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Page 5 of 5
The Freemasons
Prior to the creation of additional European faiths following the
Reformation (c.1500) the Catholic Church had always been available as a
convenient forum to settle disputes between rival Kings. Afterwards it
was unlikely that a Protestant King would travel to Rome to seek an
adjudication. By about 1750 an alternative international forum had
developed and that was the Freemason Lodges. The movement stated in
England probably 500 years earlier where stone masons, that is the
skilled craftsmen who combined the skills of sculptors, architects and
building management and were therefore important to the Kings and
Church alike, developed a non religious forum for exchanging
information on new building methods. Because of the relationship
between the builders of Castles and Churches and their clients, the
Monarchs and the Bishops, membership eventually embraced all three.
Discussion was strictly secular and remained secret.
The first Lodge outside the British Isles was founded by Englishman
Charles Radclyffe, Earl of Derwentwater, in Paris in 1726. Lodges then
rapidly spread across Europe and into North America. Viz: Prague 1726
followed by Vienna both Habsburg centres, then Italy 1733. The last to
be established in Europe being in the one of the most active centres
for the Inquisition, Spain and Portugal. Famous members were: Fredrick
the Great of Prussia, The husband of Maria Theresa von Habsburg,
(Francois of Lorraine) so the lodges were rapidly spread through
Habsburg territories which held of course the seat of the Catholic Holy
Roman Empire. (In the US both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington
were Freemasons as were Voltaire in France and in England the King
Georges, Swift Boswell and Hogarth) No wonder the Church in Rome began
to see the threat from the Masons. The difference between the two was
huge. Whereas the Catholics resisted change, embraced censorship and
generally looked backwards, the Freemasons now had all the important
people in Europe within their orbit, were not religious and were all
embracing, that is they had members from all churches and generally
looked ahead for the benefit of trade, science and technology.
The Catholic Church reacted as only they knew how.
On 28th April 1738
Pope Clement 3rd declared all Freemasons heretics and irrespective of
their position they should be captured, tortured until they confessed
and then killed. Murders occurred across Europe from Germany to Spain
and Portugal where in the latter two countries the Inquisition Office
was still intact. Notwithstanding this the Lodges expanded and began to
recruit more and more from the Catholic Church including their clergy.
Catholic actions against the Masons only stopped with the general
cleansing of Church activities by Napoleon.
The Catholic Church continues to censor Scientific and Archaeological
discoveries.
After the Reformation and the invention of the printing press the
Catholic Church became active in the suppression of new thinking in
Science, Human rights, and History. Here are two well known examples
one from 500 years ago and one from today.
-
Astronomy - The Bible as interpreted by the ancient theologians implies that the
earth is the centre of the Universe, all of which revolves around the
Earth. Italian inventor of powerful reflecting telescopes diligently
used his new toy to accurately plot the movement of the sun and the
stars and soon proved that there was no doubt that the opposite was the
case, the Earth was orbiting the Sun. Now everybody knows his name as
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). The maths to go with the observations was
relatively trivial but the Church chose to suppress this discovery and
to only finally apologise in 1992, over 300 years after his death. Poor
Galileo was arrested by the Inquisition office and spent the last few
years of his famous life in a Vatican prison.
- Dead Sea Scrolls - One of the best recent examples of how the Catholic Church deals with
new discoveries has to be their treatment of the Dead Sea Scrolls which
were found in a cave overlooking the Dead Sea in 1947. Up to this time
the theology surrounding Jesus was developed from writings dating 70
years after his death. Mere mortals in the form of Catholic Theologians
have been developing dogma based on this second hand information ever
since. Whereas the discovery of tablets and scrolls which appeared to
date from precisely the period surrounding the birth of Christianity
were greeted by the world at large as very exciting not so by the
Vatican. Fortunately for the Catholics they had a dig in the area and
were in a position to hide the scrolls and monopolise the translations.
The message from the Holy Office was that they were not important. This
was not changed until 1990 when photographs of the scrolls were leaked
out and can now be studied in such places as the Huntington Library in
California or in such books as the “The Dead Sea Scrolls
Uncovered” published in 1992. (The Dead Sea Scrolls were
created
by a Jewish hermit sect, called the Qumran, living in caves by the Dead
Sea and theologians have been able to confirm the accuracy of most of
the translations and information in the Old Testament. Probably more
interesting to Jews than Christians and contain nothing for the
Catholic Church to be frightened of.)
The Future
In October 1962 the most liberal Pope for hundreds of years John 23rd
inaugurated the Second Vatican Council to study how the Catholic Church
was to deal with the new scientific world we now live in. The changes
have not been sufficient to stop a huge and continuing drop in Church
membership, many worried about Church rules on: Male only priests who
are forbidden to marry and Contraception even though the Church accepts
the population of the world is growing too fast. In Ireland where the
Church still dominates, the drop in Church membership is most
noticeable. Perhaps the only solution for Catholics is to do as the
Romans do, or in this case the whole of Italy who take no notice at all
of any rules particularly emanating from those in high authority like
the Church or the E.C. This is manifest by their birth rate which is
the lowest in Europe.
As for the Inquisition or Holy Office or to use its current name, The
Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, it still exists but thank
goodness those who criticise it now live to tell the tail. For example
in 1997 the Priest and Harvard graduate Dr Paul Collins wrote:
“The Holy Office may have changed its name, but the ideology
underpinning it has survived. It has certainly not changed its methods.
It still accepts anonymous accusations, hardly ever deals directly with
the person accused, demands retractions and imposes silences and
continues to employ third rate theologians as its assessors. This body
has no place in the contemporary Church. It is irreformable and
therefore should be abolished.”
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