p. 9Freemasonry and the Church

The two most effectively organized bodies of men in the world to-day are the Catholic Church and Freemasonry. Both have a supreme head or ruler, whose rule is law for all subordinates. An edict issued by the head of the Church, the Pope of Rome, finds its way to the Catholic member, the highest as well as the poorest, wherever dispersed on the face of the globe. Just so does an order emanating from the head of Masonry reach every member of that organization on earth. The Church has effective moral means and spiritual weapons to secure observance of its mandates. Masonry has more effective material weapons and means with which to secure obedience.

Each trying to rule the intellectual and moral life of the human race, an antagonism of life and death must necessarily exist between the two.

The great commission or charter of the church is given in these words of our Lord: “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations. … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” (Matt. xxviii, 19, 20.)

According to Cardinal Manning, the Vatican Council, pp. 65, 66, there are five points contained in the above words:

“1st.—The perpetuity and universality of the mission of the Church as the teacher of mankind.”

“2d.—The deposit of the Truth and of the Commandments, that is, of the Divine Faith and Law entrusted to the Church.”

“3d.—The office of the Church, as the sole interpreter of the Faith and of the Law.”

“4th.—That it has the sole Divine jurisdiction upon earth, in matters of salvation, over the reason and the will of men.”

“5th.—That in the discharge of this office our Lord is with His Church always, and to the consummation of the world.”

“The doctrine of faith and the doctrine of morals are here explicitly described. The Church is infallible in this deposit of revelation. And in this deposit are truths and morals both of the natural and supernatural order; for the religious truths and morals of the natural order are taken up into the revelation of the order of grace, and form a part of the object of infallibility.”

“The phrase then ‘Faith and Morals,’ signifies the whole revelation of faith; the whole way of salvation through faith; or the whole supernatural order, with all that is essential to the sanctification and salvation of man through Jesus Christ.”

It is the will of God, that no one should be saved unless through Jesus Christ; that is, through faith in His doctrine, through hope in His merits, through charity toward God and all men, through the sacraments and prayers, as means of grace, and through obedience to His orders. In order to maintain the divine truths which Christ has taught mankind in their entire purity, and to secure them from all change and distortion, He has established in His holy Church the office of infallible teaching, and has promised to it and given to it His protection and the assistance of the Holy Ghost for all time. As He sent the Apostles whom He had chosen Himself from the world, as He Himself had been sent by the Father, so He willed that there should ever be pastors and teachers in His Church to the end of the world.

Leo XIII. in his letter of November 1st, 1900, says: “By the ministry of the Church, so gloriously founded by Him, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by the Father, and having on the one hand conferred upon her all effectual aids for human salvation, He ordained with the utmost emphasis on the other, that man should be subject to her as to Himself, and zealously follow her guidance in every department of life: ‘He that heareth you heareth Me; and he that despiseth you despiseth Me.’ So the law of Christ is always to be sought from the Church, and, therefore, as Christ is for man the way, so likewise is the Church the way, He in Himself and by His proper nature, she by commission and by a share in His power. On this account those who would strive for salvation apart from the Church, wander from the way and strive in vain.”

Man being wholly dependent upon God, as upon our Creator and Lord, and created reason being absolutely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound to yield to God, by faith in His revelation, the full obedience of our intelligence and will. And the Catholic Church teaches that this faith, which is the beginning of man’s salvation, is a supernatural virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the things which He has revealed are true; not because of the intrinsic truth of the things, viewed by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, and Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

Freemasonry, on the other hand, denies the supernatural, the revealed Word of God; the fall of the human race in Adam and Eve, and, as a consequence, the whole mystery of Redemption, the Incarnation and Divinity of Jesus Christ, His establishing a Church and teaching a religion differing from what up to His time had been taught. All the Masonic teachings are based on the natural order and the supernatural is carefully excluded. Hence the use of natural means to obtain the end of man. Naturalism is their teaching called, because nature is good, so they say, and whatever is natural is just and right, and there is no such thing as sin in the sense of the Church. Masonry, according to its votaries, is a universal system, and teaches the relative and social duties of man on the broad and extensive basis of philanthropy.

What the head of the Church thinks about Masonry is expressed in the Encyclical of Leo XIII., dated April 20, 1884, called “Humanum Genus,” and published in this book. For the present chapter the following is to the point: “At this period … the partisans of evil seem to be combining together and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons. No longer making any secret of their purposes, they are now boldly rising up against God Himself. They are planning the destruction of Holy Church publicly and openly; and this with the set purpose of utterly despoiling the nations of Christendom, if it were possible, of the blessings obtained for us through Jesus Christ our Saviour. … As soon as the constitution and the spirit of the Masonic sect was clearly discovered by manifest signs of its actions, by cases investigated, by the publications of its laws, and of its rites and ceremonies, with the addition often of the personal testimony of those who were in the secret, this Apostolic See has denounced the sect of the Freemasons and publicly declared its constitution as contrary to law and right; to be pernicious no less to Christianity than to the State; and it forbade anyone to enter the society under the penalties which the Church is wont to inflict upon exceptionally guilty persons.”

Albert Pike, for many years head of Freemasonry, in his book “Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, published at Charleston A. M. 5641” (copyrighted 1871), has this to say about the Order:

Page 11—“The Bible is an indispensable part of the furniture of a Christian Lodge, only because it is the sacred book of the Christian religion. The Hebrew Pentateuch in the Hebrew Lodge, and the Koran in a Mohammedan one, belong to the Altar: and one of these, and the Square and Compass, properly understood, are the Great Lights by which a Mason must walk and work.”

Page 17—“The Holy Scriptures are an entirely modern addition to the symbol. …”

Page 38—“Catholicism was a vital truth in its earliest ages, but it became obsolete and Protestantism arose, flourished and deteriorated. The doctrines of Zoroaster were the best which the ancient Persians were fitted to receive; those of Confucius were fitted for the Chinese, those of Mohammed for the idolatrous Arabs of his age. Each was a Truth for the time; each a Gospel preached by a Reformer.”

Page 74—“The Church of Rome claimed despotism over the soul and over the whole life from the cradle to the grave. It gave and sold absolution for past and future sins. … It decimated Europe to purge it of heresies. It decimated America to convert the Mexicans and Peruvians. … Masonry alone preaches Toleration, the right of man to abide by his own faith.”

Page 93—“We do not see the Churches and Priesthoods of Christendom relinquishing their old task of governing man by imaginary terrorism.”

Page 104—“Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals the truths from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misrepresentations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it. … Every age has had a religion suited to its capacity.”

Page 139—“Masonry does not occupy itself with crying down this world … nor exhort us to detach our hearts from this earthly life, as empty, fleeting and unworthy, and fix them upon heaven, as the only sphere deserving the love of the loving, or the meditation of the wise. … He (man) is sent into the world, not to be constantly hankering after, dreaming of, preparing for another. … The law of our being is love of Life, and its interests and adornments; love of the world in which our lot is cast, engrossment with the interests and affections of the earth.”

Page 213—“Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion.”

Page 218—“Masonry does not inculcate her truths; she states them, once and briefly, or hints them perhaps darkly; or interposes a cloud between them and eyes that would be dazzled by them.”

Page 231—“The Mason does not war with his own instincts, macerate the body into weakness and disorder, and disparage what he sees to be beautiful, knows to be wonderful, and feels to be unspeakably dear and fascinating. He does not put aside the nature which God has given him, to struggle after one which He has not bestowed. He knows that man is sent into the world, not a spiritual but a composite being, made up of body and mind, the body having, as is fit and needful in a material world, its full, rightful and allotted share. His life is guided by a full recognition of this fact …”

Page 525—“To every Mason, Wisdom or Intelligence, Force or Strength, and Harmony or Fitness and Beauty, are the Trinity of the Attributes of God. … Masonry reverences all the great Reformers. It sees in Moses, the Lawgiver of the Jews, in Confucius and Zoroaster, in Jesus of Nazareth, and in the Arabian Iconoclast, great teachers of morality and eminent reformers. … Masonry is a worship; but one in which all civilized men can unite. …”

Page 538—“Question: What are the symbols of the purification necessary to make us perfect Masons?”

Answer: “Lavation with pure water, or baptism, because to cleanse the body is emblematical of purifying the soul; and because it conduces to the bodily health, and virtue is the health of the soul, as sin and vice are its malady and sickness: unction, or anointing with oil; because thereby we are set apart and dedicated to the service and priesthood of the Beautiful, the True and the Good: and robes of white, emblems of candor, purity and truth.”

Question: “What is to us the chief symbol of man’s ultimate redemption and regeneration?”

Answer: “The fraternal supper of bread which nourishes, and of wine which refreshes and exhilarates, symbolic of the time which is to come, when all mankind shall be one great harmonious brotherhood … and thus in the bread we eat, and in the wine we drink tonight, may enter into and form part of us the identical particles of matter that once formed part of the material bodies called Moses, Confucius, Plato, Socrates, or Jesus of Nazareth. …”

Page 575—“Behold the true Masonic Trinity; the Universal Soul, the Thought in the Soul, the Word, or Thought expressed; the Three in One, of a Trinitarian Ecosais. …”

Page 625—“Masonry when properly expounded, is at once the interpretation of the great book of nature, the recital of physical and astronomical phenomena, the purest philosophy, and the place of deposit, where, as in a treasury, are kept in safety all the great truths of the primitive revelation, that form the basis of all religions. …”

Page 718—“Masonry propagates no creed except its own most simple and Sublime One; that universal religion, taught by Nature and by Reason.”

Page 820—“Rome, more intolerant of heresy than of vice and crime … has always deemed philosophical truth the most dangerous of heresies, and has never been at loss for false accusations, by means of which to crush free thought. …”

I could quote much more, but the above is sufficient to show that the teaching of Masonry ignores Christ entirely in the economy of salvation and that a person can not hold the doctrines of Christianity and Masonry at the same time.

In his letter to Cardinal Gibbons of January 22d, 1899, Leo XIII says: “Christ is the Teacher and the Example of all sanctity, and to His standard must all those conform who wish for eternal life.”

According to the Cyclopædia of Fraternities, published by A. C. Stevens, Freemasonry is the mother of all secret societies in fact as well as in name.

Masonic Baptism

(From the Washington Star, April 30, 1872.)

A Remarkable Ceremony—Consecration to Virtue and Truth—The Wards of the Lodge.

The first public Masonic baptism of children which has ever taken place in the District, was performed last night in the chapter chamber, Masonic Temple, in the presence of a large number of Masons, their wives and daughters. The children were an infant son of Dr. Joseph W. Nairn, 32d degree, and a son of Mr. E. B. MacGrotty, 18th degree, who were baptized in Mithras Lodge of Perfection, Ancient Scottish Rite, which is the Consistory of this Masonic Jurisdiction. The rite was performed by Thrice Illustrious P. G. M. Albert Pike, assisted by Illustrious J. O. Sinclair, S. G. W.; Illustrious L. H. Pike, J. G. M. W.; C. W. Bennett, Grand Orator; W. M. Ireland, Master of Ceremonies; B. F. Hedrich, Senior Deacon; C. T. Nutze, Junior Deacon; Rev. Mr. Harris, Chaplain; H. J. Martin, Secretary; and L. Stoddard, Tiler. The ceremony of Masonic baptism has always been celebrated in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Order. It has been censured by many as an irreverent imitation of the Christian rite of baptism; but well-informed Masons know that purification by washing was used in all the mysteries thousands of years before our era. After the assembly had been seated, Grand Master Pike gave a short history of the ceremony, saying that it taught neither hatred, intolerance, nor revenge. After a voluntary on the organ by Bro. Servoss, a rap was heard at the door, and information given that two children, with their parents, desired admission, the parents praying that their children might be baptized, when the Master directed the Master of Ceremonies and his aids to bring the children, their parents and sponsors in the Lodge. Soon after, the Master of Ceremonies returned, followed by one of his assistants, bearing a candlestick with three lighted candles, one white, one black, and one red, forming a triangle. Following, were two assistants, one carrying the child of Dr. Nairn, Robert Brice Nairn, upon a cushion covered with light blue silk, the other leading the child of Mr. MacGrotty, Edwin Albert MacGrotty; and behind these came the parents of the children and the sponsors. The sponsors for the son of Dr. Nairn were Dr. J. B. Gibbs, 32d degree, and Caroline E. Davis; for Master MacGrotty, Jerome C. Davis, 32 degree, and Mrs. M. Walker. After the third circuit of the room, the procession halted and the candlestick was placed before the altar, and the children returned to their mothers, who, with the sponsors, took their seats in the center of the room. The Masonic choir then sang “My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord.” After an oration by the Master, in which he explained the duties and responsibilities which the Lodge was about to assume in conferring the rite, he then asked the fathers: “Are you willing that we should accept these duties?” An affirmative response being given, the Master called upon the Chaplain to invoke the favor and assistance of God, which was done, the brethren all kneeling. The choir then sang the ode, “Rejoice, Rejoice, Fond Mothers.” The sponsors then took seats near the parents, when the Master addressed them in relation to the duties they were taking upon themselves. After an invocation to the Deity, and music, the children, parents and sponsors were then conducted forward to the altar, on which water, oil and salt were placed. The Master then called the Lodge up, descended from his throne, and, after a few words addressed to the group, lighted the incense on the altar. After a chant by the choir, the Master took the children severally in his arms, dipped their left hands in a basin of perfumed water, and said: “By this symbol I devote thee (in each case) to the service of virtue and truth. May our Father who is in Heaven keep thee innocent and pure in heart all the days of thy life.” During this ceremony the choir sang an appropriate ode. The Master then took the vessel of perfumed oil, dipped the little finger of his right hand therein, and marked with it a delta on the forehead of each child, saying: “I set upon thy forehead the symbol of wisdom, power, and love of God. May He protect and guide thee in right courses all the days of thy life;” the choir singing, meanwhile, the chant, “Blessed are the Undefiled in the Way.” The Master then replaced the vessel on the altar, and stretching out his hands toward the children, invoked a blessing upon them. The children and those in charge of them were conducted to their seats, and the choir sang an appropriate ode. The god-mothers then placed them at the altar of obligation; the brethren present formed a circle around them, each with his left hand on his heart and his right hand raised towards Heaven; all then kneeled and repeated, after the Master, the solemn vow to protect the children from all danger and temptation until their arrival at maturity. After rising, the Master, taking the vessel of salt in his hand, repeated the Arab vow which sanctifies the enemy with whom he has tasted salt, and placing a portion of the salt on his tongue, said: “With this salt I seal my vow.” The vessel was then passed to each brother, who in turn repeated the vow. The children were then invested with lamb-skin aprons, and each was presented with a Masonic jewel, the Master saying: “In the name and under the auspices of the Supreme Council, I do proclaim these children consecrated to the service of truth and virtue by Masonic baptism and anointing, after the ancient custom of Masonry, to be wards of the Mithras Lodge of Perfection.” This was repeated in turn by the Venerable Grand and Senior Wardens. After more music, the orator delivered a brief lecture, after which two young ladies, in conformity with a law of the Scottish Rite, passed among the assembly and received contributions from all who chose to give; the same, so collected, to be given by the Grand Almoner to the most needy person or persons known to him, the source from which it comes, in pursuance of inviolable custom, not to be made known. A closing chant concluded the ceremonies.