Christianity and Freemasonry - Catholic Church

Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church has been among the most persistent critics of Freemasonry. The Church has prohibited its members from being Freemasons since In Eminenti Apostolatus in 1738. Since then, the Vatican has issued several papal bulls banning membership of Catholics from Freemasonry under threat of excommunication. Currently, as reiterated in 1983, Catholics who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion; the penalty of excommunication is not declared in the current code of canon law, but membership remains forbidden.

The Catholic Church argues that the philosophy of French Freemasonry (the Grand Orient, not the dominant variety of Freemasonry or the branch that is active in the English-speaking world) is antithetical to Christian doctrine and that it is at many times and places anti-clerical in intent. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia argued that some of the ceremonial in the Scottish Rite is anti-Catholic. However this claim does not appear in subsequent editions.

The Masonic use of Biblical imagery was seen in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia as being done in such a way as to deny the revelation of Christianity. However this complaint was not included in subsequent editions.