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.
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.