Part I -- The Catholic Church's Diabolical Enemy
On November 26, 1983, the Vatican issued an explicit warning
to all members of the Church's hierarchy throughout the world.
Condemning any and all Masonic associations, the warning stated,
"the Church's negative judgment in regard to Masonic associations
remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered
irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore
membership in them remains forbidden.
"The Faithful who enrole in Masonic associations are in
a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion."
Prepared by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Vatican's
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , and approved
by the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, the document was published
in the December 5, 1983 issue of L'Osservatore Romano. Yes,
It's Still a Sin!
This warning was issued to counter an apparent ambiguity in
the newly promulgated Code of Canon Law in which specific reference
to and condemnation of Masonry had been omitted. Freemasons
had seized upon this omission as an excuse to encourage Catholics
to join the lodges, saying that now it was permissible for Catholics
to be Masons. "Wrong" said the Vatican. The omission
of the condemnation of Masonry did not imply a reversal of the
Church's prohibition. It was due, "to an editorial criterion
which was followed also in the case of other [secret] associations
likewise unmentioned inasmuch as they are contained in wider
categories."
Pope John Paul II authorized the widest possible promulgation
of this declaration condemning Masonry and forbidding Catholics
from joining the secret society, thus reaffirming the numerous
previous condemnations by Holy Mother the Church beginning with
Pope Clement III. In his 1738 encyclical In Eminenti Clement
warned Catholics "to abstain from intercourse with those
[Masonic and other secret] societies... to avoid ex- communication
which will be the penalty imposed upon all those contravening
this Bewildered
When told of the Church's consistent and continuing condemnation
of Masonry, many uninformed Catholics ask, "how come I've
never heard of the Church's condemnations before?" Expressing
disbelief, they offer one or more of several standard objections
to the Church's
teaching: (This questioning of Church teaching is one of Masonry's
chief goals.)
A) "My father (or husband, or friend) is a Mason. He is
a good person and would never be a part of an anti-Catholic
organization;
B) "I know a Catholic Mason and a priest told him that
the Church no longer opposed Masonry;
C) "My fellow worker is a Mason - a Shriner - and he has
told me their circuses raise money for Children's Hospitals."
Masons claim that Masonry is open to any one of any faith -
even Catholics - and that it is a brotherhood to help other
Masons.
All Masons take a deadly oath for each degree up to the 33rd
degree. They swear allegiance to Masonry above God and country
and under pain of death, swear never to reveal the secrets of
Freemasonry - not even to their wives.
Therefore no matter what a Mason claims about their supposed
good works or good intentions, they cannot be believed.
Their real purpose is to undermine the teachings of the Catholic
faith. They are the true masters of deceit. Contrary to what
non- are told, Masonry is a racist and sexist craft not open
to blacks or women. (Blacks have their own quasi-Masonic group.)
Specifically anti-Catholic, it is working for a secularhumanist
new world order - a Masonic Republic.
The consistent urgency of the many encyclicals and other papal
condemnations is still reaffirmed. At Catholic University, in
Washington, D.C., on June 30, 1990, in a speech to the World
Apostolate of Fatima, Father Robert J. Bradley, S.J., stated,
"Masonry is Secular Humanism incarnate. Masonry is also
satanism incarnate." Desecration of the Blessed Sacrament
In April 1991, Canadian-born Edouard Cardinal Gagnon was interviewed
by Stafano M. Paci for 30 Days magazine. Cardinal Gagnon told
Paci that in Canada when he was a professor of moral theology
and canonist to Cardinal Leger, he had direct experience with
excommunicated Catholics "who had stolen the Sacred Host
on Masonry's orders. They had been well paid for the task and
some [later] regretted their action asking the Church to pardon
them."
Paci asked Gagnon, "But surely this sort of thing is more
typical of a satanic sect ... ?" Cardinal Gagnon replied,
"No, some forms of Masonry also celebrate black Masses.
The
episode I have just related took place in Canada where Masonry
is not believed to be anti-religious and where some chaplains
are Masons ..."
Cardinal Gagnon went on to explain that Masonry in North America,
so called Anglo-Masonry is just as "fundamentally anti-
as European or Grand Orient Masonry. The Masonic use of the
Sacred Host in a black mass is the ultimate sacrilege, and therefore
to make excuses for Masonry is to make excuses for satan! 'Their
God is the Devil"
The official position of American Freemasonry has been outlined
in their publication The New Age. The September 1950 issue describes
"God's Plan in America" (according to the distorted
view of Masonry) and asserts that Masonry is God's plan for
America and that the Catholic Church is in opposition to this
plan of God. Masons freely invoke the name of "God"
but their god is not the God of the Holy Trinity. In 1829, Pope
Pius VIII warned Catholics "Their law is untruth; their
God is the devil; and their cult is turpitude."
In other reports, we will describe some of the past Masonic
successes in starting wars, spawning revolutions, causing assasinations
and overthrowing Catholic monarchies. Their diabolical activities
in America and their plans "for a new world Masonic Order"
will be revealed; and their promotion of the deadly heresy of
indifferentism (which maintains that all religions are of equal
value) will be discussed.
Part II - The Roots of Apostasy
In his May 23, 1958, address to the Seventh Week Pastoral Adaption
Conference, Pope Pius XII warned the Faithful, "The roots
of modern apostasy lay in scientific atheism, dialectical materialism,
rationalism, illuminism, laicism, and Freemasonry - which is
the mother of them all ..."Freemasonry, sometimes referred
to as the Brotherhood, the Lodge, the Craft or the fraternity,
then, is the breeder of modern apostasy which has grown to alarming
proportions since Pius XII's warning. Masonry has not changed
its teachings since Pope Pius' condemnation, nor had it changed
from 1751 when Pope Benedict XIV in his Pontifical Constitution
Prividas described Freemasonry as a secret sect which "would
lead to evil and perversion". Four Reasons for Condemnation
Why has the Catholic Church repeatedly condemned Masonry and
similar secret societies since In Eminenti written by Clement
XII in 1738? Benedict XIV offered four reasons in Prividas:
1) Masonry's secrets; 2) its oaths; 3) its propagation of indifferentism;
and 4) its opposition to Church and state.
1) As a Mason works his way up through the 33 degrees of the
Scottish Rite, he is promised that he will attain the secret
knowledge of the "ancients" - secrets available only
to the illuminated or gnostic adepts. Masonry is a pagan religion
which adopts various religious symbols to deceive the unwary,
as in the case of the letter "G" which is often used
within the two other Masonic symbols, the square and the compass.
Many uninformed Christians assume that this "G" stands
for the Trinitarian God, when it actually represents the Masonic
gnosis or generation. Interestingly, a non-Catholic author,
William T. Still in his book New World Order. The Ancient Plan
of Secret Societies (Huntington House 1990) asserts, "Though
few Masons know it, the god of Masonry is Lucifer. What's the
difference between (worship of) Lucifer and satan? Luciferians
think they are doing good." This is the "ultimate"
secret of Masonry and of similar secret quasiMasonic societies
- the worship of Lucifer. Still writes that Masons "believe
Lucifer never fell to earth; that Lucifer is really God, and
has been since the dawn of creation". Adonay is their blasphemous
term for the one true God of Christendom whom Luciferians denounce
as the god of evil. In 1829, Pope Pius VII specifically identified
Masonry's god as "the devil". Lower degree Freemasons
are not told of this secret and higher degree Freemasons will
never admit it for the oaths forbid them to divulge Masonic
secrets.
2) Masons take blood oaths in which they swear undivided primary
allegiance to Masonry - over Christ, over country, and over
their wives and family under pain of a violent death. In the
ceremony for the 30th degree of Scottish Rite Masonry, the Knight
Kadosh degree, the newly initiated must heap calumnies upon
the Catholic Church and crush symbols of the Pope under his
foot.
3) The third Masonic evil condemned by Prividas is their promotion
of the idea that all religions are equal. This is the heresy
of Indifferentism, that would equate Christianity with Hinduism,
with Buddhism, with aboriginal pantheism. However their unconstrained
hatred of the Catholic Church belies this feigned equality.
Unfortunately, the ethnic and religious diversity in America
subtly indoctrinates the unsuspecting Catholic into tolerating
if not embracing this Masonically promulgated heresy of Indifferentism.
(I have debated with a Catholic priest who, infected with Indifferentism,
equated Catholicism with an Protestant sect and saw no need
to encourage conversions until I reminded him of the grace received
from valid sacraments.)
4) The fourth reason for the Church's condemnation of Masonry
is due to Masonry's consistent efforts to undermine the Catholic
Church and overthrow Catholic monarchies. A classic example
is the assassination of the Hapsburg Crown Prince in 1914. On
June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the
AustroHungarian Empire, was murdered by a group of assassins,
one of whom was Gavrilo Princep, described in the Masonic journal
New Age as a member of the Black Hand, a "south Slav revolutionary
organization which was a progeny of Freemasonry." During
his trial, Princep testified that Ciganovitch, a fellow assassin
"told me he was a Freemason" and "that the heir
apparent had been
condemned to death by a Freemason's lodge."
The Serbian Freemasons wanted to bring down the Hapsburg dynasty,
the direct successors to the Holy Roman Emperors, because it
was a Roman Catholic dynasty. The assassination was the spark
which ignited World War I after which the victorious allies
(including Great Britain whose King George V was the Grandmaster
of British Freemasonry) dismembered the Austro- Empire, replacing
it with masonic-style republics which exiled the Hapsburgs.
The Grandmaster of Hungarian Masonry, Dr. Arpad Bokay rejoiced
in the Masonic victory stating on November 2, 1918, "The
Masonic program is also the program of the national Hungarian
council and of the popular government which has just been formed."
(Much of the present-day troubles in the Balkans can be attributed
to the replacement of the Austro- Empire by the violently anti-Catholic
Serbian Masons.) Masonry has been the greatest generator of
anti-Christian revolutions since the French Revolution of 1789
when the illuminated Grand Orient Masonic lodges orchestrated
the bloody overthrow of the Catholic monarchy, the violent persecution
of the Catholic Church, and the diabolic murders of Catholic
priests and nuns. False Idea of the Craft
One of Freemasonry's greatest successes has been its ability
to deceive present-day Christians, including Catholics, into
believing that it is nothing more than a public-spirited fraternal
organization which operates Shriner circuses to benefit children's
burn hospitals. The propaganda value of these activities has
deceived many but not the Church which continues its 250-year
condemnation of Freemasonry and forbids Catholics under pain
of mortal sin from joining. In Their God is The Devil, Paul
Fisher explains that specific goals of Scottish Rite Masonry
and "the general aims and purposes of the Rite are in militant
opposition to the Roman Catholic Church and any person, organization
or activity which might further the interests of the Roman Catholic
Church."
No wonder that on November 26, 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger, with
the explicit approval of Pope John Paul II, warned the worldwide
Church that no bishop and no priest may make exception to the
rule prohibiting membership in Freemasonry!
III - This Foul Plague
"We wish it to be your rule first of all to tear away
the mask from Freemasonry and to let it be seen as it really
is" warned Pope Leo XIII in his monumental encyclical Human
Genus( 1884).
Referring to Masonry as "this foul plague," Leo XIII
urged pastoral sermons warning the Faithful that Masonry and
related secret societies were "seducing men and enticing
them into their ranks" in order to fill them with
"the depravity of their opinions and the wickedness of
their acts".
Leo XIII was by no means the first Pope to warn of the evils
of Freemasonry. Pope Clement XII had been the first to do so
in 1738, then Benedict XIV, Pius VI, Leo XII, Pius VII, Pius
VIII, Gregory XVI, and Pius IX. In Human Genus, Leo XIII emphasized
the urgency of the earlier warnings and stated that the Freemasons
"are boldly rising up against God Himself. They are planning
the destruction of Holy Church ... and this with the set purpose
of utterly despoiling the nations of Christendom ..."
Freemasons proclaim their respect for "the great architect
of the universe" which the uninitiated are deceived into
believing is God the Father, first person of the Holy Trinity.
However, in 1829, Pope Pius VIII had unmasked that deception
in his encyclical Traditi Humiliatate wherein he declared that
Masonry's "God is the devil".
With so many Popes repeatedly issuing condemnations of Freemasonry
since 1737, is it possible that Catholics, including the clergy
and some members of the hierarchy, have been deceived in the
past and could still be deceived today by Masonic protestations
of innocence?
America's first Catholic Bishop, John Carroll of Baltimore,
was a close friend of many of the Freemasons who founded the
United States. In her book The Star Spangled Heresy (1992),
Solange Hertz quotes Bishop Carroll "In the U.S. our religious
system has undergone a revolution, if possible, more extraordinary
than our political one." Hertz constructs a solid case
to support her contention that Carroll was injected with the
Masonic virus of revolution adding that "As the American
Revolution provided the dress rehearsal for the French Revolution
and all subsequent revolts against Christendom .It was Carroll,
Hertz contends, who laid the groundwork for an American Catholic
Church as opposed to the Roman Catholic Church in America.
Bishop Carroll was very favorably disposed to Masonry even
though Masonry had already been condemned by several Popes and
Masonic membership by a Catholic incurred automatic excommunication.
William J. Whalen, in Christianity and American Freemasonry,
writes "Daniel Carroll, brother of the first American Bishop
was active in Masonry and apparently Bishop Carroll did not
consider the Papal ban applicable to this country until some
time after 1800."
Several generations after Bishop Carroll, James Cardinal Gibbons,
who received his red hat in 1886, was Archbishop of Baltimore.
The ever-gracious Gibbons was a friend of the presidents and
of the people.
Cardinal Gibbons was such a good friend of labor that he vigorously
supported and defended the Knights of Labor (K of L), a group
organized in 1869 by Uriah Stephens, a Mason as well as a member
of other secret societies. Hertz says that these groups and
the Knights of Labor were "under occult direction".
Other American Bishops agreed with Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley
who condemned the Knights of Labor, "No Catholic with any
idea of the spirit of his religion will encourage them."
Even more adamant was Bishop Corrigan of New York who held that
Catholics who continued as members of the Knights of Labor should
be deprived of the Sacraments.
Contrary to the Lord's Prayer - "lead us not into temptation",
Cardinal Gibbons defended this quasi-Masonic secret society
explaining that even though Catholics would be exposed to "the
evil influences of the most dangerous associates, even of atheists,
communists and anarchists ... it is but one of the trials of
faith which our brave American Catholics are accustomed to meeting
almost daily." Gibbons travelled to Rome to defend Masonry
and the Knights of Labor. According to Hertz, Gibbons "shared
the prevailing Americanist view of American Masonry and its
affiliates as 'different' from continental varieties and essentially
benign". (Recently, in a private interview, the Vatican's
Cardinal Gagnon told this writer that Masonry in America is
as evil as Masonry in Europe - both are diabolical and anti-Catholic.)
Cardinal Gibbons' support of the Masonic K of L was cause for
division within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in America.
Gibbons and his allies continued in the tradition of Bishop
Carroll - they preferred to garner the favor of the Masonic
American political structure than to adhere to the Vatican's
spiritual authority and hierarchical structure. Rome took action
and on January 22, 1899, Pope Leo XIII issued his letter Testam
Benevolantiae to Cardinal Gibbons specifically outlining the
heresy of Americanism and calling for "an end to certain
contentions which have arisen lately among you, and which disturb
the minds, if not of all, at least of many". "The
Pope condemned", writes Hertz, "the Americanist practices
of watering down the Faith in a false ecumenical spirit, of
promoting false 'liberty' proclaimed by the Revolution".
Although Masonry infected some of the Catholic hierarchy in
earlier days, others, like Archbishop Hughes of New York, proclaimed
that the Catholic Church's objective was "to convert all
pagan nations and all Protestant nations".
The history of the Catholic Church in America reveals a relentless
war by Satan and his agents to infect and to divide the Church
from the very beginning, and those Masonic efforts to spread
the heresy of indifferentism amongst Catholics have continued
into the second half of the 20th Century.
In 1991, the American Research Foundation published Their God
is the Devil (American Research Foundation, PO Box 5687, Baltimore,
MD 21210, $12) in which Paul Fisher listed the many Papal condemnations
of Freemasonry and then cited examples of some in the American
Catholic Church who disregard the Vatican's warnings:
1) In 1985, Siena College, a Catholic college in New York,
let its campus be used by the Masonic youth group, Order of
DeMolay. The Albany Times Union reported that at the convention,
one 17 year old boy was tied to a bed and sexually abused by
six other youths. The article also revealed that the ordinary
of Albany, Bishop Howard Hubbard, had been a speaker at a recent
Masonic event.
2) "In South Bend, Indiana during Lent", wrote Fisher,
"Catholics including Priests and ranking members of the
Knights of Columbus (K of C) met weekly with Masons for
Lenten breakfasts and ecumenical conversations."
3) "On March 28, 1976, the late Terence Cardinal Cooke,
Archbishop of New York, appeared as the principal speaker at
a gathering of 3,000 Masons. His Eminence saw the 'joyful event'
as a 'road to friendship' between the Catholic Church and Freemasonry
and he 'lamented' past estrangements between 'your ancestors'
and 'some clerics'." Those "clerics" included
twelve Popes who had condemned Freemasonry directly or indirectly
in at least 43 solemn documents!
4) In 1981, Bishop Louis Gelineau of Providence, Rhode Island
was presented with the Grand Master Award by his state's Masonic
Grand Lodge for "best exemplifying the principles of Freemasonry".
In Cincinnati, Ohio, Gregory Flannery of the Mt. Washington
Press, investigated a bizarre situation in that Catholic Archdiocese
and on May 8, 1991 reported his discoveries in an article titled
"Masonic Master screens city's Catholic priests".
Flannery revealed that Joseph Wicker, the psychologist who screens
candidates for the archdiocesan seminary of Cincinnati, is "the
worshipful Master of the Masonic Lodge in Mt. Washington and
is a member of the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rose Crucis,
better known as Rosicrucians".
Archdiocesan spokesman Ray George told Flannery that Archbishop
Daniel Pilarczyk "is apparently ignorant of Wicker's involvement
in Freemasonry", adding, " 'personally, I don't see
where that would be a conflict' ". Wicker himself admitted
to Flannery, "I go to Church once in a while but I'm not
really a practicing Catholic", then he added that he does
practice Rosicrucian "experiments" and hopes to revive
Masonic spiritual pursuits during his term as worshipful master.
Since that interview, the Archdiocesan policy is one of silence.
Our researcher tried to interview Dr. Wicker in October of '94
and Ray George in January of this year both refused to answer
our questions. Am air of secrecy seems to permeate the Archdiocese
of Cincinnati concerning this unusual situation - testimony,
perhaps, to the revelation of Pope Paul VI that "the smoke
of Satan has crept into the Church itself"
