The Archbishop of Dijon, Mons. Antoine Hérouard, presided over the funeral rites of former minister and French senator François Patriat on Tuesday, August 25, at the collegiate church of Notre-Dame de Semur-en-Auxois, in the department of Côte-d’Or, France. Patriat, who died on August 19 at the age of 83, was publicly known for his membership in Freemasonry.
The celebration also presents a marked contrast with what occurred this same month in Italy. In Rome, Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the Pope’s vicar general for the diocese, denied ecclesiastical funeral rites to musician and Freemason Bruno Battisti D’Amario. Almost simultaneously, the Bishop of Ventimiglia-San Remo, Mons. Antonio Suetta, did the same with Mario Tarducci, former venerable master of a lodge.
Read also: Two Italian dioceses deny Catholic funerals to prominent Freemasonry members
Patriat’s Masonic membership
François Patriat’s connection to Freemasonry had become publicly known many years before his death. In 2017, L’Express, while reconstructing Emmanuel Macron’s relationships with religions and various philosophical circles during his political rise, reported a visit by the then-candidate to the Grand Orient of France, accompanied by Gérard Collomb and François Patriat, whom it explicitly identified as two Freemasons in his circle.
The relationship resurfaced publicly in later years. In 2023, Le Monde recalled Macron’s first visit to the Grand Orient of France, which took place in 2016, and likewise noted that Patriat had accompanied him.
Patriat had an extensive public career. A former member of the Socialist Party, he served as Secretary of State and later as Minister of Agriculture during Lionel Jospin’s government. He presided over the Regional Council of Burgundy from 2004 to 2015 and held a seat in the Senate for Côte-d’Or since 2008.
In 2016, he also became one of the first prominent political leaders to support Emmanuel Macron’s project. After Macron’s arrival at the Élysée, Patriat chaired the Senate group that provided parliamentary support for the French president and remained, until his death, one of his closest allies.
Patriat died on August 19 as a result of injuries sustained in a bicycle accident that occurred weeks earlier.
Membership in Freemasonry is incompatible with Catholic doctrine
The Church’s doctrine on Freemasonry is unequivocal. The Declaration on Masonic Associations, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on November 26, 1983, and signed by the then-prefect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, states that the Church’s negative judgment on these organizations remains “unaltered,” because their principles are incompatible with Catholic doctrine.
The declaration establishes that membership in Masonic associations is forbidden and that the faithful who join them “find themselves in a state of grave sin and cannot approach Holy Communion.” The document was expressly approved by Saint John Paul II.
In November 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed this doctrine in response to a query from the Bishop of Dumaguete in the Philippines. With Pope Francis’s approval, the Dicastery recalled that “active affiliation with Freemasonry by a member of the faithful is forbidden, due to the irreconcilability between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry.”
Regarding funeral rites, Canon 1184 of the Code of Canon Law establishes that, unless they had given some sign of repentance before death, ecclesiastical funerals must be denied, among others, to “other manifest sinners to whom ecclesiastical funerals cannot be granted without public scandal to the faithful.” When doubt exists, it is up to the local ordinary to be consulted and his decision followed.
Macron delivered a eulogy inside the collegiate church
The funeral rites held in Semur-en-Auxois were attended by a broad political representation led by Emmanuel Macron, who traveled to the town to bid farewell to one of his oldest and most faithful supporters.
The French president spoke inside the collegiate church and delivered an extensive eulogy of the former senator, especially recalling the support Patriat had given him when he began building the En Marche movement and evoking the loyalty he had maintained ever since. “Every time I turned around, François was there,” the president stated.
His speech extensively reviewed Patriat’s public career and the political history they shared. Macron recalled his arrival in the Senate, his socialist period, and above all the moment when Patriat decided to support him when his presidential project was just beginning.
The criterion of the Archdiocese of Dijon
The former senator’s Masonic membership was not private information known only after his death. It had appeared years earlier in the French press, and his proximity to the Grand Orient of France had also been publicly reflected.
However, it has not been publicly disclosed what circumstances Mons. Hérouard considered before personally presiding over Patriat’s funeral rites.