The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 9 - Masonic and Anti-Masonic Literature 733
O reticence the most obstinate of stubborn indocility,
That dares hold any thing concealed from Our Infallibility!
It is an error to believe in what they call their charity,
As though they with the Faithful were at all upon a parity;
Condemned be the suggestion of such scandalous equality!
Their ends are eating, drinking, conviviality and jolity.
The ruin of the Church and Civil Government they're aiming at,
No visionary phantom 'tis that we are now declaiming at;
The Freemasons and Fenians are only two varieties
Of secret sacrilegious and heretical societies.
Their aprons be anathema, their gems and decorations all;
Their symbols, signs, and passwords we declare abominations all;
And, if they do not penance and submit to Our authority,
Adjudge them to the regions of profound inferiority. 1809
Pope Pius IV. already sensed in 1865 that Freemasonry was "universal," for
he declared that "these efforts of the Apostolic See have not met with the success
hoped for. The Masonic sect of which we speak has not been vanquished or
overthrown; on the contrary, it has so developed itself that in these troublous
days it exists every where [sic] with impunity." 1810 The same observation was
made by Pope Leo XIII in 1884 in Humanum Genus, when he stated that "in a
century and a half, the sect of Masons grew beyond expectations," and "grew to
be so powerful that now it seems the only dominating power in the States." 1811
That the Papal reproaches and opinions on Freemasonry were reactionary and
detached from the world of reality is demonstrated in both Coil's cyclopedia and
the Masonic Review. The latter states that one Pope only repeated what the ones
before had said, and puts this observation in Masonic metaphors, arguing that the
Pope is "like the owner of an ancient mansion, devolved on one by a hereditary
right. He must take the edifice as it is, with its commodious and inconvenient
chambers, its fantastic turrets and heavy chimney pieces [...]; or if he alters it, it
must be with a cautious and gentle hand, otherwise the whole fabric will fall
about his ears." 1812 It further states that the Pope "is cabined, cribbed, confined.
He must go forward by going round in the tread-mill of precedent. He wears the
old garments, put on semi-occasionally [...] as in Holland where dresses are
hereditary, the grand-fathers and sons, in regular succession proceed to the altar
in the same nuptial breeches." 1813 The article in the Masonic Review concludes
that the Pope shows himself to a disadvantage, putting on such an outer garb in
1809
Quoted from Punch in an article called "The Pope's Allocution," printed in The Masonic Review,
vol. XXXI from 1866, p. 18/19.
1810
Quoted in ibid., p. 16. Italics left out.
1811
Quoted in CME, p. 55.
1812
Moore, ibid, p. 18.
1813 Ibid.