It's not just a historical quirk of Catholics.
“It’s not just a historical quirk of Catholics.”
No, but the the recent issues started with a hoax on the sittting pope by a French crook called Leo Taxil.
http://www.masonicinfo.com/taxil.htm
The then-pope fell for the hoax, and while the Roman Catholic Church has admitted the error, the lie has taken a life of its own in cracked Protestant fringe groups.
Indeed, many lazy historians in many denominations (or simple conspiracy nuts) pick up various RCC writing that have been since-rejected by the RCC and run with it.
The Lutheran link has so many false statements about the freemason fraternity, I wouldn’t know where to start.I wouldn’t join the fictional fraternity it talks about, either.
It surprises me that so many purported Christian organizations would slander an organization to which many, if not most, of the Founding Fathers of these United States belongs, without doing some basic on-line research.