His
Holyness the Pope Benedict XVI visits Portugal in a prochain week and it is important to express the pride and happyness Portuguese people has on its Holyness visit to our country. Portugal has a majority of Catholic followers and important sites of our history are related to the Christian faith. Portugal as a country would never become an independent State without the support of the Church of Rome in the 12th Century. The Sanctuary of Fatima has an importance that cannot be erased or diminuished. Freemasonry regards the contribution of the Catholic Church to the ethics and social values in modern society as fundamental. Being a victim of past campaigns of intolerant chiefs of the Church - that for instance took the life of the Grand Master of the Knights Templars - Freemasonry doesn't mix the institution of the Church with its leaders that in farway past
persecuted the Craft . Every old institution has its pains and imperfecteness and it would be fair to say that the Catholic Church passes by a great test to deal with problems that the transparence of modern society put to us all.
Sometimes, contradictory insights are raised about the oppinions the Church has about Freemasonry and the compatibility of being a freemason and obeying to the Church teachings. Freemasons usually like to say in this purpose, that the crucial elements of moral
are the same and even the sacred book of Christianism - the Bible- lays in a distictive place within a Masonic Lodge. Freemasons are not deacons, cardinals or bishops as they are not entitled to give sacraments or absolve sins. This is not the mission of freemasonry. Each institution has its role in society and directs its action to a certain part of the public. Sometimes the believer and the freemason are reunited in the same human being. It is good for the Craft and the Church when this happen, we ought to believe.
