Archbishop of Milan to Take Part in ‘Historic’ Closed-Door Seminar With Italy’s Freemasons

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Archbishop of Milan to Take Part in ‘Historic’ Closed-Door Seminar With Italy’s Freemasons
For almost 300 years, Catholics have been forbidden from joining the Masons, and the Vatican has issued almost 600 negative pronouncements against the secret society during that time.



Archbishop of Milan Mario Delpini preaches at Mass June 10, 2023, at the Duomo in Milan. (photo: Gabriel Bouys / AFP via Getty Images)

Edward Pentin/ NCR
February 15, 2024
MILAN — The Archbishop of Milan has surprised many Catholics with the news that he plans to take part in a seminar in the northern Italian city on Friday with the grand masters of Italy’s three Freemasonic lodges, despite the Church’s longstanding censure of Freemasonry.

Archbishop Mario Delpini, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president emeritus of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, and Bishop Antonio Staglianò, president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, will be among Church representatives attending the closed-door event to discuss The Catholic Church and Freemasonry.

The Freemasons will be represented by Stefano Bisi, grand master of the Grand Orient of Italy, the country’s largest Freemasonic lodge, and leaders of two other national lodges: the Grand Lodge of Italy and the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy.

Bisi has called the meeting “historic.” 

Cardinal Coccopalmerio’s participation is of interest as he was an auxiliary bishop of Milan when Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini was archbishop of the diocese. The late Jesuit cardinal was known to be close to the Freemasons, who paid a warm tribute to him as a “man of dialogue” when he died in 2012. 

Writing in the Italian Catholic daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, editor-in-chief Riccardo Cascioli noted that since Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi wrote a conciliatory letter to Freemasons in 2016, “opportunities for meetings, promoted by Freemasonry or by some dioceses, have multiplied, and are continually growing in stature, as the Milan initiative testifies.”

Since Clement XII’s papal bull In Eminenti Apostolatus Specula of 1738, Catholics have been forbidden from joining the Masons, and the Vatican has issued many negative pronouncements against the secret society — almost 600 magisterial documents in total.

The Catholic Church considers Freemasonry to be, among other grave problems, a corruption of Christianity, that it practices rituals that are inimical to Catholicism, that its principles are irreconcilable with the Catholic faith and that it contains a strong inclination toward anti-Catholicism.

In a 1983 declaration approved by Pope St. John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reasserted that the Church’s “negative judgment” on Masonry remained “unchanged” since Masonic principles “have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden.”

“The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion,” Cardinal Ratzinger added. However, neither that declaration nor the 1983 Code of Canon Law imposed the penalty of excommunication on Catholics belonging to the Masons — something that had been in force since Clement XII’s papal bull.

Still, joining a lodge continues to be officially banned in the Catholic Church and in November the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a document reaffirming that Catholics are forbidden from becoming members.

The document, signed by Pope Francis and DDF prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández, was written in response to a bishop from the Philippines who had expressed concern at the growing number of Catholics in his diocese who have been taking part in Freemasonry and asked for suggestions for how to respond pastorally.

The dicastery’s response called on the bishops to devise “a coordinated strategy” to promote catechesis “in all parishes regarding the reasons for the irreconcilability between the Catholic faith and Freemasonry,” according to CNA.

Pope Francis has occasionally been vocally critical of the secret society. Speaking in 2015 on a visit to Turin, a city well known for its ties to Freemasonry, he recalled that at the end of the 19th century “Freemasonry was in full swing,” helping to make it “one of the ugliest times and the ugliest places in the history of Italy.” In 2013, he criticized the presence of “Masonic lobbies” within the Church.



Masonry-Friendly Pontificate?

But this pontificate has also drawn noticeable approval from Italian lodges. This became especially apparent in 2020 when Francis’s Human Fraternity document, co-signed with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, received a ringing endorsement from Bisi’s Grand Orient Lodge. The document, read an article in its quarterly magazine, was “innovative” and a “slow-release drug” that could herald a “new era” and represent a “turning point for a new civilization.”

Freemasons in other parts of the world have also welcomed other initiatives of this pontificate, such as when Spanish Freemasons congratulated the Pope on his encyclical Fratelli Tutti (Brothers All), saying the Church had finally embraced “universal fraternity, the great principle of modern Freemasonry.” By 2017, this pontificate had reportedly already received some 62 messages of public support from various Freemasonic figures and lodges.

In a Feb. 14 statement posted on the Grand Orient Lodge website, Bisi noted “various ups and downs” in relations with the Catholic Church over the past 50 years. “Tenuous openings were followed by rigid closures,” he said.

Significantly, Bisi said a dialogue between Freemasonry and the Church began in the 1960s, when the then-grand master of his lodge, Giordano Gamberini and his successor Lino Salvini, had exchanges with Pauline Father Rosario Esposito.

“Meetings, discussions ... then stopped,” Bisi said, but now “they can start again,” and he recalled an open letter, penned by Cardinal Ravasi and addressed to “Dear Brother Masons” published on Feb. 14, 2016.

The then-president of the Pontifical Council for Culture said the Church’s declarations underlining Freemasonry’s incompatibility with the faith “do not impede dialogue” with Masonry on areas such as “works of charity, the fight against materialism, human dignity, and knowledge of each other.”

Quoting documents including one from the German bishops’ conference issued in 1980, the cardinal recommended “going beyond reciprocal ‘hostility, insults and prejudices.”

Referring to that letter and dialogue that proceeded since then, Bisi said in his Feb. 14 statement that from a “varied Masonic panorama,” it is possible to “find common values with those of the Catholic world.

“It would be good to start from there,” he said, “from what unites.”

Despite obvious press interest, media will not be allowed at the event which will take place at the Ambrosianeum Cultural Foundation, and attendance will be restricted.

Those invited to attend will be members of the respective lodges and the organizers, the Socio-Religious Research and Information Group (GRIS), a private association of Italian Catholics approved by Italy’s bishops’ conference that conducts research into religions, sects and phenomenology.

The organization has “long been involved with Freemasonry,” wrote Cascioli, adding that it has “already organized several meetings in various parts of Italy with the stated goal of getting to know one another, well before Cardinal Ravasi’s intervention.”


‘They Have Everything to Gain’

GRIS’ national secretary, Giuseppe Ferrari, said he believed Freemasonry’s “rites and rituals” are likely to again emerge as a chief impediment to a “softer relationship” and the lodges will either have to “eliminate these rites or nothing will change.”

But Cascioli said this was already obvious and so he questioned the need to “multiply meetings in which to tell each other how incompatible we are.”

“The truth is,” Cascioli continued, “gestures are worth much more than words, and that is why Masonic lodges, with the Grand Orient Italy in the lead, are very interested in this dialogue: they have everything to gain because the impression given to the public is that after centuries of condemnation, there is not only the possibility of dialogue but also the possibility of sharing some values.” Being invited to such public events, Cascioli added, also serves to “clean up” Freemasonry’s image as a “secret sect.”

As for the Church, he said it has always been open to encounter anyone, but it is Freemasonry that has “always regarded the Church with hostility,” and views any form of dialogue “as an attempt to neutralize that claim to Truth that the Church proclaims.”

“It is therefore not surprising that these possibilities for dialogue are multiplying at a time when relativism has taken root even among many pastors of the Church,” Cascioli concluded. “And it will not be enough to leave journalists outside the door to hide this reality.”

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Vatican cardinal calls for ‘permanent’ Catholic-Freemason dialogue at ‘historic’ joint event
'I think there is an evolution in mutual understanding' of relations between Catholics and Masons, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio reportedly stated. 'Fifty years ago, there was less understanding, but things have moved on, and I hope these encounters don’t stop there.'



Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio

Feb 19, 2024
MILAN, Italy (LifeSiteNews) — Scandal-plagued Vatican Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio called for “permanent” discussions between Catholics and Freemasons when he addressed a joint Catholic-Masons conference last week.

The cardinal’s speech, segments of which were reported by Il Messagero, was delivered during a meeting organized in Milan with the head of Italy’s leading Masonic lodge, Grand Orient Grand Master Stefano Bisi, joining Coccopalmerio and Milan Archbishop Mario Delpini.

READ: Cardinal of Vatican orgy fame takes part in ‘historic’ meeting with Italian Freemasons 

“From what I could understand, but I am little expert in this matter, I think there is an evolution in mutual understanding” of relations between Catholics and Masons, Coccopalmerio was reported as stating on March 16. “Fifty years ago, there was less understanding, but things have moved on, and I hope these encounters don’t stop there. I wonder if we cannot think of a permanent table, even at the level of authorities, so that we can better confront each other.”

The event, organized by the Socio-Religious Research and Information Group (GRIS) and called “historic” by Bisi, was closed to the media, reportedly a condition given by Archbishop Delpini to the organizers for him to agree to be present.

The Catholic Church has consistently and firmly forbidden Catholics from joining the Freemasons, which was restated by the Vatican in recent weeks. Pope Clement XII’s 1739 papal bull, In Eminenti, judged Freemasonry so serious a matter, and membership in it so dangerous, that he imposed an automatic excommunication, latae sententiae, on any Catholic who joined the Freemasons.

Such teaching has remained constant and was the subject of another conference attendee’s talk. Father Zbigniew Suchecki, a professor at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St. Bonaventure and an expert on Masonry, highlighted the Church’s teaching and condemnation of membership in the Freemasons.

Suchecki is known for consistently noting the incompatibility of Catholicism with Freemasonry. But citing details provided by attendees, La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana reported that though Suckecki gave a “learned report on the Church’s pronouncements against Freemasonry” he was “somewhat snubbed” by Bishop Antonio Stagliano, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Theology and a fellow attendee.

Suchecki told LifeSiteNews that he believed too much time was given to the Freemasons during the event, adding that – in response to LifeSite highlighting Busi’s claim that the Church just misunderstood Masons –the position of the Church remains unchanged.

According to La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, Bishop Stagliano “gave a long speech-show tearing apart the doctrinal approach on the Catholic side and basically going along with the demands of the Freemason exponents.”

Stagliano had been due to expound on the reasons for “irreconcilability between the Catholic Church and the Masons,” but La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana reported that he in fact criticized the Vatican’s November document that reaffirmed the Church’s teaching prohibiting Catholics from joining the Freemasons.

The bishop, reported La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana’s sources from the event, “demonstrated great familiarity with several Masonic exponents” while in the room.

Meanwhile, Grand Master Bisi’s speech, entitled “Freemasonry between Ratzinger and Bergoglio,” recounted how he owed much of his formative life to the influence of the Catholic Church. But Bisi also criticized Pope Francis for not being more open to Masons.

He argued that Francis’ infamous 2013 comment about homosexuals, “who am I to judge,” should have been applied also to Masons:

Pope Francis made the famous statement “who am I to judge?” at the beginning of his pontificate addressed to homosexuals, he then opened the doors to the divorced but forgot that among the Masons there are also many Catholics who are prevented from receiving communion and when it came to granting credentials to a Masonic ambassador said “no.”

Bisi attested that the Catholic Church was preventing Freemasons’ attempts at “dialogue” or “reconciliation,” expressing his desire for intimate collaboration between the Church and the lodge.

“My wish – which is also a hope – is that one day a Pope and a Grand Master can meet and make a piece of road together, in the sunlight. I feel like saying in the light of the Great Architect of the universe,” he closed.

In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1981 Declaration Concerning Status of Catholics Becoming Freemasons, the Vatican responded to renewed questions by reaffirming the previous teaching on this prohibition, noting that the excommunication and all penalties remained in place for Catholics looking to become Masons.

Subsequent texts a few years later – the Declaration on Masonic Associations and Irreconcilability of Christian Faith and Freemasonry – reiterated the Church’s position, noting the “irreconcilability between the principles of Freemasonry and the Catholic faith.”

Before issuing the November text reaffirming the Catholic teaching on Freemasonry, Pope Francis had received praise from Freemasons for his stance on “fraternity” – which was one of the topics highlighted in a 2016 article by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi as an area of mutual discussion between Catholics and Masons.

Indeed, when the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto outlined the Catholic prohibition on joining the Freemasons in February 2023, the local Masonic lodge quoted from Pope Francis’ Fratelli Tutti and said it would appeal to the pope for support.

READ: Freemasons appeal to Pope for support after bishop repeats Church’s condemnation

Fratelli Tutti promotes a “Universal Brotherhood” and also links back to Francis’ controversial 2019 Abu Dhabi document on human fraternity, both of which are widely criticized texts in Catholic circles. A prominently vocal German priest also described Fratelli Tutti as being interwoven with “Masonic” ideology. Francis’ push for religions to be on an equal footing, Father Frank Unterhalt noted, was a key element of Masonic goals.

Indeed, after Fratelli Tutti’s publication, it was welcomed by the Masonic Lodge of Spain, which stated it was “the latest encyclical” of Pope Francis in which he “embraces the Universal Fraternity, the great principle of Modern Freemasonry.”

“Pope Francis’ last encyclical shows how far the current Catholic Church is from its former positions,” the Lodge wrote.