We need to talk about the Lodge - Old enemies and new friends

 

I was sadden to read about the recent passing of former Labour MP, journalist and television presenter Austin Mitchell who died last week at the age of 86. I really liked Mitchell, he was an old school Gaitskelite, and football fans of certain vintage might recall Mitchell’s now legendry Yorkshire Television interview with Brian Clough alongside his predecessor as Leeds manager and arch-nemesis Don Revie, immediately following Clough’s sacking in 1974.

An amusing aside about Don Revie – Revie once arranged for the Catholic Bishop of Leeds secretary to visit the former Leeds midfielder Michael O’Grady house while he was still a young Huddersfield player. Revie found out O’Grady’s family were Catholics and sent the secretary round to tell O’Grady’s and his parents that ‘Don Revie is very interested in you and wants me to pass on his best wishes’.

To some, this may seem like a very unorthodox abuse of the Bishop’s office but personally speaking, I’m all for our Bishops using their influence to bring players to the clubs in their diocese. I’d love to see my own Bishop John of Paisley Diocese use his clout to attract good players to Greenock Morton and St Mirren (although preferably Morton)

Seriously though, older readers may also remember the time in 1986 when Austin Mitchell acting as the Right Honourable Member of Parliament for Grimsby, stood up in Parliament and called for a national register of all people in authority who are Freemasons, in response to an alleged high level Masonic cover-up and miscarriage of justice during the infamous John Stalker inquiry.

Indeed, it would be fair to say that there was a time in Scotland when Freemasons were quite prevalent in some occupations and institutions and there was certainly a belief that Freemasons held positions of power and authority in Scottish public life throughout most of our communities. From Golf Clubs and Bowling club committees to the Police and of course football referees, supposedly.

The reality of just how much influence Freemasons once had on Scottish life or how much influence they still hold isn’t really the purpose of this short reflection, although I think we can safely say that the old gents getting on with their installations and rites in most lodges around the country, are no longer secretly controlling society (if they ever did?)

Instead, I’m more interested in asking why Scottish Catholics and Scottish Freemasons have always been so suspicious of each other and if this hostility has now dissipated?

From our point of view, the Church has always objected to the faithful becoming Freemasons to the point of excommunication, considering membership to be a grave sin. There are numerous reasons given for this prohibition, from Masons historical anticlericalism and atheism, to their indifference to religion and ideology which conflict with the faith.

The Masons alleged indifference to religion and belief in the universal brotherhood of all men is one of the reasons many ultra-traditionalist Catholics see Masonic conspiracy theories everywhere. They think our modern Catholic ecumenism, openness and respect for other religions is a push toward a kind of Freemasonry and one world Government.    

Certainly, around the time of the aforementioned Stalker inquiry there was something of a hysteria surrounding the secrecy of Freemasonry. This was due mainly to a bestselling expose called ‘The Brotherhood’ by Stephen Knight published in 1984 which made all sorts of wild and grisly claims.  

To be fair, Catholics perhaps had some cause to be suspicious of Freemasonry back in the 1980’s thanks to the speculation and conspiracy theories surrounding the murky death of the Italian Banker Roberto Calvi in 1982, which allegedly involved Italian Freemasonry and the Vatican.  

Back then when this story broke, most Scottish Catholics were surprised to learn that Freemasons even existed in predominately Catholic countries. This is mainly because we’ve always associated Freemasonry with Protestantism and at times we have (mistakenly) not drawn much of a distinction between Masonic Lodges and Orange Lodges.

The great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for example was both a devout Catholic and a committed Mason without seeing any conflict between the two but it should be noted that Mozart’s particular Masonic lodge was a very Catholic one.   

Perhaps, a more relatable figure who transcends both Catholicism and Freemasonry would be Robert Burns who counted numerous Catholics among his friends and patrons while also being a Freemason. For The Bard, being a Mason was about liberty, enlightenment ideas and of course fraternity, rather than hostility to the Church and Catholics.

Indeed, it was the world of Burns clubs and my great love for the poetry of the Bard which has allowed me to visit so many Masonic Lodges and meet so many Freemasons over the years. Several of whom I count among my friends. You can’t really go to Burns Suppers in Scotland without encountering Freemasons since it is Lodge members who have traditionally upheld the network of Burns Clubs.

Yet, we must take a Catholic ‘Personalist’ view of Freemasons and look at each individual rather than the institution. It is exactly these human relationships which cause me to suspect that all the old fellas and decent blokes raising money for charities inside the Lodges probably aren’t secretly plotting to destroy the Church. At least not down here in Gourock where the local Lodge have, on occasion let us their hall for our parish coffee mornings.

I’d go further and say that most modern Masonic Lodges now offer society an expression of Catholic Social Teaching in the form of solidarity, common good and subsidiarity. Like all Churches, Masonic Lodges are middling institutions which exist between the state and market. Like sports clubs and social clubs, they remain one of the few places left in our civil society where people self-organise themselves into associations and manage their own affairs.

Most importantly, Lodges continue to provide a space for fellowship and for men to gather together amid a growing social isolation and loneliness pandemic which is literally killing people, as our society becomes increasingly atomised and individualistic.  

We might also want to consider the fact that those who are today critical of the Masonic Lodges are mostly the same cancel culture iconoclasts who don’t like the Catholic Church either. Consider the contemporary criticisms of Freemasonry – ‘outdated, irrational, patriarchal etc’. Sound familiar?

Finally, my friend Bob has great expression he uses for when he thinks people up to no good – “They’ve got mair secrets than the Masons and the Knights of Saint Columba put together”.

This saying always makes me laugh, Bob’s Dad was a Freemason and he still has all his late Father’s Masonic paraphernalia and memorabilia. In his working life Bob’s Dad had been a cooper (barrel maker) and Bob describes how Freemasonry gave ordinary working class men like his Father a deep sense of respect and dignity in their lives.

Over the years I’ve tried to find out more about those ‘secrets’ the Masons and the Knights are hiding and it turns out they are hiding fraternity, community and charity. Provided these values are never detached from neighbourliness and respect for others, what so wrong with that?