Enemies of the faith or good Catholics?
Since the 18th century, a succession of popes has condemned Freemasons as secret agents, heretics and enemies of the faith. But one has to differentiate between “regular” masons – of which there are an estimated two million Catholics worldwide, and in Austria fall under the patronage of the Grand Lodge of England – and the anti-clerical and sectarian European ones, Austrian Vatican official Michael Heinrich Weninger said in Vienna February 12.
That European Grand Orient Lodge of Masons, active mostly in Italy and France, is the lodge that the Church has always been bent on condemning, the priest explained.
Weninger was presenting his new book, Loge und Altar, which explains in its almost 500 pages how it is possible to be simultaneously a Catholic and a Mason.
The member of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue described how, during his trips around the world, he was repeatedly addressed by Catholic lodge members. “They described to me their troubles of conscience and mental problems, whether they were actually excommunicated because of their membership [in the lodge]”, said Weninger. “And I told them with a clear conscience that they weren’t”. Confusion between canon law and a CDF directive Weninger said the confusion over whether Catholics Masons are excommunicated stems from a contradiction between the 1983 Code of Canon Law – which removed the condemnation of Freemasonry contained in the 1917 code – and a damning declaration from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), also from 1983 and one day before the 1983 Code came into force.
Though the CDF declaration is not binding under canon law, it does have a certain theological weight, Weninger admitted.
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