IS AMERICAN MASONRY ANTI-CHRISTIAN?

AMERICAN FREEMASON, SEPTEMBER 1914

UNDER heading as above M. Kenny, S.J., in the issue of America (Catholic)
for July 25, replies to the article written by this editor in the June number
of THE AMERICAN FREEMASON.  Father Kenny is, as always, a courteous
opponent. When hardest pressed one can admire his skill of dialectic, and
can reply without undue heat. I am willing to accord to him all sincerity in
the positions he has assumed, believing that he will likewise recognize that,
though viewing things from a different standpoint, I have an equal claim for
honesty of conviction.

Readers who have honoured this writer with perusal of the article in
question between Father Kenny and myself (1) will not need a further
admission that it was an unqualified endorsement of the position taken by
the late Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Jurisdiction of the
Scottish Rite of Masonry.  Yet of such admission our Jesuit friend seeks to
make much.  He will have it that this magazine "out-Richardsons the
Sovereign Grand Commander," though he admits it is "frank and dignified
beyond many of its kind." He notes, with approbation, our condemnation
of the gutter-press that has of late assumed, without warrant, to speak for
Masons and Masonry, but is of the opinion that we should have named the
"cruptors of blackguardism." It has been the consistent policy of this journal
to refrain from mention by name of certain scurrilous papers that have
prated much of Masonry, without any conception of the fraternity, and with
hope to lead the ignorant ones among Masons in their dirty train.  We have
held that any alliance, real or implied between American Freemasonry and
these vendors of filth can not but work harm to our institution.  We have
refused to give these reeking sheets the indirect advertising that might
come from use of their titles in these pages.  Our quarrel with Catholicism
is matter of principle; we can not allow the waters of legitimate controversy
to be thickened and befouled by those who have no more in view than the
arousing of ignorant passions and prejudices.  The Masonic fraternity, as
the most of us know, has high ideals of purpose and conduct; we can not
allow 

(1) American Freemason June 1914, Page 389.

 that these shall be lowered or obscured to suit the purposes of sectarians
or politicians.  American Freemasonry is fully competent to conduct any
fight for itself, relying upon the support that will come from men of right
conduct and of aspirations for complete liberty of mind and conscience. 
We are not going to raise the mob to our support; can our Catholic friends
say as much? However this is minor criticism, and, with its answer, is
beside the main matter in controversy between ourselves and Father
Kenny.

This writer is first accused of assuming, as matter of course, that Catholics
are either ignorant or dishonest when it comes to writing or speaking of
Freemasonry.  This is declared to be the "standard formula" and "uttered
with a wink." With the information as to Masonry available, and even
pressed upon the seeker for knowledge, I can not accuse my Jesuit friend
of ignorance.  If he deliberately chooses to mis-state the position and
purpose of the fraternity, the while ample information is at his command,
perhaps there is no other word than "dishonesty" to express his wilful
fabrications.  Let it be said, further, for this magazine and its editor, that
knowingly nothing is taken for granted; nothing extenuated, whether for or
against the fraternity.  American Freemasonry has no more severe critics
than those who write for these pages.  But I do not believe that
Freemasonry, whether of America or other country, will have more devoted
defenders than those brothers who have associated themselves with THE
AMERICAN FREEMASON and its editor.  The very fact that we are able to
discern faults and weaknesses existing in organization and methods, is
evidence that we can also perceive the potentialities and superior qualities
of the institution, and that we will not fail in standing for Masonic ideals as
against any assault.

Referring to our statement that the church is hostile to Masonry Father
Kenny says: "It does not occur to the Masonic editor that Masonry
commenced the fight." This is indeed a new assertion, and one that I
imagine the learned Jesuit would have difficulty in maintaining before any
other audience than such as is reached by America.  I had supposed that
the church took credit for discerning, long in advance of any others, the
dangers to itself consequent upon the organization of this fraternity, and
that its condemnation was voiced before the secular governments were
even aware of the society's existence.  Certain it is that the first attack was
made upon Freemasonry in the  bull "In eminenti apostolatus" issued by
Pope Clement XIII in 1738. And the same line of slander, vituperation and
anathematization has been continued since, by successive popes and their
underlings innumerable.  It may be, however, that the very organization of
the fraternity is regarded by these as attack upon the church, and that what
has been said and done by successive popes and others is merely to be
regarded as matter of defense.  In fact, fighting with this church is a good
deal like getting into difficulty with a termagant of a woman.  She is to be
free to use any weapon within reach in a very frenzy of attack.  But so soon
as there is show of superior strength, the one shrieks out shame for assault
upon the weaker sex, just as the other cries that true religion, and even
God himself, is being assailed.  So here, in answer to the attacks (?) of
Freemasonry, this Jesuit writer sets forth that the church had been
seventeen centuries in existence, teaching love to God and to one's
neighbour as the fundamental laws of human conduct, before the ungodly
association of Masons came upon the scene to thwart its holy mission.  It
is indeed strange that the history of these seventeen centuries do not bear
out claims of the church as to the fervour and single-heartedness and
efficacy of its mission; that the honest investigator must look instead to the
doubts and dissents, to the heresies and even to the despairs of the stages
of faith" if he would discover the true impulses of progress and the springs
of enlarging liberties.  And, likewise, before any tribunal of men intellectually
free, the Roman Catholic church would today be condemned as seeking
to bring again into a time of enlightenment and spiritual freedom the
darkness and bondage of the ages when it was supreme over
Christendom.  Deprived of all power beyond the launching of thunders that
impress only the ignorant, it still declares that all who refuse it allegiance,
as also all who stand guard at the borders of human liberties, are no more
than atheists and enemies of God.  I have come to the conclusion, by
some reading of history and some observation of men and affairs of my
own time, that the God so frequently invoked by churchmen, and whose
blessings and cursings they dispense so freely, is not the One I would wish
to worship, nor that one whose wrath I would greatly fear.  I imagine that
the Deity of the "Rev. Billy" Sunday, for instance, is principally concerned
in inspiring the slang of his chief apostle, and in consigning the larger
number of decent-speaking and intelligently-acting men and women to
literal flames.  And also I suppose that the superior God of Romanism is set
up and kept upon his throne for sole purpose of rewarding the friends and
punishing the enemies of the hierarchy.  Is it any wonder that with such
showing, made more apparent than to ourselves, the brothers of France
repudiated the only conception of Deity put before them, and that they
accentuated the Masonic liberty of conscience by fateful changes of their
Constitutions?

The attacks of the church upon Freemasonry have been unceasing, and
Father Kenny takes different ground from the authorities of his own sect in
declaration that the fraternity began the fight.  Thus D. Moncreiff O'Connor,
in the Tablet (London) for September, 1895, has this statement as to the
history of ecclesiastical condemnation: 

At a time when most of the Catholic courts of Europe were in either covert
or open hostility to his throne, a keen intellect, which had risen to power
through a brilliant past, in whom the full maturity of a life-long study of men
and affairs had deepened into wisdom, impressed itself on Christendom in
these words:

We strictly forbid ... the faithful ... to dare or presume, under whatever
pretext ... to enter the said Societies of Freemasons ... or to entertain or
receive them; to give them asylum or cover; to be inscribed, received
among, or help them ... We absolutely ordain that they totally refrain from
such Societies ... under pain of excommunication incurred by such act ...
Further, we will, and order ... all inquisitors of heresy to ... proceed against
the transgressors of whatever ... dignity or preeminence.
 
One greater than he, a man steeped to the lips in learning, bolder and
more comprehensive in his grasp of politics; a leader of men ever superior
to events; having analyzed with scrupulous care the Bull containing these
weighty words, emphasized the condemnation they contained.  The "In
Eminente" of Clement XII, of April 28, 1738, was then confirmed by
Benedict XIV, in his "Provides Romanorum" of May 8, 1751.  By a
constitution, "Si Antiqua," of August, 1814, Pius VII, three months after his
restoration, accentuated this antagonism.  Condemned once more by Leo
XII, their aims were so closely prescinded by Pius VIII in his encyclical of
May 24, 1829, that his exactitude of knowledge excited suspicion of
treachery somewhere, in the mind of the leading Lodge of Italy, clearly
expressed in a letter from the Carbonaro Felice, dated Ancona, June 11,
1829.  Again, in an allocution of September 25, 1865, Pius IX laid bare their
designs, and recalled the still existing anathema against them.  And our
venerated head, Leo XIII, in his "Humanum Genus," of April 20, 1884, and
his encyclical of October 15, 1890, is no less explicit in his warning and
reprobation.

The decrees of Clement XII against Freemasonry, which constituted the
opening attack and put hostility between the church and the fraternity, were
far more severe than indicated above.  So far as the Papal States were
concerned, and in countries where Catholicism still had power, the
penalties were material as well as spiritual.  The Cardinal Firrao, Secretary
of State, supplementing the bull of 1738, issued an edict, prescribing death
and confiscation of property as the punishment for those who should be or
become members of the Masonic society.  Hardly less severe were the
penalties to be visited upon those who might succour Masons in any
degree. And all "without hope of mercy." Will Father Kenny still insist that
Freemasonry began the conflict?

Again of this magazine the Jesuit writer says: "Finding it more effective to
slander the whole church, her tenets and purposes, it eschews
personalities." This, as I hope, is true; the sins or short-comings of either a
priest or a Mason, can have no real effect upon the controversy.  But I
would call the attention of my opponent to the fact that the most dignified
of church publications are filled with matter no Masonic writer would think
worthy of his pen.  The effort is put forth at all times to prove to Catholics
that Freemasonry is diabolical, and not even the absurdity of the Leo Taxil
affair was or is sufficient to keep the priestly writers within bounds of reason
in speaking of Masonry.  The Catholic Encyclopedia is a monumental work. 
Speaking of it as a whole it is but candour to describe it as a marvel of
scholarship and a model for fairness in discussion.  But it is disfigured by
statements and stories of Freemasonry that greatly detract from its
acknowledged worth.  What will any intelligent man think of the following?
In Volume viii, p. 282, of the Encyclopedia, we find a brief biography of
Alexandre Vincent Jandel, general of the Dominican Order, who died so
lately as 1872.  This  holy man, as we are here informed, "Preached with
great results." An instance of his efficiency is given: "A sermon at Lyons on
the power of the Cross led to his being challenged by a Freemason to
prove the truth of his words in the Lodge; he entered it, produced his
crucifix and made the sign of the cross. Instantly the lights were
extinguished, the furniture was thrown about, and all but he fled in terror
from the scene of confusion." There must be people who believe that kind
of stuff, or otherwise it would not have been given as fact in the book.  But
who ever heard of Masons working in a personal devil or a wonder as part
of their argument against the church, and who would give credence to a
like yarn if it was told as a Lodge episode? I do not think Father Kenny
would have much difficulty in entering a New York Lodge room to give a
similar demonstration, and I would further be willing to guarantee that any
such trial of the power of his words and signs would draw out a bigger
audience than even a third degree and a banquet.  This, of course, may
seem unwarrantably digressive.  But we are accused of speaking for an
"Anti-Christian" institution; if to refuse to believe such rot as is put out by the
church to justify our condemnation constitutes anti-Christianity, in the
opinion of Father Kenny, we must perforce plead guilty.

Father Kenny says this magazine frankly admits that the "tenets and spirit
of this less than two-hundred-year old organization is utterly antagonistic
to the nineteen-hundred year old organization of Christ.  To support this
assertion he quotes our statement that we have "never swerved from the
position that between the Masonic fraternity and the Catholic church there
is an antagonism inherent to the nature of the organizations; the one
seeking the broadest liberty of thought, and the other wishing to stifle all
revolt against the self-constituted authority that would hold mind and soul
in thraldom." It is, maybe, because of Father Kenny's mental limitations, but
more likely because of a course of training narrowing all good to the
confines of the church, that he can draw such unwarranted inferences from
these quoted words.  I again assert them to be true; and that no more than
oil and water can be mixed can the principles of Freemasonry and those
of the Roman Catholic church be mixed without development of an
antagonistic, even explosive force. But with an equal insistence I would
hold that this being true, the Masonic organization is not therefore
"antagonistic to the nineteen-hundred-year old organization of Christ." To
admit this would be to give the lie to the lives and beliefs of hundreds of
thousands of sincere Masons; it would be to make mockery of that branch
of the Order that wears the Cross as its most significant emblem.  We
believe that Father Kenny is sincere; will he not believe, also, that all these
thousands of Chivalric Masons are sincere when they do homage to the
Passion Cross?

Yet I have nothing to take back when I assert, as before, that Symbolic
Masonry is not a Christian institution, and that those in our own ranks who
assert it to be such, are altogether unaware of the principles or purposes
of the institution.  But even because of this Masonry is not antagonistic to
Christianity.  Such has been assorted from the time of the Abbe Barruel,
and has been disproved by the lives and actions of some generations of
Masons since.  It is only that we can not and do not admit the Church of
Rome as being the "organization of Christ." That it claims exclusive right to
such title does not alter the case to the minds of Masons, nor indeed to the
minds of a majority of men in America.  Yet it is by such assumption that
all other organizations of men, which refuse to admit the Catholic claims,
are at once convict of hostility to religion and are classed as among the
active enemies of Christianity.

Father Kenny proceeds to fortify his position by a further quotation from our
article that it is only ignorance and mistaken zeal that would class
Freemasonry as a Christian organization.  It is evident that our Jesuit friend
can not understand the existence of an association of men, having
principles so broad as to command the adhesion of representatives of all
the creeds, requiring no more from any of these than subscription to such
fundamentals as the experience of all races have proven as among the
non-controversial verities.  The matter of religion is not trenched upon in
our institution.  Beyond the indispensable requirement of belief in a
Supreme Ruler of the Universe, Masonry is content that all close of faith
shall be sole concern of the individual conscience.  To ask more would be
to at once destroy the harmony and the usefulness of the organization, and
doom it to a speedy destruction.  The Catholic church can not conceive,
evidently, of any realm of material action that should not be invaded by
religion, nor that men can do good in the world and be of benefit to their
fellows without thrusting upon each other the bases of their beliefs or lack
of belief.  Time was, as I am willing to admit, when this historic church
supplied alone the cohesiveness of society; when all else was disruptive,
even anarchic.  But the church, wrapped in the robes of its own
righteousness, has stood still while all other institutions have moved
forward.  New and freer channels of activity have been provided; new ideals
of worth, and even of spirituality, have appeared above the horizon, the
while the church has contented itself with forms and dogmas outworn,
never again to be accepted by the intellect of the race as adequate bases
of human conduct and aspiration.

Father Kenny puts his own definition, or that of his church, upon our
statement that Freemasonry seeks the broadest liberty of thought.  He
says: "This means, of course, that the true Freemason is a freethinker; that
is, he is free to adopt whatever code of thought or action convenience may
suggest.  On the other hand, the authority that would hold mind and soul
in thraldom is the authorized representative of Christ, who would hold the
man that He has made in obedience to his law." It is not Masons alone who
will be unwilling to accept these definitions.  To admit them as true would
be to give the lie to all that men for some hundreds of years have gained
to the broadening of life, to the removal of old fears, and to a more
reasonable and more satisfying conception of the meaning of existence. 
To those, doubtless, who yield to an infallible authority, and thus believe
that the whole of present and after existence is ordered for them beyond
paradventure, the spectacle of other men daring to question the Sphinx of
Destiny, and even seeking for themselves a solution of the riddle of life and
death may seem blasphemous, and horrifying in the extreme.  But of the
one comes stagnation - moral and spiritual death; of the other is new life
and inspiration forever born.

By a very curious twisting of phrases found here and there in our pages,
and written by various hands, Father Kenny arrives at conclusion that
Freemasonry teaches "a very dogmatic dogmatism of its own, but opposed
to the dogmas of Catholicism." It is very true that every man, for himself,
who has come to middle life, and has used such mental powers as are
given him of the Creator, will reach certain fixed principles of action, by
which he himself is guided.  It is impossible, also, that he can write or
speak without such controlling thoughts being apparent, because they
represent to him the ultimate reach of his own soul.  In so far there is
dogmatic showing, inseparable from the very constitution of his being. He
transgresses only if he seeks to impress these upon another because of
any fancied superiority of intellect, without argument other than his own
ipse dixit.  And therein is Masonry without dogma, because there is no one,
in all the adherents of the institution, whose authority is sufficient to force
a single thought upon his fellows, unless their own minds shall give
adherence thereto freely and of personal conviction.  The simple platform
of common standing is broad enough to allow to each the farthest scope
of intelligent speculation, without dogmatic jarring.  This possibility will, of
course, be unintelligible to our Jesuit friend.

I pass by, as without importance, what is found of fault in our support of
Brother Nathan, or of the Masons of France and Italy and Portugal, or what
we have said as to conditions in Ireland.  Nor are we championing
Protestantism in any statements or articles published in these pages.  We
are concerned only to defend Freemasonry against any detractors or
against the criticisms of those who, however honest they may be, are yet
unable to understand our position.

