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MASONIC MYSTYQUE by You will see them during next month's ceremonies commemorating our dead propagandists and revolutionary heroes: distinguished professionals in strange garb, wearing aprons and gilded regalia, sometimes beanng banners proclaiming their membership in something called lodge. These gentlemen are Masons. Today, Masonry is viewed as a civic organization not very different from the Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis to which these Masons may, in fact, belong as well. And yet there was a time when Masons and Freemasonry were viewed with alarm not just in the Philippines but throughout Europe as well. The Catholic Church, for one, has since the 18th century condemned Freemasonry and subjected Masons to the most severe ecclesiastical sanctions. The latest revision of Canon Law undertaken during the reign of Pope John Paul II retains the penalty of automatic excommunication for any Catholic who becomes a Mason. This is a relic of the acrimonious relationship between Catholicism and Freemasonry, which continues to have repercussions up to the present. Other groups have persecuted Masons in their time: Napoleon detested them (although his brother was a Mason), Hitler loathed them. Indeed, dictators in general have displayed an aversion, if not outright hostility, to Masons. For Freemasonry carries with it a mystique accumulated over the centuries, historical baggage that has amused skeptics like Ambrose Bierce and delighted aficionados of conspiracy theory and mysticism verging on the occult. The phenomenal success of Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum, an intricate tale of secret societies, from the Knights Templar to the Rosicrucians to the Illuminato and (naturally) Freemasonry, attests to this. The only other organization that has as strong a grip on the popular imagination are the Jesuits, the traditional nemesis of Masonry. The traditional view is that Freemasonry is a global conspiracy that has taken on an antireligious charaaer. It is viewed as a shadowy organization that aims to infiltrate the corridors of power to facilitate the rise into prominence of member Masons to the exclusion of all others. The governing elites of countries like France and the United Kingdom, to name just two examples, are said to be dominated by Masons. The same thing used to be said of the Philippines. No wonder then that Freemasonry remains a favorite subject for speculation, from the alleged murder of Pope John Paul I in the book In God's Name, to a journalistic expose' of Masonic domination of the British police and legal system in The Brotherhood. But speculation as to whether Masonry is a "secret society" or a "society with secrets" overlooks a central fact, which should rapidly demolish any attempt to portray Masonry as a global conspiracy. Masonry is not an organized global movement. There are individual Masons who belong to autonomous Masonic lodges that may be linked to other lodges within a country, but there is no worldwide superbody that gives orders to the different national lodges. So what is Masonry? Is it what the Masons claim it is, a fraternal society with secrets, a civic entity with benevolent aspirations? One among civic organizations that have undertaken philanthropic tasks? You would find it impossible to convince conspiracy theorists that this is so. The truth is that the average citizen pays no more attention to it than it does to other fraternities. No one pays more particular attention to Masonic symbols, the ubiquitous compass and straight-edge, displayed on vehicles of some Masons, than, say, a Rotary International sticker or Toastmaster's sign. This nonchalant attitude is, after centuries of hysteria, welcome. But it is as misplaced as the paranoia that used to accompany the mere mention of the word "Mason". But what sets Masonry apart ftom other fraternal organizations, what made it worth the while of various governments to expend energy arresting Masons, are the ideals it espouses, best summarized by the glorious motto of the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality, and Fraterniry." Masonry was born in the period known as The Enlightenment. Over the past two centuries Masons have been the proponents, and then the guardians, of Enlightenment thinking. Rationalist, deist, essentially democratic and always stressing political compromise. No surprise tflen that it has often been at the vanguard of resistance to absolutist regimes of the recent past. Masons were active in the French and American revolutions. They were prominent during the long process of the reduction of the governing powers of British sovereigns. They were central figures in the attempts to establish a more liberal regime in Spain, and were still persecuted during the time of Francisco Franco. They helped undertake the Risorgimento, which finally united Italy and which, ironically, forced the Catholic Church, through the elimination of its temporal powers, to reassess itself and make itself once more a potent force in world affairs because of its strictly religious prestige. And Masons were central figures in the long campaign to secure independence for the Philippines.
Reprinted from "The Cable Tow", Vol 73. No. 3 |