FREEMASONRY: THE ENEMY OF CHURCH AND STATE.

Freemasonry is the deadly enemy of Church and State, and has wrought incalculable evil in every quarter of the globe, but especially in Catholic countries. Spain and Portugal, with their colonies, are, at the present day, noteworthy object-lessons of the spiritual and temporal ruin which Masonry can bring about in Catholic countries. In the official classes in South America, sad to say, Masonry is universal, and it is the chief, if not the sole, cause of the chronic revolutions that devastate those fine countries.  It is commonly believed that the encyclopedists and philosophers were the only men who overturned by their writings altar and throne at the time of revolution in unfortunate France. But, apart from the fact that these writers were to a man Freemasons, it can easily be shown that other Freemasons were everywhere, and even more practically engaged in the same evil work. Louis Blanc, a distinguished Freemason, himself, thus writes : "It is of no consequence to introduce the reader into the mine which at that time was being dug beneath thrones and altars by revolutionists, very much more profound and active than the encyclopaedia, an association composed of men of all countries, of all religions, of all ranks, bound together by symbolic bonds, engaged under an inviolable oath to preserve the secret of their interior existence. They were forced to undergo terrific proofs, while occupying themselves with fantastic ceremonies, but, other wise, practised beneficence, and looked upon themselves as equals, although divided into three classes, apprentices, companions, and masters. Now, on, the eve of the French Revolution Freemasonry was found to have received an immense development. Spread throughout the entire of Europe, it seconded the meditative genius of Germany, agitated France silently, and presented everywhere the image of a society, founded on principles contrary to those of Civil Society. That revolution agitated not France alone, but all Europe. The world, in the words of Monsignor Segur, was in the power of Masonry. All the lodges came, in 1781, to Wilhelmsbad, by delegates from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; from the most distant coasts discovered by navigators they came, zealous apostles of Masonry. They all returned penetrated with the Illuminism of Weishaupt, that is, Atheism, and animated with the poison of unbelief, with which the Orators of the Conclave had inspired them. Europe and the Masonic world were in arms against Catholicity. Therefore, when the signal was given, the shock was terrible, terrible, especially in France, in Italy, in Spain, in the Catholic nations, which they wished to separate from the Pope and cast into Schism until the time came when they could completely de-Christianise them. This accounts well for the Captivities of Pius VI. and Pius VII. The Cardinals were dispersed, the Bishops torn from their Sees, the pastors separated from their flocks, the religious Orders destroyed, the goods of the Church confiscated, the churches overturned, the convents turned into barracks, the sac red vessels seized, and melted down by sacrilegious avidity, the church bells turned into money and cannons, scaffolds erected everywhere, and victims in thousands, especially from among the clergy, sacrificed upon them ; in a word, all the horrors of the revolution, and the end, the moving power of its actions, to see Christ cast down from His altars, and the goddess called Reason enthroned."
 As early as 1797 the connection between Masonry and the French Revolution was well understood. Since then Louis Blanc and other Masonic writers glory in the fact. What Masonry did in France, it labours now to do throughout the entire world. Before the celebrated "Convent" (as they called it) of Wilhelmsbad there was a thorough understanding between the Free-masons of the various Catholic countries of Europe. This was manifested in the horrible intrigues which led to the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France, Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Germany, and which, finally, compelled Clement XIV. to dissolve the Society by ecclesiastical authority. Doubtless, the Jesuits had very potent enemies in the Jansenites, the Gallicans, and in others, whose party spirit and jealousy were stronger than their love for the real good of religion. But without the unscrupulous intrigues of the infidels of Voltaire's school, banded into a compact active league, by the newly-developed Freemasonry, the hostile efforts of the former could never effect an effacement so complete and so general. The Duke of Choiseul, a Freemason, with the aid of the abominable De Pampadour, the harlot of Louis XV., succeeded in driving the Jesuits from France. He then set about influencing his brother Masons, the Count de Arnada, Prime Minister of Charles III. of Spain, and the infamous Carvalho Pombal, the alter-ego of the weak King of Portugal, to do the same wicked work in the Catholic States of their respective sovereigns. The Marquis De L'Angle, a French Atheist, and a friend of his brother Masons, the Count de Aranda, the only man which Spain can be proud of at this moment. He is the sole Spaniard of our days whom posterity will place on its tablets. He is the man whose name it will love to place in the front of its temples, and whose name it will engrave on its escutcheon, along with the names of Luther, Calvin, and Mahomet. He it is who desired to sell the wardrobe of the saints, the property of virgins, and to convert the cross, the chandeliers, the patens, and the chalices, into inns Choiseud, thus writes of De Aranda: "He is conspired with Choisuel to forge a letter, as if from Father Ricci, the General or the Jesuits, which purported to prove that the King had no claim to the Spanish throne, that his mother was an adulteress. Secretly, therefore, an order was obtained from the weak and credulous Monarch and on a given day the Jesuits in all parts of the Spanish dominions were dragged from their homes, placed on board ships, and cast on the shores of the Pontifical States, in a state of utter destitution. A calumny equally unfounded and atrocious, enabled Pombal to inflict a still worse fate on the Jesuits of Portugal and its dependencies. Charles III. ordered Panucci, another Masonic enemy of the Jesuits, to banish them from Naples, where his son was sovereign. Geiser writes to Voltaire that the half fool, Joseph II., was initiated into the mysteries of Masonry ; and, accordingly, the Jesuits, notwithstanding the sympathies of the Empress Marie Therese, were proscribed in Austria. The world was thus left, so far, free for the Masonic philosophers to compass the destruction which they planned at Wilhelmsbad, and effected in the Revolution eight years afterwards.
 Eckart informs us that Mazzini, the Apostle of the Poniard, was, in his day, the head of the  warlike power of Freemasonry. M. Eckart was a Saxon lawyer of immense erudition, who devoted his life to unravel the mysteries of Secret Societies, and who published several documents of great value upon their actions. "Masonry," he says, "being a universal association, is governed by one only chief called a Patriarch. Scotland, England, France, and Germany have had, in turn, the unenviable distinction of supplying to the order its supreme chief. In Eckart's time, Lord Palmerston held that post. At the side of the Patriarch are found two committees, the one legislative, the other executive. These committees, composed of delegates of the Grand Orient, or Mother National Lodge, alone know the Patriarch, and are alone in relation with him. All the revolutions of modern times prove that the order is divided into two distinct sections — the one pacific, the other warlike. The first employs only intellectual means, that is, speech and writing. It brings the authorities, or the persons whose ruin it has resolved upon, to succumb or to effect mutual destruction. It seeks for the profit of the Order all the places worth having, in Church and State. It seduces the masses and dominates public opinion by means of associations, and by the power of the press. Its Directory bears the name of the Grand Orient, and closes its lodges the moment the warlike division causes the masses, which they have won over to Secret Societies, to descend into the street. At the moment when the pacific division has pushed its works so far that a violent attack has chances of success, then, at a time not far distant, when men's passions are inflamed, when authority is sufficiently weakened, or when the important posts are occupied by traitors, the warlike division will receive orders to employ all its activity. The Directory of the belligerent division is called the Firmament. From the moment that they come to armed attacks, and that the belligerent division has taken the reins, the pages of the pacific division are closed. These tactics again denote all the ruses of the Order. In effect, they thus prevent the Order from being accused of co-operating in the revolt. Moreover, the members of the belligerent division, as high dignitaries, form part of the pacific division — but not reciprocally, as the existence of that division is unknown to the great part of the members of the other division — the first can fall back on the second, in case of want of success. The brethren of the pacific division are eager to protect by all the means in their power the brethren of the belligerent division, representing them as patriots too ardent, who have permitted themselves to be carried away by the current in defiance of the prescriptions of order and prudence.
 Mazzini, after exhorting his followers to attract as many of the higher classes as possible to the secret plotting, which has resulted in United Italy, and is meant to end in Republican Italy, as a prelude to Republican Europe, said: "Associate, associate; all is contained in that word. The secret societies can give an irresistible force to a party who are able to invoke them. Do not fear to see them divided; the more they are divided the better it will be. All of them advance to the same end, by different paths. The secret will be often unveiled. So much the better. The secret is necessary to give security to members, but a certain transparency is necessary to strike fear into those wishing to remain stationary. When a great number of associates receiving the word of command to scatter an idea abroad and make it public opinion can concert even for a moment, they will find the old edifice pierced in all its parts, and falling as if by a miracle at the least breath of progress. They will be astonished to see kings, lords, men of capital, priests, and all those who from the carcass of the old social edifice, fly before the sole power of public opinion."
 At the Council of Verona, held by the European Sovereigns in the year 1822, to guard their thrones and peoples from the revolutionary excesses which threatened Spain, Naples, and Peidmont, the Count Haugwitz, Minister of the King of Prussia, who was present with his master, made the following speech: "Having arrived at the end of my career, I believe it to be my duty to cast a glance upon the secret societies, whose power menaces humanity to-day more than ever. Their history is so bound up with that of my life that I cannot refrain from publishing it once more, and from giving some details regarding it. My natural disposition and my education having excited in me so great a desire for information that I could not content myself with ordinary knowledge, I wished to penetrate into the very essence of things. But as shadow follows light, thus an insatiable curiosity develops itself in proportion to the efforts which one makes to penetrate further into the sanctuary of science. These two sentiments impelled me to enter into the Society of Freemasons.
 It is well known that first step which one makes in the order is little calculated to satisfy the mind. That is precisely the danger to be dreaded for the inflammable imagination of youth. Scarcely had I attained my majority when not only did I find myself at the head of Masonry, but what is more, I occupied a high place in the chapter of high grades. Before I had the power of knowing myself, before I could comprehend the situation in which I had rashly engaged myself, I found myself charged with the superior direction of Masonic reunions of a part of Prussia, of Poland, and of Russia. Masonry was at that time divided into two parts in its secret labours. In open conflict between themselves, the two parties gave each other the hand, in order to obtain dominion of tho world; to conquer thrones; such was their aim. It would be superfluous to explain how, in my ardent curiosity, I came to know the secrets of the one party and of the other. The truth is, the secret of the two sections is no longer a mystery to me. That secret is revolting. It was in the year 1777 that I became charged with the direction of one part of the Prussian lodges three or four years before the Conclave of Wilhelmsbad, and the invasion of the lodges by illuminism. My action extended even over the brethren dispersed throughout Poland and Russia. If I did not myself see it, I could not give myself even a plausible explanation of the carelessness with which Governments have been able to shut their eyes to such a disorder, a veritable State within a State. Not only were the chiefs in constant correspondence and employing particular cyphers, but they reciprocally sent emissaries, one to another. To exercise a dominant influence over thrones —such was our aim. I thus acquired the firm conviction that the drama commenced in 1788 and 1789, the French Revolution, the regicide, with all its horrors, not only was then resolved upon but was even the result of these associations. Of all my contemporaries of that epoch there is not one left. . . . My first care was to communicate to William III. all my discoveries. We came to the conclusion that all the Masonic associations, from the most humble even to the very highest degrees, could not do otherwise than employ religious sentiments in order to execute plans the most criminal, and made use of the first in order to cover the second."
 Enough I think, has been said, to show that Freemasonry is the enemy of authority, and a danger to the State as well as to the Church ; yet statesmen are to be found in its ranks, and the most civilised States not only allow it to live but treat it as a friend and smile upon it. They carry a serpent in their bosom that will one day sting them to death J. B.

Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), Thursday 3 October 1907, page 7