You know I never used the phrase “the degree work”, you keep qualifying your semi-denials with that phrase. What’s up with that?
“Degree work” has to do with the ceremonials performed by masons when they take their successive degrees. It comprises the rituals, the ceremonies, the scripts, the replies, the physical trappings of the degree, and the actual performance of the degree, etc.
It is similar to the degree work of each degree of the Knights of Columbus (at least as it gives structure to the degree, as opposed to content).
I know a little bit about masonry. A friend of mine is a mason, and has done quite a bit of research on masonry. He has, for some years, tried to persuade me that there would be nothing wrong for a Catholic to become a mason. He's given me books of their ceremonials, and spent many hours explaining things in the most favorable light.
From all these talks, I take a few points:
1. Many masons are very decent fellows, many of them are committed, like Catholics, to building up the community through good works of charity;
2. As a whole, most masonic organizations take reasonably seriously a commitment to charitable works;
3. The current ceremonials of masonry aren't anti-Catholic, are not especially obnoxious (although some of the oaths are rather silly), and do not have to be interpreted as religious rites or as a religious catechesis;
4. Most masons are not especially anti-Catholic and;
5. Masons often stick together in a way that folks who belong to other voluntary organizations often do not.
Having said that, I absolutely believe that no Catholic man should ever become a mason under any circumstances for any reason. Here are the two principle reasons:
1. Much of masonry's history, both in Europe and the United States, has been anti-Catholic. Even today, there are anti-Catholic Grand Lodges in Europe (although my friend says that these lodges are “excommunicated” from the “real masonic Grand Lodges,” but in that my friend also denies that there is any central or binding authority in masonry, that assertions rings somewhat hollow).
In the United States, the masons were in part for the campaigning for and passage of amendments to various state constitutions, especially in the Northwest, known as “Blaine Amendments,” which were aimed against the Catholic Church, forbidding any assistance whatsoever to religious schools, even to by secular textbooks or to provide bus transportation at public cost. In one state, I think it was Washington, but may have been Oregon, through masonic instigation, the government actually passed a law banning private schools, to undo the Catholic school system in that state. These evildoers were ultimately undone by the Supreme Court (and as a side note, the case had the unintended benefit of providing some constitutional protections to homeschoolers).
American masonry also supported the anti-Catholic revolutionaries in Mexico during the Mexican revolution in the 20th century. It helped give the revolution its anti-Catholic attribute, which resulted in the severe oppression of the Catholic Church, including the brutal murder of many priests and devout laity.
As a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus, I know that many of my Brother Knights were murdered for their Catholicism, and some of them are canonized saints of the Church.
It may be that much of American masonry is no longer anti-Catholic. I don't know. I'm not a mason and never plan to be one. But for me, it's enough that this institution has a fairly anti-Catholic past.
2. I've known six Catholic men who were also masons. I knew them during the time that they became fully aware that the Church really doesn't permit Catholic in good standing to be masons. I'm not talking about the misrepresentations of Church teaching by individual Catholic priests or other hierarchs. I'm talking about what the Church really teaches.
In the final analysis, when these men came to understand that they really had to choose between masonry and Catholicism, five of the six men chose masonry and apostasized from the Holy Church of Jesus Christ. This just about broke my heart.
What I found most disheartening was the reasoning of these five men. Although many masons say that masonry is not a religion, and thus they discount the idea that masonry promotes naturalism and indifferentism, this is what these five men told me:
a. That I shouldn't expect them to believe all that Catholic mumbo-jumbo, like transubstantiation and the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, or in some cases, even the idea of the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation or the Resurrection.
b. That the Catholic Church wasn't really an organization of divine institution, but rather just a corrupt human institution.
c. That the Church isn't any big deal. Belonging to any church, or any religion is good, as long as one is worshipping God and doing one’s best.
All the things that the Church teaches us to fear from masonry - naturalism, indifferentism, hostility toward the true Bride of Christ - I found in these men.
I'm not entirely sure where it came from. Perhaps these men became masons and even before that were indifferentists, naturalists, and nurtured an anti-Catholicism in their hearts. I've read through their modern ceremonials, and I don't find much to support the idea that masonry firmly teaches naturalism and indifferentism.
Nonetheless, it appears to me that these are the fruits of masonry. At least for the those Catholic men who join the lodge.
I will not condemn masonry, per se. It's far beyond my knowledge or my ability to judge to say that it is intrinsically evil. I've met masons who seemed to be good men, and interested in using their time, treasure and talents to do good for other people.
But I do believe that it's rightfully forbidden that Catholic men should join the lodge. Masonry appears to take Catholic men into apostasy, and that is a very grave evil.
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