Interview With Author of "The Masonic Plot"

BURGOS, Spain, JUNE 4, 2007 (Zenit) - What's true and what's not about the Masons is the topic of a recent book by an expert in the history of religions.

Father Manuel Guerra Gómez, who is an author of 25 books on sects and other topics, recently released "La trama masónica" (The Masonic Plot), published in Spanish by Styria.

Father Guerra is a diocesan priest of Burgos, and a retired professor of the Burgos headquarters of the Faculty of Theology of Northern Spain.

In this interview with us he says that "the Masonic method, atheistic in nature, reflects historical relativism and leads to the socio-cultural relativism that it promotes."

Q: Is the famous Masonic conspiracy a myth?

Father Guerra: It is necessary to distinguish between Masonry and the Masons. Masonry, as such, does not aspire to power or at least to having it serve its own principles and interests.

Nevertheless, Masons are in fact present in every international organization in which decisions are made and in the multinational corporations that have an influence on economic and political power.

It is logical to think that they try to pass on their ideological principles -- relativism, atheism, gnosticism -- wherever they are and to irradiate them beyond their own context.

On the other hand, in the English-speaking world and in the northern countries, in Turkey, etc., it is not that they seek to gain power, they are the power.

Thus, for example, the sovereign of the United Kingdom is also the grand master of the United Grand Lodge of England, and of the more than 150 grand lodges -- one for every country, and in the United States one for every state. In 1995, in the United Grand Lodge of England there were 750,000 members belonging to 8,000 lodges throughout the world.

Besides this, because of the rule of secrecy, there is no way of knowing for certain where they are active and how far their direct influence extends, and much less do we know the extent of their indirect influence.

Tony Blair's government sought to institute the obligation that Masons declare their membership in the group, especially if they were functionaries of the state, and above all if they worked in the area of justice or in the police. The response of 1,400 English judges who voluntarily declared their membership in the Masons is commendable. Evidently there are many more.

Following the scandals of the secret Propaganda Due Lodge of Licio Gelli in Italy, functionaries in certain areas of Italian public administration must declare whether that they are Masons at the risk of losing their post.

Q: Is it true that 60% of the members of the European Parliament are Masons?

Father Guerra: This and a similar claim were made by Josep Corominas, grand master of the Grand Lodge of Spain up until March 2006. On Feb. 9, 2007, he left the Grand Lodge of Spain, but affirmed that he would continue to be a Mason and wanted to be considered such.

Is this a new division which has given place to a new Masonic obedience, or is it an incorporation into one already existing?

Indeed, all the proposals pertaining to family and bioethics issues, dissenting from the teaching of the Church and even the natural law, have been approved by the European Parliament. There is also the case of the Italian Rocco Buttiglione who was rejected as a European commissioner by an atheist majority of the Parliament.

Q: In Rome a conference has just ended in which the incompatibility of Catholicism and Masonry was recalled. A call for dialogue with Masons on socio-cultural questions was made. How can this happen?

Father Guerra: Despite the objective incompatibility between Masonry and Catholicism, Catholics can dialogue with Masons at different levels, except for those things that the Holy See, aware of the risks, has reserved for its exclusive competence.

In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's declaration on Freemasonry it is stated that it "is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to give a judgment on the nature of Masonic associations which would imply a derogation from what has been decided above, and this in line with the declaration of this sacred congregation issued on Feb. 17, 1981."

It is likewise necessary to consider the reality and consequences of Masonic secrecy. How can you dialogue with someone who wears a mask? Despite this, it is still possible to dialogue about socio-cultural questions. Even if religions and ideologies end up forming and conforming the respective cultures to themselves, there always exists some common ground.

Unlike that which is specifically religious and ideological, the cultural ambit is still a sector about which it is possible to dialogue, at least ...