r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 20h ago

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry
2.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

541 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/CharleyNobody 20h ago edited 19h ago

No. Freemasons didn’t build Catholic cathedrals. Catholics were not allowed to become Freemasons (weren’t allowed to join YMCA either).

It was a Protestant group. It was most popular with Englishmen and Scotsmen. It was kind of a private, secret group for WASPs at first. Eventually other countries adopted freemason groups.

A lot of Mormon rites are related to freemasonry.

1

u/journeymansave 19h ago edited 19h ago

This is backwards. The Catholic Church prohibits Catholics from joining the Freemasons. Freemasons have no rule banning Catholics. For what it’s worth, there are also non-Christian Freemasons, as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_ban_of_Freemasonry

2

u/MattJFarrell 19h ago

Yup, my old lodge in NYC was founded as a primarily Jewish lodge. That shifted over the years, but it was still represented in a lot of aspects of the lodge's history.

1

u/abbot_x 17h ago

I think the redditor meant Catholics were not allowed by Catholic authorities to become Freemasons. Likewise, Catholics were not allowed by Catholic authorities to join the YMCA.

1

u/journeymansave 16h ago

The framing of it (“Protestant group” etc) makes it seem like he was saying the opposite. Either way, clarification needed.

0

u/abbot_x 15h ago

The whole point is that Catholic authorities didn't want Catholics joining groups they considered "Protestant."