Fred Pierantoni: a High-Ranking Freemason

This is a pic was taken from a past issue of the "Irem News".

According to Pierantoni's website, he is a member of St John's Lodge 233. The issue from which we got the pic has expired and thus been pulled down from the Irem Temple Website. However, the homepage still depicts that:


The Irem Temple Club is a branch of Freemasonry known as the "Shriners". Although this may be seen by most as a harmless civic organization, we believe it champions among its ranks the politically-connected, especially given our previous story that Lou Barletta was posing for a photo in front of the Irem Temple Mosque building in Wilkes-Barre. We must concede, however, that Pierantoni doesn't appear to have benefited vote-wise at the poll where the Masonic Living residents vote in Dallas, PA.

Pierantoni apparently belongs to the Holy Mother of Sorrows parish, and is thus a Catholic. But it is well known that Catholics have long been discouraged, and in times past outright forbidden*, from joining freemasonic lodges. Interestingly, there is a long history of enmity between Catholics and freemasons because the latter believed the former to be superstitious and the former believed the latter to be evil perpetrators of modernism and non-Catholic beliefs; the Knights of Columbus was sponsored as a Catholic alternative.

However, this enmity had vanished by the mid 20th century, and some even believe John XXIII, the pope who called Vatican II, was a freemason; others allege that Cardinal Bugnini, the primary architect of the Novus Ordo Mass, was a freemason. No longer would we expect a Freemason to try to blow up the Our Lady of Guadaloupe shrine. The Knights of Columbus would probably even take in someone who was a freemason in order to maintain their dwindling numbers. Today, the Catholic Church probably would shy away from banning freemasonic membership.

We still believe, however, that being a freemason, especially a high-ranking one, is not a very Catholic thing to do.
______________________________
Actually, the ban on Catholics joining Freemasonic lodges is still in effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_ban_of_Freemasonry

Here's an explanation of why Shriners like Pierantoni where the fez hat, as told by a staunchly anti-freemasonic Catholic.