the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St. Bonaventure in Rome, that doctrine has not changed. Girotti, quoting the declaration, reiterated that masonic philosophy is incompatible with Catholic faith. Likewise, reacting to the news of an 85-year-old Catholic priest, Rosario Francesco Esposito, becoming a member in a Masonic lodge, Girotti told Vatican Radio in May 2007 that the declaration "." Girotti called on priests who had declared themselves to be Freemasons to be disciplined by their direct superiors. In 2013, a Catholic priest at Megève, France, was "stripped of his functions at the request of the" for being an active member of the Grand Orient de France. Current position of the Church on Catholics joining the Fraternity The Catholic Church's current norm on Masonic associations is the 1983 Declaration on Masonic associations. The 1983 declaration states that Catholics "who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion." The 1983 declaration clarified the omission of association names in 1983 Code of Canon Law (1983 CIC) by stating that the "editorial criterion which was followed" did not mention association names since "they are contained in wider categories." canon 1374 states that a Catholic "who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; one who promotes or takes office in such an association is to be punished with an interdict." This contrasted with the 1917 Code of Canon Law (1917 CIC), which explicitly declared that joining Freemasonry entailed automatic excommunication. The omission of association names, like Masonic associations, from the prompted Catholics and Masons to question whether the ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons was still active, especially after the perceived liberalization of the Church after Vatican II. A number of Catholics became Freemasons assuming that the Church had softened its stance. The 1983 declaration addressed this misinterpretation of the Code of Canon Law, clarifying that: The "irreconcilable principles" that the Church believes Freemasonry possesses include a "deistic God", naturalism, and religious indifferentism. Near the time that the 1983 declaration was released, bishops' conferences in Germany and America also released independent reports on the question of Freemasonry. The conclusions of the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) in its 1980 report on Masonry and cited by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in its 1985 letter included that "research on the ritual and on the Masonic mentality makes it clear