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Posted on 02/23/2026 6:18:05 PM PST by ebb tide
Pope Leo XIV has appointed a bishop who participated in the opening ceremony of a Masonic lodge as Metropolitan Archbishop of Sassari, Italy.
The Holy See announced the decision to promote Monsignor Francesco Antonio Soddu to his new position in its daily bulletin on February 21. Soddu, who was originally appointed as bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia by Pope Francis in 2021, caused a scandal in September 2022 when he attended the opening ceremony of the Grand Orient of Italy (GOI) Masonic lodge.
As LifeSiteNews reported, Soddu participated in the inauguration of the local Freemasonry headquarters in Via Roma in Terni, together with numerous city and government officials.
The Grand Master of the GOI, Stefano Bisi, in his keynote address, expressed typical masonic anticlerical sentiments, praising the secular state as the one and only guarantor of freedom, and voicing the hope that September 20 would be restored as a holiday in celebration of the liberation of Italy from “the domination of the Church.”
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According to a statement published by the GOI, in his greeting message, Soddu “thanked” the Freemasons “for the invitation” and “expressed the hope that initiatives like this may foster dialogue and exchange between different communities, overcoming prejudice.” No official text or recording of the bishop’s remarks at the event was published either by the Masonic organization or by the diocese, and the speech was reportedly delivered without a prepared text.
According to Italian outlet La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, “the presence of the bishop at the inauguration of the Masonic house literally took the faithful and the diocesan priests by surprise,” including “the curia, which knew nothing about the initiative.”
Responding to indignation among the Catholic faithful sparked by the bishop’s presence at the ceremony, the Diocese of Terni issued a statement defending the prelate’s attendance, stating that the faithful had “deliberately misunderstood and misinterpreted” his presence, which it claimed was not intended to “identify” with Freemasonry but to witness to the Gospel.
The diocese further claimed that the bishop’s purpose at the ceremony was “witnessing fidelity to the Gospel and to the Church, especially in this time of the Synodal path that characterizes it."
The Church’s centuries‑old condemnation of Freemasonry is not built upon “prejudice,” as suggested by Soddu, but on the incompatibility between the relativistic and syncretistic worldview promoted by Freemasonry and that of the Catholic faith. Furthermore, over the past centuries the popes have denounced the efforts of Masonic organizations to dismantle Catholic civilization and the temporal power of the Church.
Starting with the apostolic letter of Pope Clement XII In eminenti apostolatus specula (1738), there have been roughly 600 magisterial interventions by the Roman pontiffs against Freemasonry, including both direct interventions – constitutions, encyclicals, bulls, and similar documents – and indirect ones, such as dicastery statements.
Catholics who become members of a Freemasonic lodge may be punished by excommunication under canon law, although this is no longer imposed automatically (latae sententiae).
Pope Leo’s decision to make Soddu the archbishop of Sassari will undoubtedly be seen as a promotion from his current position as bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia.
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Ping
It’s almost as if Uncle Leo were a Jesuit.
Disgraceful, but at least Sassari isn’t much of a diocese for him to wreck. Fairly boring Sardinian city that had no TLM last time I was there.
Hail Mary! full of grace, the Masons are in second place (The Clancy Brothers in concert in D.C. in the early 60’s.)
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