On his last full day as president of the United States, it is reported that Joe Biden joined the Freemasons.

Canonists are debating whether one incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication for joining the Masons, given that the 1983 Code of Canon Law does not explicitly forbid Catholics to join, whereas one did incur an automatic excommunication under the previous 1917 Code (see can. 2335). There is also the issue of President Biden’s mental capacity in making such a choice, as his cognitive decline was evident in his one debate in June 2024 with President Donald Trump, after which Biden was pressured by his Democratic Party colleagues to end his re-election bid.

In a 1983 declaration from the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF, now DDF), the Church reaffirmed that “the faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave [mortal] sin and may not receive Holy Communion.” Although excommunication and being in a state of grave sin usually go hand in hand, they don’t always, depending on who levies the excommunication and on what basis. Being in a state of grave sin is more serious, though, given that one who does not repent of such wrongdoing will go to hell (see CCC 1861). In addition, to be subjectively culpable of a mortal sin, one must fulfill three criteria: its moral object must be grave matter, and one must commit the sin with full knowledge and deliberate or complete consent (see CCC 1857-1860).

In 2023, the DDF reaffirmed the Church’s ban on membership in the Freemasons, and the president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology reaffirmed it again in February 2024.

Whatever his personal culpability in joining the Masons, President Biden’s choice sadly caps a series of decisions in which he as a public official repudiated the Faith. That includes his many decisions to uphold legalized abortion as a U.S. senator as well as president. Others include supporting the redefinition of marriage and even officiating at the “wedding” of at least one same-sex couple.

We can make principled arguments against abortion and the redefinition of marriage based on objective biology and basic human rights, despite the empty attempt by Biden and other politicians to say, “I am personally opposed” on these issues, “but I cannot legally impose my religious convictions on others.” In any event, let us pray for our brother in Christ, President Biden, that he might yet see the light and publicly repent, both for his benefit and for many others’.

Many Catholics don’t understand why the Catholic Church forbids the faithful to become Freemasons, including because they may have neighbors or co-workers who are Masons, and because they see positive philanthropic work the Masons oversee, such as providing major health care for children at their hospitals.

The Freemasons were established in Europe several centuries ago to oppose the Catholic Church, and indeed to destroy the Church. Because of this enmity, popes issued a series of pronouncements, beginning with Pope Clement XII’s constitution In Eminenti in 1738 and including Pope Leo XIII’s 1884 encyclical Humanum Genus. In addition, St. Maximilian Kolbe founded his Militia of the Immaculate in significant part to combat the Masons, whom he observed proclaiming in 1917—as part of their bicentennial celebration in Rome—that “Satan must reign in the Vatican. The pope will be his slave.” Also, a key reason Fr. Michael McGivney established the Knights of Columbus in 1882 was to provide fraternity and life insurance for the faithful, as many Catholic men were being tempted to join the Masons for those reasons.

In modern-day America, Masonic lodges typically serve as social clubs that also help members network professionally. But make no mistake: the Masons are qualitatively different from the Kiwanis Club or your local Elks lodge, because Masonry is a naturalistic religion. As the New Catholic Encyclopedia states,

Freemasonry displays all the elements of religion, and as such it becomes a rival to the religion of the Gospel. It includes temples and altars, prayers, a moral code, worship, vestments, feast days, the promise of reward or punishment in the afterlife, a hierarchy, and initiation and burial rites.

In his February 2024 interview with Vatican News, Bishop Antonio Stagliano, the president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, distinguished Freemasonry from Catholic belief on several important matters.

For example, Masons view God as “the Great Architect,” and their longstanding emblem is an architect’s basic instruments. Consequently, Stagliano said, “Freemasonry is a heresy that is fundamentally aligned with the Arian heresy,” because it was Arius “who imagined that Jesus was a great architect of the universe” while also denying Christ’s divinity. In addition, Stagliano said, as a natural religion, Freemasonry “is the fruit of human reasoning that tries to imagine a god, whereas the God of Catholics is the fruit of the very revelation of God in Christ Jesus!”

“In essence,” he added, Catholicism “is the result of a historical event in which God became flesh, drew near to men, spoke to all human beings, and destined them for his salvation.”

Similarly, Masonry and Catholicism differ on the concept of mystery. Freemasonry is a secret society that espouses a form of Gnosticism—special, secret knowledge available only to its initiated members. In marked contrast, Stagliano notes, for Christians, the mystery “hidden throughout the centuries does not cease to be a mystery but rather ceases to be hidden, because the mystery hidden throughout the centuries has been revealed,” referring to God’s self-revelation, especially through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, infallibly taught in and proclaimed by his Catholic Church to the whole world (Matt. 28:18-20).

The bishop also distinguished Catholic from Masonic brotherhood: “Our fraternity is established on the sacrament of the love of God in Jesus; it is founded on the Eucharist, not only on the generic idea of being brothers.” He also said that Freemasonry’s concept of doing good works should not be confused with the life in Christ that Jesus calls the faithful to exemplify. The practice of Christian charity “has nothing to do with Masonic philanthropy,” he says, because “Christian charity is based on the historical event of a God who died and rose again for us and asks his children not to be merely philanthropic but to be, finally, crucified for love.”

“In short,” Stagliano summarized, “when we talk about incompatibility, we are referring to profound contradictions.”