-
Articles/Ads
Article THE PAPAL ALLOCUTION AGAINST FREEMASONRY. ← Page 6 of 16 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Papal Allocution Against Freemasonry.
" overthrown Empire . The very foundations of Catholicism are being " sapped , its temporal and spiritual dominion is passing away , and the " POPE , vaguely conscious of some impending . danger , summons a Secret " Consistory and launches his excommunication against Freemasonry !" No one who reads the aboA r e can" j > retend to say it is
anything but a most able article , and very complimentary to Freemasonry , and yet , for the reason mentioned before , it is not satisfactory . It is evident the writer was under pressure
of time to produce it , and aAvay from all sources of reference , or some of its statements would have been modified . ISTow the exordium with which his Holiness commenced his Allocution , though it may have surprised the Avriter in The Times , will not have the same effect on any brother Avho is
intimate with the secret history of the Order . We , advisably , say the secret history , because the text books we have , such as Anderson and Preston , scarcely allude to the early , and inner , life of Freemasonry ; they are taken up by a kind of chronological compendium which , whatever may be its value ,
really tell us nothing , or next to nothing , of the struggles of the mediaeval brethren against the assumptions of the Papacy . From the second century of the Christian era , history presents one vast , unbroken , chain of evidence , clearly shoAving how the secret association of Freemasonry , —under various names and
forms of existence , —Avas ever ready to do battle against the gradually increasing pretensions of the Popes . It bears witness to the terrible persecutions to which its leaders , and their followers , were exposed . But it must not be assumed that all
who suffered in the cause of freedom Avere of the brotherhood , that would be as great a fallacy as the ignoring its existence is on the other side . What Ave wish to convey is that , in almost all the endeavours to free themselves from the encroachments of the See of Eome , the various parties who opposed her
aims , —whether branded by her with the title of heretics , or held up to public execration as ungodly men , —Avere led , controlled , and directed , by a secret organization Avhich for many centuries defied , and remained undiscovered by the heads of the Koman branch of the Christian Church .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Papal Allocution Against Freemasonry.
" overthrown Empire . The very foundations of Catholicism are being " sapped , its temporal and spiritual dominion is passing away , and the " POPE , vaguely conscious of some impending . danger , summons a Secret " Consistory and launches his excommunication against Freemasonry !" No one who reads the aboA r e can" j > retend to say it is
anything but a most able article , and very complimentary to Freemasonry , and yet , for the reason mentioned before , it is not satisfactory . It is evident the writer was under pressure
of time to produce it , and aAvay from all sources of reference , or some of its statements would have been modified . ISTow the exordium with which his Holiness commenced his Allocution , though it may have surprised the Avriter in The Times , will not have the same effect on any brother Avho is
intimate with the secret history of the Order . We , advisably , say the secret history , because the text books we have , such as Anderson and Preston , scarcely allude to the early , and inner , life of Freemasonry ; they are taken up by a kind of chronological compendium which , whatever may be its value ,
really tell us nothing , or next to nothing , of the struggles of the mediaeval brethren against the assumptions of the Papacy . From the second century of the Christian era , history presents one vast , unbroken , chain of evidence , clearly shoAving how the secret association of Freemasonry , —under various names and
forms of existence , —Avas ever ready to do battle against the gradually increasing pretensions of the Popes . It bears witness to the terrible persecutions to which its leaders , and their followers , were exposed . But it must not be assumed that all
who suffered in the cause of freedom Avere of the brotherhood , that would be as great a fallacy as the ignoring its existence is on the other side . What Ave wish to convey is that , in almost all the endeavours to free themselves from the encroachments of the See of Eome , the various parties who opposed her
aims , —whether branded by her with the title of heretics , or held up to public execration as ungodly men , —Avere led , controlled , and directed , by a secret organization Avhich for many centuries defied , and remained undiscovered by the heads of the Koman branch of the Christian Church .