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While many Christian denominations either allow or take no stance on their members joining Freemasonry, others discourage or prohibit their members from joining the fraternity. 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 the papal bull In eminenti apostolatus, promulgated in 1738 by Pope Clement XII. Since then, the Vatican has issued several papal bulls banning the membership of Catholics in Freemasonry under threat of excommunication. In 1983, the Canon Law was changed to read, "A person who joins an association that plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; however, a person who promotes or directs an association of this kind is to be punished with an interdict", eliminating the penalty of excommunication for Masons. Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in a letter that those 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 aforementioned letter does not form part of Canon Law and, during his tenure, Benedict XVI did not make any attempt to change Canon Law to explicitly mention the ban on Freemasonry. 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. From the earliest pontifical documents on the subject and in particular in the Encyclical Humanum Genus by Pope Leo XIII (20 April 1884), the Magisterium of the Church, which may not change, has denounced philosophical ideas and moral conceptions in Freemasonry that were considered opposed to Catholic doctrine. For Leo XIII, they essentially led back to a rationalistic naturalism, the inspiration of its plans and activities against the Church. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, conflict between Catholicism and Freemasonry broke out into disputes over secular education, discrimination in employment, and in some European countries, the expulsion of religious orders. Catholic ban on Freemasonry since the Second Vatican Council In 1974, Cardinal Franjo Seper, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a letter that seemed to relax the previous absolute ban on Freemasonry, causing confusion and leading many Catholics to become Freemasons. In 1981, the Congregation clarified this stance in a letter to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, entitled Declaration Concerning Status of Catholics Becoming Freemasons, stating that Seper's private letter, now made public, had engendered unfavorable interpretations of Catholic doctrine. The Congregation's letter also affirmed that the prohibition against Catholics joining Masonic orders remained. In 1983, the Church revised the Code of Canon Law in a way that did not mention Freemasonry, causing some Freemasons to claim that the ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons may have been lifted. Later that same year, the Vatican reaffirmed the ban. In 2000, a letter written by Father Thomas Anslow, a judicial vicar, indicated a more permissive attitude to Freemasonry, although this was retracted two years later, with Anslow claiming that the analysis was faulty. Allegations of Deism One of the persistent Catholic criticisms of Freemasonry is that it advocates a deist or naturalist view of creation. Whilst it is recognized that Masonry is not atheistic (Masons aligned with the United Grand Lodge of England are asked if they believe in God or another supreme being before joining and only accept candidates that do), its use of the expression Supreme Architect of the Universe—a term attributed to the Protestant theologian John Calvin—is seen by some Christian critics as indicating Deism, the belief that God created the Universe but did not intervene in the world after this. This was a common sentiment that arose in the Enlightenment, though Catholics consider it heresy. As a counter-argument, Freemasonry contends that “Supreme Architect” is a neutral term acceptable to all, regardless of sect or denomination: It merely reflects the fraternity’s desire to bring together members of all deity based religions, by not using any one specific religion’s term for their supreme being. A specific charge made in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia against Freemasonry is that the introduction of speculative Masonry in the early eighteenth-century specifically aimed at "dechristianising" the old operative masonry lodges. However, this charge was dropped from subsequent editions. Whereas the constitutions of previous lodges of operative Masonry stated that "The first charge is this, that you be true to God and Holy Church and use no error or heresy", in 1723, the constitution of the Grand Lodge of England was modified to state that Masons are no longer expected to follow the religion of the country they live in and, now, were only obliged to follow the moral law, regardless of denominations. This change is construed by the Catholic Church as moving towards a Deistic view. Separation of church and state American Freemasons are consistent advocates of freedom of religion, as found in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The idea that the Establishment Clause means a strict separation of church and state is interpreted by the Catholic Church as a veiled attack on its place in public life. Well into the nineteenth century, the papacy continued to assert a divinely-ordained right to appoint civil rulers and depose them. It called opposition to this principle "Religious Indifferentism", by which no religion was acknowledged as true or revealed. The papacy also described Freemasonry as a leader in the cause of popular sovereignty, as the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia noted. This reference to the Masons is not present, however, in the New Catholic Encyclopedia. Some specific areas in which Freemasons were accused of aiming for an improper separation of church and state were: Compulsory state-supported secular education in Italy in 1882, entailing a prohibition on religious education. Christians also complained that "religious houses [were] suppressed, the goods of the Church confiscated, marriages contracted in despite of the laws and without the rites of the Church." The introduction of civil marriage in Mexico.... Discover the Mark E Koltko Rivera popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mark E Koltko Rivera books.