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shocktrooper
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Religious Relativism. That is your answer. They instill the idea that there are many ways to heaven.I’m waiting to hear an answer to this question too.
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Boatswain2PA
Guest
And for this reason I can see why the Catholic Church fathers would disallow membership. But that doesn’t mean Freemason’s are nefarious and are after our daughters…
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Boatswain2PA
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I do hope you are not referring to me here. While I do not agree, it doesn’t mean I am not obedient.
Obedience to doctrine also does not mean I have to allow propagation of blatant falsehoods (ie: Freemasonry is evil).
Obedience to doctrine also does not mean I have to allow propagation of blatant falsehoods (ie: Freemasonry is evil).
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shocktrooper
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So a soul rotting in hell due to an organization that promotes relativism over divine law is not nefarious?
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
One reason is that instead of listening to the Church, they choose to put up strawmen instead.
They claim (usually without any evidence at all, or with statements pulled 'out of context) that the Church says Masons are all evil idol worshippers plotting to overthrow Christianity, and then claim that the ‘craziness’ of such a teaching proves that the Church is ‘wrong’, and therefore, they can ‘choose’ to disregard Her.
And of course as I said earlier, they ‘particularize’ by insisting that based on their putative ‘knowledge’ of Joe Doe in their home town, who is the greatest guy they know and ‘more Christian than most of the CATHOLICS they know,’ and Joe being a Mason, this PROVES that Masons are not evil, and that the Church is wrong.
Totally illogical thinking but too many people in modern society have been ‘bred’ into believing these illogical arguments are in fact ‘truth’. Until they understand how wrong the arguments themselves are, they simply aren’t able to perceive their own blunders.
They claim (usually without any evidence at all, or with statements pulled 'out of context) that the Church says Masons are all evil idol worshippers plotting to overthrow Christianity, and then claim that the ‘craziness’ of such a teaching proves that the Church is ‘wrong’, and therefore, they can ‘choose’ to disregard Her.
And of course as I said earlier, they ‘particularize’ by insisting that based on their putative ‘knowledge’ of Joe Doe in their home town, who is the greatest guy they know and ‘more Christian than most of the CATHOLICS they know,’ and Joe being a Mason, this PROVES that Masons are not evil, and that the Church is wrong.
Totally illogical thinking but too many people in modern society have been ‘bred’ into believing these illogical arguments are in fact ‘truth’. Until they understand how wrong the arguments themselves are, they simply aren’t able to perceive their own blunders.
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Tantum_ergo
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Remember in the Screwtape Letters how Screwtape was telling his nephew to ‘plant the idea of a figure in red tights and a pitchfork as the image of the devil’ into the mind of the person he was trying to tempt? and how, "by presenting this image as ‘crazy’, you can get him to dismiss the entire IDEA of the devil as being crazy?’
Yep, we’re seeing exactly this type of thing with regard to Freemasonry. People are putting up all sorts of '‘crazy images’ of 'EVIL Freemasons", and attempting to state that because the images are crazy, the idea that Freemasonry is evil is crazy.
The IDEA is not crazy, and Evil itself is not crazy. But by misdirection and misapplication, many people are being deceived by evil.
Yep, we’re seeing exactly this type of thing with regard to Freemasonry. People are putting up all sorts of '‘crazy images’ of 'EVIL Freemasons", and attempting to state that because the images are crazy, the idea that Freemasonry is evil is crazy.
The IDEA is not crazy, and Evil itself is not crazy. But by misdirection and misapplication, many people are being deceived by evil.
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Boatswain2PA
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So, you’re saying that Mormon’s are going to hell? How about Baptists? How about the congregation of a non-denominational church??
Does that mean that every Priest who ever served in the U.S. Military is going to go to hell because they have to, at least to some degree, promote relativism??
I don’t think so…
And no, Freemasonry isn’t evil. Neither are Mormons (strange, but not evil). Neither are Baptists (although I think that Church in Kansas might be).
The Catholic Church prohibits us from being Freemasons. Okay, got it. But that doesn’t mean they are evil.
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BettyBoop416
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I suspect that when you get to heaven you are going to be astounded at who made the cut and the routes they took to get there. If you are counting on a “Catholics Only” club, you’re probably going to be disappointed.
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Timothysis
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Actually, the Church does NOT say these things…it is people on forums like this who say it without one once of evidence.
The Church simply says that Catholics are not allowed to join any organization that wishes to do harm to the Church, and that includes freemasons. As said before, this is based on what “progressives” did in Europe during and after the French Revolution, not the fact that masons worship Satan or try to sacrifice virgin Catholic girls. It is this type of forum that spouts all of the over the top nefarious designs of the masons that work day after day to bring down the Church. As stated earlier, after a couple of hundred years of trying why can’t we discern their plot? No one said that the Church teachings are “silly” (Betty Boop included) but that the ideas and conspiracy theories that rage here are.
If I have to allow that a man I worked with for years and years who is a mason is actually working to bring down the Church, even though his actions showed otherwise, then I have to allow that that woman at Church who prostrates herself before a mosaic of the Blessed Mother is worshiping someone other than God. See how that works? If it goes for one then it must go for the other.
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KyivAndrew
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That’s just not true. It’s not just the Catholic Church, but part of the Lutherans, a Methodist study group, and even the former Archbishop of Canterbury who have stated Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity recently, based NOT on any secret plots (which I don’t believe in) but on the Rituals in Freemasonry and the Masonic oaths.
First, to paraphrase from a post I put on another thread: let’s see what a Grand Lodge of a USA state has to say explicitly about the underpinnings of the Blue Lodge, the first three degrees of Freemasonry:
Grand Lodge of Texas, A.F. and A.M., Monitor of the Lodge: Monitorial Instructions in the Three Degrees of Symbolic Masonry (Grand Lodge of Texas, 1982), pp. xiii-xiv about the First Three Masonic Degrees:
“These [Masonic teachings were] practiced from remote ages, in the ancient temples of many nations. Such ceremonies and their correlated teachings have sometimes been referred to as the Mysteries of Masonry, with the same signification employed when one speaks of the ‘Mysteries of the Magi’, the ‘Mysteries of Osiris,’ the ‘Grecian Mysteries of Eleusis,’ and other kindred rites, practiced in the temples of initiation throughout the ancient world…
The presence in the modern Masonic system, of many of the emblems, symbols and allegories of the ancient Temples of Initiation, as well as certain rites performed therein, has persuaded the most learned among Masonic scholars to conclude that Masonry is of very ancient origin, and is, in some aspects, the modern successor of, and heir to, the sublime Mysteries of the Temple of Solomon, and of the the Temples of India, Chaldea, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as the basic doctrines of the Essenes, Gnostics and other mystic Orders”
That’s from a Masonic Monitor which is not readily available to the Profane which is what Masons call non-Masons. This is what each initiate would read after their raising if they wish to understand what they underwent. And of course, one brings the Holy Bible into the Masonic Temple to make bloody oaths at the Masonic Altar to not reveal Masonic secrets (even before the initiate is told what these secrets are). Again, I don’t believe in any far-fetched ideas about world Masonic conspiracies which are way out there and ridiculous as the Masons are desperate for members in any event, but I think just looking at the ritual and what is in some of the oaths should be enough to convince the discerning person that what is practiced in the Masonic Temple is not compatible with Christianity.
A major gist of Freemasonry is Gnosticism, secret esoteric knowledge about the divine, as the authors of Masonic rituals explicitly proclaim. In the first three degrees one is given a substitute name for God, but in the self-styled Supreme Degree of the Holy Royal Arch, a Mason learns the real name for God is JahBulOn, which is a direct contradiction of the claim Masons make about Freemasonry not being about religion. The second syllable in the Masonic name for God is in the opinion of many representative of the god Baal (whom the prophet Elijah fought in the Old Testament). Remarkably, Baal gets a positive review in Macoy’s Masonic Dictionary which was written around the time of the Royal Arch constitution. A Royal Arch Mason binds himself not to utter the secret Masonic name for God on pain of decapitation. Now the penalties may be jokes, but you don’t need the Holy Bible then for the swearing of joke oaths. And, in any event, I personally have seen grown men refuse to even utter the word JahBulOn even after they have told me they are Royal Arch. If all these rituals were fun and games, then I would expect a Mason to laugh at this, but many take these oaths and rituals as seriously as a Catholic does a Mass, which kind of defeats the claim of Freemasonry being religion-neutral. No, the old pagan mystery cults are the inspiration for the ritual as Masonic Monitors and authors, like Klausen in his instruction on the 32nd degree in Scottish Rite Freemasonry, make clear.
In Blue Lodge, Hiram Abiff, the hero in the ritual play acted by the initiate, is murdered for refusing to reveal his Masonic secrets and then he is raised to a new life in the Light for not divulging the esoteric secrets. That’s gnosticism and it is a satire on Christ who was died and was resurrected but not for keeping secrets - Christ has no secrets. The problems with the oaths I can deal with in another post.
Again, I don’t believe in the Illuminati, or Masonic conspiracies but feel the Masonic Rituals and Oaths are enough to make Freemasonry incompatible with Christianity, no matter what the individual Mason may think or how good of a person he is. And it is no longer just Catholics making the claim.
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KyivAndrew
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Albert Pike is not considered a “nut-job” by the big name Masonic authors in Scottish Rite. After all, Pike authored the ritual for the Scottish Rite. His Morals and Dogma is full of praise for mystery cults and paganism.
Mark Koltko-Rivera, Ph.D. 32nd degree Scottish rite in his 2011 book Freemasonry: An Introduction references perhaps one of today’s most learned Scottish Rite authors Arturo de Hoyes in claiming: “Pike wrote some of the most penetrating analyses ever printed regarding Masonic symbolism. In addition, his Scottish Rite rituals have exposed countless Freemasons to a variety of religious and spiritual philosophies that they other wise might never have encountered.” (Rivera, pg. 103, Tarcher/Penguin).
De Hoyes’ books are proudly sold at Masonic bookstores today and his name along with Henry C. Klausen and Pike are perhaps the biggest when it comes to reading about the ritual in Scottish Rite Freemasonry I believe.
In Klausen’s discussion of the 32nd degree in Scottish Rite, Klausen writes approvingly of “the occult science of the ancients”, of “telepathy”, of “esoteric psychology”, of “magic”. These are Klausen’s words for the **Royal Secret **at the top degree of the Scottish Rite, after the honorary 33rd. This is from Henry C. Klausen’s Commentaries on Morals and Dogma (The Supreme Council, 33rd Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction of the USA, 1976).
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shocktrooper
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You act like they can’t.
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shocktrooper
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Everyone that makes it to heaven will be considered Catholic. I pray there are more than meets the eye but I will not pretend we all get a free pass.
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thistle
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So are you AGAIN saying it is a silly teaching from the Church that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church??
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KendraDZ1902
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I don’t understand why people are so concerned with a group trying to “destroy the Church” didn’t Jesus say that he would be with us always and that they gates of Hell will not prevail. Kinda seems like NOTHING will destroy her.
I am a member of a sorority and I can tell you that NOTHING any disgruntled pledge/sister or outsider has ever said was true.
I am a member of a sorority and I can tell you that NOTHING any disgruntled pledge/sister or outsider has ever said was true.
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BettyBoop416
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Teaching that only Catholic’s will enjoy salvation is actually pretty serious. Of course, other religions claim that THEIR followers are the only ones who will get to heaven, and I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. I know you won’t like that, but that’s your problem.
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CrimsonThorn
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That’s not what the Church teaches. Look up “invincible ignorance.”
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thistle
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Well in this thread there are 2 Church teachings you call silly and based on your comments it is clear to me and others here that you do not actually know what the Church teaches about these things and why. Your time would be better used in learning the Church teachings instead of dismissing teachings you haven’t even bothered to learn about. Your knowledge of these 2 is superficial at best!
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The_Wanderer
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Weren’t the Freemasons involved in the French Revolution and what happened to Catholicism in France?
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DavidSears
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Question for you. Do you agree with everything the Catholic Church says, does, teaches, etc.? I mean, I agree with most of what the church teaches, but sometimes I back up and say “wait a minute… that is against the church?” I mean, there are 30,000 denominations claiming to be right. Now don’t call me a heretic or lukewarm, but there are a few things I question. Things that I pray for an answer for.
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