ROTARY CLUB

ROTARY CLUB. — This is an association of businessmen and professional men founded on 23 Feb. 1905 in Chicago by the American lawyer Paul P. Harris. It has a democratic structure and seeks to lead its members to a higher degree of friendship and devotion to the good of society.

The association developed rapidly, not only in the United States of America, but also in the states of the new continent and in other parts of the world. It currently comprises 250 Districts (the 787th is the Italian one), governed by a governor and divided into R. (clubs), and hundreds of thousands of members, spread throughout the globe and professing the most diverse religious and political convictions.

It subsequently defined its programme and organizational structure more precisely. The former revolves around four fundamental points: 1) profound friendship among the members; 2) devotion to one’s profession with the most scrupulous respect for honesty; 3) devotion to the community through charitable and welfare activities; 4) the development of mutual understanding while respecting different faiths and political convictions, supporting by every means international bodies that advocate international cooperation and collaboration among peoples (U.N., Council of Europe, etc.). The central organization is governed by a secretary general based in Chicago and by three world under-secretariats based respectively in London, Zurich, and Bombay. The R. soon attracted the attention of the Catholic hierarchy. On 4 Feb. 1929, a reply from the S. Congr. Consistorial declared that it was not appropriate for Ordinaries to permit clerics to become members of the R. or to take part in its meetings (AAS, 21 [1929], p. 42). The reasons for the decision were not indicated. In any event, however, the Congregation’s reply dealt only with clerics and, with regard to them, was limited to declaring their enrollment or participation in the meetings inappropriate. Nothing was said about the laity. The silence of the ecclesiastical Authority was broken by several episcopal positions, which were, moreover, not consistent with one another. Indeed, while the Dutch episcopate, in a declaration of 12 July 1930, also prohibited laypeople from joining the R., the Quinzaine religieuse de Savoie (cf. Semaine religieuse, no. 29, Nov. 1929) expressly authorized II. Recently the Holy See returned to the question. A decree of the Holy Office of 11 Jan. 1951 established that clerics could lawfully neither enroll in nor participate in the meetings of the R.; laypeople were to be advised to conform to can. 684 of the CIC (AAS, 43 [1951], p. 91). With this decree it began to be made more precise that, for clerics, the matter was not merely one of impropriety but of unlawfulness. The prohibition imposed on priests against belonging to the R. C. or taking part in its meetings ... is to be understood in the restricted sense of meetings of the members of the R. alone and insofar as they discuss their economic and professional affairs. It does not, therefore, extend to meetings which, although convened by the R., are also open to outsiders for purposes consonant with priestly activities, such as, for example,

to promote charitable or assistance initiatives. As for the laity, the decree of the S. Ufficio does not contain a prohibition, as it does for ecclesiastics, but merely urges Catholics to conduct themselves in accordance with the provision of can. 684 of the CIC, which, in its positive part, praises the faithful who give their names and support to associations established or recommended by the Church, while, in its negative part, warns against associations to which one of the qualifications listed in the canon itself may apply (v. A proposito del R. C., in L'osservat. romano, 27 January 1951).

At present, therefore, the following conclusion must be drawn: 1) clerics (and religious) may not enroll in the R.; even if they are not enrolled, they may not take part in the R.’s own meetings at which the association’s economic and professional problems are discussed. 2) The laity are warned that their presence in the R. may entail some spiritual danger. The neutrality it proclaims can easily become independence from the Church’s teaching, even in the field of faith and morals, and encourage the infiltration of Masonic and anticlerical elements. If such a danger exists, the faithful may not join the R.; if such a danger does not exist, there is no difficulty. 3) The concrete judgment is not left to individual members of the faithful, but is entrusted to the bishops. Consequently, 4) wherever the bishops have not expressly declared that the R. must be regarded as a suspect association, the laity may remain tranquil in conscience. Giovanni Battista Guzzetti