Posted on 01/30/2005 7:07:08 PM PST by AncientAirs
Incompatible With Christian Religion, Says Historian
MADRID, Spain, JAN. 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- To understand what is happening in Europe, the phenomenon of Masonry must be taken into account, says Protestant historian César Vidal.
The director of the program "La Linterna" of the Spanish bishops' COPE radio network, Vidal has just written a book, "Los Masones: La Historia de la Sociedad Secreta Más Poderosa" (The Freemasons: History of the Most Powerful Secret Society), published by Planeta.
Among other things, the book addresses the Masonic influence in the most important events of recent Spanish history, especially since the election last March of the Spanish Socialist Labor Party (PSOE).
Vidal says that "the secularist current promoted by the government headed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero shares more than enough Masonry's rank anti-clericalism."
The author explains that the Freemasons have an enormous role in the European Union and, by way of example, says that "the project of the European Constitution has been driven by a Freemason," Valéry Giscard D'Estaing, "who has excluded mention of the continent's Christian roots and, in addition, has insisted on the inclusion of an article that subjects the churches of the different nations but frees 'philosophical organizations' from that obligation."
Vidal has doctorates in history, philosophy and theology, and a law degree.
Q: Which outstanding personalities in Spain were and are Masons, a fact known by very few people?
Vidal: The list would be too long and some, only some, are mentioned in my book "The Freemasons." Suffice it to say by way of illustration that the Grand Master of the great Spanish east is Dr. Josep Corominas, PSOE deputy; that the special five-member commission that established Felipe González as the PSOE's secretary-general has three Masons among its members -- one of them the future president of the Senate -- and that Rodríguez Zapatero's grandfather was a Freemason.
Q: Can it be said that Masonry is behind the secularist current that is being witnessed in Spain?
Vidal: What can be said without danger of exaggeration is that the secularist current promoted by the government that José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero heads shares, more than enough, Masonry's rank anti-clericalism.
Q: What role does it have and might have in the European Union?
Vidal: Enormous if one takes into account that the project of the European Constitution has been promoted by a Freemason who has excluded mention of the continent's Christian roots and, in addition, has insisted on the inclusion of an article that subjects the Churches to the different nations but frees "philosophical organizations" from that obligation.
Q: In what way, over the last century, has Masonry been present in the history of Spain?
Vidal: Repeatedly and lamentably. A very important role must be attributed to Masonry in the pro-independence movements of Cuba and the Philippines, in anti-clerical and secularist campaigns, in the erosion of the parliamentary monarchy of the Restoration, going so far as to take recourse to terrorism, in the proclamation of the Second Republic and, very especially, in the redaction of a Republican Constitution which created a social break that led to the Civil War.
Q: Can you tell us about concrete events that prove its struggle against Catholicism?
Vidal: That is the history of Masonry since the 18th century, but suffice it to recall, by way of example, that Rodolfo Llopis, Freemason and Socialist, became secretary-general of the PSOE [and] promoted the anti-Christian educational legislation of the Second Republic; or scandals such as that of the Banca Ambrosiana which were linked directly to the Masons' action.
Q: What were Masonry's origins?
Vidal: The real origins of Masonry date back to the end of the 17th and early 18th centuries, when groups of individuals attracted by occult gnosis founded meeting places in which, supposedly, it was transmitted.
Of course, they talk about origins that refer to pagan religions, to gnosis, to a nonexistent personality of Solomon's time and also to the druids.
Q: What are its most characteristic features, objectives and present structure? Is it a religion?
Vidal: Though Freemasons deny it, the truth is that the Masonic cosmo-vision is not one proper to a philanthropic society as they often say, but that of a religion. That circumstance explains, precisely, the repeated condemnations of the Holy See and of the other Christian confessions, which consider membership in Masonry incompatible with Christianity.
Masonry might be described as a secret society, with an initiative structure, a gnostic cosmo-vision, and an existential manifestation which makes it easy for its members to help one another when it comes to occupying important posts in society.
Q: What percentage of Freemasons are there at present?
Vidal: Without a doubt, very small. In France it is said that they are not more than 0.6% of the population. However, that has not prevented their controlling the Socialist International or their spreading in the Right itself, through personalities such as Giscard D'Estaing.
Q: In what vital points of our society -- especially in economic, political and intellectual circles and the media -- are Freemasons present?
Vidal: There are sectors that have always been of interest to Freemasons. Needless to say, politics where they control the Socialist International and have entered powerfully in parties of the Right. No less is their weight in the world of communications and, very especially, their interest in education, justice and the armed forces.
In France, for example, the "affaire des fiches" revealed to what extent Masonic officers were promoted and Catholics, on the contrary, blocked from promotion. ZE05013020
Oh No! Please don't do that, they will take away my dental coverage.
=== One thing that always strikes me in these threads is the honorable way in which Masons comport themselves
You forgot your sarcasm tag ... =)
=== his Christian principles
Such as: "Christ is my favorite philosopher"
Who needs a secret handshake after a line like that?
=== It is funny to see however, the fundamentalist kooks join up with the Catholics to attack Masonry
I think the idea of Jewish Masons is pretty funny in turn.
=== If anything Morals and Dogma will put you to sleep.
Insightful phrasing.
Next time, say: "If anything, Pike will put you to sleep."
The alliteration will distract from the truth you're telling and -- as a bonus -- center the target on Pike personally.
=== Astrology was held in higher esteem 230 years ago than it is today.
This is interesting too. Here we're talking Age of Reason triumph over lobotomized (re-formed) Christianity's Bibliolator take on the Bible and yet astrology still is held in high esteem and deemed a "science" of sorts?
Something wrong with that picture. Making men subject to clods of star.
=== and is not dogmatic in the odious sense of that term.
When is dogma "odious"? When the teachings are binding (even, and especially, for their having been rejected)?
=== Every one is entirely free to reject and dissent from whatsoever herein may seem to him to untrue or unsound.
Has Masonry ever had a battle within ... similar to the revolution within the Catholic Church where dissenters and hypocrites of all stripes are concerned? Has it ever changed the "Dogma" sorts of bedrock principles Pike discusses in his work?
And what of the major lodges or whatever? Any strife between Scottish, Oriental or "Anglo" as it appears to be called on this thread?
Just curious.
Speaking to a Monsignor about such things once, he confirmed that the Church indeed is penetrated but that she has likewise penetrated the Masons. He asked me where I thought the highest circle they'd penetrated was. I was stumped but thinking only in terms of Scotland, Paris or D.C. Nope, he said: Jerusalem.
And just WHERE is anything honorable in the posts made by the Masons' tinfoil covered detractors on this or any other thread about Masons?
Ahhhhhhhhhhh...but your posts are far better than reading Pike or taking sleeping pills. ;^)
So,in order to help you,please allow me to explain to you that the Scottish Rite is part of Masonry,part of its degree system,not a separate piece.
How lovely of you,Askel,dear,to include your biased,nasty slurs against Protestants too,whilst you were at it.But then,that's you...........
Quidam? Is that you?
It jibes perfectly with the sort of "reasoning" espoused on a PBS special on faith in America last year wherein the talking heads spoke of how it's not important what we believe but only that Americans are a nation of "believers."
Insidious to the core. Particularly where we are talking about a nation that lacks the Euro Soviet's honesty in stripping the public square of all mention of God but seeks to keep the godly imprimatur for itself even as it wages unjust war, slaughters over one million of its own each year, leads the world in porn revenues and -- by federal mandate -- preaches evolutionism and "sex education" in schools.
But, given the fact most self-styled Christians these days likewise compartmentalize their lives and seek to exclude -- with the federally-mandated "rights" of birth control, artificial reproduction and abortion -- the Creator from their marriage beds, even, it's to be expected.
The Monsignor takes Masonry more seriously than you. A blueblood reared on Fifth Avenue and in London, he was late to his vocation. Very likely, it's his adult career as a mover and shaker in the world of Money which has caused him to become a point man of sorts for issues of Masonry within and outside the Church.
I find it somewhat curious that, on the one hand, gullible Masons can crow about the Founding Fathers having all been Masons, laid out our capitol in an occult fashion (pretending to themselves that astrology was yet then a "science" in the lobotomized "Age of Reason") and relied so heavily on the diabolicized and secularized France to wage the revolution.
Yet, on the other hand, they disavow any notion of this Masonic Revolution's being a conspiracy. At least the Bolsheviks -- particularly those a part of their predecessor organization the Narodnya Volya "will of the people" -- have more intellectual honesty.
Perhaps that too is a part of being conditioned to Compartmentalize like a good Mason and pretend that social work is the zenith of "morality." Is it any wonder that the "faithbased partnership" movement of our government reflects its Masonic roots so clearly as it denudes with illicitly gained federal funding those faithbased organizations stupid enough to feed at the federal trough and thereby obligate themselves -- like Masons -- to put their personal beliefs aside in favor of styling themselves somehow "moral" charities?
Masonry is utterly incompatible with Christ. If this thread weren't proof enough, my conversation with a Mason at the Monteleone Hotel the other night is still fresh in my mind. His group of Shriners has a special sub-group (here in town this past weekend) devoted to "Mirth". Which devotion (from what I could tell) included trying to pick up women in bars and returning to the hotel room in time to get a call from the weekend's liaison, which assignation did not appear to have much, if anything, to do with the man's "Christian" marriage.
"When is dogma "odious"?Ohhh... don't tempt me...
(And no... I wasn't being at all sarcastic.)
Nor am I. I suspect dogma is "odious" in the sense that it is actually binding in the same way objective Truth binds a man who accepts same.
Given the fact there is no Mason or Masonic sympathizer on this thread -- women being absolutely excluded, of course -- who has the supreme degree of Membership necessary to defend ALL of Masonry's rites, dogma or secrets, your spirited defenses of a rite you know only superficially are less than convincing.
Although, it is extremely interesting to see how devoted and reliable are the Useful Idiots content to defend as "moral", in particular, an organization they themselves are barred from knowing intimately.
This too is a most useful bit of conditioning where you expect the sheeple to "trust" (if not necessarily verify) the machinations they fund, the real lives they take and the Godgiven liberties they trade all in the name of State Security.
The answer threw me at first too.
But that was before I'd realized Israel only became a state in 1948. (Reared like most Americans, I was heavy on the Holocaust experience but a bit fuzzy on the details of the secularist Zionist, fascist and bolshevik "competition" to confect Israel with the help of Interested Parties in the west who now brandish the world's only official victim state any time they wish to rationalize the inexplicable.)
True...inane rantings to be sure.
Sounds like John Ankerberg.
No,can't be;at least Quidam's posts were pithy and intelligent.
That you are so blinded by the massive amounts of tinfoil you're wearing,to be unable to do anything more than throw out baseless and by now quite aged, banal propaganda foisted upon the gullible,by the Catholic church,shows the shallowness of your arguments.
Why does it matter that your friend the Monsignor comes from a supposed wealthy family?
Was George Washington a "self-styled Christian"?
Are the Jewish and Buddhist Masons self-styled as well?
Are we to infer,from your postings,that a church,whose history is filled with intrigue,corruption,and hypocrisy has the right to not only condemn and bear false witness against men they do not know and an organization which they began to abjure and counsel against because of its own feared,greed,and lust for power, but to imbue some of its adherents with the will to also heap calumny upon others,for no valid reason,be taken as whole clothe? WHY?
Oh goody goody gum drops...you met a Shriner who fed you a line of bovine excrement and you are now damning mill;ions of men,alive and dead,with that.Okay,let's talk about the Catholic priests and Nuns,going back millenia who molest/ed young children,shall we? What about The open licentiousness of millions of Catholics throughout the ages? Revolutions and torture and crimes of all sorts? Wanna beigin with the baseless imprisonments,torture,and murders of people from the Knights Templar to Jews to innocent people called witches,who weren't,to the fact that even through the 1950s,your church was still preaching to the faithful that Protestants were NOT Christians,had no religion at all,were just heretics,and other such vile propaganda?
You can believe whatever you want to,no matter how misguided and false those opinions ma be;however,when you espouse them in public and libel good men and true and their families,Askel,don't expect to do so with impunity.
And Askel,ignoring me and my posts,really isn't a good reflection on you. ;^)
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