21/11/2025
Masons
Manila Bulletin
15 Jan 2016
By FR. EMETERIO BARCELON, SJ
In the Philippines and in many Catholic countries in the world, Freemasonry has been controversial. I remember we used to figure out how to counteract Freemasonry. And yet Masonry is the offspring of the associations that built the cathedrals of Europe in the middle ages, during the tenth and to the fifteenth centuries. After the cathedrals were built, these brotherhoods took in members who were no longer builders but followed the guidelines of the brotherhood, therefore no longer builders but Freemasons. The main aim was to take good men and to try to make them better. For them truth and freedom were essential so that from the 16th century onwards, there was a clash between them and the Catholic Church because church and state were joined in the anointing of kings. Accordingly, in the fight against kings, it was necessary to also fight the Church.
With the spread of democracy, our rulers no longer have the right to rule from divine origin and are not anointed by the Church. There is now the separation of Church and State. And therefore Masons did not have to fight the Church in order to fight the kings. It was logical for the Church to condemn Freemasonry because it was fighting the Church. This was the Freemasonry of the contemporaries of Jose Rizal.
But with Vatican II, the condemnation of Masonry was lifted mainly through the lobbying of the German bishops who in their life times did not have the experience of Masonry fighting the Church in order to fight regal states. Accordingly the Canon Law of 1977, the rule book of the Church, following Vatican II, no longer automatically condemned Freemasons.
Masons who insist on fighting the Church will still be condemned because of their going against the Church, not because they are Masons. Catholics can now belong to Freemasonry without guilt or qualms of conscience. The ritual of Freemasonry still uses the Bible and passages of the Bible in their initiations like the Psalms and 1Corinthians 13.
Freemasons have had a big influence on the Philippines starting from the Madrid friends of Jose Rizal down to the Japanese occupation to the present. They had to fight the Church in order to fight the state. But those days are past. Freemasonry no longer has to fight the Church in its effort to make good men better. Whether this turned out good for the Church is not clear. But one bad effect of this was the ignorance of Filipino Catholics about their faith so that they are easy prey to dissident evangelizers.
As a fnend of mine who is a fierce promoter of Masonry insists, there is no more contention between Masonry and the Church. They both want our salvation, although Masonry has become non-religious and accepts any faith, not only the Chnshan faith Masons can be good Masons as well as good Catholics or Protestant Chnstians Masonry has a strong influence in making good people better, as they proclaim.
