In addition to these activities, [Jean] Tourniac was involved in an ambitious Traditionalist project to restore good relations between Masonry and the Catholic Church. This project was principally the work of a Jesuit priest, Michel Riquet, and of Jean Baylot, who was a Mason, a parliamentary deputy, and the Paris chief of police. Both were convinced – on partly but not exclusively Traditionalist grounds – of the complementarity of Catholic exoteric practice and Masonic esoteric practice, as was Tourniac. Their activities to this end were reflected in both publications and organizations. All three wrote books and articles arguing for the compatibility of Masonry and Catholicism, and in the late 1960s or early 1970s Riquet and Baylot together established the Fraternité d’Abraham (Fraternity of Abraham) as a prototype for Catholic-Masonic cooperation – not a lodge but a commanderie (command – the term used for the principal divisions of Medieval orders such as the Knights of Malta) under Masonic auspices.
It is not known what part these activities played in the closest the Catholic Church has yet come to a reconciliation with Masonry, a private letter issued by Cardinal Fanjo Seper, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the effect that it was permissible for a Catholic to belong to a lodge under the Grand National Lodge of France, the Obedience to which Tourniac and Baylot belonged. This ruling was overturned after 1983, however, by a subsequent ruling from a later prefect, Cardinal Ratzinger [reference mine].
– Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (2004), p. 143