Aiding the Adversary, Overtly and Subtly

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Information flows readily in these our days. We know more about events in the Church and the world more readily than at any other time in history. As one who has done his share of commentaries on these events, I am just now, believe it or not, beginning to see the truly diabolical dimensions to the information provided by "instant communication."

That is, people get worked up into a frenzy over this or that particular piece of news. While it is certainly important to be concerned about developments in the Church and the world, it is also important to maintain a sense of perspective on this simple fact: all of the particulars of the various crises that come to public knowledge more or less instantaneously these days emanate from one diabolical source. Each crisis manufactured by the adversary has but one goal: to weaken the Church in her human elements by distracting faithful Catholics from the necessity of spending time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and to the Mother of God.

Mind you, the history of the Church is replete with examples of saints who fought heresies and errors with great determination. We must indeed resist and oppose heresies and errors. We must denounce scandalous occurrences within the Church. Granted. However, it is also important to realize that the particular manifestations of the general crisis facing the Church and the world at present are the result of the failure of any pope to consecrate Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart with all of the world's bishops. All of the discrete crises that occur from time to time are part of the adversary's larger plan against the Church in her human elements, part of the vision that Pope Leo XIII had of the devil having his "way" with the Church for about a hundred years.

It is with this in mind that the report of a Catholic priest being named as a chaplain to a Masonic lodge in Italy must be understood and addressed. The report, which ran on CWN.com, rightly disturbed many Catholics worldwide. What we must remember, however, is that the formal appointment of a Catholic priest as a chaplain to a Masonic lodge should not come as a total shock. After all,  the conciliarist and post-conciliarist popes have spoken favorably of various concepts near and dear to the heart of Freemasonry, including that of the "separation of Church and State," a proposition condemned by the Church repeatedly until the Second Vatican Council. Pope Benedict XVI has even recently repeated the conceptual absurdity of a "healthy secularity," a phrase that was used by the late Pope John Paul II six months ago in commemoration of the centenary of laws mandating separation of Church and State in France. As was noted in Father Paul Kramer's The Devil's Final Battle, Freemasons do not need one of their own on the Throne of Saint Peter. No, all they need is for one pope after another to enunciate principles that are at the heart of the religious indifferentism and "universal brotherhood" of the lodge.

Pope Saint Pius X critique the Modernist notion of the separation of Church and State that has been embraced by recent popes. Writing in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, issued on September 8, 1907, the sainted pontiff noted:

But it is not only within her own household that the Church must come to terms. Besides her relations with those within, she has others with those who are outside. The Church does not occupy the world all by herself; there are other societies in the world., with which she must necessarily have dealings and contact. The rights and duties of the Church towards civil societies must, therefore, be determined, and determined, of course, by her own nature, that, to wit, which the Modernists have already described to us. The rules to be applied in this matter are clearly those which have been laid down for science and faith, though in the latter case the question turned upon the object, while in the present case we have one of ends. In the same way, then, as faith and science are alien to each other by reason of the diversity of their objects, Church and State are strangers by reason of the diversity of their ends, that of the Church being spiritual while that of the State is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the temporal to the spiritual and to speak of some questions as mixed, conceding to the Church the position of queen and mistress in all such, because the Church was then regarded as having been instituted immediately by God as the author of the supernatural order. But this doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophers and historians. The state must, therefore, be separated from the Church, and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of the Church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its orders -- nay, even in spite of its rebukes. For the Church to trace out and prescribe for the citizen any line of action, on any pretext whatsoever, is to be guilty of an abuse of authority, against which one is bound to protest with all one's might. Venerable Brethren, the principles from which these doctrines spring have been solemnly condemned by Our predecessor, Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem fidei.[13]

The state of the Church today is the result of a carefully orchestrated effort to infiltrate her with the principles of Protestantism and Freemasonry. John Vennari notes that this infiltration was detected as early as the pontificate of Pope Pius XI. Writing in his masterful The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: A Masonic Blueprint for the Subversion of the Catholic Church, Mr. Vennari  first of all discussed the plans of Freemasons to infiltrate the Church:

In his book Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, Bishop Rudolph Graber quoted a Freemason who declared that "the goal [of Freemasonry] is no longer the destruction of the Church, but to make use of it by infiltrating it.

In other words, since Freemasonry cannot completely obliterate Christ's Church, it plans not only to eradicate the influence of Catholicism in society, but also to use the Church's structure as an instrument of "renewal," "progress" and "enlightenment" to further many of its own principles and goals.

The strategy advanced in The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita is astonishing in its audacity and cunning. From the start, the document tells of a process that will take decades to accomplish. Those who drew up the document knew that they would not see its fulfillment. They were inaugurating a work that would be carried on by succeeding generations of the initiated. The Permanent Instruction says, "In our ranks the soldier dies and the struggle goes on."

The Instruction called for the dissemination of liberal ideas and axioms throughout society and within the institutions of the Catholic Church so that laity, seminarians, clerics and prelates would, over the years, gradually be imbued with progressive principles.

In time, this mind-set would be so pervasive that priests would be ordained, bishops would be consecrated and cardinals would be nominated whose thinking was to be in step with the modern thought rooted in the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and other "Principles of 1789" (equality of religions, separation of Church and State, religious pluralism, etc.)

Eventually, a Pope would be elected from these ranks who would lead the Church on the path of "enlightenment" and "renewal." They stated that it was not their aim to place a Freemason on the Chair of Peter. Their goal was to effect an environment that would eventually produce a Pope and a hierarchy won over to the ideas of liberal Catholicism, all the while believing themselves to be faithful Catholics.

These Catholic leaders, then, would no longer oppose the modern ideas of the Revolution (as had been the consistent practice of the Popes from 1789 until 1958--the death of Pope Pius XII--who condemned these liberal principles) but would amalgamate them into the Church. The end result would be a Catholic clergy and laity marching under the banner of the Enlightenment, all the while thinking they are marching under the banner of the Apostolic keys. [John Vennari, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: A Masonic Blueprint for the Subversion of the Catholic Church, pp. 1-3.]

Specifically, Mr. Vennari goes on to state that some cardinals had recognized the success of this plan of infiltration as early as the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (1922-1939):

A little-known drama that unfolded during the reign of Pope Pius XI demonstrates that the underground current of Modernist thought was alive and well in the immediate post-Pius X period.Father Raymond Dulac relates that at the secret consistory of May 23, 193, Pope Pius XI questioned the thirty Cardinals of the Curia on the timeliness of summoning an ecumenical council. In attendance were such illustrious prelates as Cardinals Merry del Val, De Lai, Gasparri, Boggiani and Billot. The Cardinals advised against it.

Cardinal Billot warned, "The existence of profound differences in the midst of the episcopacy itself cannot be concealed . . . [They] run the risk of giving place to discussions that will be prolonged indefinitely."

Boggiani recalled the Modernist theories from which, he said, a part of the clergy and of the bishops were not exempt. "This mentality can incline certain Fathers to present motions, to introduce methods incompatible with Catholic traditions."

Billot was even more precise. He expressed his fear of seeing the council "maneuvered" by the worst enemies of the Church, the Modernists, who are already getting ready, as certain indications show, to bring forth the revolution in the Church, a new 1789."

In discouraging the idea of a council for such reasons, these Cardinals showed themselves more apt at recognizing the "signs of the times" than all the post-Vatican II theologians combined. Yet their caution may have been rooted in something deeper. They may also have been haunted by the writings of the infamous illumine, the excommunicated Canon Roca (1830-1893), who preached revolution and Church "reform" and who predicted a subversion of the Church that would be brought about by a council. [John Vennari, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: A Masonic Blueprint for the Subversion of the Catholic Church, pp. 15-16.]

Thus, the fact that a Catholic priest has agreed to serve as a chaplain of a Masonic lodge in Italy is not really all that surprising. Although the late Archbishop Annibale Bugnini said that he would turn in his pallium if anyone could prove he was a Freemason, the evidence that the architect of the liturgical revolution known as the Novus Ordo Missae had Masonic ties was strong enough to convince Pope Paul VI to ship him out to be the Papal Nuncio to Iran. Indeed, the last we saw of Archbishop Bugnini he was pleading with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Christmas Day, December 25, 1979, to release the American diplomats held hostage by "student radicals." The Novus Ordo Missae is one of the chief triumphs of the Masonic ethos of de-emphasizing the glories of Catholic Tradition as the sine qua non for universal brotherhood and peace. It must be remembered in this regard that Bugnini himself said in 1965 that the Mass must be stripped of its overtly Catholic trappings, something desired by Protestantism and Masonry alike. Why should it surprise us terribly, therefore, that a Catholic priest is now a chaplain of a Masonic lodge in Italy when the Secretary of the Consilium that planned the synthetic concoction known as the Novus Ordo Missae was intent on doing Masonry's bidding at every turn?

Furthermore, it must be remembered that most Catholic bishops in this country and around the world refuse to do anything to censure Catholic politicians who support baby-killing in any circumstance, whether by chemical or surgical means. Many priests at least tacitly, if not openly, support a "woman's right to choose" an abortion. Catholics who support, if not practice, abortion and contraception and perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandment are hired to teach in our schools and colleges and universities and religious education programs. Catholic Masons have been buried as Catholics in good standing (despite the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's 1983 reiteration of the fact that Catholics who join Masonic lodges excommunicate themselves from the Church; formal membership is forbidden, an embrace of Masonic principles is something else again), particularly in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, under the late Bishop John Keating. And it has become a pretty standard practice for councils of the Knights of Columbus, an organization that will not expel pro-abortion politicians from its membership rolls, to have annual picnics with Masonic lodges. Thus, the appointment of a Catholic priest to serve as a chaplain to a Masonic lodge is an all-too-logical progression of events that are only going to get worse until and unless some pope actually fulfills Our Lady's Fatima Message with exactitude.

The basic premises of Freemasonry and their absolute incompatibility with the true Faith have been outlined over and over again by the popes of Tradition. Pope Leo XIII's Humanum Genus is the most complete summary of the diabolical designs of Freemasonry. Consider this brief excerpt from Pope Leo's 1884 encyclical letter:

Then come their doctrines of politics, in which the naturalists lay down that all men have the same right, and are in every respect of equal and like condition; that each one is naturally free; that no one has the right to command another; that it is an act of violence to require men to obey any authority other than that which is obtained from themselves. According to this, therefore, all things belong to the free people; power is held by the command or permission of the people, so that, when the popular will changes, rulers may lawfully be deposed and the source of all rights and civil duties is either in the multitude or in the governing authority when this is constituted according to the latest doctrines. It is held also that the State should be without God; that in the various forms of religion there is no reason why one should have precedence of another; and that they are all to occupy the same place.

That these doctrines are equally acceptable to the Freemasons, and that they would wish to constitute States according to this example and model, is too well known to require proof. For some time past they have openly endeavored to bring this about with all their strength and resources; and in this they prepare the way for not a few bolder men who are hurrying on even to worse things, in their endeavor to obtain equality and community of all goods by the destruction of every distinction of rank and property.

What, therefore, sect of the Freemasons is, and what course it pursues, appears sufficiently from the summary We have briefly given. Their chief dogmas are so greatly and manifestly at variance with reason that nothing can be more perverse. To wish to destroy the religion and the Church which God Himself has established, and whose perpetuity He insures by His protection, and to bring back after a lapse of eighteen centuries the manners and customs of the pagans, is signal folly and audacious impiety. Neither is it less horrible nor more tolerable that they should repudiate the benefits which Jesus Christ so mercifully obtained, not only for individuals, but also for the family and for civil society, benefits which, even according to the judgment and testimony of enemies of Christianity, are very great. In this insane and wicked endeavor we may almost see the implacable hatred and spirit of revenge with which Satan himself is inflamed against Jesus Christ. -- So also the studious endeavor of the Freemasons to destroy the chief foundations of justice and honesty, and to co-operate with those who would wish, as if they were mere animals, to do what they please, tends only to the ignominious and disgraceful ruin of the human race.

The evil, too, is increased by the dangers which threaten both domestic and civil society. As We have elsewhere shown, in marriage, according to the belief of almost every nation, there is something sacred and religious; and the law of God has determined that marriages shall not be dissolved. If they are deprived of their sacred character, and made dissoluble, trouble and confusion in the family will be the result, the wife being deprived of her dignity and the children left without protection as to their interests and well being. -- To have in public matters no care for religion, and in the arrangement and administration of civil affairs to have no more regard for God than if He did not exist, is a rashness unknown to the very pagans; for in their heart and soul the notion of a divinity and the need of public religion were so firmly fixed that they would have thought it easier to have city without foundation than a city without God. Human society, indeed for which by nature we are formed, has been constituted by God the Author of nature; and from Him, as from their principle and source, flow in all their strength and permanence the countless benefits with which society abounds. As we are each of us admonished by the very voice of nature to worship God in piety and holiness, as the Giver unto us of life and of all that is good therein, so also and for the same reason, nations and States are bound to worship Him; and therefore it is clear that those who would absolve society from all religious duty act not only unjustly but also with ignorance and folly.

The man who announced that a Catholic priest would serve as a chaplain to a Masonic lodge, Grand Master Fabio Venzi of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Italy, said that on August 9, 2005, "The documents of the Holy See are often based on Masonic realities which we consider 'irregular,' and therefore not representative of true Masonic tradition " That this is not the case is proved by the Masons themselves, as can bee seen by comments made by various Masons that I included in a 1996 article in The Wanderer after Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, had excommunicated Catholics in his diocese who belonged to Masonic lodges. Each of the Masons quoted below exalted diabolical evils that are, obviously, contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law and thus injurious to the sanctification and salvation of human souls and to the right ordering of civil society. No, despite the apparent rapprochement with Masonic principles in the past forty years, the authentic tradition of the Catholic Church has quite accurately assessed and condemned the nature of Freemasonry (which I discuss in Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations).

For the sake of a simple summary, however, this is the essence of Freemasonry: the propagation of the belief that personal and social order can be premised on a rejection of the necessity of belief in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in Our Lady's virginal and immaculate womb and in every jot and tittle of the Deposit of Faith He has entrusted to His true Church. In other words, Freemasonry is the embodiment of the devil's own plan, discussed by Father Denis Fahey in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, for warfare against Our Lord and His Holy Church on the part of those who profess themselves to be champions of "tolerance," "diversity," "pluralism," "dialog," and "universal brotherhood." The enemies of Our Lord are those who deny His Sacred Divinity and who deny the Divine plan He established to effect man's return to Him. It is not for nothing, therefore, that Father Fahey referred to the Masonic plot to assault the Church and the truths entrusted to her by Divine Bridegroom.

We have to keep on our knees in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and to the Mother of God, comforting her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart during this month of August, which is devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must remain calm and steadfast in the mist of the apostasies that beset Holy Mother Church in her human elements, working assiduously to rid ourselves of the sinful weeds that keep us from giving the best possible witness to the Faith, especially by the frequent use of the Sacrament of Penance.

The jaws of Hell will never prevail against the Church. This does not meant that the devil and his minions are not going to win a few battles in our own lives and in the larger life of the Church in her human elements. It is up to us to remain steadfast to the authentic Tradition of the Church no matter what labels are thrown at us and no matter how badly our motives are misunderstood, judged, condemned and mischaracterized by our fellow Catholics. The fruit of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will indeed be the full restoration of Tradition, including the Immemorial Mass of all ages and the Social Reign of Christ the King. We must, despite our sins and failings, for which we need to make reparation and to eliminate from our lives in cooperation with the graces won for us by the shedding of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross, plant the seeds for the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which itself will be the result of some pope responding to the graces sent to him to do exactly what Our Lady said is necessary for the cause of order in the Church and peace in the world: the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us,

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

The Masons Make Themselves Make the Church's Case Against the Lodge, 1996 (and slightly revised in 2005)

The late Mr. Gregory Morrow, known to Catholics as a great defender of the Faith in the Chicago, Illinois, area, sent me in 1996 a copy of Scottish Rite, the journal of Freemasonry in what is called the "Southern District, U.S.A." The June, 1996 issue was replete with articles and letters attacking Bishop Bruskewitz for taking the action he did in April of that year that resulted in the formal excommunication of any Catholics in the Lincoln Diocese who retained membership in Masonic organizations. (His Excellency also "excommunicated" Catholics who assisted at Holy Mass at chapels administered by the Society of Saint Pius X, placing a religious community erected to oppose the errors of Modernity and Modernism on the same plane as Masonry itself. Alas, that is the subject of a different article at a different time, perhaps when Rome undoes the injustice of the 1988 "excommunications.") What was most revealing about the articles was their frank disclosure that a number of high-ranking Masons believe that they have all manner of friends within the Catholic Church in this country.

Sovereign Grand Commander C. Fred Kleinknecht, a 33rd-degree Mason, rued the fact that Bishop Bruskewitz's actions might harm "the decades-long growth of understanding and mutual appreciation between the Roman Catholic Church and the Craft.... No other American bishop in recent history has issued a similar blanket call for excommunication. No doubt the 'medicinal situation' was triggered by widespread unrest in the Church and the attempts by many Catholics to construct a broader view of their faith than is provided by the Vatican and strict canon law."

Kleinknecht is attempting to give encouragement to those Catholics who dissent from the unchanging teaching of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. His references to the Catholic organizations which are included in the extra synodal legislation of the Diocese of Lincoln note that such groups "wish to promote a dialog on matters such as clerical celibacy, women in the priesthood, planned parenthood, and physicians helping terminally ill patients die." In other words, Kleinknecht is proving Bishop Bruskewitz's very point: that Masonry is dedicated to the undermining of the hierarchical nature of the Church and of the immutable truths the Church received from Our Lord Himself, which she, founded upon the Rock of St. Peter, the Pope, has always taught infallibly.

Kleinknecht notes that Shriners and the Knights of Columbus hold an annual spring dinner together, and he goes on to point out that the Church of Rome's "former" hostility to the "Craft" was based in her efforts to stop "nation-building" in such places as Italy, where the Mason Giuseppe Garibaldi fought the Church with all his power. "These antagonisms, however, are long past, and throughout the world there is greater understanding and appreciation between Roman Catholics and Freemasons," he asserts.

What the grand commander missed was the simple fact that the Church was correct in her opposition to the development of nation-states which rejected the authority of the Successors of St. Peter to govern men in matters of faith and morals, and that membership in any Masonic organization is still forbidden, as the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pointed out in 1983, regardless of what the de facto practice might be in many dioceses in this country.

Another 33rd-degree Mason, Warren D. Lichty, grand sword bearer in Lincoln, Neb., tried to rebut the argument made by Pope Leo XIII that Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity, denying that Masonry is a religion or that it promotes relativism. But Lichty's own article proves that Masonry is relativistic, for it contends that one religious profession is as good as another. "I may sit in lodge with a Muslim Mason on one side, a Jewish Mason on the other side, and a Catholic Mason in front of me. Nevertheless, my religious faith is just as strong and firm as it has ever been. Lodge associations outside the Church do not affect one's faith other than to enhance it. There is nothing 'relativistic' about my faith."

Lichty betrayed his own line of reasoning when he tries to explain why Masons direct their prayers to the "Great Architect of the Universe." "This is seen as being deistic or theistic. It is neither," he writes. "It is common politeness. Some of those Masons sitting around me call God by a different name. Does it make more sense not to pray and not to ask God's blessings on our work than to find a name to which we can all address our prayers without offense to any of us?" That, of course, begs the fundamental fact that Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has professed Himself to be the Way, the truth, and the Life. What can be more relativistic and religiously indifferentist than to assert that we can call God by a name other than that which He revealed to us while He walked the earth?

Lichty then tried to fit a square peg into a round hole, claiming that Catholic apologists have misinterpreted a book by Albert Pike, that Masonry is not a religion. What this Albert Pike meant to say, according to Lichty, was that Masonry is a religion of "a secular matter, a religion of toil, of doing one's job with integrity, of working with friends, and of having sympathy with those who suffer and mourn, relief for those in want, etc." But Masonry does have its own rites, its own form of worship. It is dedicated to the very goals outlined by Pope Leo XIII in Humanum Genus.

In a twist of logic so convoluted as to defy complete comprehension, Lichty went on to use the "authority" of the very author, William Whalen, whose critique of Pike so enraged him. Referring to Whalen, Lichty asserted that Bishop Bruskewitz did something which not even a Catholic authority on Masonry had recommended. That certainly proves Kleinknecht's point that there is an increased level of understanding between Catholics and Freemasons, doesn't it?

Of special interest, however, was an article in that 1996 issue of Scottish Rite authored by an Old Catholic Church priest named Charles Maier. He tried to join the Roman Catholic Church in 1980 when the Vatican permitted priests of the Anglican Church and the Old Catholic Church to apply for reception as Catholics. "After interviews and investigation, a call was received from a prominent archbishop who was going to send our papers to Rome. He mentioned that there was only one matter to be resolved, and he reminded me of the canon covering Freemasonry and the Catholic clergy. He said, 'Fr. Maier, I will not ask you to resign from Masonry. If it were possible, I would probably be a Mason myself.' Then came an emotional story of how, as a child, his legs had been misformed. His father, an Army officer, took him to a Shrine hospital. There, he received the use of his legs. He suggested that we pray about this decision, my remaining in or leaving Freemasonry, and he promised he would pray for us. We called the next day, and as a true pastor, he gave us his blessing for continued service in the Old Catholic Church and the Masonic Lodge."

Assuming that this is true, which I have no reason to doubt, then it was irresponsible for the Holy See not to have investigated the dangers of the influence of Freemasonry upon the hierarchy in this country. For psychologist Joseph Wicker, who screens candidates for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, was until 1991 a worshipful master of Mt. Washington Masonic Lodge 642. Ray George, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, told The Mt. Washington Press on May 8, 1991, that he did not think that Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk was aware of this fact, but "personally I don't see where that would be a conflict." George told The Wanderer that Dr. Wicker stopped his adherence to Masonry in 1991 and is now a practicing Catholic. That Dr. Wicker's association with Masonry did not end until after it was disclosed publicly five years ago is troubling. And there are many instances of high-ranking, well-known Masons being buried as Catholics in good standing.

Fr. Maier's attempt to defend Masonry has given Catholics who support the traditional Papal teaching on Freemasonry much ammunition to use in pursuit of the many ways in which the relativism and indifferentism of Masonry have influenced the destruction of the faith from within the ranks of the Church in the United States, to say nothing of Rome itself.

Letters against Bishop Bruskewitz from no less than nine Masons who claim to be Catholics appeared in the June issue of Scottish Rite. Five of the writers were identified as 33rd-degree Masons, two were of the 32nd degree, and two were identified as wives of Masons. The existence of such confusion over the incompatibility between being a Catholic and being a Mason was and remains quite demonstrative of the general confusion within the Church in her human elements during the regime of novelty that is Vatican II and its sordid aftermath.

Consider several excerpts from these letters:

James E. Vanderberry, a 33rd-degree Mason, wrote: "Given the situation in Lincoln, Neb., I discussed the matter again with a monsignor I have known for many years. He advised me that I had taken the proper course in my original inquiry. He has the highest regard for Masons and their charitable works, and in his judgment, the case of Bishop Bruskewitz is an isolated conflict. He also advised me to make a profound, bold statement of my belief that there is no conflict between my religious convictions as a Roman Catholic and the Masonic Fraternity. In this response, I have."

Ellen Kleinknecht, the wife of 32nd-degree Mason Scott Kleinknecht (possibly the son of Fred?), writes: "The Catholic Church has lost a lot of young women because of its intolerant attitude toward many groups such as Planned Parenthood and, in this most recent case, Freemasonry. I personally have several female friends who have left the Church and several others who remain but ignore the Church's more dogmatic decrees. The bishop in Lincoln, Neb., appears to me to be the equivalent of Pat Buchanan and the GOP. Neither the bishop nor Buchanan represent their larger organizations but only a small and loud right wing within the Church or party. Neither one is the leader most Catholics or Republicans look to as their representative. Most of all, I resent the attitude that 'If you don't go along with me, then you're not a good Catholic.' Or, in Buchanan's case not a good Republican. The bishop, in my opinion, does not truly represent the attitude of mainstream American Catholics."

What Mrs. Kleinknecht and the other apologists for Masonry quoted in the June, 1996, issue of Scottish Rite failed to comprehend was the fact the Catholic Church is not an organization. She is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ who teaches only what she has received from Him. She has no power, much less authority, to change one jot or tittle of His unchanging truths— truths which must be proclaimed, as St. Paul reminded St. Timothy, whether welcome or unwelcome, whether convenient or inconvenient, whether in season or out of season.

The god of Freemasonry is the devil. Unless one is a partisan of certain modern theologians who exercised great influence on at least one future pope, there will be no reconciliation between the devil and Our Lord. Freemasonry and its darkened, walled up lodges shut out the light of Christ to imbibe the smoke of Satan. Each and every Catholic, from the Vicar of Christ to the lowliest sinner who is trying to reform his life in cooperation with grace, must oppose Freemasonry with the spiritual weapons of prayer and fasting. And priests who cooperate with this diabolic enterprise must be removed from their priestly ministry immediately.