User:Blueboar/drafts - Foobaria
on March 16, 1968, Catholic news sources reported that: "Vatican sources have recently been quoted as saying that Catholics are now free to join the Masons in the United States, Britain and most other countries of the world. However, the European Grand Orient Lodge of Masons, established primarily in Italy and France, is still considered anti-Catholic or, at least, atheistic" and that "...the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 'has let it be known that Catholics joining the Freemasons are no longer automatically excommunicated. The Church's new attitude has been in effect for more than a year.' The Church's Code of Canon Law drawn up in 1918 and shortly to be reformed, provided for automatic excommunication of Catholics 'who enroll in the Masonic sect or in secret societies conspiring against the Church or the legitimate authorities.' Vatican sources added that this wording would be changed to modify the Church's position when the new Code of Canon Law was completed. [1]
Uncertainty following the Second Vatican Council[edit]
The Catholic Church began an evaluation of its understanding of Masonry during,[2] (but not at,[a]) Vatican II.[b] Throughout the jubilee of 1966, Pope Paul VI granted every confessor the faculty to absolve censures and penalties of 1917 CIC canon 2335 incurred by penitents who completely separated themselves from Masonic association and promised to repair and prevent, as far as possible, any scandal and damage they caused.[8]
After a four-year investigation in five Scandinavian Bishops' Conference (CES) countries,[9] the CES decided in 1967 to apply the 1966 post-conciliar norms in De Episcoporum Muneribus,[10] "which empowers bishops in special cases to dispense from certain injunctions of Canon Law."[11][further explanation needed][c] The CES permitted, within its jurisdiction, converts to Catholicism to retain their Swedish Rite membership,[9] "but only with the specific permission of that person's bishop."[13]
In early 1968, Catholic news sources reported that: "Vatican sources have recently been quoted as saying that Catholics are now free to join the Masons in the United States, Britain and most other countries of the world. However, the European Grand Orient Lodge of Masons, established primarily in Italy and France, is still considered anti-Catholic or, at least, atheistic" and that "...the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 'has let it be known that Catholics joining the Freemasons are no longer automatically excommunicated. The Church's new attitude has been in effect for more than a year.' The Church's Code of Canon Law drawn up in 1918 and shortly to be reformed, provided for automatic excommunication of Catholics 'who enroll in the Masonic sect or in secret societies conspiring against the Church or the legitimate authorities.' Vatican sources added that this wording would be changed to modify the Church's position when the new Code of Canon Law was completed." [14] These reports apparently caused consternation in the Vatican, and were quickly corrected.[15] and The Holy See publicly said that 1917 CIC canon 2335 was not abrogated,[16] and denied it planned to "change profoundly" its historic prohibition against Catholics joining Masonic groups,[17] although confidential sources said "a change in attitude in the future was considered possible."[18][d]
Notes[edit]
- ^ Bishop Sergio Méndez Arceo, of Cuernavaca, Mexico, asked Vatican II to discuss secret societies and Masonic associations.[3] Arceo and others proposed that not all Masonry machinated against the Catholic Church.[4]
- ^ Vatican II reversed a thousand years of legal history of the Latin Church.[5] The Vatican II dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium (LG ), and the Vatican II decree on the pastoral office of bishops, Christus Dominus (CD ), explain that the scope of a diocesan bishop's power is ordinary, proper, and immediate; and is limited and regulated "though the supreme authority of the Church" in the form of canon law or papal decree.[6] Because of this, significant changes in practice were then legislated to implement Vatican II. The norms in Paul VI 1966b implemented concessions prescribed in CD, n. 8.[7] See commentaries in McIntyre (2000, pp. 128, 130) and Renken (2000a, p. 503).
- ^ The CES based their decision "on the claim that Scandinavian Masonry was fundamentally different from American and European Masonry," that it was Christian, and that Swedish Rite masonry was not anticlerical or atheistic.[9] According to the CES secretary, Bishop John Willem Gran, of Oslo, the CES had not received any comments from the Holy See about their 1967 decision.[11][further explanation needed] Likewise, Gran (1968) contradicted misrepresentations of fact in a Tablet (1968d) paragraph, which Gran attributed to a widely repeated Le Monde article, and corrected that the CDF did not privately reply to a CES bishop that "it was 'possible but not advisable' for a Catholic to join."[12]
- ^ The confusion did not end there. For 20 years after Vatican II, the British press "regularly reported, with amazement," about a pending rapprochement which contrasted with a Catholic toughening after the 1981 Propaganda Due (P2) scandal broke.[19]
- ^ The Tablet, 16 March, 1968, p.27
- ^ Tablet 1968a.
- ^ Benimeli 2014, p. 144.
- ^ Calderwood 2013, p. 133.
- ^ McIntyre 2000, p. 127.
- ^ Vatican II & LG, n. 27 (DH 2012, n. 4152); Vatican II & CD, n. 8; McIntyre 2000, p. 127; Renken 2000b, pp. 519–520.
- ^ Paul VI 1966c, n. 6.
- ^ Paul VI 1965; Paul VI 1966a; Tablet 1968a.
- ^ a b c Gran 1968; Tablet 1968c.
- ^ Paul VI 1966b, cited in Gran (1968).
- ^ a b Gran 1968.
- ^ Tablet (1968d), quoted in Gran (1968).
- ^ Tablet 1968c.
- ^ The Tablet, 16 March, 1968, p.27
- ^ The Tablet, March 23, 1968, p.19
- ^ Tablet 1968a; Tablet 1968b.
- ^ Tablet 1968a, quoted in Tablet (1968b).
- ^ Tablet 1968b.
- ^ Calderwood 2013, pp. 133–134.