Ivory Coast Bishops: Catholics May NOT Be Freemasons

Winchester, VA – SSPX News reports that Ivory Coast Bishops issued a decree on May 21 declaring that it is impossible to be both a Christian and a Freemason. They were clearing up confusion created by a 1969 proclamation by Rev. Fr. Michel Requet, famous Jesuit Lenten preacher at the time who said, “Yes, it is possible to be both Christian and Freemason.” The bishops spoke up after some controversy which erupted last February when Cardinal Jean-Pierre Kutwa refused a Catholic burial to Magloire Clotaire Koffi, who was a Freemason grandmaster. In their decree, the bishops clear up the three main reasons Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity. First, the Freemason conception of God is like an empty container into which one puts whatever he pleases. Second, they deny the divinity of Jesus. Third, they deny the doctrine of salvation, for they deny even the possibility of the supernatural. They strongly exhorted all Christian Freemasons to break all bonds to Freemasonry immediately, saying, “If Christ freed us, it was so that we might be free.”