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To: sphinx
As a Past Master of my Blue lodge, 32 degree Scottish Rite and Shriner, I can say no satanist/non G-d fearing activities have ever occurred in my 40 years of affiliation. Any good charactered man may petition to become a member even Catholics but they aren't allowed by papal decree.
33 posted on 05/28/2021 7:25:42 PM PDT by bdfromlv (Leavenworth hard time)
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To: bdfromlv

I don’t doubt you. And I’m pretty sure my friends who are Masons aren’t involved in Luciferian rituals either. My point was simply that the traditional Catholic prohibition — followed by some protestant groups as well — was rooted in a generic prohibition against membership in secret societies in which members take vows of secrecy before being initiated into hidden mysteries. That runs all the way back to the fight over gnosticism in the early church. The church proclaims its doctrine publicly, to the initiated and uninitiated alike. The rule is generic. The Masons are simply the most prominent modern group affected. If the church bent on a blanket application of the principle, the church would have to pick and choose among all secret societies, saying which are acceptable and which are not. And the church couldn’t do that unless the church leaders were themselves privy to all the secrets and rituals, in which case they would no longer be secret. There’s no way to square that circle. Even if one agrees that the Masons are unobjectionable in practice, the principle of secrecy remains an issue for a church committed to public creeds publicly defended.


34 posted on 05/29/2021 11:19:55 AM PDT by sphinx
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To: bdfromlv

Besides, you’re only a 32nd degree Mason. There used to be a very agreeable and friendly panhandler at my local Metro stop — a very clubable guy like most Masons I’ve met — who got carried away talking about the 33 1/3 degree Masons. I don’t think you’re even supposed to know about the 33 1/3 degree until you’re initiated into the 33rd degree, which would mean that you’re still on the outside and in the dark. And there could in theory be inner circles of degrees and mysteries beyond that. Ridiculous, you will say. But how would any of us know? It’s all a secret. I’m just needling you here, but you get the drift. The insistence on open doctrine is an important principle.


35 posted on 05/29/2021 11:34:12 AM PDT by sphinx
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