‘What intends the new pope for Freemasonry?’

    

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At Vatican City, the College of Cardinals elected a papal successor about an hour ago. The Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church is named Leo XIV.

You know that already, and perhaps some of you know something about him, but I don’t, other than he’s American, from Chicago, and that the experts predicted it was thoroughly unlikely an American could be elected. What I do know is the last time the church had a Pope Leo, he issued an encyclical that blasted Freemasonry in language so forceful it echoes today. Is part of that reverberation heard in the new Bishop of Rome’s choice of name?

I leave it to you to read “Humanum Genus” by Leo, Pope, XIII from April 20, 1884.

I can’t help but sympathize somewhat with that previous Leo. Through the nineteenth century, the church’s power was clipped severely, from the Philippines to Latin America to Italy itself, as nationalist freedom fighters cast off their respective yokes. Many of the leaders of these revolutions were Freemasons: Rizal, Bolivar, Juarez, Mazzini, Garibaldi, and others.

For an understanding of the disconnect between the Roman Catholic Church and Freemasonry, I also leave it to you to read Freemasonry and Roman Catholicism by H.L. Haywood in 1943, not because he was a member of my lodge, but because his writing style clarifies complicated subjects.

I noted the College of Cardinals numbers 133, which reminds me of “How good and how pleasant it is…”