THE POPE AND THE FREEMASONS.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1225, 3 November 1874, Page 3

THE POPE AND THE FREEMASONS.

A controversy hag lately waged in the New Zealand Tablet, the Dunedin Guardian, and other sections of the Press, as to whether a certain Paulo Mastai Ferretti, or John Maria Mastai Ferretti, expelled from the Masonic brotherhood by the Grand Lodge of Italy, is the present Pope Pio Nino or not. The following statement published in the Keystone, and purporting to come from the Grand Orient of Palmero, should end the discussion : " Pope Pius IX. Expelled from the Order for Perjury.—At the semi annual meeting of the Grand Lodge of Masons, A. & A. Rile, of the Orient of Palermo, Italy, held in that city on the twenty-seventh of March, , Mastai Ferretti was expelled irom the Order for violating his vows and for perjury. Mastai Ferretti is no other person than Pius IX., Pope of Home. The decree of the lodge at Palermo is published in the official paper of the Order of Freemasons at Cologne, Germany, and

dated March 27th. It is preceded by the minutes of the lodge in which Mastai Ferretti, in 1826, was initiated into the Order under the old Scottish Rite. The decree reads as follows : 1 A man called Mastai Ferretti, who received the baptism of Freemasonry and solemn!}' pledged in love and fellowship, and who afterwards was crowned Pope and King' under tiie title of Pio Nono, bus now cursed his former brethren, and excommunicated all iv. embers of the Order of Freemasons. Therefore, said Mastai Ferretti is herewith by decree of the Grand Lodge of the Orient Palermo, expelled from the Order for perjury.' The charges against Mastai Ferretti were first preferred in bis lodge, at Palermo, in 1865, and notification and copy thereof sent to Rome, with a request to attend the lodge for the purpose of his vindication. To this the Pope made no reply, and for divers reasons the charges were not pressed until the Pope urged the clergy of Brazil to aggressive measures against the Freemasons in that country. Then the charges were pressed, and the second and third notifications sent, and, after a formal trial, a decree of explusion was entered and caused to be published. The decree bears the signature of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, Grand Master of the Orient of Italy.