“Their practices are to be kept secret. It hard to keep your membership secret if you wear a Mason ring.
It’s just the way we do things in lodge that is secret now. In the early days the Freemasons traveled to many countries and townships to do the work the locals couldn’t do. Nowadays we all work and live in towns, we have lodges well advertized with our hours of meetings and other functions, and we don’t have to hide from the public. And you can bet bank that many of the people that discredit us have no idea who we are or what we do.
The Catholic Church forbids its members from joining Freemasonry because it views the core ideas of the Masonic movement as irreconcilable with Catholic doctrine. This prohibition, active since 1738 and reaffirmed by the Vatican in late 2023, states that active Masonic membership is a grave sin that prevents a Catholic from receiving Holy Communion.
The Catholic Church’s determination that Freemasonry promotes religious indifferentism—the belief that all religions are equal paths to God—is a core theological reason for the Church’s ban on membership, but it is not framed as a response to physical “church attacks”. Instead, the Church views the Masonic worldview as a spiritual and philosophical threat. Seems kind of non-democratic doesn’t it just because we accept al who wish to do the good work we do.
And when you enter a new town, and you see the sign with all the groups that are in the town, many times you find a sign about freemasons right next to the rotary, knights of columbus, elks, lions, or any other group. To be one, you have to ask one. But the reward is our efforts and not really to us but to our many charities. We don’t hide that either.
wy69
Back in the day I was a member of the Rotary Club.
Everything was public information—no secrets.