I don't really have a lot of time to write this out, so forgive me if it seems incoherent.  I really could use some instruction here.

I am completely ignorant about Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ.  I grew up in the South where it is widespread and common.  In my young adulthood, I knew many people who were Masons or Eastern Stars.  I was never told that there was anything wrong with it.

So I have been doing some research over the years on my own about it, but I am still ill informed.  Yet, I am constantly discovering little things that are very, very troubling.  

Yesterday, I discovered that the term "traveling man" is a Masonic code word for fellow masons to identify themselves.  I thought I'd google it and to my surprise I found blog after blog asking this question:  "How do I respond when a Mason asks me if I'm a traveling man?"  

Then in the same conversation someone said "Why do you think John Wayne coined the phrase "Howdy Pilgrim"?  I knew John Wayne was a Mason but I just didn't really connect the two.  I looked that up too and it does seem that the Masons use the pilgrim reference a lot.  I found old poems in their magazines referring to their pilgrim  journeys, there is a very popular book that Masons recommend reading titled "A Pilgrim Path", and long discussions about inner pilgrimages and being Pilgrims on search of the cosmic vision of truth.  Seems like a big theme.

But then I was reminded of something I was taught in my RCIA class that I just never really accepted nor understood.  It was the idea of the "Pilgrim" Church.  I have heard many of my NO friends defend and identify themselves as Pilgrims in a Pilgrim Church more times that I care to recount.  So, naturally I connected the two.  

When I began my search for tradition, I first learned about the Church Militant, the Church Triumphant, and the Church Suffering.  I had never heard these terms before.  When I read portions of Lumen Gentium I noticed that these references are not there.  They have been replaced with the pilgrim on a journey church and a church in glory.  There is no reference at all to the Church Suffering, as if Purgatory does not exist.

I am really interested in understanding this more.  It seems to me that Masons have completed permeated everything and most people just don't know what is going on.  They are just blindly following along and never bother to question any of it.  

Any thoughts.

Please pardon my stupidity.

 :tinfoil:

Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ is basically a form of devil worship. Pope Clement XII condemned it:

POPE CLEMENT XII (1738) - 'In Eminenti' : "We have resolved and decreed to condemn and forbid such Societies, assemblies, reunions, conventions, aggregations or meetings called either Freemasonic or known under some other denomination. WE CONDEMN AND FORBID THEM BY THIS, OUR PRESENT CONSTITUTION, WHICH IS TO BE CONSIDERED VALID FOREVER."

Watch this
:http://www.fatimachallenge.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63:masonry-unmasked&catid=21&Itemid=15

Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ unmasked by John Salza. One of the best videos i have ever seen as to the truth behind the lodge.

I wonder if this is why Rome came down on St. +Pio?

I think a lot of them never look.  I have known plenty of Masons casually.  They were generally low level members, and were clueless dupes rather than willfully evil.  I expect my experience would have been very different if I had know some of the more highly placed masons.

Also from that same Fatima Conference, there's another excellent lecture:
"The Third Secret Explains What is the Mystery of Iniquity in Our Time" by Father Paul Kramer.

In this presentation, Father skillfully expounds on Ecclesiastical Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ.  Great Stuff!
http://www.consecrationnow.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70%3Athe-third-secret-explains-what-is-the-mystery-of-iniquity-in-our-time&catid=18&Itemid=9

BTW,
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of Fr Kramer's latest book on this subject? "The Mystery of Iniquity" by Fr Paul Kramer

If so, please send me a PM... Thanks!

 Wow, had not heard he's written something new.  Fr. Kramer has always been one of my very favorites.

I'm going to listen to the link, so thanks Kelley, and welcome to the forums! :cheers:

Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ is gnostic.  It venerates the "generative" principle - that's the meaning of the compass and square.  It venerates the serpent and paganism in general.

It is a form of worship that is fundamentally anti-Christian, so yes, in that sense, it is satanic, whether consciously or unconsciously.  

Quote from: Telesphorus

It venerates the "generative" principle - that's the meaning of the compass and square.    

As opposed to the creative principle?

Well, Freemasons are Deists. They believe "the grand architect of the universe" (as they call it) gave the world its first "push" and then left it to operate on its own.