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.
But while 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), 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 epitomises the economic, social, cultural and political order.
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 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. 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 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.
You are missing the point.
ReplyDeleteFreemasonry and its organised naturalism/atheism is still behind the banking empires etc. and keep regimes such as the EU violently anti-Catholic.
Course it does, dear.
ReplyDeletePlease, Mr Lindsay, spare your readers your attempts at sarcasm. It was Leo XIII who bluntly said: "Freemasonry: Here is the enemy." Thereby echoing what Benedict XIV and Clement XII and Pius VIII (to name only a few) had said before that. Has Mr Lindsay never heard of Alta Vendita? Or the blood-drenched Masonic terror state which was Plutarco Calles' Mexico? Or the murder of President Garcia Moreno in Ecuador?
ReplyDeleteIf you had read the post, then you would know that I had.
ReplyDeleteMr Lindsay, your post says nothing about such notorious conspiracies as Alta Vendita, says nothing about Mexico and Ecuador save for a generalised reference to 'the Latin world', and says nothing about the specific popes whom I identified. In short, it is generally in line with the now-fashionable neo-Catholic attitude that only an ignorant knuckle-dragger with a name like Seamus O'Flaherty would even dream of ascribing anything innately malignant to Masonic leaders, however blatant their turpitude (Bugnini being perhaps the ultimate example of such turpitude). Is it any wonder that genuinely Catholic readers would object to the evidence-free bet-hedging on offer here?
ReplyDeleteStill, such bet-hedging has at least the accidental usefulness of confirming a point which well deserves emphasis: that neo-Catholicism is itself so utterly Masonic in spirit as to be largely indistinguishable from Calles-type gangsterism, a fact which Enda Kenny is currently demonstrating for us at near-interminable length.