FREEMASONS AND CATHOLICS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4749, 13 November 1872, Page 3

FREEMASONS AND CATHOLICS.

To the Editor : Sir,-In reply to the letter of the Kov. Father James A. Norris which appears m yesterday's Cuoss, I beg to state that your report of the funeral of the late Oaptain Ireer does not contain several untruths ; but it does contain one and only one et7° r- 1 Presume the Eev. Father Norris will allow that there may be some difference between an unintentional error and a premeditated untruth. On the day that Mr. JJ reer died, Mr. Beveridge was sent for at the special request of Mr. Freer himself, and when Mr. Beveridge visited him the then dying man requested that he might be inferred with Masonic ceremonies. Atthi3 time Father Norris was present and in spiritual attendance on Mr. Freer. The Holy Sacrament was administered, and Mr. Bereridge, observing this, said to the dying man as follows :—" I thought you could not receive the Sacrament, being a Freemason ;" to which Freer gasped out these words :— 'They have stretched a point for me;" meauing, as may be fairly asantred, that the rites of the Church, had been accorded him as an indulgence. Had Mr. Freer renounced Masonry it is quite certain that Masons would not have attended his funeral as Masons, and it is quite certain they would not have accorded the deceased's remains Masonic honours. As a Mason I may inform the Eev. Father Norris that it is impossible for any one once made a Mason to renounce the Craft. He may resign his lodge. He may declare his intention never to enter any lodge so long as he lives. He may be excluded for certain reasons from ever entering a Freemason's Lodge, but he still is, and will be to the last day of his life, a Mason. The initial secrets he learned at his entrance, and the secrets of the several degrees he has been invested with, are buried deep in hia bosom ; and no renunciation, no promise of absolution which may be tendered, will ever cause him to divulge the secrets which have been entrusted to him. —l am, &c, A Master Mason.

To the Editor : Sir, — I must express my great astonishment at the remarks contained in Father Norris's letter which appeared in yestei ciaj 's Ckoss. There must be a terrible mistake somewhere, or the Freemasons of Auckland have been fearfully imposed upon. Everybody I:uo\vs what a large gathering of Masons assembled to do honour to poor Freer's remains— over 200 — and everybody knows that E. TV. M. Brother Andrew Bevelidgo emphatically declared in open lodge that Freer had not renounced Freemasonry, had declaied with his dying words that he was a Masou, and had elected rather to be buried with Masonic honours than with Roman Catholic rites. Does any sane man for a moment imagine that 240 Freemasons would sacrifice their day of rest, dress themselves in fall regalia, and hurry through the broiling sun to "assist" at the funeral if they did not one and all believe the deceased had died a Mason ? Would they have carried the remains to the grave and taken part in the imposing ceremony, on such a fearfully hot and dusty clay, if they were to be made fools of one and all ? In fact, if the deceased had i enounced the cvaf fc, would his surviving relatives have permitted his body to be taken away by the Freemasons, to be taken away from the place of sepulture of the Church of his fathers, and interred in strange ground ? Father N orris may ask the faithful to believe his assertions, but a Mason never. — I am, &c, One who Knows.