Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017
Regulation and suppression
Perceptions, prejudices, and persecutions
Over the centuries, secular and sacred authorities alike have raised concerns about the existence of masonic lodges. As a general tendency throughout history, the more authoritarian a political system, the more freemasonry has been persecuted within it. Before the French Revolution, freemasonry was condemned by the Vatican and by Protestant clergy (particularly Pietistic clergy, or what would be called evangelical leaders today); it was also suppressed by a number of secular authorities. However, these condemnations and suppressions did not prevent the global dissemination of freemasonry.
The reasons for the issuing of the first papal bull against masonic gatherings, entitled In Eminenti (March 1738), are complex. The bull stated that an association of persons belonging to different faiths was in itself heretical and that the practice of freemasonry furthered depraved behaviour; this lead to bans in several countries. Furthermore, the bull attacked the misuse of the masonic oath of secrecy: if freemasonry was not intended to be in contravention of religion and the State, why then did it contain secrets? However, the most imprecise reason for the bull was given as ’other just and reasonable motives’, which were (presumably) known only to the Holy See itself.
At this particular time, freemasonry in France was divided into two camps: lodges that had been established by the grand lodge of England, which was Hanoverian in its political allegiance, and lodges established by Jacobites, who supported the succession of the ousted Stuart monarchy to the British throne. In the aftermath of the papal bull, Parisian police authorities carried out investigations and spectacular raids on masonic lodges; indeed it has been suggested that the papal ban supported domestic politics in France at that time. However, the bull didn’t ever achieve legal status in France, hinting at a general crisis of papal authority in the 18th century. In Italy, freemasonry was identified as a source of threat in Florence where the lodge included anti-clerical freethinkers, unlike the Catholic Jacobite freemasons of Rome. As such, it is possible that the real reasons for the Vatican’s condemnation of freemasonry were most strongly linked to domestic Vatican and Italian politics of the time: distinct, local, personal issues as opposed to general, ideological factors.
Nevertheless, the papal ban received widespread attention across Europe, in effect simply furthering wider public knowledge and awareness of freemasonry. Indeed, when in the aftermath of In Eminenti, a pamphlet entitled Relation Apologique et Historique de la Société des Franc-Maçons, which defended freemasonry, was put on the infamous ’Index of Prohibited Works’ and then burnt at the stake in Rome in February 1739, the news spread as far as Boston in America. Since this booklet of about ninety pages was the only publication on freemasonry that had experienced such a fate, it deserves a short introduction. The Relation appeared under a false imprint (Dublin) during the spring of 1738 and again as a series of articles in a widely read political journal published in Luxemburg, in the Austrian Netherlands; and by August of the same year, significant parts of the booklet had been translated into German and Swedish.
The pamphlet closely associated freemasonry with the Newtonian scientific culture of the period in general, and with the pantheist worldviews of the freethinker and philosopher John Toland in particular. It described masonic lodges as learned academies that engaged in research and philosophical investigation of the deep mysteries of nature. Refuting exposures by the Parisian police authority that had been published in 1737, the author presented a version of masonic ritual that has no resemblance to any known practices at the time. This brings the authorship into question, as well as the intentions of the pamphlet; even more, it invites the question of how the pamphlet came to the attention of the papal authorities and why they treated it as heretic and deserving of incineration. Clearly, however, this episode demonstrates that freemasonry—at least when it was identified with pantheism and Newtonian science—was perceived as representing an ideological threat.
In 1751, the papal ban was renewed under the title Providas. Again, the complex political context of Italian freemasonry (in Florence and Rome) must be taken into consideration, along with the circulation at this time of an anti-masonic tract that was even included in one of the first Italian encyclopaedias. Providas went even further than the previous bull, stating clearly (with references to Roman law) that associations formed without the permission of public authorities were illegal. In 1786, possibly spurred by a contemporary intensification of anti-masonic writings, the original bull, In Eminenti, was re-issued.
Nonetheless, despite these attempts to prevent the spread of freemasonry, tens of thousands of Catholics—even clerics—joined masonic lodges throughout the 18th century.
The Vatican obsession with freemasonry intensified considerably during the 19th century, fired by the vague insinuation by the Holy See that it was in possession ’of just and reasonable motives’ for its condemnation. Particularly in Latin Europe, the USA, and South America, freemasonry was accused of conspiring against Church and State; between 1821 and 1884, it was condemned by the Holy See on a number of occasions. After 1884, the Catholic Church engaged in an intense propaganda war against freemasonry. Anti-masonic associations and magazines were created and congresses were held, which in turn reinforced the anti-clericalism of (predominantly Latin) freemasonry. While this was going on, political societies fighting for the unification of Italy were adopting overtly anti-clerical and secularist agendas, inspired by the then current French ideology of ’laïcité’: a strict separation of religion and political life. Apart from the inherent ideological antagonism of the Catholic Church towards freemasonry, all this activism must be interpreted against the backdrop of its loss of secular power due to Italian unification, evident in the politics of the time. Indeed, since Vatican II (1962—5), the relationship between the Catholic Church and freemasonry has eased, having at least been discussed on a number of occasions. However, it does remain an uneasy one to this day as the recent row on the Order of the Knights of Malta forcefully demonstrates, accused of being undermined by freemasons.
After the French Revolution, a steady stream of conspiracy literature prepared the ground for governmental regulation of freemasonry across Europe. Masonic lodges more or less voluntarily ceased to operate in the Austrian and Russian empires. Prussia passed legislation against secret societies in 1798, as did Britain in 1799 and Sweden in 1803. In these surprisingly similar regulations, freemasonry was exempted from outright prohibition, but it was placed under governmental control. These regulations state that secrecy in general as well as private oaths of allegiance (in particular to ’unknown superiors’) threaten the security of the State, and that meetings at which political and social issues are to be discussed are seditious as a matter of principle. Thus, at the turn of the 19th century, the voluntary association of citizens within freemasonry and similar fraternal orders was seen as posing a problem to governments across Europe. In Russia, secret societies (including freemasonry) were completely banned in 1822.