The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference has announced that it will send a delegation to meet Honourable Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, the Member of Parliament for Effutu and the current Minority Leader, after his recent declaration that he is both a Catholic and a Freemason.
The announcement carried in a response to an open letter by Fr. Ebenezer Hanson regarding the issue of Freemasonry and Catholicism, the President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Most Rev. Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, said the Catholic Church’s position is the incompatibility of the two.
The bishops plan to make it “unambiguously clear” that one cannot reconcile Catholicism with Freemasonry, stressing that “Honourable Afenyo-Markin will have to make a choice.”
The statement comes in response to growing concerns following Afenyo-Markin’s public statement during a parliamentary vetting, which caused unease among the Catholic faithful, especially the youth.
In his letter, Most Rev. Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, Bishop of Sunyani and President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference, reaffirmed the Church’s firm stance on the incompatibility of Catholicism and Freemasonry. “The Church has always maintained that Freemasonry is incompatible with the teachings of Christ and the Church,” the Bishop asserted.
Bishop Gyamfi explained that Freemasonry is a religion in its own right, with doctrines that contradict core Christian beliefs. “What Freemasonry teaches about the following cannot be reconciled with Christian beliefs, i.e., God, Christ, the denial of the role of grace and Christ in salvation, morality, its attitude towards the Bible, eschatology, the masonic oaths and the notion of rebirth and enlightenment,” he wrote.
“For all these reasons, one cannot simultaneously be a Catholic and a Freemason, just as one cannot be a Catholic and be Muslim, a Hindu, a Shintoist or a practitioner of African Traditional Religion. One will have to make a choice between Christianity and Freemasonry.”
The Bishop emphasised that while Freemasons may be good, philanthropic individuals, the organisation’s teachings are fundamentally at odds with the Catholic faith. The Church does not claim that Freemasons are bad people, but it makes it clear that membership in Freemasonry is forbidden for Catholics. “Catholic membership in Freemasonry remains forbidden,” he stated, highlighting the Church’s historical opposition to the Lodge, which dates back to the 18th century.
Bishop Gyamfi also pointed out that the Catholic Church is not alone in its opposition to Freemasonry. Many other Christian denominations, such as Lutherans, Pentecostals, and Seventh-day Adventists, also prohibit their members from joining Freemasonry.
He noted that this widespread opposition reflects a common concern among Christian communities regarding the incompatibility of Freemasonry with Christian doctrine.
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