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Relationship with the Roman Catholic Church

When the Pope proclaims an official ruling which is binding on all Roman Catholics, his edict is called a Papal bull (from the Late Latin bulla, "a lead seal"). On the subject of Freemasonry, Pope Clement XII in 1738 issued a bull which is usually called by the title In eminenti apostolatus specula ("In the lofty watch-tower of apostleship"), from the Latin words which begin it. Under pain of excom- munication it forbade all Catholics to join Freemasonry, or to do anything to help or encourage it. The following reasons are given.

(l) In lodges, "men who are attached to any form at all of religion or sect are associated together".

(2) "Whatever goes on at their meeting. they are bound by a strict oath taken on the Bible, and by the accumulation of heavy penalties, to veil in inviolable silence."

(3) Because of this secrecy, "they have aroused suspicions in the minds of the faithful, . . . and won the name of wickedness and perversion; if they were not doing wrong, they would not be afraid of the light".

(4) Lodges inflict very serious injuries "not only upon the tranquillity of the temporal state, but even on the spiritual health of souls.... They pervert the hearts of the simple".

(5) "For other just and reasonable causes known to us."

Terms of this bull were renewed, amplified, and confirmed by a number of subsequent Popes. The fullest exposition is in the encyclical letter Humanum Genus ("The Human Race") of Leo XIII, in 1884. He charges that Masons "deny that anything has been taught by God"; that they accept into their ranks men who deny the very existence of God, and the immortality of the soul; that they work officially against the Catholic church; that they teach that citizens may despise the authority of their rulers; and that they favour the designs of the communists. Whatever was the target of Pope Leo's thunder-bolts, it was clearly not Freemasonry as we know it. Actually some of his accusations are deserved by "irregular" or "Latin" masonry, which is practiced in a number of grand lodges of the French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese tongues. The encyclical tars "regular" or "English" masonry with the same brush.

The ban is still in effect against Masons and "other associations of the same type, which plot against the church or the lawful civil power (Code of Canon Law of 1917, No. 2335). The authority of the church has naturally fostered a venomous hostility towards Freemasonry on the part of many Catholics. The lack of substance in the accusation has roused sorrow in the hearts of many Masons. No doubt some have tired of turning the other cheek, and have lashed out with equal intolerance. English Masonry's official response has always been, "Let a man's religion, or mode of worship, be what it may, he is not excluded from the Order, provided he believe in the Architect of Heaven and Earth. . ..”

Since the Second Vatican Council in 1962-65, a new spirit of ecumenism has been abroad in the Roman Catholic church. There are encouraging signs of a softening in the traditional attitude to Freemasonry. Most tangible, several books sympathetic to "regular" Masonry, and drawing a clear distinction between it and "irregular" Masonry, have been published with the doctrinal sanction (nihil obstat and imprimatur) of the church: one by a Parisian lawyer, Alec Mellor, Our Separated Brethren: The Freemasons (published in French 1961 and in English 1964); and another by a Jesuit priest, a specialist in canon law, Father Jose Antonio Ferrer Benimeli, Masonry since the Council (in Spanish 1968).