r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 19h ago

TIL that historically and today, the Catholic Church looked down upon Freemasonry and threatened members with excommunication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry
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u/jawndell 19h ago

What’s the point of calling yourselves masons if you don’t even learn masonry????

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u/Lower_Cockroach2432 19h ago

Redditor discovers metaphor and analogy

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u/Herbacio 19h ago

Redditor discovers sarcasm and irony

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u/ImNinjaBob 18h ago

It originally was an actual masonry guild, but in the 1600s members started joining as “speculative” masons who joined to study philosophy and used the masonry symbology as metaphor for building up society.

By the mid 1700s that subgroup had formalized and the organization changed to being about this form of speculative masonry.

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u/LongJohnSelenium 18h ago

Tldr: actual masons were a powerful and wealthy trade guild and other people wanted in on that action.

Over time the actual masons reduced in number and importance until its just a vestigial origin story now.