But here, and Freemasons doesn't mention this, a chasm opens up. Because a couple of centuries earlier, on April 28, 1738, Pope Clement XII imposed the first excommunication in history on Freemasonry: "We decree that we must condemn and prohibit, as with this present Our Constitution, with perpetual validity, the aforementioned Societies, Unions, Meetings, Congregations, Aggregations, or Cliques of Freemasons or Masons, or by any other name by which they may be known." And the excommunication was reiterated on multiple occasions by other pontiffs, including the penultimate one, Joseph Ratzinger, when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and despite the presence in the Vatican of many cardinals and prelates quietly affiliated with the "Ecclesia," the "Ioannes," the "Christopher Columbus," or other Ur-Lodges. A question arises that is now unavoidable for us readers: how can the Church publicly accept a Freemason pope, and therefore (in theory) under excommunication? And how can he even be made a saint? His canonization, moreover unexpected, was a personal decision of the current pope, Francis, who also wanted the ceremony to take place concurrently with that (planned) for John Paul II. On April 27, 2014, according to the authors of *Freemasons*, a progressive Freemason, Angelo Roncalli, and a conservative para-Mason, Karol Wojtyła, who maintained close ties with Anglo-American Freemasons, were canonized live on television