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.

[Jamestown1630]

I think it’s pretty obvious that your source is highly biased - no different from the nonsense created by Philip IV and the pope to destroy the Knights Templar.

(But of course, you don’t believe history, so...)

[Jamestown1630]

You believe some very strange things.

[Ezekiel]

I have a Fifth Edition (1928) of his magnum opus. ~ 13" x 19" x 2" - thus with the color plates, all the original work. Never a dull moment for the simple data to discover therein, well beyond the philosophies presented.

Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? He who learns from every man, as it is said: “From all who taught me have I gained understanding” (Psalms 119:99)

From page XCIX:

>>>

Though some controversy exists as to whether the Grail was a cup or a platter, it is generally depicted in art as a chalice of considerable size and unusual beauty. According to the legend, Joseph of Arimathea brought the Grail Cup to the place of the crucifixion and in it caught the blood pouring from the wounds of the dying Nazarene. Later Joseph, who had become custodian of the sacred relics--the Sangreal and the Spear of Longinus--carried them into a distant country. According to one version, his descendants finally placed these relics in Glastonbury Abbey in England; according to another, in a wonderful castle on Mount Salvat, Spain, built by angels in a single night. Under the name of Preston John, Parsifal, the last of the Grail Kings, carried the Holy Cup with him into India, and it disappeared forever from the Western World. Subsequent search for the Sangreal was the motif for much of the knight errantry of the Arthurian legends and the ceremonials of the Round Table. (See the Morte d'Arthur.)

No adequate interpretation has ever been given to the Grail Mysteries. Some believe the Knights of the Holy Grail to have been a powerful organization of Christian mystics perpetuating the Ancient Wisdom under the rituals and sacraments of the oracular Cup. The quest for the Holy Grail is the eternal search for truth, and Albert G. Mackey sees in it a variation of the Masonic legend of the Lost Word so long sought by the brethren of the Craft.

>>>

The Holy Cup can be discovered only by those who have raised themselves above the limitations of sensuous existence. In his mystic poem, The Vision of Sir Launfal, James Russell Lowell discloses the true nature of the Holy Grail by showing that it is visible only to a certain state of spiritual consciousness. Only upon returning from the vain pursuit of haughty ambition did the aged and broken knight see in the transformed leper's cup the glowing chalice of his lifelong dream.

https://sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta23.htm

The kindergarten version of the Secret Teachings:

"In American contexts, Camelot refers to the presidency of John F. Kennedy." Camelot

"We choose to go to the Moon", formally the Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort, is a September 12, 1962, speech by United States President John F. Kennedy to bolster public support for his proposal to land a man on the Moon before 1970 and bring him safely back to Earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon

I could go on..but this stuff is so different than modern conventional thought—whether religious or scientific—that it is like speaking a foreign language.

[cgbg]

I repeat my challenge:

“Go into the local Masonic lodge and denounce the Trans movement—and watch what happens next.”

[Jamestown1630]

Or I could just ask a Freemason. I’m sure we have some here.

[Jamestown1630]

Philosopher’s Stone.

[cgbg]

Talk from others is cheap.

The “Magic” needs to be experienced—up close and personal.

You will be shunned like you pooped in their living room.

[Jamestown1630]

Why should I believe YOUR cheap talk?

[cgbg]

You need not believe a word I said.

When it is time for you to learn you will learn.

[Jamestown1630]

Well, you've wasted enough of your superb intellect and vast esoteric knowledge here today.

Get back to your copy of 'The Protocols...'

[cgbg]

Lol.

Hate on what I said all you want—as long as you remember it when stuff starts happening that you cannot explain.

[Jamestown1630]

There’s an explanation for just about everything - but those prosaic explanations don’t align with your bizarre ideas.

[delchiante]

I doubt many here think they’re stupid.

But the US does have occult design in its own capital.The nice occult obelisk and pregnant dome building in DC gives off ancient occult sun worship vibes..

And it having a kindred spirit with the Antichrist Papacy with their own occult obelisk and pregnant dome building at its Vatican, is something that makes some go,hmmm...

[Jamestown1630]

What is your definition of ‘occult’?

[ebb tide]

It's pretty obvious that your masonic beliefs are highly biased against, not only the Catholic Church, but the Holy Trinity.

You refuse to acknowledge that the one and holy, Supreme Being is the True God: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. You refuse to even acknowledge Jesus Christ in your chants.

Your "supreme being" is the same as the Hindus and Muslims "supreme being".

The freemasons' "god" is some demonic "grand architect".

The True God (Father, Son and Holy Ghost) is the Creator: of Heaven and Earth; not some simple architect invented by evil people.

[Jamestown1630]

Again, Freemasonry is NOT a religion.

And there can only be One God, no matter what different peoples call Him. You and your church may think you have a monopoly on God, but billions of good and faithful people in the world don’t believe you do.

[ebb tide]

I know there is only one God.

But freemasons don't believe in that God when they refuse to publicly acknowledge Jesus Christ.

Why is that?

[ebb tide]

Freemasonry is NOT a religion.

Nor is Satanism.

You have a choice. Choose wisely.

[Jamestown1630]

In American Freemasonry, beyond the requirement that a Freemason profess belief in a Supreme Being, it is forbidden to discuss religion - or politics - within the Lodges. Such can be divisive, and destructive of fraternal ideals.

Again - there are Freemasons of many different religions. It is not a ‘church’, it can be likened rather to a philosophical organization.

[Jamestown1630]

I believe I’ve chosen very wisely; and your expositions here have frankly not convinced me that I should take your advice regarding my spiritual OR philosophical path and beliefs.