Whew!
You anti-Masons are exhausting.
My family has records of our Freemasonry that extends back to the early 1600s. It is a custom within my family that all oldest male children become Masons. I have just passed my Fellowcraft degree and I am proud to be part of this great and ancient organization. I feel no less a Christian now, and neither have my ancestors. I know I will meet them all in Heaven.
I don’t go to Lodge for religion - and I don’t receive it there either. I go to church for that. As a matter of fact, our temple was built by the man who built the Protestant church next door. It is given to us by the congregation and many of them are members. A temple in a nearby community hosts worshipers whose church burned down last year.
Although only a Fellowcraft, having been brought up in a historically Masonic family, I have more insight into the Craft than most at my level. I can only say that I’ve not seen more people with less knowledge of a subject espouse their “expertise” so loudly than I have here.
And as for the Catholics - they have always had trouble with the Masons from the beginning. At least one set of legends state that the Catholics are responsible for the existence of the Craft - through it’s roots in the Knights Templar, the order’s betrayal by the Catholic pope, and it’s subsequent movement to the underground, where it arose as Freemasonry in more tolerant times. It might be true, it might not, but the Catholics felt so threatened by Freemasonry that they started their own organization to counter it - the Knights of Columbus. They must see some benefit it fraternal fellowship. Incidentally, the master of my lodge is Catholic - and he sees no conflict with his ability to worship God and Jesus.
We don’t question a man’s religion and only require that he answer to a higher authority because it is from faith that men are guided to better themselves.
...and THAT, anti-Masons, is what the entire fraternity is all about.
What's his name or is that just another secret in the secret society?