Thus Saith the Third Council of Baltimore

Interesting.  Excerpts:

...The Third Council of Baltimore (no. 253) declares: "We see no reason why the prohibition of the Church against the Masonic and other secret societies should be extended to organizations of workingmen, which have no other object in view than mutual protection and aid for their members in the practice of their trades. Care must be taken, however, that nothing, be admitted under any pretext which favors condemned societies; or that the workingmen who belong to these organizations be induced, by the cunning arts of wicked men, to withhold, contrary to the laws of justice, the labor due from them, or in any other manner violate the rights of their employers. Those associations are entirely illicit, in which the members are so bound for mutual defense that danger of riots and murders is the outcome..."