As if they haven’t been public since the early 1800s, broadcast on TV & revealed by Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) in the 1970s film MURDER BY DECREE (using the same Jack the Ripper theory as FROM HELL).
I have a book entitled Secret Societies by Norman Mackenzie that was published about forty years ago in the US and Britain , in which he reprints a 19th century political cartoon (By Thomas Nast?) that has the Pope and a Freemason holding banners reading “You’re a Humbug!” and “You’re Another”, which implies some heat between the two groups at that time.
I’m not familiar with the reason the Catholic Church is anti-Mason (I’ll take your word for it being the secretive nature of the Society, but with reservations. No doubt the MacKenzie book touches on this, but it’s been too long since I read it.), but I’ve heard that the Catholics started up the Knights of Columbus (as noted above) as a rival organization . Or, perhaps, as William Poundstone put it in Big Secrets (where he reveals the Secret Initiation Ceremony), as a “consolation prize for the Good Boys who didn’t join the Masons”.
I don’t particularly care that the’ve been revealed; I am bound by my oath and I will not discuss them. I would far rather discuss why the principles of Masonry are seen as being in opposition to anyone’s religion. Actually, I wouldn’t, because there will always be that disagreement and there is no point in furthing the argument. It just strikes me as very sad that some demoninations feel theirs is the only way to go and therefore anything that even seems to contradict them is evil, false, anti-Christ and what have you.
At least two members of my former small ELCA Lutheran Church are Freemasons. Both have served on the Church Council, commune regularly etc., so the restriction in the LBW must refer only to worship practices. My Masonic friends tell me that their rituals are in no way intended to be a proxy for worshhip, so it’s not exactly a big deal for them. Masonic ritual is ritual, Lutheran Worship is worship, and the two need never clash.
One of the Masons told me that, upon moving to our city years ago, he had been visited by the Pastor of the local LCMS church. Seeing a throw-pillow embroidered with the Masonic seal on my friends couch, the Pastor had informed my friend that he could not commune in the church if he remained a Mason.
The early 20th century [Catholic Encyclopedia: Freemasonry](http:// newadventorg) article lays out the traditional conflicts between the RCC and Freemasonry over a 200 year period. Based on its date (1908 - 1920, a time when the Church was militantly defensive, particularly in the U.S.), it provides citations for antagonism that characterized the earlier relationship as well as pointing out some of the religious bases for some of the Catholic reservations.
This Masonic article notes that there is no current anti-Catholic bias within Freemasonry, but is even-handed enough to recognize some of the statements that could have given rise to that impression.
This article on a Masonic site lays out the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH LAW REGARDING FREEMASONRY up to the present. (Note that this article seems to indicate tht my anecdote (which occurred in the early 1970s) may have been overtaken by Cardinal Ratzinger’s desire to return the Church to 1870).
Sheesh!
Everyone knows that the Freemasons are really the Knights Templar, which are hiding the bones of Jesus’ wife, Mary Magdelene. Likewise, everyone knows that the RCC is dedicated to hiding the truth about Jesus’ connubial bliss.
It’s in Revelations, people!!
Sua
Well, not officially, just at the time they were founded, most of the members were more anti-Catholic on a “snob” level, more like, “Oh, those silly superstitious fish-eaters!” That’s all. I don’t believe they were ever established to combat Catholicism, or that it was an official policy-just that they weren’t too fond of the church. And I realize they’re not religious, either.
That and you have the obvious suspicion of “secret societies” and all that paranoia.
As for the KoC, basically, there’ not “based on”, the Masons, but that it’s a Catholic fraternity that some refer to as the “Catholic Masons”. Mostly they seem to do charitable work related to religious issues (the anti-abortion movement, for example, or Catholic missions in your developing countries)
Personally, I think the church should probably give it up by now, but then, there’s a lot of things that they should give up-which really don’t pertain to this thread.
BTW, does the Orthodox church forbid membership?
I dug out my copy of MacKenzie’s book last night. It’s actually an edited compendium, with the Freemasonry chapter written by Mervyn Jones. The editorial cartoon I remember is the right vintage, but it’s from the British magazine Punch, not from Thomas Nast.
There really was heat on both sides, but it wasn’t a religious or a philosophical dispute. It was political. We tend to forget that until the 19th century the Pope had temporal authority, as well as spiritual authority, and he controlled the Papal States in the center of the Italian peninsula, effectively cutting Italy in half. Garibaldi and his followers wanted a united secular Italian state, and they naturally opposed the Pope. Garibaldi and his bunch were also Freemasons. Some went further in their statements against the Pope.
“Grand Master Lemmi (presumably of the Italian FreeMasons)declared: ‘We have applied the Chisel to the last refuge of superstition, and the Vatican will fall beneath our vivifying Mallet.’ Masons, he urged, should work ‘to scatter the stones of the Vatican, so as to build with them the Temple of the Emancipated Nation.’”
So there really was an opposition between the Freemasons in Italy and the Vatican. It’s against this backdrop that you have to see the encyclicals against Masonry. There were ten of them between 1821 and 1902. (Pope Clement XII had issued an encyclical condemning the Masons in 1738, which Jones also sees as political). The encyclicals didn’t limit the condemnation to Italian Freemasonry, and so the conflict spread.
“Since the end of World War II, the warfare between the Church and Freemasonry has been largely a thing of the past…” declares Jones, but the ban on Catholics joining the Masons is still there.
(Disclosure) I used to be Greek Orthodox.
Quite vigourously. One cannot be a Mason and an Orthodox Christian in good standing with the Church.
Addendum: Here is the 1933 Statement on Freemasonry issued by the Church of Greece – it may clarify some of the reasons why Freemasonry is so opposed.
I’ve been an Ancient Free & Accepted Mason for slightly more than 24 years. I am a 32nd Degree Mason and am a Past Master of my home lodge. Not once in all that time has another Mason called me over and said, “Hey, here is an ancient secret of the universe but don’t tell anyone.” I’ve never been exposed to any mysteries and I’ve never heard any Mason say, “You know, we really are a Naturistic set of guys, aren’t we?” I have been invited to attend services in any number of churches by fellow Masons, all of whom happen to have been members of one or the other Christian churches.
As I recall, the OP asked why the Catholic Church opposed Masonry and that question has been answered several times. All this other stuff is pretty much extraneous.
However, LouisB, it is helpful to have access to the various explanations, justifications or rationalizations that are offered for the hostility of (small-o)rthodox Christian Churches towards the Freemasonry, as an insight to the point-of-view. To use an analogy from a more recent clash of worldviews, there’s got to be more to it than just “they hate our freedom,” even if that’s what it looks like.
It may be helpful to some, but one should bear in mind that the (small-o)rthodx (I really like that) Christian Churches have an agenda. They are so convinced that their view is the only right and proper one that they are willing to condem anyone and everone who might differ with them in even the slightest degree and that their willingness to condem does not apply only to Masonry. Speaking as an individual and not as a Mason, it is my opinion that organized religion is repsponsible for more grief, trouble, and strife in this world than any other group that has ever existed. I held that belief long before I became a Mason and expect to hold it until I die. That has nothing to do with the subject of debate in this thread, though, I am just throwing it out there. I still believe the OP’s question has been answered and all this other stuff is just stuff.
Well, I was raised Catholic and born in the last year of Vatican II. I only spent two years in Catholic school and never heard anything about Masons there, nor have I ever heard an anti-Masonic sermon or anything. I was told (by my Mom, who grew up in a strict school in the 50s) that Masonry was forbidden because its teachings were anti-Catholic–were never told which ones exactly.
Besides, we had the Knights of Columbus. My grandpa was a Grand Knight by the time he died in 2001, very active and popular, and it was mostly guys sitting around drinking beer and playing poker and watching movies with the neighborhood (pre-VCR days). Their numbers were dwindling. But when Grandpa died (the day after 9/11, which made for a weird funeral) about twenty of them came in, in feathered hats, capes, and swords, and did a very touching ceremony for him. It was all in English except for a Paternoster and not at all secretive, just sort of a military-style memorial service. Never heard Grandpa talk against the Masons either.
And the very Catholic Speaker of the House, Billy Bulger, smiled along with the rest of us at the ceremony as a bunch of MA Masons, with aprons and top hats (and their other clothes too), ceremonially re-laid the cornerstone of the State House in 1998 for its bicentennial. The Masons were part of the ceremony with other groups, they have a nice big lodge right on Boylston Street with beavers on the facade, and nobody thinks twice.
I agree with everything you said, and you were able to state it far better than I have. However, I was wondering, I have heard that in order to become a mason, you had to declare in public to believe in a god. Do you believe in a god, and not organized religion, or did you just swear that you believed when you in fact don’t.
Just asking.
The Catholic Church used to hold a lot of atavistic doctrines – e.g., that the Jews were to blame for Jesus’ death – that were jettisoned by the Vatican II Council. Did they change the Church’s views on Freemasonry too?
No offense, but did you bother to read the entire thread?
One abbreviation too many for me. What’s LBW?
Incidentally, this is GD, not GQ, so I think it’s quite appropriate that discussion should broaden. No one has anything to hide?
Lutheran Book of Worship.
I agree with Genghis Bob’s assessment; I think it is more about preserving the solemnity of the church service. Lutheran funerals are about Jesus and His promise of Eternal Life. If you’ve ever been to one, you would understand why they don’t leave any room for the pageants and productions of other organizations.
Personally, I think that ideally funerals should reflect the person who is being buried; they should give the attendees some insight into who this person was. But that’s just my opinion and no one is forcing me or anyone else to be Lutheran or have a Lutheran funeral.