https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vatican-confirms-ban-catholics-becoming-freemasons-2023-11-15/
The Vatican has confirmed a ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons, a centuries-old secretive society that the Catholic Church has long viewed with hostility and has an estimated global membership of up to six million.
The Free Masons have become nothing more than a redneck club where they pretend they're some secret order.
Redneck? Tell me more! Curious how they look in other places.
In major cities, definitely not rednecks. It is just a boys club of boomers. The folks I met were highly educated or former Vietnam vets. Then they have dinner parties where they mostly talk about a random history book from 1-2 decades ago. I'm assuming atheists, but I didn't ask.
My grandfather was a non-religious freemason.
I just checked, apparently in Continental Europe there are many lodges which don't have strict spiritual requirements following France's whole "fuck the clergy and also religion" in the 19th century.
English-speaking lodges apparently tend to require belief in a "Supreme being" (and also forbid women from participating because why not at this point), but who knows; lodges are independent organizations and some of them can have different rules or turn a blind-eye, there's no "pope of freemasonry" to set any rules.
Also holy shit what a trip, the United Grand Lodge of England is... unironically misogynistic but not transphobic?? LMAO
In 2018, guidance was released by the United Grand Lodge of England stating that, in regard to transgender women, "A Freemason who after initiation ceases to be a man does not cease to be a Freemason". The guidance also states that transgender men are allowed to apply to become Freemasons.
I'm a feminist and not a Freemason. I wasn't convinced that Freemasonry is misogynistic simply because it excludes women. Ie: I think there are valid reasons to have some gender separated spaces. My understanding is that Freemasonry is a practice intended to 'improve' men (whatever that means to them). I think that's possibly a valid reason for maintaining a gendered space.
However; in preparing to write this comment I learned that Masonry's sister organization (The Order of the Eastern Star), which is open to both men and women, is subordinate to the Masonic lodge. This does strike me as misogynistic.
I'm open to reading thoughtful comments by Masons or more knowledgeable feminists.
From my very limited experience with Freemasons here in Southern California, they are religious but very tolerant and accepting. No girls, though.
I don't think it's misogynistic to have a boy's only club.
I'm not invited to my wife's book club (girls only), does that make them men haters?
eeeeeeh
Your wife's book club probably isn't made up of a large proportion of your country's cultural, financial, and academic elites which are openly involved in politics.
This isn't some dudes meeting up in a bowling alley or a local bar, but rather one of the places where politics get made for real.
It doesn't have to be a bad thing; Belgium's most prestigious university is a freemason project. But excluding women from such "soft power" exercises raises some alarm bells for me.
I never heard of them much/from their members until I moved to the Midwest. It's definitely a boys club, but it seems to mostly consist of boisterous rednecks in the Midwest, who think they're some secret society badasses.
That's just my anecdotal experience tho.
I don't think "Grandfather" would cut it since the ban's been in place since the 18th century.
Something the catholic church is against? Either they're secretly pretty good at being good role models for boys and getting them to open up after experiencing a genuinely warm mentoring relationship, which causes some catholic vices to be revealed and then prosecuted, or the catholic church doesn't want competition.
I think the idea of it being an alternative power structure is part of it, but their reasoning is that Freemasonry is Deist/Rationalist which is incompatible with the Catholic position that revelation is a source of truth. Anything that elevates Freemasonry inherently undermines Catholic dogma.
Catholics and Masons are welcome to weigh in though, I'm not either.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
VATICAN CITY, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The Vatican has confirmed a ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons, a centuries-old secretive society that the Catholic Church has long viewed with hostility and has an estimated global membership of up to six million.
The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, issued its opinion, dated Nov. 13 and countersigned by Pope Francis, in response to a bishop from the Philippines alarmed by the growing number of Freemasons in his country.
The same office said last week that transgender people can be baptized, serve as godparents and act as witnesses at Catholic weddings.
The letter on Freemasons cited a 1983 declaration, signed by the late Pope Benedict XVI, at the time the Vatican's doctrine chief, stating that Catholics "in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion".
According to the United Grand Lodge of England, modern Freemasonry "is one of the oldest social and charitable organisations in the world", rooted in the traditions of medieval stonemasons.
It lists the late Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip, former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, late actor Peter Sellers, former England soccer manager Alf Ramsey and authors Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle as famous Freemasons from the past.
The original article contains 301 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 30%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!