Why is it so wrong to be a Mason?

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mattjtayl

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I recently found out in august that most of my family are masons. It is a family tradition going back 200 some years I quess in my family.

I never knew anything about the masons till one day I noticed my uncle was wearing an eagle shaped ring and I asked him about it, he then told me he was a mason. He averted the subject and would not talk about the masons. I found out from my mother most of her family are masons and my grandma belonged to the order of the easter star. I am now 24 years old I have never heard of the masons before nor did I know most of my family were masons till up to this point. All my family on my mother’s side are protestants, but on my dad’s side they are all catholic’s except my dad.

I researched the mason’s and found out Catholics denounce the masons and there is a lot of bad press about them. This surprised me since I know my uncle has always been very active in the presbyterian church, helping with mass, sunday school, fundrasing for the church, and giving to charity.

Yesterday I posted a thread about Dungeons and Dragons, I was suprised many Catholics on here play the game and think the game has gotten negative press. I actually think the same thing, but I purposely wrote the thread slanted against DnD just to see what the reaction would be. I admit the game is really harmless, but I decided to pretend I was a Fundamentalist Christian and make up a lot of false information about my DnD experiences just to see if any Catholics would bite the bait. I like to see another perspective to an argument, and that requires switching my point of view.

Since most Catholics on here think DnD has recieved bad press, don’t you think the same thing is true for the masons?

A lot of presidents have been masons, John wayne was a mason, Krammer from seinfield is a mason, a few astronants have been masons, many famous business leaders. Are all these people going to hell because they are masons? Are all these famous actors, presidents, and business leaders devil worshippers?

I think a lot of false information has been written about masons from people who were kicked out for not meeting their obligation. They wanted to get back at the masons for being kicked out so they made up a bunch of trash about devil worship.

Comparing DnD to the masons I think DnD players who were not any good at the game and got kicked out decided to post negative information about the game to get back at the other players.

Catholic Priests, who were never masons, believe what they hear about the masons and conclude the masons must be satanic and therefore forbid any catholics from being masons. Similarily parents, having never played DnD just take the word from disgruntal former players and forbid their kids from playing the game.

I would really like to be a catholic some day, it would be great to be a church leader, but if masons can’t be catholics I have no choice I must be a protestant then. Many babtist and presbyterian ministers have been masons. I just don’t understand the Catholic argument.
 
I don’t think that the problem with being a Mason has anything to do with it being devil worship or any of the other hocus pocus stuff that’s said about it. Certainly these days I doubt that is the case.

The problem is that Mason’s are very anti-Catholic for a start. Why would you want to belong to an organisation that hates the Pope? Also, they require you to put your fellow Masons first - that is above God. Why would you want to belong to an organisation that asks that of you?
Many in my family are also Masons (my immediate family converted from Anglicanism) but I don’t feel compelled to be a part of it. I don’t think it is evil but I DO think it is contrary to my faith.

Also, surely you are not suggesting that because celebrities, presidents and business leaders do something, then it can’t be wrong?
 
To answer your original question, Masons have beliefs that are irreconcilable with the teachings of the Catholic Church. You cannot be a good Mason and a good Catholic at the same time.
mattjtayl said:
IThis surprised me since I know my uncle has always been very active in the presbyterian church, helping with mass, sunday school, fundrasing for the church, and giving to charity.
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Correction: Presbyterian church services are not masses. There is no eucharistic sacrifice in their services.

Jeremy
 
From the December 2002 “This Rock”

**Q: I know that Catholics aren’t allowed to join the Masons. What is the standing of the order of Odd Fellows vis-à-vis the Church?
**
A: Under canon 1374 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Catholics are forbidden to join societies that plot against the Church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith applied this to Masons, indicating that Catholics who join Masonic organizations are engaged in serious sin and are to be banned from the Eucharist.

The Church has also judged that the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Orangemen, the Sons of Temperance, and the Communist Party are forbidden societies. Most Americans are familiar with the Masons and the Communist Party but less familiar with the others.

The Odd Fellows was formed in England in 1812 and was brought to America in 1819. Like the Masons, it is a quasi-religious society, which is one of the Church’s chief objections against it. The group has chaplains, altars, high priests, ritual worship, and funeral ceremonies. Also like the Masons, its members are indifferentists who teach the equality of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

The Knights of Pythias was founded in 1864 by a group of Masons and suffers from many of the same problems as the Masons and the Odd Fellows. This organization places emphasis on the pagans Pythagoras, Damon, Pythias, and Dionysius as teachers and models for moral life.

The Orangemen are militaristic Irish Protestants who are intensely anti-Catholic and are responsible for much of the anti-Catholic violence in Northern Ireland.

The Sons of Temperance was founded in New York in 1842 and is far more than just a temperance society (which the Catholic Church has nothing against; there were many Catholic temperance societies in nineteenth-century America). Like the Masons, the Sons is a quasi-religious society with it own religious rituals, but it admits both men and women to its lodges instead of having as parallel organization for women as do the Masons and most similar groups.
 
mattjtayl said:
. . .I would really like to be a catholic some day, it would be great to be a church leader, but if masons can’t be catholics I have no choice I must be a protestant then. Many babtist and presbyterian ministers have been masons. I just don’t understand the Catholic argument.
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Don’t mistake Masonry’s presently benign image for the underlying anti-Christian false mysticism at its base. Have a look at the Mexican Revolution as an example of Freemasons very much involved in violently overthrowing the role of the Catholic Church in the lives of the faithful there. The anti-Catholic roots of Freemasonry were in evidence in the persecution of the Church which led to many martyrdoms and expulsions from the country (the Carmelite monastery in San Francisco was founded by Mexican nuns fleeing from this anti-clerical hatred).

This article will give you a fuller perspective of the Catholic difficulty with Freemasonry:

catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=1243
 
Also, surely you are not suggesting that because celebrities, presidents and business leaders do something, then it can’t be wrong?
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So you are telling me that George Washington, America’s 1st president of the united states and most benevolent revolutionary hero must of been a sinner who went to hell?

Theodore Roosevelt most known for his conversation effort who founded our first national parks like Yellowstone, founder of the NCAA athletics, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for brining the Russo-Japanese war to an end, made the Panama canal, and founder of the Department of Commerce and Labor was in God’s disfavor and in mortal sin because he was a mason?

Franklin Roosevelt who saved America from the Great Depression and brought hope back to the American people was in God’s disfavor and in mortal sin because he was a mason as well?

Other masonic sinners:
Isaac Newton
Clemens Samuel L. - Mark Twain
Ty Cobb - baseball legend
Nat King Cole
David Crocket
Henry Ford - invetor of first gas powered automobile and founder of Ford autombiles.
Mozart
Clark Gable - “Gone with the Wind”
John Wayne
John Gates - founder of Texaco oil company
Glen John H., Jr - U.S. astronaut and first american to orbit the earth in a space craft in 1962.
John Hancock - first signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Patrick Henry - “give me liberty or give me death”
Vernard W. Henley Sr. - C.E.O. and President of Consolidated Bank and Trust Co. first bank founded by a black man.
J. Edgar Hoover - founder of the FBI
Harry Houdini
Andrew Jackson - 7th president noted for his victory in New Orleans during the battle of 1812.
Hubert H. Humphrey - vice president under Lyndon Johnson
Harry S. Truman- 33rd president
Robert Dole - Decorated World War II veteran and nominee for president 1996.
Bud Abbot - from comedy series Abbot & Costello
Krammer - from Sienfield
Drake Edwin - pioneer of the Oil Industry
 
mattjtayl said:
So you are telling me that George Washington, America’s 1st president of the united states and most benevolent revolutionary hero must of been a sinner who went to hell?. . . [etc.]
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NO one is saying that any of the individuals you list (much less all Masons) are in hell - only God knows who constitute the population there. What we are saying is that Freemasonry was from its inception anti-Catholic and that it is a wise person (Catholic or not) who steers clear of involvment with this organization however innocuous it may seem from the outside. That many famous people were/are Masons is not to the point of whether this is an organization that should be approved by the Catholic Church
 
Having joined the Masons before becoming Catholic I found the individual members to be nice enough but the rights of initiation are enough to make you run away. Much of this isn’t introduced until you are already fairly deep into it. I also didn’t join any of the sub-groups which I’m told are even further off the deep end.
 
My father was reared in a Masonic home, but chose not to join the lodge because of the secrecy and intolerant attitudes.
In my own life of rambling, I have encountered some fine men who were Masons, I have met others who thought they were better than other people. By the way, John Wayne died a Catholic and his grandson is a Catholic priest.
I cannot understand why an active member of the parish in which I reside is also the head man of the local Masons. A letter to the bishop questioning this has brought no response.
 
Our Sunday Visitor has an article this week about Free-Masonry and how it’s incompatable with Catholic beliefs.
 
mattjtayl said:
So you are telling me that George Washington, America’s 1st president of the united states and most benevolent revolutionary hero must of been a sinner who went to hell?
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Why must we assume that he went to Heaven? He founded the United States of America, but America is not the Church. There is no evidence that he was ever a Catholic.

“Good people” (if they even exist, and if George Washington was one) don’t just automatically go to Heaven.
 
mattjtayl said:
So you are telling me that George Washington, America’s 1st president of the united states and most benevolent revolutionary hero must of been a sinner who went to hell?

Theodore Roosevelt most known for his conversation effort who founded our first national parks like Yellowstone, founder of the NCAA athletics, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for brining the Russo-Japanese war to an end, made the Panama canal, and founder of the Department of Commerce and Labor was in God’s disfavor and in mortal sin because he was a mason?

Franklin Roosevelt who saved America from the Great Depression and brought hope back to the American people was in God’s disfavor and in mortal sin because he was a mason as well?

Other masonic sinners:
Isaac Newton
Clemens Samuel L. - Mark Twain
Ty Cobb - baseball legend
Nat King Cole
David Crocket
Henry Ford - invetor of first gas powered automobile and founder of Ford autombiles.
Mozart
Clark Gable - “Gone with the Wind”
John Wayne
John Gates - founder of Texaco oil company
Glen John H., Jr - U.S. astronaut and first american to orbit the earth in a space craft in 1962.
John Hancock - first signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Patrick Henry - “give me liberty or give me death”
Vernard W. Henley Sr. - C.E.O. and President of Consolidated Bank and Trust Co. first bank founded by a black man.
J. Edgar Hoover - founder of the FBI
Harry Houdini
Andrew Jackson - 7th president noted for his victory in New Orleans during the battle of 1812.
Hubert H. Humphrey - vice president under Lyndon Johnson
Harry S. Truman- 33rd president
Robert Dole - Decorated World War II veteran and nominee for president 1996.
Bud Abbot - from comedy series Abbot & Costello
Krammer - from Sienfield
Drake Edwin - pioneer of the Oil Industry
Click to expand...
Are we to understand that any acts or accomplishments that those people have achieved warrants them a place in Heaven? No, only acts that are reflections of God’s will, acts of faith, charity and hope done in the governance of the Holy Spirit are awarded by God. If I cure cancer tomorrow, but live a terrible life, I will go to Hell if I die unrepentant.

And it seems to me, as it always does into interfaith debate, that it boils down to a question of authority. The Church has declared that a Catholic that becomes a freemason incurs excommunication. No if’s, no but’s. I, as a Catholic, am expected believe that Holy Mother Church has the authority through Our Lord to define this so, as are all Catholics. They may disagree, but they have an obligation to affirm the decision in action.
 
mattjtayl said:
but if masons can’t be catholics I have no choice I must be a protestant then.
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Looks like you answered your own question.

To love anything more than Christ and His Holy Bride, that is the primary sin.
 
Oh please! George Washington isn’t a Saint you know! I know you guys are patriotic (americans that is) but that doesn’t mean being revolutionary hero and founding your country sends someone to heaven! It also doesn’t mean we should follow them in spiritual matters! I don’t know who is in Hell - nobody I sincerely hope. Presidents, actors and any other celebrities are not who I look to to help me follow the Lord.
 
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