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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.
MILAN — The Archbishop of Milan surprised many Catholics with the news that he plans to take part in a seminar in the northern Italian city 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 on Friday 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. 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.”
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
MILAN — The Archbishop of Milan surprised many Catholics with the news that he plans to take part in a seminar in the northern Italian city 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 on Friday 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. 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.”
Continued below.
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.
