Former U.S. President Joe Biden received honorary membership in the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge in South Carolina, in defiance of the Catholic Church’s doctrine, which prohibits followers from joining Freemasonry. The event occurred on January 19, a day before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president.
An announcement was issued online on Friday by the Prince Hall Lodge Grand Masters of Freemasonry, claiming that the Lodge South Carolina had conferred membership on President Joe Biden. «Whereas, President Joseph R., Jr. has demonstrated exceptional dedication and service to the United of America. Whereas, his service reflects the core values of the Most Respectable Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of South Carolina, including brotherly love, relief, and truth.» The statement concludes with Grand Master Victor C. Major’s decision to confer honorary membership on Biden. It has not been confirmed whether the former president participated in the usual initiation rituals of Freemasonry.
The ceremony, hosted by the Prince Hall Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the of South Carolina, awarded Biden the membership of «Master Mason with all honors in recognition his «extraordinary service to the United States.» According to a statement issued by Freemasonry, Biden was honored for his dedication and actions throughout his political career.
The text of the resolution issued by the lodge highlights:
«Whereas, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. has demonstrated exceptional dedication and service to the United States of America. Whereas, his service reflects the core values of the Most Respectable Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of South Carolina, including brotherly love, relief, and truth.»
The statement concludes with Grand Master Victor C. Major’s decision to confer honorary membership on Biden. It has not been confirmed whether the former president participated in the usual initiation rituals of Freemasonry.
According to the announcement, dated Jan. 19, the day before Biden left office, the lodge granted the president a «membership resolution» in recognition of his «exceptional dedication and service to the United States» that «reflects the core values of the Most Venerable Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of South Carolina, including brotherly love, relief, and truth.»
It is not uncommon for outgoing presidents to be honored by groups and organizations.
But as the second Catholic to hold the position, Biden’s new «membership» in the lodge presents a particular problem: Catholics have been banned from joining lodges and Masonic organizations since 1738, and are subject to canonical penalties for doing so.
President Joe Biden with Victor C. Major, Venerable Grand Master of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of South Carolina, Jan. 19, 2025. Image via Prince Hall Masons Grand Masters Conference.
A little Masonic history
While many lodges like to pretend to have ties to ancient or even biblical times, the real beginning of Freemasonry, as people think of it now, was in 1717, when the first Grand Lodge was founded in the back room of a London pub.
In the first few years after its emergence, some Catholics, even some prominent ones, joined the lodges, which became a center for freethinkers, religious mavericks, political dissidents, people interested in pseudosciences such as alchemy, and peddlers of Gnostic philosophies and Christian heresies.
Before long, Pope Clement XII forbade Catholics from joining because, while Freemasonry was religiously tolerant, allowing people of any denomination to join, the pope discovered that it actually promoted religious indifferentism, the belief that it doesn’t matter what religious creed a person believes in because everyone in the lodge understood that they were serving a higher notion of natural virtue.
As Freemasonry spread across Europe, papal condemnations kept coming, and eight popes issued encyclicals or papal bulls imposing a penalty of automatic excommunication on any Catholic who joined the Freemasons, until the promulgation of the first Code of Canon Law in 1917, which also included the prohibition of membership and penalty.
During those centuries, many things changed between the Church and the Freemasons, although much of what the Church said about why Catholics could not unite remained the same.
But the Church has always condemned the idea of Freemasonry because, according to the Church, it took Catholics away from legitimate ecclesiastical supervision while they were, in effect, catechized into a new philosophy, a different way of seeing the world.
Some Catholics, however, thought that the Church had changed its mind about Freemasonry after the Second Vatican Council because, when the new Code of Canon Law was promulgated in 1983, the explicit mention of Freemasonry was removed from the penal code.
Instead, the new law banned Catholics from joining societies that «conspire against the Church» and said they should be punished with «a just penalty.»
But before the new law came into force, the then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued a public clarification stating that «the negative judgment of the Church regarding the Masonic association remains unchanged,» because the «principles [of Freemasonry] have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and, therefore, membership in them remains prohibited.»
Ratzinger also clarified that the explicit mention of Freemasonry had been removed because the new wording was intended to capture «broader categories» of societies and not be limited to Masonic lodges.
«The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and cannot receive Holy Communion,» Ratzinger clarified.
The prohibition on Catholics joining Freemasons is centuries old and is recognized by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith as a crime and a grave sin.
But there are some things we don’t know about Biden’s situation, even after South Carolina’s Prince Hall Grand Lodge said that on Jan. 19 «at a private event, Master Mason membership was conferred with full honors» on Joe Biden, who now holds the rank of «Master Mason.»
The lodge’s announcement says membership was «conferred» on Biden by the lodge, not that it went through any actual Masonic liturgy. That may seem like a matter of formalities, but it could actually make a big canonical difference.
For starters, it’s unclear to what extent Biden accepted, formally or informally, lodge membership, or whether it was simply presented to him as something they did for (and for) him. Footage from the event shows the president shaking hands and hugging the lodge head, but without receiving any certificate or physical representation of membership.
That matters, because the actual crime in canon law is not the status of being a member of a Masonic lodge, but the act of joining.
Of course, that doesn’t change the Vatican’s permanent decree that any Catholic who is a member of a Masonic lodge (even passively) is in a state of grave sin and is forbidden to receive Communion.
But then again, Biden would have to accept himself, even passively by not refusing the appointment, the membership conferred: Freemasons do not have the power to make someone a member without consent, any more than a person can marry another without their consent.
Simply put, if Biden did nothing actively to join the Freemasons or accept their membership, it is reasonable to conclude that he did not violate the relevant canon, which, according to canonical principles, must be interpreted strictly.
Of course, all those complications and canonical considerations do not change the Vatican’s clear stance on the morality and grave sinfulness of a Catholic who is «enrolled» in a Masonic lodge, however they do it: «they are in a state of grave sin and cannot receive Holy Communion.»
But whether Biden actually accepted the Masonic membership conferred on him is a question that only he can answer, and only the pope can judge.