CATHOLICITY AND FREEMASONRY.

Marlborough Express, Volume V, Issue 237, 25 June 1870, Page 4

CATHOLICITY AND FREEMASONRY.

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Sir, — As the injunction laid upon the members of his congregation by the Rev. Father Sauzeau, with reference to then abstaining from any participation in Masonic gaeties during the week, may probably give rise to some misconception on the subject amongst our Protestant brethren, I venture to crave a portion of your valuable space in order to set before them, as briefly as possible, the grounds on which the Catholic Church founds her interdict against Freemasonry, as against other seci’et societies. The very principle on which Freemasonry is founded is incompatible with the nature and objects of Christian revelations. In the first place, the Catholic Church condemns all secret oaths; secondly, the oaths of Freemasons are not only secret, but, at the best, unnecessary; then another offence chargeable on the Masonic, as on all other secret societies, is that in removing all individual responsibility it destroys human freedom. But a yet more serious charge may be brought against Freemasonry. There are some secret societies whose professed aim is the removal of certain local grievances, or a violent overthrow of some particular government. But the Masonic Order pretends to he in possession of a secret to make men better and happier than Christ, His Apostles, and His Church have made, or can make them. Monstrous pretension ! How is this esoteric teaching consistent with the full and final revelation of divine truths ? If in the deep midnight of heathenism the sage had been justified in seeking in the mysteries of Eleiisia for a keener apprehension of the truths of primitive religion, how does this justify the Freemason, in the mid-day effulgence of Christianity, in telling mankind that he has a wonderful secret for advancing them in virtue and happiness—a secret unknown to the Incarnate God, and the Church with which, as He promised, the Comforter should abide for ever ? And even the Protestant who rejects the teaching of that unerring Church, if he admits Christianity to be a final revelation,

must scout the pretensions of a society that claims the possession of moral truths unknown to the Christian religion. The very pretentions of the Mason are, thus, impious and absurd. He stands condemned on his own showing; and any enquiry into the doctrines and the workings of his order becomes utterly superfluous. But then, further, he obstinately withholds from the knowledge of the competent authority bis marvellous remedies for the moral and social maladies of men, what is he but the charlatan who refuses to submit to the examination of a medical board his pretended wonderful cures ? The dates of the first Papal Bulls of condemnation—l73B to 1751 —were the periods of the rise and devclopement of these irreligious and revolutionary principles, which reached their culminating point in 1790; and the Supremo Pontiffs discerned the gathering evil and power in these secret societies, and warned Europe of the dangers that menaced her—warnings happily not unheeded by the civil governments of the day. Catholicity, I repeat, is on principle and by its very character opposed to secret societies and to secret oaths ; it has nothing to conceal; it desires nothing more than that all its doctrines and principles of action, and the duties and obligations it imposes on its children, should be known and familiar to all the world. On the other hand secresy and seclusion, and the pursuit of objects not common to all, and by means known only to the initiated and chosen few, are the characteristics of Freemasonry, which owes much of its popularity to its mysterious signs and rites and supposed secrets, as well as to the boon companionship which it always seeks to encourage. A vast brotherhood, bound by secret oaths, united for common objects, and spread over every country—in fact seeks to supply to those who are not Catholics the community of interests which every Christian finds in the Universal Church. I have no wish whatever to provoke a controversy on these topics, which have been repeatedly handled by far abler pens ; but I simply desire to show that, in declining these wellmeant hospitalities, Catholics are by no means amenable to a charge of discourtesy, but are only acting in obedience to the carefully considered decrees of their Church, which admits of no appeal or exceptional treatment. Roma locula est, causa Jtnita est. —I am, &c., A Cathoiic Layman. June 19, 1870,