I posted this previously on catholic.com and fisheaters before I was banned so some of you may be familiar with the topic.
A nasty rumor that Cardinal Mariano Rampolla was somehow a 'secret occult mason and in the OTO' has somehow been circulating for about 100 years. It started when writer Msg Jouin was fed a forged, phoney docuмent cooked up by a cabal trying to discredit the great Cardinal. This is not an attack on Jouin--I am only saying that no one gets everything right.
Cardinal Rampolla was Sec of State under Pope Leo XIII and arch-priest of Vatican Cathedral under St. Pius X.
So far as I know, the persons spreading this story(sincere or otherwise) include Piers Compton(The Broken Cross), Yves Chiron(bio of Pius X), Craig Hiembichner(Blood On Alter and other works), John Vennari of Catholic Family News, Lady Queenborough( I think she is mistaken-not malicious), and the Dimond Bros Most Holy Family Monastery.
This story is very dangerous as if true(which it certainly is not) it completly discredits the character of Leo XIII, Cardinal Raphael Merry Del Valle, St Pius X and Francis MacNutt(Papal Chamberlain).
The Cardinal was a great man and it is my view that he is being attacked, among other reasons because he and Leo XIII were of the anti-Dreyfus party. The ʝʊdɛօ-masonic clique around Franz-Joseph pressured him to 'veto' the Cardinals election as Pope in 1903.
Fortunatly no harm was done to Holy Church as the administration of affairs was carried on by St. Pius no differently than they would have been in a Rampolla papacy.
I hope no-one has fallen for this smear on a great man.