"Vatican Punishes French Priest for Being a Freemason"

And no one should have been surprised.  By the punishment, that is.  I'm surprised a French priest was that openly a member of the Masons.  Excerpts:

...Bishop Yves Boivineau had warned Fr Vesin about his "active membership" of the Grand Orient de France lodge.

Freemasonry has been condemned as anti-Christian and anti-clerical by various popes through history.

Bishop Boivineau ordered the priest to cease his functions "at Rome's request", the parish said.

In March, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - effectively the Church's watchdog - asked for the priest's departure.

Three members of the diocese of Annecy then met him but Fr Vesin said he would not leave the lodge...

Why am I surprised the priest is apparently so open about it? This is why. Excerpts:

...The Church has imposed the penalty of excommunication on Catholics who become Freemasons. The penalty of excommunication for joining the Masonic Lodge was explicit in the 1917 code of canon law (canon 2335), and it is implicit in the 1983 code (canon 1374).

Because the revised code of canon law is not explicit on this point, some drew the mistaken conclusion that the Church's prohibition of Freemasonry had been dropped. As a result of this confusion, shortly before the 1983 code was promulgated, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement indicating that the penalty was still in force. This statement was dated November 26, 1983 and may be found in Origins 13/27 (Nov. 15, 1983), 450.

The Miracle of Hiroshima

Cause this is not normal:

That has, of course (and to my amused delight) given rise to some conspiracy theories. Man, I loves me some anti-Catholic conspiracy theories. Why? Because these are better than novels--even though a bunch of them have become novels:

...Most of the top U.S. generals (including President Eisenhower) said that the bombing was unnecessary. It had great propaganda effect for the Jesuits as Baptist President Truman was blamed for the bombing.

Arrupe blamed the "godless" United States (meaning not Pope ruled) for the bombing...

Just as in the case of the gracious Queen Elizabeth I who was forced into signing the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots, President Truman was setup by the events surrounding the atomic bombing of Japan. President Truman was actually OUT of the country SIGHTSEEING when those momentous events happened...

Heh. Yeah. Cause we loved the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and Catholics totally had the power at the time to force the Virgin Queen to do anything we wanted.  That's why this happened.. And of course, President Truman would be delighted to serve as a papist tool...

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.

The Masons' Room in City Hall

In the realm of "interesting bits of Americana I'd never heard of before," this one from Jackson, Mississippi, takes the cake:

""We've got a 24-hour armed guard even on weekends," Weill told the Jackson Free Press. "There's no reason we need a person like that, when most other public buildings in Jackson just have an alarm system." Johnson explained to Weill that the city had to pay for around-the-clock security to accommodate the Masons. Weill, always vigilant about fat in the city budget, considers the roughly $50,000 that the city pays for City Hall security excessive. "I can't imagine the Masons would throw up their hands and cry outrage if we didn't have an armed security guard in City Hall on the Fourth of July," Weill said... Former Councilman and Jackson State University professor Leslie McLemore said that he knew of little more than the presence of a Masonic meeting room in City Hall. "I just know we have the arrangement," McLemore said. "I was sort of surprised to learn about it when I joined the City Council." Former Mayor Kane Ditto also confessed to knowing little about the agreement, other than its existence. "I know during my term in office it was discussed several times, but I don't know that I've actually seen documentation," Ditto said. City spokesman Chris Mims confirmed that the city does have an agreement with the Masons allowing the organization use of a third-floor meeting room in perpetuity, but he could not retrieve any formal documentation of the relationship... As bizarre as it may seem to contemporary citizens for a private fraternal organization to meet in a public building, the practice was anything but unusual when City Hall was built. Many political leaders at all levels were Masons: President George Washington laid the corner-stone for the U.S. Capitol in a Masonic ceremony. S.P. Baley, a mayor of Jackson during the 1830s, was also the first Master of Pearl Lodge 23, one of the three branches that currently use City Hall for meetings. During the Civil War, Masons met in the Senate chamber of the Old Capitol. Masonry also had its role in the state's black political leadership as well. The offices of the Mississippi Conference NAACP are housed inside the M.W. Stringer Lodge on Lynch Street, headquarters for the historically black Prince Hall Affiliated Freemasons. Although the two organizations are now distinct, the Prince Hall Masons helped establish the Mississippi NAACP, president Derrick Johnson explained. "Wherever they had their headquarters, they housed all their auxiliaries, including the NAACP," Johnson said. Despite their deep roots in city history, the Masons have had to explain their presence at City Hall anew several times. In 1946, The Clarion-Ledger ran an article titled "Still Some Question Who Owns City Hall: No Record of Lodge Hall Agreement." The article refers to "local attorney W. Harold Cox," who was puzzled by the Masons' claim to the building and "is at a loss to explain how the (Masonic) orders ever obtained use of the rooms." Current Pearl Lodge treasurer Arthur Jackson remembers former Mayor Melton touring the third-floor meeting room early in his term after learning that the Masons used it. He said that sort of thing happens with every new administration. "We always have to tell them again," Jackson said...

Huh. That's rather odd. I suppose if you have a big enough building, having a room which nobody just stumbles across doesn't seem strange. And I wonder how they prove the deal election after election?

Click to download in FLV format (36.96MB)

Dan Brown and Why He Annoys Me So

And here is demonstrated perfectly the nature of the Dan Brown phenomenon:

The Lost Symbol looks set to create a huge uproar across the USA, with its allegations that far from being the country's 'founding father,' Washington was actually a traitor who had been secretly negotiating with the British during the American War of Independence.

He has written a novel, much like his previous novels--and reviewers speak of "allegations" made in the novel. "Allegations". Not plot points. Not ideas. Claims of truth. See, this is why I get on the defensive about "Code" and "Demons"--because Dan Brown does not purport, nor is he expected, to merely write fiction. He gets the big headlines because he makes "allegations" in his "fiction". He makes claims of fact, spins theories, makes accusations--without ever writing a work of non fiction. So don't tell me to calm down, what am I getting so upset about, it's only a novel. He never writes "only a novel". He wouldn't make the big bucks if he only wrote novels, and this reviewer obviously knows that.