The very existence of the Masons reminded Rome of a big black mark on our history.
The Templars were treated horribly, and a full apology, by the Vatican, will probably happen some day.
Please somebody ping me when (and if) an authoritative statement reversing the 1983 statement is posted.
Claims of victimhood are always useful in gaining sympathy, but how do you claim victimhood when you are a brand new group? Claim to be members of another, long-gone group that can’t challenge your claims! How could Mohammed justify hating all Jews? Claim to be descended from Esau, the brother who Jacob scammed!
Since the Knights Templar were Catholic, and the freemason’s beliefs are inconsistent with Catholicism, either the Free Mason’s claim that they are descended from the Knights Templar is either nonsense, or they actually were the heretics that they were accused of being, or the truth is somewhere in between.
That would be helpful. You and I have discussed the history of the Catholic church in mediaeval England, and that the earliest definitive example of my surname appears in the Templar Inquisition of 1185. I was raised in a casually Protestant home, and became interested in genealogy in adulthood; this earliest discovery of my surname caused me to sour somewhat on Catholicism, something that I'd no cause to really think about prior, since there were few Catholics where I grew up, and we weren't exactly devout. It took me several years to come back around and accept that humans are inherently fallen but for the Grace of God, and that their institutions can be as well. It helped lead me back to Him in a way, odd as that sounds.