PROHIBITED SOCIETIES (SECRET SOCIETIES). - By their very nature, those societies are forbidden which propose an unlawful end to themselves, or which, while pursuing a good end, intend to attain it by dishonest means. They therefore remain unlawful whatever their nature may be: religious, political, humanitarian, for scientific dissemination, commercial, etc.
SECRET SOCIETIES AND ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION
The name derives directly from the classical Latin secta, etymologically from sequor, and originally had the sense of a separation, of a segregation in order to adhere to a body of particular principles and maxims, whether in the political field (party, faction) or in the philosophical field (school, sect). Classical authors never give the word a pejorative sense. The Vulgate employs it to indicate a religious tendency; only a little later did the epistle to the Galatians (5:10) and the second of St. Peter (4:1) attach to it a pejorative meaning, and it is precisely in this aspect that it was employed in common ecclesiastical language. The fundamental characteristic of the sect is to be in opposition to the universality of the Catholic Church and to constitute a separate religious group with a claim, for the most part, to moral superiority. The term has a broader and more generic comprehension than heresy and schism, since it can verify either, inasmuch as it denies some truth of the Church of Christ or affirms others opposed to it, and inasmuch as it opposes the unity of the Church.
For about two centuries, and definitively with the CIC, the term has passed from the theological field to the juridical one, however much derived. Therefore today, in canonistic language, by the name sect are meant those sects that operate against the Church or the civil power. Hence, for there to be a sect for moral and juridical purposes, it is required: 1) that there be a true and proper sect, no matter what its denomination may be, nor whether or not there be secrecy or an oath to maintain it; 2) that, either by its own institute or in fact, in the application of means (even for a philanthropic end), there be machination against the Church or the legitimate civil power. There is machination when the activity is truly data opera rebellious or subversive against: a) the Church; that is, against the doctrine, authority, powers, constitution, rights, privileges of the Church; or against ecclesiastical persons as such; b) against the legitimate civil power (if the power were not legitimate, it would be devoid of the right to command, and subjects would have no obligation to obey). Thus when a sect has as its end, at least in fact, to undermine the principle of social authority in itself, even only through cultural activity, it is against the civil power. When the attempt to change the institutional form is made in a legitimate manner, with the exclusion of violence and conspiracy against the established power, there is no true machination.
Freemasonry (v.) and similar sects, the Carboneria (v.), the sects of the Fenians, an American and Irish sect (decree of the Holy Office of 12 Jan. 1870); the three American workers' sects: 1) Odd fellows; 2) Sons of temperance; 3) Knights of Pyrrhis (decree of the Holy Office of 20 Aug. 1894); the society Independent order of good templars or Guttempler-Orden (decree of the Holy Office of 19 Aug. 1893); associations whose end is to cremate corpses (decree of the Holy Office of 19 May 1886); theosophical societies; the Y.M.C.A. sects = Young men Christian Association for men and Y.W.C.A. = Young women Christian Association for women (decree of the Holy Office of 5 Nov. 1920: AAS, 12 [1920], p. 595); atheistic sects (encyclical Divini Redemptoris, AAS, 29 [1937], p. 76 ff.). Nihilistic, anarchic, pan-Christian societies are condemned by their very nature. A sect that has caused much talk about itself is the one that developed from 1865 onward in the Northern United States and still subsists, nicknamed the Ku-Klux-Klan (v.). Now the Church has expressly condemned communism ([v.], 28-30 July 1949) and those factions of socialism that favor communism itself.
For the Rotary Club, see the relevant entry. For heretics and schismatics, see HERESY; SCHISM.
Against sects, can. 2335 decrees: whoever enrolls in Freemasonry or another sect that plots against the Church or against the civil power incurs ipso facto excommunication reserved simpliciter to the Apostolic See.
Ancient law imposed the censure also against abettors and those who did not denounce the leaders. The CIC no longer makes mention of these cases, which therefore must be considered not subject to censures. Whoever in good faith has given his name to a sect struck by censure does not incur excommunication until he comes to know of it and does not intend to withdraw; if however he could not do so without grave inconvenience, he is excused from the excommunication, provided he has the intention of doing so as soon as he can.
Membership in a non-Catholic sect (by this name are understood all heretical or schismatic churches or little churches and atheistic sects, militant atheistic communists) constitutes with regard to Matrimony an impediment of mixtae religionis (cf. can. 1060 ff., CIC, Comm. Interpr. Codic., 30 June 1934: AAS, 26 [1934], p. 494 ff., and see MIXED RELIGION).
Adherents of heretical, schismatic, Masonic sects or of prohibited societies of the same kind are excluded from ecclesiastical burial (can. 1240 § 1, n. 1), cannot be admitted to the novitiate (can. 542, n. 1) or into pious associations (can. 693 § 1), lose the right to the transmissibility in their own favor of the right of personal patronage (can. 1453 § 1), and in the case of real patronage this remains suspended (can. 1453 § 3); they are ipso facto infamous (can. 2314 § 1, n. 3) and excommunicated with an excommunication reserved speciali modo, if it is a question of a non-Catholic sect (can. 2314 §§ 1 and 2), reserved simpliciter, if it is a question of a Masonic or similar sect (can. 2335). Clerics moreover, by adhering to a non-Catholic sect, lose ipso facto their office (cann. 188, n. 4 and 2314 § 1 n. 3) and after admonition must be degraded; if they adhere to Masonic or similar sects they must be denounced to the Holy Office and moreover must be suspended and deprived of benefices, offices, dignities, pensions or charges that they hold in the Church; if religious, they must be deprived of active and passive voice and struck with other constitutional penalties (can. 2336).
Bibliography9 works
Elio Degano