In Eminenti Apostolatus Specula

In Eminenti Apostolatus Specula, the apostolic constitution Pope Clement XII issued in his own name on 28 April 1738, the first papal condemnation of Freemasonry, is cited as a custodian source: the Holy See's own primary legal act, the direct authority for what the Roman Catholic Church itself has prohibited. Its strength is that it is the founding legal instrument stating its own grounds, the secrecy of masonic societies and the oaths their members swear, in the pope's own words. Its limit is that it states the church's own position and reasoning, not an independent historical account of Freemasonry or the political context that provoked the condemnation, which should be sought in independent scholarship.