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To: Romulus

Only a fool relies on anti-Catholic media to report accurately on Catholic matters.
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Only a fool relies on anti-Masonic rhetoric/lies from Catholics to accurately describe the Masons.

My dad was a Mason for over 55 years.


48 posted on 05/26/2013 12:15:27 AM PDT by octex
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To: octex; verga; Texas Fossil; ConorMacNessa; Romulus; Coleus; ontap; Maine Mariner
octex:

I received my first three degrees in the Knights of Columbus in Connecticut 49 years ago this year and my Fourth Degree the following year. The council I belonged to was one of the biggest in that state where the K of C was founded, incorporated and is still headquartered. There was a Masonic Lodge Hall one block from our loK of C Hall.

We had a bar at the K of C Hall with a private club license (and verrrrry low prices for drinks compared with other bars with public licenses) and the bar was open seven days a week from about noon until legal closing time (1 or 2 AM). You had to be a member or guest to enter the bar room.

One afternoon an elderly man named Charlie and his similarly elderly wife wife rang the door bell and asked whether a Mason was welcome. We signed both into our guest book and socialized with them. They were very nice folks who were associated with the nearby Masonic Lodge and the Order of the Eastern Star.

They seemed a bit lonesome and wanted a daytime place to socialize. Except for those rare times when we had either degrees being conducted or during meetings when the bar was closed to members and all others, Charlie and his wife were always welcome and spent many afternoons at our club. We also told Charlie to feel free to bring his lodge members to our club and that they would be admitted to the bar as guests. He did not bring many of them. Maybe they were less interested in socializing with us than were Charlie and his wife.

There is something in substantially Catholic (at least nominally) Connecticut called "Brotherhood in Action" in which Knights, Masonic Lodge members and B'Nai Brith members cooperate in good privately funded works for the poor and for veterans and for the disabled and for the elderly.

Back in the 1920s, there was substantial strife among these brotherhoods but that is largely over with now. The Vatican has never relented in excommunicating (latae sententiae) those Catholics who become Masons for religious reasons having to do with several Masonic Degrees (IIRC: 3rd, 9th and 30th among them). That does not mean that we Knights ought to disrespect or dislike members of the Lodges just because they are Masons. I have friends who are even Democrats but even more friends who are Masons, as it should be.

Also, it is my understanding that there are substantial distinctions between Masonic Lodges in the United States and the so-called "Oriental Lodges" of Europe and elsewhere and absolute differences between the Masonic Lodges in the United States and the infamous lodges that ruled Mexico under the likes of Placido Calles during the Cristero War of the 1920s and related martyrdoms of priests and other Catholics as portrayed in the recent film For Greater Glory.

May God bless your dad.

60 posted on 05/26/2013 2:05:17 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline, Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society: Rack 'em, Danno)
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