Relationship With The Catholic Church
| This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. |
Continental Freemasonry has been concentrated in traditionally Catholic countries and has been seen by Catholic critics as an outlet for anti-Catholic disaffection. Many particularly anti-clerical regimes in traditionally Catholic countries were perceived as having a strong Masonic connections.
The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia credited Freemasonry for the French Revolution and its persecution of the Church, citing a claim made in a document from the Grand Orient de France. The Encyclopedia saw Freemasonry as the primary force of French anti-clericalism from 1877 onwards, again citing official documents of French Masonry to support its claim. According to one historian, Masonic hostility continued into the early twentieth century with the Affaire Des Fiches and, according to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State can be credited to the Grand Orient de France, based on Masonic documents.
In Italy the Church linked the anticlerical and nationalist secret society, the Carbonari, to Freemasonry and blamed the anticlerical direction of Italian Unification, or Risorgimento, on Freemasonry. Into the 1890s the Church would justify its calls for Catholics to avoid dealings with the Italian state with a reference to the state's supposed "Masonic" nature.
Mexican Freemasonry was also seen as following the pattern of Continental Freemasonry in other Latin-speaking countries, viewed as becoming more anti-clerical during the nineteenth century, particularly because they adopted the Scottish Rite degree system created by Albert Pike, which the Catholic Church saw as anti-clerical.
Even as late as 2005 the president of Spain's Union of Catholic Professional Fraternities blamed the anti-clerical measures of the Socialist government on a "tremendous crusade by Masonry against the Church."
Freemasons attached to the more mainstream branch of Freemasonry, affiliated with the United Grand Lodge of England and the 51 US Grand Lodges, have often claimed that the anticlericalism of the Continental Branch of Freemasonry is a "deviation" from proper Freemasonry.
Read more about this topic: Continental Freemasonry
Famous quotes containing the words catholic church, relationship with, relationship, catholic and/or church:
“In fact what America expects of its citizens and what the Catholic Church expects of the faithful are sometimes so different that they lead to an enormous ker-KLUNK between democracy and theology.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn’t brotherly—who lived mostly under his parents’ roof ... who advocated one day’s work and six days “off” as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown ... is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“We must introduce a new balance in the relationship between the individual and the government—a balance that favors greater individual freedom and self-reliance.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)
“...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)