Pope Clement XII condemns Freemasonry! / also itty-bitty PizzaQ

Sure, click on this thing. From the Ashtabula, Ohio USA Masonic Temple. If all this is secret, I don't know why they have it posted on their website. In fact I don't even understand why they have a website.

Except for a few results in elementary mathematics (and Godel proved we shouldn't bet the farm about them), Vleeptron doesn't often get a chance to publish The Absolute Truth, or what psychiatrists call The Ultimate Non-Personal Truth.

Here's some.

When a Roman Catholic Pope isses a Bull, he is speaking Ex Cathedra -- from his position as a direct spokesman for God -- and everything that spills from his mouth or pen is The Unchallengable, Undebatable Truth. He could not Err if he wanted to. Essentially a Bull is the Word Of God, re-broadcast by the Guy in the Red Suit who is temporarily Pope.

We are indepted to PatfromCH for this document. Vleeptron was bored the other day, and read the Anathema over him for yet more of his outrageous theological comments.

PatfromCH immediately pointed out that it was the Jewish Anathema read over Spinoza, and thus the wrong Anathema. But it was the only Anathema I had at the time.

Here's another, or something pretty close to an Anathema.

Most people (who deserve to be allowed to keep living) know that "The Magic Flute" was a veiled, disguised, coded reflection of the Ideals and Beliefs of the secret brotherhood of Freemasons. Mozart and the librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, were both Freemasons at a time when many or most European countries had outlawed and banned the society.

First, it's Secret, which always gives the Secret Police the heebie-jeebies, and second, the Freemasons preach Equality among all human beings, and lots of other Left-Wing Idealistic stuff. Kings and Emperors and J. Edgar Hoover tend not to like a lot of secret talk about All People Being Created Equal. From loose talk like that comes nothing but Monkey Business (Affengesselschaft) and Grosser Unfug.

The Pope issued this Bull in 1738. "The Magic Flute" premiered in Vienna (Austria was and is a largely Roman Catholic nation) in 1791.

In the interests of full disclosure, Agence-Vleeptron Presse wishes to state that Bob is not a Freemason. (But his Dad was, 32nd Degree Scottish Rite.)

[Itty-bitty PizzaQ: I can't help myself, what Day Of The Week was 28 April 1738? 1 slice plain. Which doesn't mean this is easy.]

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IN EMINENTI

ON FREEMASONRY

PAPAL BULL OF POPE CLEMENT XII
April 28, 1738

CLEMENT, BISHOP, Servant of the Servants of God to all the faithful, Salutation, and Apostolic Benediction.

Since the divine clemency has placed Us, Whose merits are not equal to the task, in the high watch-tower of the Apostolate with the duty of pastoral care confided to Us, We have turned Our attention, as far as it has been granted Us from on high, with unceasing care to those things through which the integrity of Orthodox Religion is kept from errors and vices by preventing their entry, and by which the dangers of disturbance in the most troubled times are repelled from the whole Catholic World.

Now it has come to Our ears, and common gossip has made clear, that certain Societies, Companies, Assemblies, Meetings, Congregations or Conventicles called in the popular tongue Liberi Muratori or Francs Massons or by other names according to the various languages, are spreading far and wide and daily growing in strength; and men of any Religion or sect, satisfied with the appearance of natural probity, are joined together, according to their laws and the statutes laid down for them, by a strict and unbreakable bond which obliges them, both by an oath upon the Holy Bible and by a host of grievous punishment, to an inviolable silence about all that they do in secret together. But it is in the nature of crime to betray itself and to show itself by its attendant clamor. Thus these aforesaid Societies or Conventicles have caused in the minds of the faithful the greatest suspicion, and all prudent and upright men have passed the same judgment on them as being depraved and perverted. For if they were not doing evil they would not have so great a hatred of the light. Indeed, this rumor has grown to such proportions that in several countries these societies have been forbidden by the civil authorities as being against the public security, and for some time past have appeared to be prudently eliminated.

Therefore, bearing in mind the great harm which is often caused by such Societies or Conventicles not only to the peace of the temporal state but also to the well-being of souls, and realizing that they do not hold by either civil or canonical sanctions; and since We are taught by the divine word that it is the part of faithful servant and of the master of the Lord's household to watch day and night lest such men as these break into the household like thieves, and like foxes seek to destroy the vineyard; in fact, to prevent the hearts of the simple being perverted, and the innocent secretly wounded by their arrows, and to block that broad road which could be opened to the uncorrected commission of sin and for the other just and reasonable motives known to Us; We therefore, having taken counsel of some of Our Venerable Brothers among the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and also of Our own accord and with certain knowledge and mature deliberations, with the plenitude of the Apostolic power do hereby determine and have decreed that these same Societies, Companies, Assemblies, Meetings, Congregations, or Conventicles of Liberi Muratori or Francs Massons, or whatever other name they may go by, are to be condemned and prohibited, and by Our present Constitution, valid for ever, We do condemn and prohibit them.

Wherefore We command most strictly and in virtue of holy obedience, all the faithful of whatever state, grade, condition, order, dignity or pre-eminence, whether clerical or lay, secular or regular, even those who are entitled to specific and individual mention, that none, under any pretext or for any reason, shall dare or presume to enter, propagate or support these aforesaid societies of Liberi Muratori or Francs Massons, or however else they are called, or to receive them in their houses or dwellings or to hide them, be enrolled among them, joined to them, be present with them, give power or permission for them to meet elsewhere, to help them in any way, to give them in any way advice, encouragement or support either openly or in secret, directly or indirectly, on their own or through others; nor are they to urge others or tell them, incite or persuade them to be enrolled in such societies or to be counted among their number, or to be present or to assist them in any way; but they must stay completely clear of such Societies, Companies, Assemblies, Meetings, Congregations or Conventicles, under pain of excommunication for all the above mentioned people, which is incurred by the very deed without any declaration being required, and from which no one can obtain the benefit of absolution, other than at the hour of death, except through Ourselves or the Roman Pontiff of the time.

Moreover, We desire and command that both Bishops and prelates, and other local ordinaries, as well as inquisitors for heresy, shall investigate and proceed against transgressors of whatever state, grade, condition, order dignity or pre-eminence they may be; and they are to pursue and punish them with condign penalties as being most suspect of heresy. To each and all of these We give and grant the free faculty of calling upon the aid of the secular arm, should the need arise, for investigating and proceeding against those same transgressors and for pursuing and punishing them with condign penalties.

Given at Rome, at Saint Mary Mayor, in the year 1738 of Our Lord.