"Freemasonic lodge hails Pope Francis’ work as ‘deeply resonant’ with their ‘principles’"

"The Grand Lodge of Italy has hailed Pope Francis’ work as 'deeply resonant with the principles of Freemasonry,' in the wake of his death on Monday.

'The Grand Lodge of Italy of the ALAM joins in the universal mourning for the passing of Pope Francis, a pastor who, through his teachings and his life, embodied the values of brotherhood, humility, and the pursuit of a universal humanism,' wrote Luciano Romoli, Grand Master of the Great Lodge of Italy of the A.L.A.M. in a statement published Tuesday.

'Coming from the ‘end of the world,’ Jorge Mario Bergoglio was able to change the Church, bringing the revolutionary teachings of St. Francis of Assisi back to the present day,' wrote Romoli, despite a fundamental difference between St. Francis’ fidelity to Catholic doctrine and Francis’ 'revolution' of heterodoxy.

Romoli went on to praise Francis’ 'work' as 'deeply resonant with the principles of Freemasonry,' a compliment which is especially significant considering that Freemasonry has been repeatedly and infallibly condemned by past popes as antithetical to Catholicism – starting in 1738 with Pope Clement XII’s papal bull In eminenti.

The Grand Master pointed out that 'freedom, equality, and fraternity' — elevated as societal ideals in Francis’ encyclical Fratelli tutti — are 'the three core values of Freemasonry.'

'Overcoming divisions, ideologies, and groupthink in order to recognize the richness of differences and build a humanity united in diversity: this was Francis’s ardent desire, and the same goal is pursued by the Grand Lodge of Italy,' Romoli continued.

He further claimed that Francis adopted 'A faith capable of questioning itself, of accepting doubt and of dialogue, which we also find in the Masonic initiatory method, based on a path free from dogma, substantiated by the unceasing search for truth.'...

​​Italian freemasons welcomed Francis from the very beginning. His election was immediately praised by Grand Master Gustavo Raffi of the Grand Orient Masonic Lodge of Italy, who said at the time, 'Fraternity and dialogue are his first concrete words: perhaps nothing in the Church will be as it was before.'

It is noteworthy that, as St. Maximilian Kolbe testified in his Militia of the Immaculata magazine, the Freemasons in 1917 celebrated their bicentennial by marching in front of St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican with banners declaring, 'Satan must reign in the Vatican. The Pope will be his slave.'"