How Catholics Can Evangelize Freemasons

Catholic Church Opposes Freemasonry

The Church does not allow Catholics to become Freemasons. Note the term “Masonic association.” That includes not only Blue Lodge Freemasonry, but also any of the appendant bodies. Note too the sentence, “It is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities...” No priest or even a bishop can dispense from that directive. Finally, note the sentence, “The faithful who enrol in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.”

Freemasonry Violates the First Commandment

The First Commandment states: “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”

Freemasonry denies the Catholic faith, as it does Judaism, the Protestant denominations, or any other religious faith a candidate might profess. The candidate enters as one in darkness seeking light. The darkness represents a spiritual void. Gn 1:2 “…and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The candidate, by declaring that he is in darkness, formally but often unconsciously renounces the religious teachings of his church as darkness. Albert G. Mackey’s Masonic Ritualist p. 23 describes the candidate’s initial entrance into a Masonic lodge, “There is to be, not simply a change for the future, but also an extinction of the past; for initiation is, as it were, a death to the world and a resurrection to a new life … The world is left behind - the chains of error and ignorance which have previously restrained the candidate in moral and intellectual captivity have been broken.”

God commanded, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” Freemasonry does not acknowledge Christ’s revelation of the Blessed Trinity or anything else in His public revelation. Jesus said, Jn 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” In fact, it pointedly rejects Christianity as a truth, much less the truth. Albert Pike, Freemasonry’s most eminent philosopher, in his book Morals and Dogma, p. 37 discussing the Fellow Craft degree, wrote, “Catholicism was a vital truth in its earliest ages, but it became obsolete, and Protestantism arose, flourished, and deteriorated. The doctrines of Zoroaster were the best which the ancient Persians were fitted to receive; those of Confucius were fitted for the Chinese; those of Mohammed for the idolatrous Arabs of his age. Each was Truth for the time. Each was a Gospel, preached by a Reformer; and if any men are so little fortunate as to remain content therewith, when others have attained a higher truth, it is their misfortune and not their fault.”

Freemasonry Violates the Second Commandment

The Second Commandment states: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

The Masonic obligation is the oath by which a man becomes a Mason. A candidate takes the Entered Apprentice’s obligation to become an Entered Apprentice, or first degree Mason. An Entered Apprentice takes the Fellow Craft’s obligation to become a Fellow Craft, and a Fellow Craft takes the Master Mason’s obligation to become a Master Mason.

Each of these three obligations begins with an invocation to God which includes the words, “solemnly and sincerely promise and swear.” It ends with an acceptance of bloody penalties to be imposed upon a Mason who reveals any of the secrets of Freemasonry. These penalties, if ever carried out, would provide an extremely violent, bloody, and painful death. Freemasons invariably explain that these bloody penalties are not actually intended to be carried out, but only to impress on the new Mason the gravity of his obligation. That being so, during the Masonic obligation, God is solemnly invoked as witness to a statement that is not intended to be true.

At the time he is taking the obligation, the candidate does not know that his brother Masons do not literally intend the bloody penalties. Prior to taking the obligation, the candidate is told only that the obligation will not infringe upon his duty to his God, his country, his neighbor or himself. If the candidate imagines that these bloody penalties are actually intended, he is calling God as witness to his willingness to permit grave sin, the mutilation of his own body.

Freemasonry Mocks Christianity

The mockery of Christianity becomes explicit in the second section of the Master Mason’s degree, where a ritual drama reenacts Hiram Abiff’s death and resurrection. The Worshipful Master teaches the candidate: “You have this evening represented one of the greatest men, and perhaps the greatest Mason, the world ever knew, our Grand Master Hiram Abiff, who was slain just before the completion of King Solomon’s Temple … After prayer, King Solomon took the body by the strong grip of a Master Mason, or lion’s paw, and raised it …” When Christians object that the Hiramic myth reminds us of a Christ-figure raised from the dead not by the hand of our heavenly Father but by a Masonic grip, Masons explain that this is merely a symbolic way to teach universal principles such as friendship, morality, and brotherly love. However, the theme of the master architect, one of three, murdered and risen from the dead, is an obvious mocking of Christ’s death and resurrection. Every man attains the degree of Master Mason by mocking Christ in the role of Hiram Abiff.

The satanic mockery of the Catholic faith gets worse. The Scottish Rite, an appendant Masonic body, in its Knight Kadosh (30th) degree, requires that the candidate stab a skull with a papal tiara, and a skull on which is a crown, saying, “Down with imposture! Down with crime!” In the fourth oath the Knight Kadosh again focuses on the “cruel and cowardly Pontiff, who sacrificed to his ambition the illustrious order of those Knights Templar of whom we are the true successors.” All present then trample on the papal tiara while shouting “Down with imposture!” Freemasonry’s conflict with the Catholic Church is veiled in the Blue Lodge, but here the veil is lifted to reveal hatred.

This virulently anti-Catholic theme of the Knight Kadosh degree is part of what Albert Pike, Supreme Commander of the Scottish Rite for three decades, meant when he said that the Blue Degrees intentionally deceive Master Masons. Recognizing that some Master Mason might obtain the script for this degree, the script says only, “Down with imposture.” These words were carefully chosen to conceal what is really going on. Catholics, who propose truth and oppose imposture, would not be alarmed by these words. Even the reference to the “cowardly Pontiff” could be explained as one of Freemasonry’s many invented titles or perhaps a reference to the Scottish Rite’s 19th degree. Only those present when the degree is given, who have already sworn 29 oaths of secrecy, would recognize its vituperation against the Catholic Church.

Freemasonry Even Deceives Master Masons

It is particularly interesting that Albert Pike, in Morals and Dogma, declares that the blue (first three, including Master Mason) degrees of Freemasonry intentionally defraud the Master Mason, who is assured that he has all the secrets of Freemasonry. Pike writes: p. 819 “The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them, but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them.”

Read that again. Freemasonry’s most eminent philosopher is saying that the fraternity deliberately deceives Master Masons. Some Masons answer that Pike was merely promoting Scottish Rite Masonry, but Pike swore during his Master Mason’s obligation, “I will not cheat, wrong, or defraud a Master Mason’s lodge, nor a brother of this degree.” If Pike’s statement is false, he has seriously violated his obligation and should have suffered ignominy within the craft. In fact, Freemasonry has given him its highest honors. Even today, Pike’s name is revered among Scottish Rite Masons.

Approach to Masons

Men who wear the Masonic ring have no idea that they are mocking Christianity. Most Masons imagine themselves to be good Christians, and are shocked when we explain to them that Freemasonry is a demonic institution that mocks Christianity without its members realizing it. I recommend approaching them charitably, and merely asking them whether they have sat in the lodge during an Entered Apprentice initiation and wondered exactly what darkness the candidate had been in before being brought to light, and whether Jesus, Jn 8:12 “I am the light of the world,” or His followers, Mt 5:14 “You are the light of the world,” are deemed by Freemasonry to be in darkness, and if so why that should not be considered a denial of Christianity. We can ask, in gentle charity, whether, in the second section of the third degree, the theme of a master architect, one of three, murdered and risen from the dead, not by God’s power but by the strong grip of the lion’s paw, has ever struck them as an obvious mocking of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Masons who have only gone as far as the Blue Lodge may not be familiar with Albert Pike. But Scottish Rite Masons (32nd degree) certainly should. If we encounter a man who wears a 32nd degree Masonic ring, or who says he is a 32nd degree Mason, we may fairly ask him to read p. 819 of Morals and Dogma, and compare “The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them, but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them,” with the statement sworn by every Master Mason, “I will not cheat, wrong, or defraud a Master Mason’s lodge, nor a brother of this degree.”

Most Masons are so accustomed to seeing their lodge as a pillar of the community that it takes them awhile to think through these indications of Freemasonry’s true nature. But we can plant seeds.