I had a drink with some of our younger parishioners this morning after the "High Mass". The subject of Free Masonry came up. One or two of the men had been invited to join, thank God they hadn't. English Masonry is hardly comparable to its continental cousin, it doesn't seek to overthrow the Catholic Church. I must say I do not know the canonical position of English Masons, as they do not take an oath to overthrow the Church, are they actually excommunicated? I don't know, but obviously the very nature and doctrines separate a Free Mason from communion with the Church. It is incompatible with belief in Jesus Christ.
Right wing French Catholics see Masonry everywhere conspiring against the Church, and blame the infiltration of the hierarchy by it, as a major cause of the Catholic Church's condition there. We can hardly blame them for such suspicion after the 1905 masonic legislation which led to the expulsion of Catholic contemplatives from that country.
I think for the most part "Free Masonry" is a metaphor for Enlightenment thinking, the idea that one religion is as as good any other, that God is in someway "Reason", that Masonry and not Christ in the full life of the Church is the way to Him or rather "It".
Masonry is actually "Anti-Christ" in Cardinal Biffi's terms. It might take on Christian expressions, and do splendid charitable things, especially for its members but as it denies the uniqueness of His salvation it is indeed his enemy, his "anti-". It is impossible to be a Catholic, in good standing with the Church that believes in the uniqueness of Christ and be a Mason. The sad state of the Church of England, whose clergy, at least in the past have been much influenced is a reflection of the effects this pernicious organisation has on a Christian community. It sucks the values out of Christianity and spits out the person of Christ, the True God, True Man.
Masonry is, I would contend, one of the major influences of "Relativism" on European and North American culture, its spawn is found in much modern philosopy, certainly in Empiricism and Existentialism as well as the New Age Movement and in modern "Spirituality", in the idea of "your truth, my truth" rather than "The Truth".
Read what the Regent of Apostolic Penitentiary has to say about Free Masonry.
9 comments:
What a splendid post! Freemasonry in England is (almost) just as you say (I'd take issue with your view that their charity is mainly inward: most of the Masons I know are into supporting Third World projects).
It's hard to think of portly middle class Middle Englishmen as the embodiment of the Enlightenment, but that doesn't make it less true, and it doesn't make Masonry less worrying. The fact is that many people who are inspired by well meaning philanthropy and a wish for companionship are seduced into a movement which turns their good intentions into dust.
Where on earth was that photograph taken?
I don't know much about freemasonry beyond the fact that they seem to be a fairly benign body in Britain. But what I don't understand is how worthy Anglicans, clerical or lay, can belong to it because they seem to worship, I have been told, a semi-pagan god composed of Yahweh, Baal and Osiris and refer to him as Yahbulon, the Architect Divine. I may be wrong and, if any happen to look at this blog, it would be interesting to see how they explain their membership. To me they seem to be a group of old codgers and young careerists who join for business reasons and a cheerful booze up. But I still don't understand why so many Anglican bishops belong or belonged to them. It would be interesting to know more.
Thirty years ago, entering the print trade in Glasgow involved two simultaneous invitations, neither of which one was expected to decline:
to the The Orange and Masonic Lodges. I was happy to get "signed in" as a guest to either and drink bad lager at club prices (25p a pint, IIRC); one boozy night, I was taken backstage and shown the mallets, in the expectation that the sight of these comical objects would incline me to a more reverential attitude. Or perhaps I misunderstood. Anyway, my advancement in the trade was, I'm glad to confirm, secured by other, more creditable means (not unconnected with Mrs T's assault on the NGA).
The picture comes from the West Lancashire Grand Lodge website
The attached was published on the EWTN news site yesterday:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=76468
Masonry by its very nature and spirit can never be compatible with Catholicism and Christ. It seeks man and not God. It is a perversion of charity and a mockery of true fraternal love and fellowship. Indeed they may do charitable works of a material nature and assist each other, but this fallacious argument is used so often to justify the wider acts of people and organisations in this day and age, ‘see they do x, so they can’t be that bad?’ The focus must be Christ and Christ centred and through Him the salvation of, and then the welfare of our brothers and sisters in Christ and His Church. For we are all so, even they who do not believe.
To illustrate this from a Catholic point of view perhaps, I read the other day, a quote from Mother Theresa when asked what made her saddest in the world the response was ‘receiving communion in the hand’, and a comment about a disregard for Our Lord’s Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. This made me stop and think as it should all who work in Catholic charities. In the midst of the material charity of the work that she did, Christ and a concern for Him still came first. The material charity was motivated and lived in and through a spirit of true Charity, the focus was Our Lord and not man. We help our brothers because we are brothers in Christ, in imitation of Christ. This is not the spirit of masonry, vows to over throw the Church or not.
Of course Holy Mother Church makes this clear in her teaching that it is the fact that these societies seek man, are secretive, exclusive and promote a false sense of equality and material well being outside of God that we reject them and they are gravely sinful in their orientation and therefore are by belonging to them. (Pius IX, Denzinger 1718a, LeoXIII, Denzinger 1859). Leo XIII in Humanum Genus made it clear that it is a matter of salvation for a Catholic and that, ‘ it is not proper to permit association with them, or to assist them in any way.’ This teaching has certainly recently has been reaffirmed.
In BMV.
Look at those pathetic "Christian" clerics with those devil worshippers!!!
"devil worshippers"
Really, Andrew? I appreciate they have all those extra-ordinary names for God, including Baal. I think that is in a sense a bit of Enlightenement thinking which ultimately is trying to say that all belief is the same and ultimately irrelevant, including belief in the devil. All that matters is belief in Man.
It is the ultimate Anti-Christ in Biffi terms.
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