And Now, the Masons...

Just cause The Lost Symbol came out (btw--Chesterton on Dan Brown), it's part of American history, I'm curious, and gee golly, it's a traditional Catholic conspiracy theory. So...a Masonic roundup. Victorian prime minister William Gladstone's private library was for sale in 2008. He had a "typical Victorian gentleman’s library, featuring the subjects of interest of the day...", including:

An unusual sub-collection is formed by 60 books dealing with the history of freemasonry in Dundee, Perth, Scone and Edinburgh.

One particularly unusual item being sold on behalf of the Gladstone family is The Memoirs of The Carbonari.

Published in 1821, it is one of the earliest books written about a topic that has long fascinated writers everywhere – the secret societies of Sicily.

A Mason's complaint and call to action:

By focusing on ourselves and failing to perceive the true cause of our decline in numbers, we have gone down many false paths. One day classes, reduced proficiencies, and lately a loss of respect for our obligation towards secrecy are all a part of these changes. To stem this decline many Grand Lodges focused significant resources towards charitable activities in the belief that Masonry should be perceived more as a fraternal organization working for the public good. This, it was thought, would serve to lift the veil from our private functions, to depict us as another form of Elk or Lion. In recent years, lodges have opened themselves up and allowed ritual to be recorded knowing it would be publicly broadcast. This was done, as well, to say we have no secrets, when in truth we do...

The Internet has created an enormous temptation for lodge officers and brothers that is very destructive to the Craft. There already exists today video programs on the Internet which can be downloaded and used within the lodge as part of its education program. Many of these are quite engaging but they are often the product of non-Masons and contain information which we are obligated not to disclose. Because it comes from the Internet, and because anyone can view it there, there is the tendency for Masters and brothers to disregard their obligation. They justify this by arguing that because so much that violates Masonic secrecy is readily available, there is no harm in their violating their obligation.

Setting aside the utterly lack of judgment such a decision represents, it also reveals a failure to understand the true nature of our obligation. One consequence is that newly raised Masons who have been aggressively charged in the Third Degree to never violate their obligation are then exposed to a cavalier disregard for it by long standing brothers. They form from that the notion that the obligation is not to be taken seriously, and if the obligation is not a serious matter than neither are the other teachings of Freemasonry. The steady erosion of our commitment to secrecy which has been encouraged by the spread of the Internet is a great threat to our Craft. Every Grand Lodge should have an educational program to impress upon all Masters and line officers what information they can, and cannot, use in the lodge.

A canon lawyer explains the past and continuing ban on Catholics being Masons:

So what is the big deal about Freemasonry, anyway? Masons frequently describe their organization as one devoted to brotherhood and the improvement of society by enlightened means. They deny that they are a secret society at all, much less a society conspiring to destroy the Catholic Church. They emphasize that, as mentioned above, they are largely a social fraternity involved in charitable works.

It must be pointed out that many, many Masons make these assertions in good faith, genuinely unaware of the overarching aims of international Freemasonry. A thorough history of the Masons is of course beyond the scope of this column, but there is much historical evidence that there is a lot more to Masonry than just fraternity and brotherhood...

Freemasons’ references to their enlightened ideas and generous ideals of universal fraternity may sound positive, but their insistence on acceptance of these concepts actually implies a fundamental conflict with the Catholic Church. Insofar as the Church teaches that it possesses divine truths which were revealed nearly 2000 years ago by the Son of God, it embraces a belief system that is diametrically opposed to Freemasonry. And in asserting its own beliefs, Freemasonry cannot but work against the Catholic Church. To cite just a few examples, if one delves in detail into the history behind the bloody persecution of Catholic clergy during the French Revolution in the 18^th century, political upheavals in Catholic Spain in the late 1800’s, or the brutal assault on the Catholic Church in Mexico in the early 20^th century, the quiet, behind-the-scenes direction and influence of Freemasonry can be seen. In other words, there is plenty of evidence that Masons have already in the past been involved in attacks on the Church. The Vatican’s assertion that Masonry is anti-Catholic is not based merely on some sort of vague notion of potential problems; it is grounded in cold, hard historical facts!

For further proof of this, one can hunt in the texts of the Masons themselves, if one has the call to do so. Possible problems for society from the organization are made explicit by the affair known as Propaganda Due, and are laid out by the British in this piece from 1998:

"While many people find the rituals of Freemasonry a risible diversion, concern has been growing about the number of Masons thought to be in positions of influence, particularly in law enforcement, and what kinds of favored treatment they afford one another. Masons have always resisted attempts by officials to learn the identities of their members. A portion of the Mason code compels them to form a ''column of mutual defense and support,'' language that investigators suspect has been used to protect lawbreakers in the ranks from police inquiries. Parliament's home affairs committee last month conducted hearings into Freemason membership on three police forces responsible for well-known miscarriages of justice. Michael Higham, a former Naval Commander who is the Grand Secretary of the London-based United Grand Lodge, the premier institution of world Freemasonry, acknowledged about 20 names on a list only after being threatened with a contempt-of-Parliament order. Over the years, a number of cases have spurred calls for the end of secrecy. In the late 1960's the head of the Obscene Publications Squad sponsored a convicted pornographer as a member of his own lodge. In the 1970's there were a number of cases where leading criminals were members of the same lodge as senior police intelligence officers. In the early 1980's one of Britain's ''most wanted'' criminals, Leonard Gibson, was found to be the Worshipful Master, or head, of a lodge that included eight police officers."

For an overview of Masonic involvement in history, check out 10,000 Famous Freemasons from A to J Part One and 10,000 Famous Freemasons from K to Z Part Two. Apparently, Harry S. Truman wrote the afterword of this two volume set. More on the Masons as an avenue to polite society:

At the same time Albert Nordheimer, the building’s owner, was becoming involved with the growing and highly enigmatic Masonic movement that was sweeping through North America. So he decided to convert the former upper floor music hall into the various homes to the nine Masonic Lodges then in Toronto.

The Masons have been in Toronto since the late 1700s with one of their first permanent lodge homes standing where the entrance to 35 Church St. is today. Back then it was the site of Russell’s Hotel (c.1848) of which the upper floor was built especially for the St. Andrew’s Lodge of Freemasons.

It was de rigueur for men in early York (and later Toronto) society to belong to this mysterious and beneficent organization with its constitutional declaration of a belief in a Supreme Being. It was the only way to get ahead in business or to climb the social ladder (today there are about 5 million members worldwide of the Masons).

Those early men of York had as their grandmaster none other than the Duke of Kent who lived here in York from 1799 till 1806. As well as being the fourth son of King George III, he is best known to history as the father of Queen Victoria.

And there's more.