If someone see’s something that is wrong, I believe it is their duty to report it and or try to make it right.
Indeed. And the proper way to handle an issue like this, where you feel that the Church has made an error in judgment and unnecessary restricts its members from being Masons, is to work
within the Church to change its perspective. You cannot do that while in a state of mortal sin, sacrilegiously receiving the Eucharist in opposition to the Church’s command. The Church has said in no uncertain terms the membership in the Masons constitutes grave sin. By that very precept (if not by the other reasons the Church outlines) it does constitute grave sin, even if no other reason were to apply.
The line above makes it sound like it would be okay to follow false teachings?
The Church’s precept is not a “false teaching.” It’s a disciplinary measure. Even if you think it’s unnecessarily restrictive, you are bound to abide by it as a precept of the Church, because the Church has that authority. The same applied in the first century when the Council of Jerusalem commanded Gentiles to “abstain from blood”: even a Gentile who thought that requirement was unnecessarily restrictive would sin gravely if he ate blood since, as a precept of the Church, it was bound upon his conscience to obey. When the restriction was later lifted, it would then become permissible again to eat blood (as it is today: blood sausages, for instance, can now licitly be eaten, since the risk of scandalizing Jewish Christians is so diminished).
My conscience must be really seared or improperly formed because there are other Papal Bulls that I do not agree with. In fact I think they are wrong.
I’m not talking about Papal bulls. They really have no relevance in this discussion.
**Ad Exstirpanda **(May 15, 1252 by Pope Innocent IV) - the use of torture for obtaining a confession,
**Romanus Pontifex ** (January 8, 1455 by Pope Nicholas V) - permission to enslave and take land from non-Christians,
Cum nimis absurdum (July 14, 1555 by Pope Paul IV) - reinstates the economic restrictions on Jewish people in the Papal States
What do you intend to prove here? That the Church can be mistaken about matters of discipline? No one disagrees with that. The issue here is that you think your disagreement with the Church on this particular matter of discipline justifies your rejection of the precept,
and it does not. You are objectively in a state of grave sin and by command of the Church are not permitted to receive the Eucharist until you repent and confess your sin.
You do not have final say on whether you can receive the Eucharist: the
Church has that final say, and it has spoken on this matter of discipline. If you wish to correct the Church’s incorrect understanding of Masonry (if indeed it is incorrect), then you can do so two ways: by remaining a Mason, remaining in an objective state of grave sin, and not receiving the Eucharist while you work to change the Church’s opinion of Masonry (and hopefully not dying in the process), or by renouncing the Masons, receiving forgiveness for your sin, and receiving the Eucharist while working to change the Church’s opinion of Masonry from within.
Your situation is not unlike that of a divorced and remarried Catholic man seeking an annulment. He can choose to live as brother and sister with his putative wife while remaining in communion with the Church and receiving the Eucharist at Mass, or he can choose to presume the outcome of his annulment proceeding and continue to have relations with his putative wife while receiving the Eucharist in an objective state of grave sin. Even if a declaration of nullity is ultimately made, the fact remains that the Church bound upon his conscience to live as brother and sister while the investigation occurred, and he refused to do so, and sinned gravely by doing so.
The Church has the power and authority to bind things upon Christians. It has the power to say its flock, “You cannot do this thing, even if it is not innately sinful.” The flock
does not have the power to say, “I disagree with the reasoning of the Church and will continue to do this thing because I do not believe it to be sinful.” Even if the action were not innately sinful, it
becomes sinful to do by virtue of the Church’s command not to do it.
The latest statement issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was very brief and did not provide reasons.
The statement I pasted, made in 1983, not only included reasons (which I didn’t bother quoting) but was clarification an earlier statement which also included reasons. Apart from that, the Church does not have to include its reasoning for saying certain actions are impermissible. The letter written by the council of Jerusalem did not explain
why Gentile Christians should “abstain from blood” but this did not absolve the Gentile Christians of their obligation to abstain from blood. Even if you disagree with the Church’s reasons or find them lacking, you still are bound to obey its judgments.
Jeremy, thank you again for your opinion. I appreciate your posting.
I wish I could say the same of yours, but I can’t. Fundamentally you’re fomenting the same sort of rebellion that priests who disagree with
Humanae Vitae are doing, the same schismatic ideas that Luther promoted, and I abhor it. Personally, I know little to nothing of the Masons, and I’m fine with that. But when Catholics make public their rejection of the Church’s authority and their refusal to abide by its precepts, I must oppose them, because it is that same attitude which has caused grievous schism and scandal for centuries.
Jeremy
