As we approach Holy Week just days away for us to ponder
An Expose’ on the Reality of what is in the Offering of the future of our Church!
Much of the following is excerpted from a Book titled “The War of the Antichrist” by Msgnr. George F. Dillon, DD. Originally it was written in 1884 and promulgated by Pope Leo XIII in an encyclical which he asked the Catholic clergy that it “be your first rule of all to tear away the mask from Freemasonry, and let it be seen as it really is.” (Editor’s Introduction).
Freemasonry is one of the evils we will be discussing in this article and along with the allowance of its entrance into Catholicism and Christianity, making us a complete victim to Satan and his wiles of destroying God.
What is the Masonic program? According to Pope Leo XIII, it is nothing less than the destruction of Christian civilization, and the resurrection or pre-Christian civilization on its ruins according to the principles of naturalism. (Editor’s Introduction).
The Church teaches that human nature, on its own, is incapable of saving itself, of growing to perfection, and thus attaining its final end. It must receive God’s assistance - his grace - to do so. Freemasonry is based on the exact opposite principle. Nature is capable of saving itself. It is capable of its own perfection. Divine power need not be received from the outside, for it is already within everyone and everything, waiting to be uncovered through the gnosis of Freemasonry. As such, and as Pope Leo XIII warned, it invariably ends in nature worship and pantheism. (Editor’s Introduction).
Now the fundamental doctrine of the naturalists, which they sufficiently make known by their very name, is that human nature and human reason ought in all things to be mistress and guide. Laying this down, they care little for duties to God, or pervert them by erroneous and vague opinions. For they deny that anything has been taught by God. (Editor’s Introduction).
The man called “Voltaire” “For Christ he had but one feeling - eternal, contemptuous, hated. His watchword, the concluding lines of all his letters to his infidel confederates, was for fifty years “let us crush the wretch,” meaning Christ and his cause.” (Chapter 3).
His real name was Francis Mary Arouet, but, for some reason which has never been clearly explained, he called himself Voltaire. He was trained by the very Jesuits he afterwards so hated and persecuted. From the beginning, the fool said in his heart “there is no God” and in the days of Voltaire the number of these fools was indeed infinite. (Chapter 3).
Writing to another person Voltaire says: :The Christian religion is an infamous religion, an abominable hydra which must be destroyed by a hundred invisible hands. It is necessary that the philosophers should course through the streets to destroy it as missionaries course over the earth and sea to propagate it. They ought to dare all things, risk all things, even to be burned, in order to destroy it. Let us crush the wretch! Crush the wretch.(Chapter 3).
Christians, he says, “of every form of profession, are beings exceedingly injurious, fanatics, thiseves, dupes, imposters, who lie together with their gospels, enemies of the human race.” The Christian religion is evidently false, the Christian religion is a sect which every good man ought to hold in horror. It cannot be approved of even by those to whom it gives power and honor. (Chapter 3).
Freemasonry, we must remember always, appeared generally and spread generally, too, in the interests of all that Voltaire aimed at, when it best suited his purpose. (Chapter 4).
The philosophers and various schools of Atheists, however, were the first to enter into and extend it. Mgr. Segur, Bishop of Grenoble, who devoted much time to a study of Freemasonry, is persuaded that it was first elaborated by Faustus Socinus, the nephew of the too celebrated Laelius Socinus, the heresiarch and founder of the Unitarians. (Chapter 4).
Laelius had issues at a conference of Heretics at Vicenza in 1547, in which the destruction of Christianity was resolved upon, and where resolutions were adopted for the renewal of Arianism - a system of false doctrine calculated to sap the very foundation of existing Faith by attacking the Trinity and the Incarnation. (Chapter 4).
So far, we can see the very attacks against Catholicism had its roots based on the evils introduced through Satan and all of his many manners of destroying the Church, our beliefs, and the Tradition of Truths found in the Catechism. When promoting the foundation of the Church and its doctrines we should not hesitate to use this latest document; the CCC.
“But the hatred for God and all forms of worship, and the determination to found a universal republic on the lines of Communism, was on the part of Weishaupt a settled sentiment. Weishaupt employed, for fifty years after the death of Voltaire, his whole life and energies in the one work of perfecting secret associations to accomplish by deep deceit, and by force when that should be practical, the ruin of the existing order of religion, civilization, and government, in order to plant in its stead his own system of Atheism and Socialism. (opening comment of Monsignor Dillon to Chapter 6).
Voltaire’s will to do God and man injury was as strong as that of Weishaupt. The hatred of God and all forms of worship, and the determination to found a universal determination on the lines of Communism, was on the part of Weishaupt a settled sentiment. (Chapter 6).
Monsignor Dillon says this about the history of Freemasonry:
The world was never without wizards, witches, necromancers, jugglers, and those who really had, or through imposture, pretended to have, intercourse with demons. Masonry in its various ramifications is the great continuator of this feature of a past which we thought departed forever. Spirit-rapping, table-turning, medium-imposture, etc, distinguish its adepts in Protestant countries and in Catholic ones. We have almost incredible stories of the intercourse with the devil and his angels, which men like the Caronari of Italy maintain. However, from the very beginning Freemasonry has had a kind of peculiar mysticism connected with it. It loves to revel in such mysteries as the secret conclaves that the Jews used to practice in the countries in which they were persecuted. (Chapter 8).
There are many chapters in this book that continue the inclusion of Freemasonry, Atheism, and other attacks on Christianity, but mostly on the Catholic Church. And, even though this reprint of a book that was first published in 1885, it is not a work that we should leave on the shelf along with Moby Dick, the Three Musketeers, or other classics. It is just as prominent a warning now in the 21st century as it was in the 19th century.
Roman Catholics; take this warning of what is still our adversaries today and promises to destroy what we hold as Truth and our Sacraments.
Ralph B. Hathaway