[Lurker]

The "Knights Templar" today are any of a number of secret societies that claim to be somehow occultly linked with that long-dissolved order.

Every one of them? You have proof of this?

Membership in a secret society incurs a latae sententiae excommunication

So if as a Catholic I had a 'secret society' called "Lurkers Secret Society" I would be automatically excommunicated?

Exactly which Pope wrote that?

L

[wideawake]

Every one of them? You have proof of this?

Name one person who claims to be a Knight Templar who believes he bears no relationship whatever with the original.

So if as a Catholic I had a 'secret society' called "Lurkers Secret Society" I would be automatically excommunicated?

So if as a Catholic I had a 'secret society' called "Lurkers Secret Society" I would be automatically excommunicated? Exactly which Pope wrote that?

Such a society would have to meet the criteria defined by Pope Clement XII back in 1738 - to summarize the bare essentials: a group whose rules require one to conceal his membership in the group from all non-members including even his family and pastors, which requires a solemn oath to be taken to conceal the secrets of the society, and which undertakes corporate actions or requires rules of conduct that are concealed from outsiders.