ROTARY CLUB. - It is an association of businessmen and independent professionals founded on 23 February 1905 in Chicago by the American lawyer Paul P. Harris. It has a democratic structure and aims to bring its members to a higher degree of friendship and dedication 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. At present it has 250 Districts (the 787th being the Italian one), governed by a governor and subdivided into R. (clubs), and hundreds of thousands of members, scattered throughout all parts of the globe and professing the most disparate religious and political convictions.
Subsequently it defined its program and organizational structure more precisely. The former centers on four fundamental points: 1) deep friendship among the members; 2) dedication to one's profession in the most scrupulous respect for honesty; 3) dedication to the community in works of charity and assistance; 4) development of mutual understanding in respect for different faiths and political convictions, supporting by all means the 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 headquartered in Chicago and by three world sub-secretariats headquartered respectively in London, Zurich and Bombay. The R. soon attracted the attention of the Catholic hierarchy. On 4 February 1929 a response of the S. Congr. Concettoriale declared that it was not fitting for Ordinaries to permit clerics to become members of the R. or to take part in their meetings (AAS, 21 [1929], p. 42). The reasons for the decision were not indicated. In any case, however, the response of the Congregation dealt only with clerics and for these it confined itself to declaring their enrollment or participation in the meetings unfitting. Nothing was said about the laity. The silence of the ecclesiastical Authority was broken by certain episcopal pronouncements, which were moreover not in agreement. In fact, while the Dutch episcopate, by a declaration of 12 July 1930, forbade even the laity to join the R., the Quinzaine religieuse de Savoie (cf. Semaine religieuse, n. 29, Nov. 1929) expressly authorized it. Recently the Holy See returned to the question. A decree of the S. Ufficio of 11 January 1951 established that clerics were permitted neither to enroll in nor to participate in the meetings of the R.; the laity were to be recommended to conform to can. 684 of the CIC (AAS, 43 [1951], p. 91). With this decree it begins to be made clear that for clerics it is not merely a matter of unfittingness, but of unlawfulness. The prohibition imposed on priests to belong to the R. C. or to take part in its meetings... is to be understood as limited to the meetings of the members of the R. alone and insofar as they deal with their economic and professional affairs. It does not therefore extend to those meetings which, though likewise convened by the R., are also open to outsiders for purposes consonant with priestly activities, such as, for example, promoting initiatives of charity or charitable assistance. As for the laity, moreover, the decree of the S. Ufficio does not contain a prohibition, as it does for ecclesiastics, but limits itself to exhorting Catholics to regulate themselves according to the provisions of can. 684 of the CIC, which in its positive part praises the faithful who give their name and their support to associations established by the Church or recommended by it, while in its negative part it 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 Jan. 1951).
At present, therefore, one must conclude: 1) clerics (and religious) cannot enroll in the R.; even if not enrolled, they cannot take part in the R.'s own conferences where the economic and professional problems of the association are dealt with. 2) The laity are put on notice that some spiritual danger may derive to them from membership in the R. The neutrality it proclaims can easily become independence from the teaching of the Church even in the field of faith and morals and favor the infiltration of Masonic and anticlerical elements. If such a danger exists, the faithful cannot join the R.; if such a danger does not exist, there are no difficulties. 3) The concrete judgment is not left to individual faithful, but is devolved upon the bishops. Consequently 4) where the bishops have not expressly declared that the R. must be considered a suspect association, the laity may remain tranquil in conscience.
Giovanni Battista Guzzetti