http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=49651
Rome, Mar. 5, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Catholics who become members of Masonic lodges are guilty of serious sin, a Vatican official has confirmed.
Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, the regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, told a Vatican Radio interviewer that membership in a Masonic lodge is not necessarily grounds for excommunication, but it is a grave matter.
Reacting to the story of Father Rosario Esposito, an Italian Paulist who recently announced his membership in a Masonic lodge, Bishop Girotti said that a 1983 statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith remains in force today. That statement, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said: “The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.”
Is it true just because someone in power says it is?
ReplyDeleteHas Esposito been defrocked? If not, hmmm. A "statement" from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does not have the force of Canon Law, and is an opinion from those who didn't get their way when Canon Law was revised in the 1980s.
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