Glad you found a church. I'm in the bible belt, where hellfire and damnation are preached daily. Sad to say, I won't even set foot in one of those kinds.
I have not had too many problems here. Although just north of Orlando is some real extremists.
Non-dom, no church building, I have a few hundred people at the Ren Faire that look to me for guidance.
Sure did!So you did catch my little poke at ya
I tend to agree with you on just about everything you said. The Catholic Church lost me as soon as I was able to think on my own, so right around 15 or 16. I was fine to simply be a non-practicing Catholic until the sex abuse scandal, and which point I called it a day.I went through a spiritual search and since this is not a Lodge, I don't feel it would be inappropriate to share a small part of it. I grew up a Roman Catholic and really drank the coolaid. I was very close to joining Seminary until I discovered girls.
Fast forward a few years and I landed in a Unitarian Universalist Church. The "Unitarian" part means one God. The "Universalist" part means respect for all faiths and people of good will. The only thing keeping my minister from being a world-class Mason is that pesky Y chromosome of hers. I frequently am struck by the similarities of the lessons of my Church and my Lodge.
Just like Freemasons, UUs have a long list of famous people who were or are members. The overlap is quite large. If you haven't been to a UU Church, it would be an interesting Sunday morning for any Freemason who is looking for a place of worship, respect and acceptance. It's a lot like Lodge without the tuxes
The ministry work that I do includes christenings, namings, and baptisms mainly because many people in my area are not part of a church but they are spiritual (typical definition by them). Were what I do is charging the parents & godparents with their duties, responsibilities, and obligations and welcoming the child(ern) into the family of the Creator, most churches are making the child(ern) members of that denomination and into the family of the Creator.
I am glad you found a Church that supports and tolerates your Free Masonry affiliation. I sent an email to my church, Calvary Assembly of God (A of G), to see if they could sponsor a "Masonic Church Day" (a tradition here in DE where we all go to a particualr church together on the Sunday before Thanksgiving). I got no response. Traditionally, the A of G was intollerant of the AF&AM/F&AM as promoters of the "Luciferian Doctrine" (Thank you Leo Taxil for creating a rumor that will not die) but I thought our Pastor was a lot more open-minded than that (at least that's how he came across to me). However, recieving no answer from my request, in my mind, spoke volumes! I might check out a UU church in my area.
Sorry for hijacking the thread!
You are absolutely right, Brother Livingston. I stand corrected. I also sit laughing at myself with youNow, my borther, it now becomes my duty to give you a little bit of an innocent jab. If your pastor had a "Y" chromosone, then "HE" would make a great Mason! Men have "XY" chromosones and women have "XX"! Sorry, my brother I couldn't resist the jab! Well I could have resisted but I chose not to!
Gregor Mendel would be thrashing me with a 24 inch gauge.
Hi, Brother. Thought I'd take a moment and get this thread back on topic (or, at least, closer to on topic
). Oh, heck, this really isn't on topic at all, let's be honest, but it does respond directly to some of the commentary on this thread so far.
What an outstanding post Patrick , very enlightening .Hi, Brother. Thought I'd take a moment and get this thread back on topic (or, at least, closer to on topic
First: the Catholic Church discourages Freemasonry for many more reasons than anything you'll find in canon law. To understand this we'll have to take a more historical perspective: Freemasonry, no matter how it existed previously, went public in 1717 England. In a relatively short time, it became immensely popular and spread outside of British borders into mainland Europe. But, like any organization that has no central administration, once it became established outside of England (particularly France and Germany), well, things started to change. You see, in England, Freemasonry was (and still is) about the individual Mason and his relationship with the world. Not so elsewhere (in the US, for example, we are more about the Institution, with a capital I, than we are about the individual). In France and Germany, Freemasonry caught on like wildfire, but quickly transformed into being seen as an agent of social change. The Masons of France and Germany, in other words, thought that it was their responsibility to bring 'Light' to the masses, whether they were Masons or not: times were not particularly good, unless you were of the noble classes or royalty, and the French and German Freemasons started fomenting the idea of Republicanism (to help the masses). But the royalty of Europe had an actual place in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church: they were 'Defenders of the Faith'. So ... the political activity of Freemasonry in mainland Europe at the time was a direct threat to the Establishment (with a capital E) of Catholicism. Is it any wonder they came out publicly against Freemasonry at that time? But now that it has been demonstrated that republicanism and the Church can peacefully co-exist, why doesn't the Church change it's story?
Second: Primarily (remember that Freemasonry, as practiced by the French and Germans of the time, and mentioned prominently in last paragraph, did, indeed, conspire against the authority of the Catholic Church by promoting Republicanism) because the sanctions leveled against Freemasonry were made by Papal Bull. The Pope came out and said that Freemasonry was not consistent with what the Church saw as the role of believers. Okay, so what? Well ... the Church also has/had a Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. The Pope is the mouthpiece of St. Peter and through St. Peter to God Almighty and so, says the doctrine, whatever the Pope puts down has got to be correct. Even today, when things are very different, you just don't see the Catholic Church backing off of Papal Bulls, no matter what the feelings are at this time.
Third: And so, while we are far divorced from those times (the revolutions and the world wars pretty much obliterated almost every trace of royalty in most of Europe), we have stuff written by Popes to protect the royalty of the times and uphold the doctrines of the Church that are not going to be overthrown merely because we live in a different political milieu. To reverse the Bulls would take a huge change in Church policy, and a lot of education across the face of the Church. Neither of those things is likely to happen soon, and so, whether we like it or not, the Catholic Church still opposes Freemasonry based on the activities of SOME early Freemasons who tried to challenge the authority of the Church by opposing the royalty and nobility of Europe.
And that (in a very small nutshell and gloriously oversimplified) is PART of the reason that Catholicism opposed and still opposes Freemasonry.
Why, thanks, Ash.
Yes, it's true. However, at the time I'm talking about, that was less of an issue. Most Freemasons were Christians, and on the continent of Europe, most Christians were Catholic. Now, I, too, am quite alright with the fact that we are seen as a threat by any number of faiths. (After all, it's not ONLY the Catholics who oppose us.) But I think that the historical context is important to know, in and of itself!