American Masonry and Catholic Education by Rev. Michael Kenny SJ

American Masonry and Catholic Education by Rev. Michael Kenny SJ is a paper aimed to warn and inform the audience of the freemasonic forces acting against religion in children’s education.

Rev. Kenny (b. 28 June 1863 – d. 12 November 1946) was ordained in 1897 and in 1908 and co-founded the Catholic magazine America and was its editor until 1915. He was also the Professor of Sociology at the Creighton University Summer School.

This paper was, according to the title page, “an exposition of masonic activities in education, read at the catholic educational convention, San Francisco, California, 1918, and addressed in substance to the Creighton University summer session”. It is a short text of under 30 pages and was subsequently published in 1919.

Many such forces are now in active opposition through the land, e.g., the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations and their like, which are expending vast millions yearly on higher education and the production and upkeep of educators, always with the condition, expressed, or implied, that not a cent be diverted to any educational plan or purpose of a religious character, and that from the institutions financed through these sources religion shall he barred. In practice the Catholic religion alone is barred.

Those who are familiar with the topic will unlikely find too much new information. That being the case, many of these books take a broader “big picture” approach delving into the older history and whilst there is a little bit of that here, it is interesting to see a reaction to freemasonic actions in a narrower context, in this case, the US in 1918.

The author first goes through the origins and history of (modern) freemasonry, particularly in the US, before discussing its intentions and actions on the American education system. Below are some key points, not intended to be a summary.

Freemasonry was founded in 1717 in a London tavern on the basis of four moribund societies of working Masons, the remains of one of the great Catholic guilds which the Stuarts had utilized as a medium for communication with their British partisans. When the house of Hanover was established two ministers (a French Huguenot and a Scotch Presbyterian) drew up the ritual and constitution for a philosophical and benevolent society of speculative Masons working not in mortar but on minds.

● Freemasons substitute God with “The Grand Architect of the Universe”, a conveniently vague concept.

● Freemasonry demands blind obedience to unknown superiors and secrecy.

● It claims to be open to all religions, taking a purely materialistic view, “a religion for the destruction of religion”.

● It claims to contain the truth of all religions and none of the “impurities”.

● As for the origins of freemasonry in the US:

Introduced from England in 1729, American Masonry remained largely convivial in character, often of a bibulous type, till the Scottish Rite of Perfection was imported from France and a Supreme Council of 33 continental degrees was erected in Charleston, S. C., in 1801.

● As is typical of freemasonic lodges, it adopts symbols and rituals from other religions and traditions, making a mockery of Christianity, including so-called baptisms and communions. Regarding the American Scottish Rite:

Adopted in 1782 and put into operation during and after the French Revolution, this system was perfected by the American Supreme Grand Master, Albert Pike, acclaimed “the greatest name in Masonry,” who built up an autocratic government like the French Grand Orient and wove into its degrees and ritual allegories and symbols from Kabbalism, Gnosticism and sundry pagan and Christian cults.

● Nature is God (naturalism) and therefore man is the true Deity (humanism), “the highest expression of bi-sexualism, which is the seed of all Deity; that religion originated in the sex mysteries and morality follows the law of bi-sexualism, of which phallic worship…”

● Ultimately, under the guise of “enlightenment”, freemasonry aims to destroy Catholicism and considers the Pope a tyrant. This is similar to Lucifer tempting our first parents with “knowledge”, implying God is a tyrant who withholds it.

● Despite claiming to possess the truth, knowledge is hidden and revealed gradually to initiates. Symbols are displayed but not explained, its meaning hidden to the lower degrees. That which is Christian is used to fool outsiders and those of lower degrees as well to mock. For example, Pike considers the Old Testament a symbol of Material Nature and the New Testament of Human Nature, and “I.N.R.I. is translated “Igne Natura Renovatur Integra” (“By Masonic Fire All Nature is renewed”).

● In 1870, Pike had worked with Giuseppe Mazzini of Italian Masonry on a new “Supreme Rite” as a “center of action” for their objectives. It was called the “Black Rite”, Pike called it the Palladium.

● In 1888, Adrian Lemmi, the successor of  Mazzini, requested Pike to organize all American Lodges to act against “the Vatican and Clericalism, for the progress of humanity.” Pike, however, thought such an overt approach would not work at the time.

● When the French Grand Orient Lodge in 1878 took a more overtly atheistic view by expunging the Grand Architect, Bible and references to religion from its ritual, the German, English and American Blue Lodges broke off relations with the Grand Orient Lodge.

● However, whilst the Scottish Rite retained the Architect and religious symbols also maintained relations with the Grand Orient Lodge and considers the latter as a “model” for all masonry. Keep in mind the Grand Orient Lodge was openly hostile to the Church in France, Portugal and Mexico.

● In 1913, Supreme Grand Commander James D. Richardson, a successor of Pike, declared its opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, accusing her of being “Moloch”, of having secret teachings and tainting Jesus Christ’s teachings with paganism.

● It published many magazines, such as The New Age and The American Freemason, spreading its humanist philosophy and attacks on Christianity.

● Lodges and magazines differ on specifics. Some are less aggressive than others, but most if not all eventually are modelled on the Grand Orient Lodge.

● Joseph E. Morcombe was the editor of The New Age at the time. Amongst other things, he

…insists that the Grand Orient is much more logical than the American lodges. They teach openly the true Masonic doctrine, “the essential Divinity of man,” and are at one with Krishna and Buddhist and Vedist, who teach that “Divinity’s holiest shrine is within the heart of man;” the doctrine that has made “Masonry a universal society above and beyond all religious confessions and having to serve as handmaid to no church or sect.”

● It considers the Roman Catholic Church’s main point of attack is schools and education. Therefore, it also attacks schools. According to The New Age, December 1916:

The public school system is the backbone of the republic. To train children to become citizens, to take their places in the great social, political and industrial system of the country, is the grand object of the free schools. Instruction is necessarily non-sectarian because of the fact that liberty of conscience is the very bedrock of the republic. The public schools are the melting pot of these United States.

● Note the mention of “liberty of conscience” which conveniently means absolute freedom in freemasonry. The result is that “every man shall be his own priest, his own soul the temple for true worship.”

● In other words, make all schools godless:

As for the moral teaching, the desired end is best accomplished by insistence upon the natural or experiential mandates. The State has a duty even superior to the rights of the family.

● There is a focus on universities since influencing or controlling that academic environment in turn impacts the public schools.

● Freemasonry, in addition to wanting to ban Catholic education altogether, wanted that one day anyone “who is not a product of the public schools” would be ineligible to hold public office.

● The author concludes the paper with suggestions to combat the situation. Amongst other things, Catholics should step up their own publications just as freemasons have infiltrated the press as well as assert their right under the Constitution to provide religious education. “Whispering humbleness inspires nobody.” [It is interesting to note the author does not discuss freemasonic origins of the Constitution but, taken at face value, it does protect Christian education anyway.]

● The paper is organized into 43 short sections. These headings are reproduced below to give a sense of its structure.

Masonry, the central antagonizing force

“Let sleeping dogs lie”

Masonry’s origin and purpose

The American “Scottish Rite”

“The method of masonry”

Pike’s plan now in operation

Modeled on the Grand Orient

The Scottish Rite program

Destroy the Constitution to destroy Rome

Universal Summons Against Romanism

Preparatory masonic propaganda

Masonic battle with the Roman “Moloch”

Culminates in the schools

Masonry’s widespread anti-catholic books

Preachments of masonic magazines

“The American freemason”

Antagonism to catholicity officially declared

Masonry’s mouthpiece lauds the Grand Orient

American masonry joins the Grand Orient

All the lodges Grand Orientated now

Grand Orient educational system adopted

Making the war a masonic asset

Primary plank: masonify the schools

Make all schools godless by national law

“Every man his own priest”

Away with catholic teachers and officials!

Masons “invest in brains and souls”

Masonic influence in state and nation

Masonic thought in the universities

A masonic university to mould education

Our duty as Catholics and citizens

Catholics must also organize educationally

1. Teach religion thoroughly and throughout

2. Infuse the principles of the constitution

Religion in schools prescribed by the founders

Defence of religious schools a civic duty

Equality before the law

Equal monies for equal work

3. Cultivate and extend the catholic press

Organized demand for all constitutional rights

Put true Americans on guard

Battle bravely for God and country

Postscript

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