by Giuliano Di Bernardo
The image of Freemasonry, which I outlined in previous Lessons, finds its historical foundation in the United Grand Lodge of England (Constitutions, Acts, Declarations), but transcends it to stand as a valid thought for universal Freemasonry. It, therefore, represents an ought-to-be, an ideality toward which to relate individual Masonic societies given concretely in history and differentiated with respect to tradition, culture and language.
I intend to use this anthropology to interpret the relationship between Freemasonry and the Catholic Church. In this regard, I draw attention to the conclusions I have reached: a) Freemasonry is not a religion; b) there is no irreconcilability between belonging to Freemasonry and professing a religious faith.
Points (a) and (b) are closely connected in that the truth of (b) presupposes the truth of (a). This means that there can be reconcilability between Freemasonry and religion only if Freemasonry is not a religion. The investigation in the previous Lessons should dispel any doubt in this regard. However, since the Catholic Church has recently re-proposed the thesis of irreconcilability, it is important to carefully analyze its fundamental rationale.
The current state of relations between the Catholic Church and Freemasonry finds the most rigorous and unequivocal expression in the “Declaration on Freemasonry” by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued on November 26, 1983, which represents the most authoritative act by which the Catholic Church enunciates the thesis of the irreconcilability between belonging to Freemasonry and sharing Christian-Catholic doctrine. The full text of the declaration is as follows:
It was asked whether the Church’s judgment toward Freemasonry has changed since it is not expressly mentioned in the new Code of Canon Law as it was in the earlier Code.
This congregation can answer that this circumstance is due to a drafting criterion also followed for other associations equally not mentioned because they are included in broader categories.
Therefore, the Church’s negative judgment regarding Masonic associations remains unchanged, as their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with Church doctrine and therefore membership in it remains forbidden. The faithful who belong to Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and cannot access Holy Communion.
It is not within the competence of local church authorities to pronounce on the nature of Masonic associations with a judgment that implies derogation from what has been established above, and this is in line with the Declaration of this Holy Congregation of February 17, 1981 (cf. aas 73/1981/ pp. 240-241).
The Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, at the audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved this Declaration, decided at the ordinary meeting of this Holy Congregation, and ordered its publication.
Rome, given in the offices of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, November 26, 1983. Signature of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
This statement was inspired by a document against Freemasonry drafted by the German bishops entitled “Declaration of the German Bishops’ Conference about the Membership of Catholics in Freemasonry,” issued in Wurzburg on April 28, 1980. That document, in turn, refers to Leo XIII’s encyclical Humanum Genus (April 20, 1884), where it is stated that “the Magisterium of the Church has denounced in Freemasonry philosophical ideas and moral conceptions opposed to Catholic doctrine,” and to the Letter to the Italian People (Dec. 8, 1892), in which the same pontiff thus wrote, “Let us remember that Christianity and Freemasonry are essentially irreconcilable, so that to join one is to separate oneself from the other.”
To properly understand Cardinal Ratzinger’s “Declaration on Freemasonry,” it is necessary to analyze, in its most significant aspects, the German Episcopate’s document, which emerges from conversations held with German Freemasonry.
The climate that characterizes the talks between the United Grand Lodges of Germany and the German Episcopate is that of the Second Vatican Council, through which the Catholic Church opened itself to dialogue with all men of good will. Indeed, with the celebration of the Second Vatican Council, the Church abandoned the attitude of rejection and aprioristic condemnation that had characterized its relations with the modern world in the past and opened itself to dialogue and cooperation with men of all ideologies and religious beliefs. The most significant Council document in this regard is undoubtedly Paul VI’s Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes on the Church in the Contemporary World. In it states, among other things, “The community of Christians feels real and intimate solidarity with the human race and its history. For this reason, the Second Vatican Council, having penetrated more deeply the mystery of the Church, does not hesitate now to address its word no longer only to the children of the Church and to all those who invoke the name of Christ, but to all men.” In Chapter 21 (“The Church’s Attitude in the Face of Atheism”), he further argues, “The Church, while rejecting atheism absolutely, nevertheless sincerely recognizes that all men, believers and non-believers alike, must contribute to the just construction of this world, within which they are to live together: this, sincerely, cannot take place except through loyal and prudent dialogue.” These conciliar declarations are echoed, for their part, by the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, in which Paul VI outlines the image of a Church leaning toward dialogue: “The Church must be ready to sustain dialogue with all men of good will, within and outside her own sphere. No one is a stranger to her heart. No one is indifferent to her ministry. No one is an enemy to her who does not want to be an enemy himself.” In this climate of openness toward the world, the Church also takes an attitude of practical tolerance toward Freemasonry, which is credited with admitting the transcendent principle of the Great Architect of the Universe by which to reject the various manifestations of materialism and atheism.
In this conciliar climate, official talks took place in Germany between 1974 and 1980 between the Catholic Church and Freemasonry, which were expressed in the “Declaration” of the German Bishops’ Conference about the membership of Catholics in Freemasonry. The respective starting positions of the Church and German Freemasonry can be summarized as follows.
The German Bishops’ Conference set itself the following task: 1) to ascertain changes within Freemasonry in Germany; 2) to examine the compatibility of contemporary membership in the Catholic Church and Freemasonry; and 3) in the case of an affirmative answer to the previous question, to prepare public opinion for the changed situation with publicity initiatives.
German Freemasonry, having emerged from National Socialist persecution reduced by about a quarter, in order to establish cooperation with other institutions, intended to clarify its relations with the Christian churches.
The initiation of the dialogue seemed to find justification in the following points of contact: 1) the freedom of man, considered essential for the Church, is also found in Freemasonry, which, precisely because of its humanitarian attitude, carries out an activity in favor of human freedom; 2) the charity of the Church corresponds, in Freemasonry, to the charity through which it undertakes relief initiatives toward suffering people; 3) symbols and rituals, which have always had their privileged place in the Church, are also found in Freemasonry; 4) the positive personal qualities of individual Masons have always been recognized and appreciated by the Church; 5) the Church and Freemasonry have always declared their readiness to lead the fight against all manifestations of materialism. From these points of contact, the view emerged that Freemasonry had been transformed to such an extent that Catholics could join Masonic lodges.
Against this view, the Church of Rome immediately took a stand, which declared that it did not consider the positive qualities of individual Masons to be sufficient for the purpose of changing its attitude toward Freemasonry because they were totally dependent on subjectivity. Consequently, in order to arrive at valid results, it was necessary to study the essence of Freemasonry as found in the Grand Lodges of Germany and as objectively manifested in the official Rituals of the first three degrees.
The German Bishops’ Conference, after a thorough examination of the Masonic Rituals and the Masonic way of being, had had to ascertain fundamental and insuperable oppositions, from which it emerged unequivocally that simultaneous membership in the Catholic Church and Freemasonry was excluded. The reasons for this irreconcilability are as follows.
First, Freemasonry, unlike the Church, denies, in principle, the value of revealed truth, and excludes, from the very beginning, a revealed religion. According to Freemasonry, the Catholic Church is not the holder of absolute, objective, revealed truth. Freemasonry, therefore, advocates a relativistic conception of truth, by which all religions (and thus also the Catholic religion) express a truth that is never absolute, revealed and objective. Such a concept of truth, the episcopal document states, is not compatible with the Catholic concept of truth, neither from the point of view of natural theology nor from that of the theology of revelation. Relativism and subjectivism of this kind, advocated by Freemasonry, cannot be harmonized with faith in the revealed word of God authentically interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church.
From the relativism of truth also descends the relativistic conception of religion. Indeed, we read in the episcopal document that, by denying religions the possession of absolute and revealed truth, Freemasonry considers all religions as competing attempts to express divine truth, which is ultimately unattainable. Divine truth, conversely, would be attainable, the episcopal document further states, only by Freemasonry through the language of symbols. Consequently, Freemasonry would be a universal religion (“the religion in which all men agree,” Anderson speaks of in his Constitutions) and would possess absolute truth. It is the opinion of the drafters of the German Bishops’ Declaration that Freemasonry, while denying all religions the possession of absolute and revealed truth, attributes it to itself precisely as a universal religion. The universal religion of the Freemasons, they argue, finds expression in the concept of the “Great Architect of the Universe,” which reveals a deistic conception. In fact, the Great Architect of the Universe is a neutral Being, undefined and open to every possible interpretation. Everyone can enter it his or her own conception of God, the Christian as the Muslim, the Confucian as the animist or the member of any religion. Consequently, this representation of a universal Architect, towering in deistic remoteness, undermines the foundations of Catholics’ conception of God and their response to the god who challenges them as Father and Lord. Finally, the Great Architect of the Universe does not allow for the idea of a revelation of God, as is the case in the faith of all Christians.
The Rituals of the degrees of Apprentice, Companion and Master present a character like that of the sacraments, and give rise to the impression that, through symbolic actions, man is actually transformed. However, the symbolic initiation of man, advocated by Freemasonry, stands in clear competition with its sacramental transformation implemented by the Church. It is clear from the Masonic Rituals that the ultimate goal of Freemasonry is the highest ethical improvement of man. However, there is reasonable doubt that ethical improvement is absolute and separate from grace, so it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to justify man according to the Christian conception. Indeed, if with the Rituals of the three degrees enlightenment and the overcoming of death are already achieved, what else should the sacramental communication of salvation in Baptism, Penance and the Eucharist be for? Freemasonry has, therefore, a claim to totality that makes it evidently irreconcilable with the Catholic Church, which cannot allow an institution foreign to it to assume within itself and carry out such a formation.
The drafters of the statement of the German Bishops’ Conference, concluding their analysis, state that although Freemasonry has made a transformation in the sense of greater openness to other social groups, nevertheless, in its mentality, its fundamental beliefs and its work in the temple, it has remained fully the same. The above oppositions touch on the fundamentals of Christian existence, so simultaneous membership in the Catholic Church and Freemasonry is ruled out.
These, in brief, are the contents of the “Declaration” of the German Bishops’ Conference about the membership of Catholics in Freemasonry. This declaration, which draws on Leo XIII’s encyclical Humanum Genus, is the source from which Cardinal Ratzinger’s “Declaration on Freemasonry” is inspired.
The publication of the German Episcopate’s “Declaration” caused controversy and disorientation at least among those who were engaged in dialogue between Freemasons and Catholics. It is noteworthy, in this regard, the “Commentary” to the aforementioned Declaration by Father Giovanni Caprile, which appeared as an epilogue to the Italian translation of the same Declaration, in which it is argued that 1) the measure of the German Episcopate directly concerns the territory of its juridical competence, and 2) there is no mention in it of excommunication and the related Article 2335 of the Code of Canon Law still in force (the Declaration in question is from 1980 and therefore refers to the old Code of Canon Law). Father Caprile’s attempts to mitigate the impact of the Declaration in order to limit its negative effects in the dialogue between Catholics and Freemasons, which at that time in Italy was very much felt, is evident. He strives to argue that even when the German bishops speak of Freemasonry without any specification, they do not intend to pass judgment on all Freemasonry past and present, of all types and orientations, but to pronounce only on German Freemasonry, which was the subject of their investigation. Historian Father Caprile argues for the plurality and diversity of Masonic Communions, ordering them on a scale according to the criterion of greater or lesser closeness to the theological doctrine of the Catholic Church. His assessment, circumscribed to the historical plane, may have some validity, but it is insufficient and misleading because it does not express that foundation common to all Freemasonry in the world, which is grasped only on the philosophical plane. If the historical plane is not related to the philosophical one, the risk one runs is to see Masonic Communions as autonomous realities and therefore without any connection: in that case, German Freemasonry would be completely different from Italian or English or French Freemasonry, so that the negative judgment given on it would not involve the others as well. On this point the German bishops are right, since indeed their reflections concern all Freemasonry and not only German Freemasonry. That this is really the case is shown by the fact that Cardinal Ratzinger’s “Declaration on Freemasonry” proves Father Caprile wrong when it declares that it is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to pronounce on the nature of Masonic associations with a judgment that implies derogation from what has been established above, and this is in line with the Declaration of this Holy Congregation of February 17, 1981. Since Ratzinger’s statement is inspired by the Declaration of the German Bishops, whose essential contents it incorporates, there is no shadow of doubt that the Declaration of the German Episcopate has general validity and not only regional validity, as Father Caprile claims, on the other hand. Even on the interpretation of Article 2335 of the Code of Canon Law, the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith will refute Father Caprile’s claim.
The publication of both the Declaration of the German Bishops’ Conference and the Declaration of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith provoked reactions, comments and controversies. In them, there was a glimpse of the Church’s reversal of the contents expressed by the Second Vatican Council. Attention has been focused on Article 2335 through which, in the old Code of Canon Law, under penalty of excommunication, Catholics were prohibited from joining Masonic associations. Since in the new Code of Canon Law this article was abolished, it was thought that the Church wanted to manifest a change of attitude toward Freemasonry. Concerning Article 2335 there were various arguments: one wondered whether Ratzinger’s statement was a specification or a limitation of it. As the debate and controversy showed no sign of dying down, on February 23, 1985, the “Osservatore Romano” published on its front page, in three columns, an unsigned article (expressing, however, the official position of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), entitled “Reflections one year after the Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Irreconcilability between Christian faith and Freemasonry.”
The authors of these Reflections, in order to justify Cardinal Ratzinger’s Declaration, refer equally to the Declaration of the German Episcopate. The reflections in that document are essentially of three types: 1) theoretical, 2) practical, and 3) socio-cultural.
Reflections belonging to the first type can be traced back to two levels of analysis and refer to the concepts of “relative truth” and “relativism” which, according to the Catholic Church, Freemasonry professes. From them descend the notions of “relative religion” and “universal religion.” The first level finds expression in the following quote, “First of all, it must be remembered that the community of Freemasons and its moral obligations are presented as a progressive system of symbols with an extremely demanding character. The rigid discipline of the arcane that dominates there further reinforces the weight of the interaction of signs and ideas. This climate of secrecy entails, moreover, for members the risk of becoming instruments of strategies unknown to them.” The content of this passage concerns the arcane discipline that, according to the document’s drafters, prevails in Freemasonry and leads to disrespect for the human person because of initiatory secrecy. The second level of reflections, again from the theoretical point of view, finds explication in the following passage: “Even if it is stated that relativism is not assumed as dogma, nevertheless a relativistic symbolic conception is in fact proposed, and therefore the relativizing value of such a moral-ritual community, far from being able to be eliminated, is on the contrary decisive. In this context, the various religious communities, to which the individual members of the lodges belong, cannot be considered other than as mere institutionalizations of a larger and elusive truth. The value of these institutionalizations appears, therefore, inevitably relative, compared to this broader truth, which is manifested instead in the community of good will, that is, in the Masonic fraternity.” With this quote, it is asserted that Freemasonry takes a relativistic stance, as it places all religious faiths (and thus also the Catholic faith) on the same level. Here a view is expressed that Freemasonry represents a form of thought oriented toward a “broader,” global truth (not fully known since it is shrouded in secrecy) that is not possessed, nor can be, by any Church. Such broader truth characterizes, on the other hand, Masonic thought. If the problem of truth is considered in this form, then there can be no reconcilability between Freemasonry and the Catholic Church, since the Catholic Church is reduced to a (and therefore partial if not erroneous) form of representation of a broader truth that only Freemasonry has the right to claim.
Reflections of the second type are mainly of a practical nature and represent the consequences of the relativistic attitude noted earlier. In fact, the document states, “For a Catholic Christian, however, it is not possible to live his relationship with god in a dual mode, that is, splitting it into a humanitarian-superconfessional form and an internal-Christian form. He cannot cultivate two kinds of relationships with God, nor express his relationship with the Creator through symbolic forms of two kinds. On the other hand, a Catholic Christian cannot at the same time participate in the full communion of the Christian fraternity and, on the other hand, look upon his Christian brother, from the Masonic perspective, as a ‘layman.'” Here reference is made to the case where a Christian (Catholic) is also a member of a Masonic Lodge, and the idea is expressed that if one agrees to become a Freemason while continuing to be a Christian (Catholic), then one entertains with God a relationship of dual significance: that as a Mason and that as a Christian. The Church cannot allow this ambiguity, nor can it recognize the right of others to perfect man in other ways than sacramentally (as are the initiatory ways of Freemasonry), so there is a practical irreconcilability between it and Freemasonry.
Also in the practical considerations, the document contains an explicit reference to relativism when it states, “Even when, as already mentioned, there was no explicit obligation to profess relativism as a doctrine, nevertheless the relativizing force of such a fraternity, by its very intrinsic logic, has in itself the capacity to transform the structure of the act of faith so radically that it is not acceptable to a Christian ‘to whom his faith is dear’ (Leo XIII).”
Reflections of the third kind, referring to the contemporary mentality, are socio-cultural in nature. The document, in this regard, reads thus, “This upheaval in the fundamental structure of the act of faith is accomplished, moreover, for the most part, softly and unnoticed: the firm adherence to the truth of god, revealed in the Church, becomes simple belonging to an institution, considered as a particular form of expression alongside other forms of expression, more or less equally possible and valid, of man’s orientation to the eternal. The temptation to go in this direction is all the stronger today, as it fully corresponds to certain beliefs prevailing in contemporary mentality. The view that truth cannot be known is a typical characteristic of our age and, at the same time, an essential element of its general crisis.”
Through these reflections, the Catholic Church expresses concern about the widespread opinion that truth cannot be known. If man renounces the certainty that only objective, absolute and revealed truth can give, then inevitably a state of crisis with conflicting and destructive outcomes is engendered. Since Freemasonry denies the value of revealed truth, there can be no reconcilability with the Catholic Church.
As can be easily seen, in the “Reflections” we find the most important contents of the Declaration of the German Bishops’ Conference, namely truth (revealed or relative), religion (particular or universal), and the conception of man (total or partial). There is, therefore, a philosophical and doctrinal continuity between Leo XIII’s encyclical Humanum Genus, the German Bishops’ Conference’s “Declaration” about the membership of Catholics in Freemasonry, the “Declaration on Freemasonry” of the Holy Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the “Reflections one year after the Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Irreconcilability between Christian faith and Freemasonry.” From this we get the unequivocal conviction that, since the dispute between Freemasonry and the Catholic Church began with Clement XII’s encyclical In eminenti in 1738, nothing has changed in the essence of the Catholic Church’s position toward Freemasonry. What has changed, however, are the ways in which it has sought to express its contrast: while in the last century Freemasonry was represented as a manifestation of Evil (understood ontologically as the Evil One) with the consequent flourishing of feuilleton literature on Masonic Satanism, today the contrast is expressed on the basis of philosophical and doctrinal arguments, man having become, thanks in part to the overcoming of illiteracy, less gullible and naive.
In any case, the above documents against Freemasonry represent the official thinking of the Catholic Church. To them, and only to them, we must refer in the following discussion.
Before delving into critical reflections on the official position of the Catholic Church toward Freemasonry, it is appropriate to dwell on the call for change in the essence of Freemasonry that the Church has always advocated. The Declaration of the German Episcopate concludes, in fact, by arguing that Freemasonry, in essence, has remained identical to itself, so there is irreconcilability between belonging to Freemasonry and sharing the Christian faith. But even Freemasonry, in evaluating the above-mentioned documents of the Catholic Church, can claim that, in essence, nothing has changed in the Church’s attitude toward Masonic principles. The risk one runs is to hold against each other the unsuccessful changes deemed necessary to overcome the stumbling block of irreconcilability. I think it is appropriate to point out in this regard that it would be a mistake to demand changes in the essence of the Catholic Church and Freemasonry. If the Catholic Church changed its essence, it would no longer be the Catholic Church, just as Freemasonry, if it changed in essence, would no longer be Freemasonry. Such essential changes are, therefore, not justifiable either on a theoretical-doctrinal or practical level. Claiming impossible and unjustifiable changes could, conversely, be the alibi for denying validity to the dialogue between Freemasonry and the Catholic Church. I believe, therefore, that the correct attitude to take in this regard is to recognize that the essence of the Catholic Church and Freemasonry is what it is, and that, consequently, respect for each other’s specific doctrines be declared. The reconcilability of the contemporary membership of Freemasonry and the Catholic Church is, therefore, not to be sought in the essential changes but elsewhere, as I shall show in the following discussion.
The thesis of irreconcilability, held by the Catholic Church vis-à-vis Freemasonry, is mainly articulated on the concepts of “truth,” “religion,” and “totality.” Let us examine them separately for the purpose of defining the Masonic point of view.
The following solutions can be given to the truth problem: 1) the atheist solution, according to which all religions are false; 2) the Christian-Catholic solution, according to which only one religion is true while all others are false; 3) the Masonic solution, according to which all religions are relatively true.
The atheistic solution, which finds expression in Western culture, denies the sense of truth to all religions, which, therefore, are regarded as illusions or consolation of man in the face of life’s adversities. However, Nietzsche’s “god is dead” or “god is nothing” are philosophical positions that are difficult to sustain because they contradict the historical evidence of transcendence. In fact, from the earliest times, man has manifested the need to believe in a transcendent Being even if he has not always made it coincide with the god of a religion.
The Christian-Catholic solution is defined in the declaration “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (Outside the church there is no salvation), formulated as far back as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, by which the Catholic Church, claiming to itself the right to possess the truth exclusively, denies that other religions can also have the same right. Much time has passed since then, and the Catholic Church has tried in various ways to soften the rigidity of the above declaration. Since the debate is still ongoing, it is to be hoped that it will succeed in ridding itself of this way of conceiving the truth that has been, in past centuries, the source of so many religious wars. The Inquisition, witch hunts, and mission atrocities in Latin America are just a few examples that find justification in the exclusive and absolute truth advocated by the Catholic Church.
The Masonic solution is to view all religions as relatively true. Freemasonry, not being a religion, views all religions with the detachment of the outside observer. No religion, for Freemasonry, possesses absolute and exclusive truth, but all religions are relatively true, that is, each religion is true with respect to its specific viewpoint on all reality. Since different points of view are legitimately given, each is true but not absolutely true. All religions, examined on an objective level, are relatively true. Religion, however, can also be considered from the inside, that is, from the point of view of believers. If I choose to adhere to one religion among those objectively given to me, then for me that religion is absolutely and exclusively true. This religion, relatively true on the objective level, becomes my religion and has absolute value for me.
To characterize the problem of truth in religions, it is therefore necessary to distinguish between “objective truth,” knowable by all men, by which all religions are relatively true, and “subjective truth,” by which my religion is absolutely true. Contrary to popular belief, the absolute character of truth is achieved only subjectively. From this follows the important conclusion that every religion is, at the same time, relative (on the objective plane) and absolute (on the subjective plane). For Freemasonry, moreover, religions are not all equally true (as the Catholic Church claims with the charge of indifferentism) but each is understood with respect to the specificity of the theological doctrine it upholds.
To conclude this examination of the problem of truth, I summarize the Catholic viewpoint and the Masonic viewpoint. For Freemasonry, all conceptions of man (religious and secular) are relatively true on an objective level. Freemasonry itself, therefore, holds a relative truth. For the Catholic Church, there is only one absolute, objective, revealed truth that belongs only to itself. Consequently, all other conceptions of man (religious and secular) are in error. The Catholic Church also believes that Freemasonry, as a universal religion (super religion), ascribes to itself a divine and absolute truth.
From this last statement, reflections on the second fundamental concept, which concerns precisely religion, emerge. According to the drafters of the Declaration of the German Episcopate, Freemasonry is a religion, indeed a super (universal) religion that holds a broader, divine and absolute truth. This statement is completely erroneous and unfounded, as I have already stated and as the United Grand Lodge of England reiterated with authority when it stated that “Freemasonry is not a religion, nor a syncretism of religions.” This would be enough to close the topic. However, I intend to reflect on it further, given its importance for subsequent considerations as well.
The error of attributing to Freemasonry the typical characteristic of a super religion lies in a certain interpretation of deism, that form of universal religion based on reason in which all men agree, which Anderson was inspired by when he wrote the Masonic Constitutions in 1723. In the Catholic Church’s statement, there is some truth, for in the past Freemasonry was inspired by religion. In fact, the “operative” Masons, who materially built cathedrals, found the Christian religion to be the original source of their work. When Anderson set himself the task of universalizing Freemasonry, he replaced the Christian religion with a universal religion inspired by deism. While it is easy to argue that operative Freemasons shared the Christian religion (and were therefore Christians), it becomes difficult to claim that “speculative” Freemasons shared the universal deist religion, not least because in the rational construction of such a religion, they never went beyond the formulation of general principles. Therefore, it seems difficult to imagine a deistic Freemason as the Christian Freemason was. Therefore, even if deism coincided with the alleged super-religion mentioned by the drafters of the Catholic document, this could only be of relative historical value. In any case, it is completely foreign to contemporary Masonic thought. When people today speak of Freemasonry and its religious foundation, they mean to argue that the Mason may have a religion (according to the thesis of non-exclusive regulativism), but not that Freemasonry is a religion. Therefore, the reference in the Catholic document to a Masonic truth that is broader than that of individual religions is undoubtedly to be considered erroneous.
If Freemasonry is not a religion, then the charge of relativism also falls. Indeed, the investigation so far allows us to state that Freemasonry does not have a broader truth, of which the truths of individual religions are partial manifestations. Therefore, such partial truths should not be related to a global truth, of which Freemasonry should be the holder. It remains, however, to examine the judgment of relativism that Freemasonry, according to the Catholic document, would confer on individual religions regardless of whether it is the holder of a truth broader than the one they advocate. Let us try to answer the question: does Freemasonry place all religions on the same level, or does it differentiate them according to a certain evaluative criterion? First, Freemasonry does not express evaluations of religions, nor does it propose to order them in a hierarchical scale. For Freemasonry, all religions have, with respect to their viewpoint around man, which is exclusively ethical, equal dignity. By this is meant to state that Freemasonry does not intend to pronounce itself (it does not even have the competence to do so) on the truth content of individual religions, but rather on the ethical principles they advocate, in order to identify possible concordances with its own principles, in accordance with which the Mason’s project of improvement is realized. The comparison on the purely ethical plane is justified by the fact that Masonic thought does not present itself as a comprehensive conception of man. Only its proposal for the betterment of man, which for Freemasonry has an exclusively ethical significance, is to be subjected to comparison with the ethical principles held by individual religions.
From the belief that Freemasonry is a super religion comes another error, which consists in considering Freemasonry as a total conception of reality. In fact, in the Declaration of the German Episcopate, it is stated that between Freemasonry and the Catholic Church there is irreconcilability because Freemasonry, as a super religion, is a total and comprehensive view. If this statement were true, then there would indeed be irreconcilability, since Freemasonry and the Catholic Church would represent two total conceptions of reality that, by definition, can only be independent and irreducible. However, here again the drafters of the Catholic documents are in error, for Freemasonry is not a total conception of reality, nor has it ever had such a claim. Freemasonry, in proposing the ethical betterment of man, does not intend to pronounce on all aspects of reality, but simply on those that characterize its sphere. That scope, therefore, is partial and primarily concerns the ethical improvement of the Mason. But precisely because Freemasonry’s conception of man is partial, while the Christian one is total, the declaration of irreconcilability advocated in Catholic documents falls. This means that, at least on the ethical level, there can be reconcilability between Freemasonry and the Catholic Church. In fact, there will be reconcilability if there is a common basis between the ethical principles upheld by the Catholic Church and those declared by Freemasonry.
From this comparison, the theorists of the Catholic Church have misunderstood Masonic thought. From this it follows that their assessments are erroneous and therefore must be refuted.
Is it possible that the fathers of the Catholic Church, who for millennia have enlightened mankind even from their own point of view, are unable to understand Masonic thought for what it really is?
And yet, a collaboration between these two conceptions of man would be desirable in the world we live in, both to overcome the ever new difficulties created by globalization and to prepare ourselves to face (or rather, to avert) the eventuality of a World War III.
