Is The Pope A Freemason?

Lodge has ever asserted is , that when Nuncio he was a visitor at more than one of their Lodges . In 1870 , the Libertaddel Ponsamiento , a Madrid Masonic Journal , quoted in the Freemason of December 3 rd , 1870 ,

( vol . iii , page 625 ) , made the following statement : — " Few persons know , and that is the reason we take this occasion to relate the fact , that the present Boman Pontiff , Pope Pius IX ., owes his elevation to the see of St . Peter to

the influence of Masons , whose ' principles he promised to sustain . ' Pius IX . was initiated into the ' Sons of Hiram , ' 'Los Hijos de Hiram , ' under the symbolic name of' Savola . ' He became a Knight of the Bed Cross 18 ° . There

are existing Lodges at Madrid which he visited during his residence in Spain , and many brethren who remember the facts . "

It is not quitecertain from this record where the Pope ' was initiated ; on that point it is silent ; but from the use of the symbolic name " Savola , " it must have been , if the fact be true , in a Lodge under the Italian or Spanish

system . Indeed , we believe the " symbolic name " is mostly insisted on in Spain , though it is still used , we have been told , but not universally , in Italy . But the same record goes on to say , and the fact , if correct , is most important : —

"Bro . Soussingeas has shown us a fine portrait of the Pope in full Masonic regalia , with the following inscription underneath in Latin : " Et excommunicate fratres meos mea culpa , ' which the translate ! ' says means , ' If my brethren

are excommunicated , it is my fault . '" We should like to know more of this picture , and a little more of the Latin inscription , which , to say the truth , seems at first sight , rather canine .

In the Freemason for March 26 , 1870 , vol . iii ., page 145 , appears a statement taken from the Philadel phia Keystone of about the same date , quoting the New York World of the 10 th

March , as publishing a translation from the Era Paoli Sarpi of Venice , to the following effect : — "Freemasons will be interested to know that Mastai Ferretti , better known as Pope Pius IX . once belonged to

, their order , having joined it in Philadelphia when he was Papal Nuncio to this country , and that he continued to be a Mason two years after he became Pope . "

"This , as the Keystone then said , and ' we say to-day , " is a-very interesting question , " and the Keystone gives in consequence some equally interesting information , to which we deem it well to refer our readers .

In 1868 it appears that the then Grand Master of Pennsylvania ( Bichard Vaux ) received from the editor of the Monde Maconnique , a Parisian Masonic journal , the August number of that periodical .

In that number was an article entitled , " Initiation de Vie IX , " taken from L'Umanitaris , and which the editor terms "the first document intended to prove the initiation of Pope Pius IX . into the mysteries of Freemasonry . " This document is a letter which the

Masons of Messina m Sicily are said to have addressed , in 1865 , to the Very Bev . Monsignore Aglotti , capitular vicar of that diocese . It asserts that Mastai Ferretti , while Gregory the 16 th was Pope , was sent

on a mission to America , North and South . That after his mission was ended he went to Philadelphia , and was then and there made a Mason . The year , howeveris not ivenThis letter of the

, g , Messina Masons proceeds to give extracts from the speeches of Pius IX , then Nuncio , on various occasions , as when he says , " I am fully convinced that Masonry is one of the best , ' plus belles' associations that is known in

, the world . " This is probably from an Italian original . On another occasion he is alleged to