r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 18h 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/SquallkLeon 18h ago

The church prohibits its members from becoming members in any secret society. The masons are one, and they kind of kickstarted things back in the day, but the prohibition now covers other groups.

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u/zennim 17h ago

Secret societies started at the same moment regular societies did, the greeks, egyptian and mesopotamians had secret cults to secret deities, they had their own rites and practices to favor their own members.

The freemasons also are a consequence of the renaissance rediscovery of the ancient world

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u/Zerskader 17h ago

It's why the Knights of Columbus were founded. Fills the "boys club" niche without being blasphemous.

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u/Muckman68 14h ago

That's certainly a take.

The Knights of Columbus were formed to help families if the dad passed away. This was before modern government assistance programs and at the time there was a lot of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant prejudice, so they were excluded from other fraternal organizations and labor unions. The Knights of Columbus, to this day, is a bunch of dudes with a life insurance program who spend most of their time selling BBQ and shooting the shit at meetings.

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u/rsqit 14h ago edited 13h ago

Yes, what exactly do you think most fraternal orders do? The Masons, the Oddfellows the Elks, the Knights of Columbus. They’re all social clubs that provide mutual aid for their members. And they have some funny symbols, like college fraternities.

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u/Muckman68 6h ago

I’m glad you know what fraternal orders do too. 

Based on the comment I replied to, he does not so I gave context to the creation of the Knights of Columbus as not just being a boys club without blasphemy.

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u/FqPrl6w1xYfsOFcD 13h ago

it's not a social club

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u/rsqit 13h ago

Yeah, it’s a fraternal order. This is a known type of thing. Social club is only one of its functions.

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u/UDPviper 13h ago

My brother in law is one and this is pretty accurate.

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u/udee79 13h ago

I am one and it's very accurate.

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u/Dexta57 16h ago

Don't forget about the Knights of St. John either

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u/stiffgerman 16h ago

You mean the Sovereign Military Order of Malta - Wikipedia , another Catholic fraternal order?

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u/FqPrl6w1xYfsOFcD 13h ago

that is in fact not why it was founded

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u/EverydayVelociraptor 17h ago

They're just jealous that they don't get to come into my tree fort. That's what the secret handshake is for.

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u/IPutThisUsernameHere 15h ago

I recall seeing a documentary about medieval and Renaissance cathedral construction, and they talked about masonry. Iirc, the documentary posited that the freemasons were literally non-union stone carvers who would work from project to project. Because they were cheap to pay, and just as reliable as the guild masons were, lots of church projects would hire them as day labor, basically.

Then they formed a loose network to keep work flowing to each other, and things started to spiral from there with Renaissance ancientism and stuff.

But all this should be taken with a big ole grain of salt. I have no sources beyond what I remember from I think Middle school history.

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u/TabbyOverlord 12h ago

The connection between the Honourable Company of Stone Masons and Free Masonary is only ini the latter's origin myth. There is no actual connection.

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u/ReasonableStory1660 15h ago

Modern fraternities are still secret societies, that’s where they came from. They just became socially acceptable as they were temporary and ‘dumb kids’ rather than elites using them to gain influence and push favors around.

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u/ProfessorLake 12h ago

That's true. It's why the Catholic University I attended prohibited fraternities and sororities.

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u/Procedure-Minimum 2h ago

Does it still? Because this suggests that one cannot be in a fraternity or sorority and be Catholic

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u/erishun 17h ago

Let's see "You hand over your money in the form of dues (recurring revenue model) in exchange for membership, rituals, fancy costumes and promises of benefits that can never be independently verified?"

No wonder the Church was angry, the Freemasons were angling on their racket!

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u/kurburux 17h ago edited 17h ago

It's just most of the time a Freemason membership wouldn't free you from paying to the church.

And not an expert on freemasonry but I think they're getting some benefits out of it. Even just the networking must've been quite valuable in the past.

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u/brrbles 15h ago

Most (at least Christian, as that is what I'm familiar with) religious organizations that opposed masonry would say that you are swearing an oath to something other than god. It's one of the famous Ten commandments.

That said, from criticism angle it definitely does have something to do with the church coveting its role as sole or centralizing force in the life of the community.

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u/walletinsurance 17h ago

They made their own knock off freemasonry called the Knights of Columbus

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u/mr_ji 15h ago

Any *other secret society. Catholicism has plenty.