Catholicism and Freemasonry: On the Limits of Theological Dialogue
On Friday, February 16, Archbishop Mario Delpini, the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio (the former Auxiliary Bishop of Milan), and Bishop Antonio Staglianò (the former Bishop of Noto and president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology) took part in a seminar with representatives of the Grand Orient Lodge, one of the largest branches of Freemasonry in Continental Europe, including in Italy. In attendance were high-ranking members of the Freemasons, including Stefano Bisi, the Grand Master of the Freemasons.
In the aftermath of the meeting, Cardinal Coccopalmerio told Italian news sources had said that he called for “permanent discussion” between the Catholic Church and Freemasonry, desiring that further meetings similar in nature to this one take place. Some sources present at the seminar note how Cardinal Coccopalmerio had also said that an “evolution” had taken place in the mutual understanding between Catholics and Freemasons since the time of the Catholic Church’s most recent document upholding the Catholic Church’s condemnation of Freemasonry, published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith (DDF)in 1983.
This meeting comes but a few months after the DDF published a document in response to a bishop from the Philippines concerned by some of the local faithful claiming that Freemasonry and Catholicism were compatible.
When most people hear the term “Freemason,” their minds automatically begin to drift towards conspiracy theories, and the sense of fear and paranoia that such narratives are meant to elicit, that same set of emotions that are always elicited at the belief that the social and political elites are in fact being controlled by a series of secretive groups pulling the strings behind the scenes, who are willing to take part in any underhanded or sneaky means by which to accomplish their goals. And Catholic commentators who speak on this are not much better, often sounding as much like Alex Jones as St. Thomas Aquinas.
Yet, those “modern” “sophisticated” Catholics who try to avoid all that “simple-minded trad stuff” shouldn’t let their fear of being paranoid cause them to overlook the reality that the Freemasons were, historically, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, a theologically problematic organization. Thus, although the meeting between the Italian prelates and the Freemasons took place almost a month ago, I believe it is good to reflect upon this story in order to understand the nature - and limits - of theological dialogue.
To make a long story short: The term “Freemason” was originally short for “Freeman Mason,” a term used in Medieval England to refer to a high ranking member of a masonic guild. Masons are essentially just people who build stuff with stones and bricks, and a guild is essentially a union-like organization that developed among craftsmen and merchants for the sake of mutual support. A freemason was essentially a highly experienced mason with a high level of skill who was given certain rights and privileges within the masonic guild, including the right to take part in the more intricate or difficult parts of a building project.
Sound pretty innocuous, right? Things started to get a little weird once you start to get to the Late Medieval and Renaissance periods, as an intricate series of myths and symbols started to originate among the Freemasons, some of which attempted to track the craft of Masonry to such historical and Biblical figures as Lamech (one of the immediate descendants of Adam), those who worked on the construction of Noah’s Ark, those who worked on the construction of the Tower of Babel, those who helped to construct the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, and Euclid of Alexandria (the Ancient Greek mathematician who laid the basis for much of modern geometry). Over the course of the 16th century, many of the guilds associated with stonemasons began to lose money and members, and thus began to let those who were not masons by trade become members. Such individuals were known as “accepted masons” - a fancy way of saying “honorary” masons.
These accepted masons would spend most of their time studying the myths and symbols surrounding the craft of masonry, and began to attach a lot of deeper spiritual meanings to them. These various masonic organizations thus began to evolve into something of a social club, but one with a very specific ideology, with the goal of these organizations being to perpetuate these ideologies.
Between the 16th and the early 18th century, various organizations formed, primarily in England, that were the precursors to the modern-day Freemasons, which eventually merged in the early 18th century to form the Grand Lodge of London, the central governing body for Freemasonry in England. Freemasonry began to spread throughout the British Isles, and from there quickly spread throughout continental Europe and the British colonies in North America.
What was the ideology of the Freemasons? Essentially, in extraordinarily brief terms, there are three tenants to Freemasonry: 1)Naturalism, 2)Perennialism, and 3)Indifferentism. Naturalism is the belief that all spiritual and moral truth can be known through reason and reason alone, without the assistance of anything above reason (such as faith or mystical experiences). Because all religions are ultimately products of the human mind rather than something Divinely revealed, the Freemasons thus believe that there is a common spiritual and moral core to all religions. This is known as perennialism. Because naturalism and perennialism are true, the Freemasons believe that all religions are equally valid paths to heaven. This is the heresy of indifferentism.
The Freemasons further believe that it was they who have manage to explicate the set of spiritual truths at the core of all religion; thus, the purpose of the Freemasons is to serve as a medium by which all religions can come together and learn from one another, and create a sense of spiritual brotherhood that cuts across religious or denominational boundaries. Yet, when your whole schtick is that no one religion is any better or any more true than another, this leads you to view any religion that claims that it is inherently better than other religions because it contains the fullness of Divine Revelation and is its infallible interpreter and preserver.
Thus, there was a lot of tension between Freemasonry and Catholicism, something made even worse by Catholicism’s condemnation of Freemasonry as heretical starting in the 1730’s. It is for this reason that, particularly in the period between the late 18th and early 20th centuries, the Freemasons publicly supported (or were even the mastermind behind) many secularist and anticlerical political policies that sought to curtail the political and cultural influence of the Church. This was particularly true in majority Catholic nations, especially France, Italy and Mexico.
This leads to the main question behind this post: is dialogue with an organization such as Freemasonry possible? How exactly does one approach dialogue with an organization that believes that all religions are saying the same thing, but in different manners? This, in turn, leads to a question on the nature of theological discourse and ecumenical dialogue.
We must first look at one of the foundational questions concerning ecumenism: How does one balance a commitment to the truth with a more dialogical approach to theology? For Christians of a more Protestant persuasion, it is recognized that everyone has their own specific interpretation of Divine Revelation: that is to say, there is objective truth, and thus some interpretations of Scripture are true, while others are false, but nonetheless there is no way of interpreting Scripture that doesn’t place you within a specific interpretive tradition or school of thought, even if it is one that you found, or one of which you are the only member. Protestants thus feel loyal to their specific ecclesial tradition being what they view as a time-honored tradition that gives them a framework within which to make sense of Scripture, one that they thing gets to the heart of the spiritual truths contained within Scripture to a greater degree than other interpretive traditions. Nonetheless, Protestants do not believe that any specific school of thought, interpretive tradition or denomination is infallible, as no human authority is seen as infallible in the Protestant system. There is no reason why the fullest possible interpretation of Scripture must be confined to one denomination. Nonetheless, in Catholicism (as well as in Eastern Orthodoxy), it is believed that there are infallible authorities outside of Scripture: that is, when Christ entrusted His Revelation to the Church, He also promised the Church the special guidance of the Holy Spirit whereby when the Church makes use of its authority in certain circumstances, it is protected from error. Thus, while the Church’s authority is subordinate to Scripture, the Church is protected from error in passing on and interpreting Scripture. There are thus certain points on which the Church cannot budge, as they proceed from infallible declarations, that is, the Church interpreting some part of Divine Revelation in an infallible manner.
The attempt to balance such a view on ecclesiology with a more dialogical approach to theology is undermined by Freemasonry. If all religions are merely partial, indirect ways of expressing a common set of spiritual and moral truths, there is no room for an infallible authority. There is no room for anyone to claim to have an exclusive or exhaustive claim to the truth. And in this respect, dialogue with the Freemasons would be more difficult than dialogue with the Orthodox or the Protestants: Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians see one another as having a faulty, incorrect or incomplete interpretation of Christianity, but believe that in God is the fullness of truth, and that Christ is the physical embodiment, the enfleshment, of the Divine Source or Foundation of all truth, and thus, as a result of this, believe that Christianity, as the religion founded by Jesus Christ, contains the fullness of the truth, even if not every single interpretation of Christianity is correct. For Christianity to have dialogue with Freemasonry would imply being willing to concede to Freemasonry; yet, for Christianity to concede to Freemasonry would be to undermine the core of Christianity.
Not only is attempting to balance such a view on ecclesial authority difficult to reconcile with the openness to dialogue as a means of increasing union between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic sects within Christianity, but such a tension is strained even more within the context of a potential Catholic-Freemason dialogue.
One can admit, even to some extent within the framework of Catholic ecclesiology and religious epistemology, that while truth is objective, human language is finite, imperfect, and ever changing, and thus dialogue, while it has its limits, is an important tool for learning the limits of our conventional ways of speaking and therefore searching for better ways of articulating the truth. This is especially true when the object of our speech is something Divine, namely God. There are two possible ways of spinning Freemasonic teaching: one makes it seem as if the attitudes and teachings of the Freemasons are conducive to this desire to perfect human language so as to make it a better vessel for expressing the fullness of Diving truth, another that makes Freemasonry appear as a force that undermines such attempts.
As the American philosopher, mystic, and Freemason Manly P. Hall wrote,
The shrines of Masonry are ornamented by the jewels of a thousand ages; its rituals ring with the words of enlightened seers and illuminated sages. A hundred religions have brought their gifts of wisdom to its altar. Arts and sciences unnumbered have contributed to its symbolism. It is more than a faith: it is a path of certainty. … Masonry is a religion which is essentially creedless. It is the truer for it. Its brothers bow to truth regardless of the bearer; they serve light, instead of wrangling over the one who brings it. In this way they prove that they are seeking to know better the will and the dictates of the Invincible One. No truer religion exists in all the world than that all creatures gather together in comradeship and brotherhood, for the purpose of glorifying one God, and of building for Him a temple of constructive attitude and noble character.
Among Freemasons, such sentiments have, historically, usually been interpreted in one of two manners: firstly, as the notion that Freemasonry is merely a fraternal organization means to create spiritual bonds that cut across denominational boundaries. It is not meant to draw one away from one’s religion, but to deepen it by explicating its deeper spiritual meaning, thereby creating a deeper bond with others on the journey towards truth. Yet, for others, Freemasonry is interpreted as being a religion, and, in a sense, the culmination of all religion, which allows us to see past the partial and incomplete understanding that most religions have. As Hall states, Christian symbols permeate Masonry, but only because Masonry happened to have evolved in a majority Christian culture. As Hall states in the above-mentioned quote, Freemasons seek to “serve the light, instead of wrangling over the one who brings it.” In other words, fighting over what is considered “orthodox” is nonsense; we need to get to that truth which all religions seek to articulate, but which they fail to do so in a complete or comprehensive sense.
Some may interpret that view as being the epitome of ecumenism or interreligious dialogue: religious discuss their similarities and differences in order to come to a more complete understanding of the truth. Yet, it could also be interpreted as undermining ecumenism: the purpose of interreligious or ecumenical dialogue is not to increase unity or mutual understand between religions, but to draw you out of most forms of religion as it exists today, to a higher expression of religion. The end goal of Freemasonry is thus the doing away of Christianity. We see this in the Permanent Instruction, and important document for the Carbonari, a Freemasonic-influenced organization active in Italy in the 19th century: “Our ultimate end is that of Voltaire and of the French Revolution - the final destruction of Catholicism, and even of the Christian idea,” with the intention that Christianity be replaced by “the [revolutionary] Italian and humanitarian principles that we are going to begin to put into circulation” (that is, the ideology of the more radical, Enlightenment-influenced branch of the Italian unification movement).
Thus, those advocating for increased dialogue with Freemasons should call to mind the difference between the stated goals of Catholicism in ecumenical dialogue, and the stated goals of Freemasonry: Catholicism, when engaging in ecumenical dialogue, seeks the working out of the theological differences between Catholicism and other branches of Christianity, and a closer institutional union between these two sects; Freemasonry seeks the destruction of Christianity and humanity’s collective transcendence of Christianity, especially Catholicism.