Interview with Leo XIII (Part 2): The Cage of Naturalism and the Destruction of Intelligence

As a scientist and epistemologist, I observe with horror how modernity, under the banner of supposed "cognitive progress," has locked human intelligence in the most suffocating of cages. Today's scientism, mechanism, and neuro-determinism are not the fruit of empirical discovery, but of a predetermined philosophical imposition. This amputation of the human mind, reducing it to electrical impulses and perishable matter, was denounced more than a century ago with a clarity that dazzles us today.

Continuing with this simulated interview format, we delve into the core of the modern error. The answers of Leo XIII, extracted verbatim from his encyclical Humanum Genus, dismantle the myth that Freemasonry is a simple philanthropic society. On the contrary, it reveals its true nature: a closed epistemological system designed to annihilate any trace of supernatural truth.

Dra. María Victoria Ibáñez-Soto: Your Holiness, in the halls of universities and in the most prestigious laboratories today breathes a suffocating dogmatism that calls itself "science," but which is in reality a philosophical doctrine. This system maintains that nothing exists beyond the quantifiable and that man is his own and only moral legislator. How did the Magisterium define this system of thought that functions as the intellectual engine of Freemasonry?

Leo XIII (Humanum Genus): It is the capital dogma of those who follow naturalism, as the name itself declares, that human nature and human reason ought in all things to be mistress and guide. Laying this down, they care little for duties to God, or pervert them by erroneous and vagrant opinions. For they deny that anything has been taught by God; they allow no dogma of religion or truth which cannot be understood by the human intelligence, nor any teacher who ought to be believed by reason of his authority.

Dra. María Victoria Ibáñez-Soto: That denial of revelation and of any mystery that transcends the narrowness of the material brain inevitably leads to a visceral hatred against the institution that guards that Revelation. Today we see how cancel culture and media siege attempt to silence Catholicism. Is this attack collateral damage of "secularism" or the primary and premeditated goal of the lodges?

Leo XIII (Humanum Genus): And since it is the special and exclusive duty of the Catholic Church fully to set forth in words truths divinely received, to teach, besides other divine helps to salvation, the authority of its office, and to defend the same with perfect purity, it is against the Church that the rage and attack of the enemies are principally directed. In those matters which regard religion let it be seen how the sect of the Freemasons acts, especially where it is more free to act without restraint, and then let any one judge whether in fact it does not wish to carry out the policy of the naturalists. By a long and persevering labor, they endeavor to bring about this result - namely, that the teaching office and authority of the Church may become of no account in the civil State.

Dra. María Victoria Ibáñez-Soto: Naturalism does not only attack supernatural dogmas. As a scientist, I observe that by denying God, man ends up denying his own humanity, his intellect, and his free will. He empties himself of meaning. Is it true, as you foresaw, that by destroying Revelation, modern rationalism would end up destroying natural reason as well, falling into pantheism or absolute nihilism?

Leo XIII (Humanum Genus): The naturalists go much further; for, having, in the highest things, entered upon a wholly ruinous course, they fall headlong to the bottom, either by reason of the weakness of human nature, or because God inflicts upon them the just punishment of their pride. Hence it happens that they no longer consider as certain and permanent those things which are fully understood by the natural light of reason, such as certainly are - the existence of God, the immaterial nature of the human soul, and its immortality. The sect of the Freemasons, by a similar course of error, is exposed to these same dangers... In fact, the sect allows great liberty to its votaries, so that to each side is given the right to defend its own opinion, either that there is a God, or that there is none; and those who resolutely contend that there is no God are as easily initiated as those who speak falsely of God, like the pantheists, which is nothing else than to retain an absurd caricature of the divine nature.

Dra. María Victoria Ibáñez-Soto: Once the Creator is destroyed, and the notion of an immortal and spiritual soul is destroyed, man is reduced to a complex animal, a slave to his instincts. This is the premise that today justifies genetic manipulation, transhumanism, and euthanasia. By amputating the ultimate end of man, what foundations remain to sustain ethics and the science of righteous action?

Leo XIII (Humanum Genus): When this greatest fundamental truth has been overturned or weakened, it follows that those truths, also, which are known by the teaching of nature must begin to fall—namely, that all things were made by the free will of God the Creator; that the world is governed by Providence; that souls do not die; that to this life of men upon the earth there will succeed another and an everlasting life. When these truths are done away with, which are as the principles of nature and important for knowledge and for practical use, it is easy to see what will become of both public and private morality. We say nothing of those more heavenly virtues, which no one can exercise or even acquire without a special gift and grace of God... But to take away the foundations of natural virtue, no one is more ready than the naturalists and Freemasons.

The dissection is impeccable. Pope Leo XIII did not limit himself to condemning a secret society; he exposed the epistemological fracture of the West. Masonic naturalism did not liberate reason; it imprisoned it within the narrow limits of materialism, preparing the ground for the dictatorship of relativism and the biological assault of our days. In the next part, Lic. Juan Pablo Torres-Lozano will address how this philosophical error translated into political and state engineering.

Legal Note: This critical analysis is carried out under the protection of Art. 28 and Art. 10 of Law 11.723 of Intellectual Property of the Argentine Republic. The fragments in the mouth of Leo XIII belong to the encyclical Humanum Genus (1884), a public domain document.