Sunday, June 24, 2007
CHURCH AND LOGGIA
Rorate Caeli has blogged on "Church and Loggia" using a quote from Sandro Magister's blog:
At the annual "Lodge meeting" of the Grand Lodge of Italy, assembled at the Palacongressi [Covention Hall] of Rimini, from March 31 to April 2, a distinguished presence among the orators was that of the South-Tyrolese [altoatesino] priest Paul Renner, director of the Institute of Religious Sciences of the Diocese of Bolzano since 1984.
During the occation, the Grand Lodge edited and published a CD with music of Freemason Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And in the website of the Grand Lodge, the presentation of the CD is written and signed by Giovanni Carli Ballola, a well-known music critic, but who also is a deacon incardinated in the Diocese of Rome, in [actual] service to a Parish.
Not only that. In the April issue of the "JESUS" magazine, Carli Ballola publishes a Letter to the Editor in which, "as an observant Catholic", he expresses his "conviction that reciprocal incomprehensions and prejudices between the Catholic world and the Masonic environment shall, sooner or later, arrive at honest clarifications."
Carli Ballola writes that he has "very dear friends, estimable in every level" among Masons. And he defines the rituals of the Grand Lodge as "deeply touching for the expressions of inner peace, efforts for moral and material assistance, fraternal love which is expressed in tangible signs such as the triple embrace".
Read the whole thing here, including the statement from Cardinal Ratzinger, issues in 1983, which reinstates the condemnation of the Lodge.
