Why The Catholic Church Hates Freemasonry
This is just a collection if possible ideas for the hatred of Freemasonry by the Catholic Church. I have no idea if any of them make sense. These are various ideas that I have heard of from a variety of sources.
1) The so-called secrecy prevents a Freemason from telling everything to his priest. The Freemason will not tell all to his priest during confession. This is probably because there is nothing done in Freemasonry that could by any stretch of the imagination be considered a sin against God so there is no reason to confess anything, especially to another mere human being who just happens to be a priest. The Catholic Church seems to thing that everything should be told to their priests.
2) The fact that the Catholic Church along with King Philip IV of France, and others murdered many of the members of the Knights Templar back in the 1300s. This they did through torture and burning at the stake, which was probably not a fun way to die.
3) The fact that the Freemasons taught that the Earth was not the Center of the Universe long before the Catholic Church admitted that was true. Some Pope seems to have decided that the Sun rotated around the Earth and since the Catholic Church considers the Pope to be never wrong it must be so. I think that the Catholic Church officially admitted that they were wrong about Galileo on 31 October 1992. I do not know if that is when they decided that the Earth was not necessarily the Center of the Universe, or flat. I guess they decided that a long dead Pope might have made a mistake. Admitting that a Pope might have been wrong seems to undermine the infallibility of the Pope. I may be wrong, but it sometimes seems to me that the Catholic Church seems to consider the Pope to the God on Earth since only God should ever be considered to be infallible. Perhaps even God makes a mistake every so often and has to fix it later.
4) The Freemasons encouraged freethinkers and seemed to think that man could communicate with God without needing to have a priest as an interpreter, or to act as a lawyer.
5) The leaders of the Catholic Church have claimed that Freemasonry is out to destroy the Catholic Church. I have no idea why they would ever think that, but they still seem to so do.
6) The Catholic Church operated the Inquisition and routinely arrested and tortured Freemasons in an attempt to gain the so-called secrets of Freemasonry. This seems to be a historical fact.
7) It may be that from time to time some French and Italian Lodges have participated in political adventures inimical to the temporal power of the Pope.
8) One Pope seems to have been a Freemason but was expelled from Freemasonry for his bad treatment of other Masons. Perhaps the Catholic Church is miffed that one of its leaders was found not good enough for Freemasonry.
Whatever the reason, the Catholic Church still seems to demonize Freemasonry even in 2009. There have been many Papal Bulls against Freemasonry issued by various Popes that forbid members of the Catholic Church from joining the Freemasons.
Click here to read what the Catholics think about Freemasonry: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09771a.htm
Since only about 1 out of every 6 people on our Earth are members of the Catholic Church the opinion of the Pope does not really mean very much. In fact the Pope's opinion means virtually nothing to 5 out of 6 people on the planet. The opinion of the Pope means little to about 5,000,000,000 people out of the about 6,000,000,000 people on the planet.
The Freemasons always have, and still do, welcome Catholics who wish to join Freemasonry. The Freemasons do not even ask if a candidate is a member of the Catholic Church. Many Catholics belong to Freemasonry but they do not bother to inform their Priest since it the priest has no need to know.
The hatred of Freemasonry by the Catholic Church at least gives us something to chuckle about.
Perhaps someday the leaders of the Catholic Church will quit hating the Freemasons. Probably not. We as Freemasons do not care!