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.

[ebb tide]

So, you think that people who don’t follow your religion and see God your way have no morality or ethics or philosophy?

They think of God in the wrong way. Period.

[ebb tide]

Freemasons to accept transgender women – if they joined as men

An evil, sick cult.

[mdmathis6]

Let Acts 17:22-34 answer that question. It was Paul’s sermon to Athens and it;s philosophers. he builds his sermon around their worship of “The Unknown God” i see irony here because I see many Masons committed in unity in the worship of the Athenian concept of the “Unknown God”.. At Athens it was an altar set up so that a person may sacrifice to what ever God they may have missed, lest an individual run the risk of incurring the wrath of some sore and neglected deity.
Paul contended that it was the God of Israel that was the true “Unknown God’ that was being worshipped and that this God was tolerant of such things in the past but was now commanding that the whole world follow Christ for a fixed day of judgment was coming...

“Acts 17:22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” 33 So Paul departed from among them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.”

In a way Masonry is a corrupted version of the reality of God that Paul exposited on Mars hill in Athens. It is a twisted echo of what Paul preached at Athens. Compare and Contrast What Masonry says about its general philosophy vs what Paul says about “The Unknown God’ and you can see the deviations away from God’s word and his command that the whole world should repent and come to Jesus.

[ebb tide]

You seem to not acknowledge the fact that the Masons accept non-Christians in all of their lodges.

[ebb tide]

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.

Why should I thank you for your "lucky stars?

I have great admiration and devotion to the holy catholic martyrs who died for "not acknowledging other (false) religions".

[ebb tide]

They are not a church or religion.

Why do they demand a profession of belief in a Supreme Being? The Grand Architect?

[Jamestown1630]

What reputable publications you trust!

And it is absolute nonsense. If a man decides to ‘trans’ himself, he’s out.

[Jumper]

I see word association of Stars and planets being Gods
for the Greeks and Romans is over your head;)

Mars was the God of War if memory serves me correct. You see there have been many Gods to other people in the annuals of human history.

I’m out - this thread is tiring.

[Jamestown1630]

Belief in a Supreme Being does not constitute a religion, much less a church.

[ebb tide]

If a man decides to ‘trans’ himself, he’s out.

Not according to your United Grand Lodge of England.

[Jumper]

Your stupidity only serves to limit your ability actually think.

[cgbg]

“Freemasons to accept transgender women – if they joined as men
An evil, sick cult.”

Good catch.

You put the nail on the coffin—I did not even know that.

I was sure the Freemasons must be on the wrong side of that issue based on their previous history—but could not prove it.

[ebb tide]

Belief in a Supreme Being does not constitute a religion, much less a church.

What does?

What is your definition of a religion?

What is your definition of a church?

[Labyrinthos]

“Lower level Masons have no clue what the upper level secrets are.

It is not their fault—it just is what it is.”

The same can be said about Scientology.

[Jumper]

Your inability to retain information is evident. Each state or nation has thier lodges.

England wrote a law that forced this upon the organization.

Apparently you don’t actually read anything or retain anything simple becasue you are at odds and dismiss even factual information written to you.

I sincerely hope I never have the opportunity to see you around FR. I have been here at FR for nearly 26 years and have never even seen a libtard/libturd as dense and stupid as you.

[ebb tide]

See post #162.

[Jumper]

I can only say that if you visit a lodge, they will not let you into the meeting in most instances... you will allowed to sit outside in the kitchen area.

I think it’s time for your next hit of LSD.

[mdmathis6]

Now let Romans chapter 2 answer more specifically about ethics morality and philosopy as to whether or not non Christians can show a sense of ethics and morality. They can...but not in any way that saves their souls. The blood and flesh spilled and broken respectively from Jesus could only ever do that to make us acceptable to God.

“Romans 2:12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law 13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

All men have a knowledge of what is good and evil, right and wrong and indeed some very ethical and moral men who don’t believe in Christ are following what is already instinctual by conscience to follow. Yet it won’t save them unless they have Believed on Christ and were saved. Still God will be the ultimate judge, especially in those cases where they never heard the gospel but were very moral and ethical people. The Bible is clear what happens to those who hear and reject the truth...God will judge graciously those who never heard about Jesus but were found to be Christ like in their lives...I think we’ll find in the day of judgment that there will be some surprises as to just who will find or not find their names in Christ’s Lambs book of life. I rest assured that if Christ can find some lost sheep that can be saved, he will do so. Many will go to the Lake of Fire...others...well God will judge with grace as Justice AND grace can allow!

[ebb tide]

England wrote a law that forced this upon the organization.

I highly doubt that. But if it's true, you masons rolled over like a puppy wanting his belly rubbed.

[Jamestown1630]

You seem a little thick - it’s not ‘my’ United Lodge.

As I understand it, in the US things like this would be decided by individual Grand Lodges. I doubt any regular lodge would stand for it.