God as valuable and important. Otherwise, I’m not aware of them promoting religious belief or practices. (Moral, ethical and philosophical systems and understanding are not religious.)

[mdmathis6]

The Masons of Solomon used no stones that were cut by tools in the building of the temple. It was God’s command! The stones were hewn from the ground and fitted into place. No tool was to cut them!

For modern masonry to claim some sort of kinship with Solomon’s masons directly is ludicrous. Modern masonry claims connections with the ancient builders of Egypt as well.

[Jumper]

You would be correct. I am a man of war. I have killed and have no quams doing it again given certain circumstances. Later in life I was a member of the foreign service... and fir a long time there I gave up on the USG.

Soldiers carry burdens so that others may remain pure in spirit and peace of mind.

[Jumper]

I have never heard anything about Egypt. Maybe the Muslims adapted it for local consuption.

Every lodge I ever attended had a Bible in the Center. If it was of specific constructoin for Masonic purposes, it had the same white and black tiled floor.

Of course the Mason’s are a guild, with guild secrets pertaining to construction. The Level, Trowl & Compass are the tools of the guild.

So many experts with no actual expertise!

[mdmathis6]

It doesn't seem much different then something i watched on Amazon prime about how to join Masonry in the USA. Basically, the same sales pitch.
I wish that it was all that innocuous!

[mdmathis6]

The eye of Osiris at the top of the pyramid on the dollar biil...you were aware that that is a masonic symbol?

[Jumper]

You have the right idea on-site but at the quarry the stones were cut.

New International Version
In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.

New Living Translation
The stones used in the construction of the Temple were finished at the quarry, so there was no sound of hammer, ax, or any other iron tool at the building site.

English Standard Version
When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.

Berean Standard Bible
The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

King James Bible
And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.

[Jumper]

Your writer is skeptic from the first sentence. He is using his opinion of what he has read or heard, without the mentorship of an actual Mason to correct him. He presents information from a DUNCAN thus probably from England or Scottland?

I am sure if you were reading about a Shamin’s estatic journey’s to either the underworld or overworld you might picture in you western Christian mind something totally wrong from the actual meaning. You would read abvout performing a kut or rite or cermony for sickness or death and say “that’s not right” or think something dismissive to your own self in your mind. Your understanding would be shaped by your beliefs and experiences and what you imagined.

This is just a magazine article and not something that actually written by one who has any experience.

It is full of “triggered” concerns by the author who tries to make sense with is understanding and logic. He might as well of dug up a grave site or tossed some rune stones for divination in writing that “guided offense”. His final analysis is that it is a religion, not the original religion. It is not a religon so calm down.

[mdmathis6]

Certainly they are religious. That which is transcendent and fixed in God’s spirit informs the conscience as to what is to be considered moral, ethical and philosophical. Proverbs has wisdom stating that it was by wisdom that God created the heavens and the earth. Proverbs says that God hates unjust weights and measures. Collossians describes Christ as being the full expression of the God head in his flesh and that the whole of creation is held together thru the person of Christ Jesus. Corinthians 15 says that Without the resurrection of Christ then our religion is in vain and that we might as well live the best sensuous enjoyable life we can(”let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die”)

Acts 17 again says that in God ...we live and move and have our being so that none of us is very far from him.

No sir! Morality, ethics and philosophy are dead without the light of God thru Jesus shining thru them. Indeed He must shine thru them so that someday, the world can perceive the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord filling the Earth as waters cover the sea!

[cgbg]

I have given two separate sources in this thread explaining that the Masonic newbies have no clue of the real Masonic agenda.

They operate in secrecy—and the biggest secrets are kept from the vast majority of their own members.

They were so scandalous that there was an actual political party formed to oppose them in the 1800s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Masonic_Party

They are not kissing cousins of the Rotary Club.

[ebb tide]

A masonic lodge of only christian masons? I don't believe they exist. I don't think your Grand Master would tolerate that.

But if they do, there must be other lodges out there? Muslim, Hindu, etc.?

And you all profess the same "Grand Architect"?

The Mason’s don’t want “practicing sinners living in sin.

Why not? Jamestown claims you all are not a religion. So why do you care about sin?

[mdmathis6]

I acknowledge the redirect in the case of tools used onsite of the temple itself that they weren’t to be used as each stone had already been marked and fiitted into place from the blue print given Solomon. The altars built by Joshua and others in Israel previous to the temple were not to be cut by iron implements but by hand hewn uncut stones fitted into place.

[Jamestown1630]

So, you think that people who don’t follow your religion and see God your way have no morality or ethics or philosophy? Even animals exhibit some rudimentary forms of ethics.

[ebb tide]

A Mason must be of good standing in his community and remain so.

Whether that "community" is the Castro district, Sodom or Gomorrah?

Catholics prefer to be in community with God, the only God in the Holy Trinity. Not your "grand architect".

[ebb tide]

Even animals exhibit some rudimentary forms of ethics.

Tell that to the mosquito I just killed.