Is There No Help For The Widow's Son?

As Joseph Smith died asking.

Anders Behring Breivik has been indicted. Mitt Romney looks practically certain to be nominated. And there is much online speculation or assertion that local councillors who want to carry on praying are largely Freemasons. What to make of it all?

There is an excellent case that Freemasonry and witchcraft both arose out of the same failure of Protestantism to meet, as Catholicism had done and continues to do, the need for the everyday things of ordinary life to be imbued with theological significance and spiritual power. I should be fascinated to know if the Craft shared any of its Scottish roots with Episcopalianism, leading to any crossover with Jacobitism and its many political consequences, including both in France and in America. There is no shortage of material, although it is still worth mentioning, on the fact that the inventor of modern Scottishness in very much those terms was himself both an Episcopalian and a Freemason.

And it is also worth mentioning that such organisations are specifically prohibited in the Book of Mormon, as is polygamy. That text, with its nondescript moral message of untutored popular Protestantism, is almost never used to establish Mormon doctrine or practice, as the heavily Masonic character of both makes more than evident. There is, by the way, absolutely no basis for the idea that Early Modern witchcraft was either a continuation of pre-Christian religion or an antecedent of modern Paganism.

Yes, the Masonic Lodges were key to the circulation of the ideas that became the French Revolution against which all three of Gaullism, the non-Gaullist French Right and the non-Marxist French Left are to many extents ongoing reactions. Yes, the Masonic Lodges have been organisational bases of attacks on the Church and Her interests in the Latin world ever since. And yes, the Masonic Lodges were key to the circulation of the ideas against which the several States had to demand that the First Amendment to the American Constitution protect their respective Established Churches. Freemasonry has been, and to some extent remains, part of petty anti-Catholicism in this country; it was, for example, why Catholics found it so difficult to secure promotion while working for the Consett Iron Company.

But it is impossible to imagine a band of men less likely to conspire to overthrow the economic, social, cultural and political order, simply because it is impossible to imagine a band of men which better epitomised the economic, social, cultural and political order, whether on this Island or in that band's stronghold of Scandinavia, where, as historically and still quite frequently in Britain, social democracy rests on a social conformity which is itself nowhere near as secularised as it might at first appear to be.

To them was and is addressed the message, formulated while he was still an Anglican clergyman, of Fr Walton Hannah, who had no time for lurid Masonic conspiracy theories: it was precisely because the original Masonic rituals in this country had drawn heavily on the Book of Common Prayer, itself drawn heavily from Medieval and earlier sources, but had later been redacted to exclude expressions of orthodox Trinitarian and Christological doctrine, that they were now unconscionable to those who continued to adhere to that orthodoxy. That argument is unanswerable.

And what of the far more politicised Freemasonry of the Continent and of its former Empires? The only relatively recent example of a conspiracy of that kind has been in Italy, and it consisted precisely in the P2 Lodge's support for the Far Right both in its country and in Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina. But then, of course it did. The Far Right is the continuation of that which overthrew the old, organic, Catholic states of the Italian Peninsula (and the old, organic, often Catholic states of German-speaking Europe) in precisely the spirit of the French Revolution, in precisely the spirit of the attacks on the Church and Her interests throughout the Latin world ever since, and in precisely the spirit against which the several States had to demand that the First Amendment to the American Constitution protect their respective Established Churches.

The spirit that, in Norway, we now see only too clearly. And only in Norway? No, indeed. Breivik has declared his debt to the neoconservative movement, especially the late Daniel Pipes, but also Britain's own Melanie Phillips. But then, again, of course he has. Neoconservatism is the continuation and celebration of that against which the several States had to demand that the First Amendment to the American Constitution protect their respective Established Churches. It is the enemy of all things small, old, organic or Catholic. And it seeks to define Western civilisation in a manner redacted to exclude expressions of orthodox Trinitarian and Christological doctrine. Therefore, neoconservatism is unconscionable to those who continue to adhere to that orthodoxy, which is the true foundation of the West.