COL Dencio S. Acop (Ret), PhD | September 24, 2026
A common apologetic defense of Freemasons is: “You have to be in it to know it”. But what if the organizational entity you’re in is not within the “Tao”, but without? Such a statement, in fact, applies not only to Freemasonry but to every human association in the world, Catholicism included. As explained by Lewis in The Abolition of Man, the Tao is the universal moral law, natural order, and the shared traditional morality recognized across different human cultures and history. The work is, in fact, prophetic and Lewis is a seer for writing it in 1944. It predicted how, as man progresses technologically, he loses his identity and soul; And as the mastery of a few individuals over the billions of us according to their whims reaches its summit, it will be the end of the world.
The “artificiality” (man-made) of everything is unstoppable because such few “little men” can and has nothing to stop them but the nature of fallen man. Conditioners, as Lewis calls them, are not necessarily “bad men”; “Stepping outside the Tao, they are not men at all”. They are, in effect, artefacts, whose “final conquest has proved to be the abolition of man.”
Therefore, the reign of moral man was only for a time. Conversely, those who attack Catholicism also do not know Catholicism in its deepest, truest sense. When the Church says the two are incompatible, that’s because they are at their core. Why Catholicism has rejected the fraternal organization warning Catholic Freemasons that they risk their souls if they cannot decide one way or the other and make up their minds. One is either a Freemason or a Christian, and Catholicism is the fullness of the faith.
Catholicism’s rejection of Freemasonry:
As Jenna Marie Cooper wrote for The Pilot, “The issue boils down to the spiritual and quasi-religious principles of Freemasonry, which are different from the truths of the faith revealed to us by God through His Church on earth. The various Masonic rituals imply a certain non-Catholic mysticism (i.e. spirituality with a direct supernatural component). Participating in such things is akin to dabbling in the occult, which violates the first commandment and can open the door to dark forces in our lives.”
Members who voluntarily fell out of Freemasonry validate these warnings of the Church. Former 33rd degree Scottish Rite masons left due to experienced dark forces in their lives likely through the opening up of preternatural portals resulting from occultic rituals. A Filipino mason (who volunteered the matter) left and shared as much narrating that the dark forces left his family alone only after he ceased participating in the rituals. You see, while Freemasonry claims to advance the moral development of its members, one of its screening criteria is belief in a Deity, but any Deity. It is this fundamental reality where Freemasonry conflicts with Christianity as pointed out by Cooper. Because what if that Deity is any pagan god like Lucifer (not apparent through the lower degrees). Masons are compartmentalized too. While the majority of Masons think the association they’ve joined is supposedly apolitical and irreligious, a description of their rituals and worldly behavior of their members, points otherwise. While there are only three foundational degrees, there are also appendant bodies and rites Masons can pursue like the Scottish Rite which has continuing degree levels from the 4th all the way up to the 33rd degree. Another, which can be pursued for appendages, is York Rite.
While the divergent beliefs of joining members in a Deity may include faiths founded on moral first principles, Freemasonry also does not discriminate so long as the object of faith is a so-called Deity. But what if such a Deity is not founded on moral first principles? What are moral first principles?
Best explained by C.S. Lewis, these are the foundational, unprovable truths – both in logic and morality – that we need to accept as given to be able to think, reason, or make any sense of the world at all. Lewis didn’t believe that humans invent right and wrong from scratch.
Instead, he argued that at the base of all human cultures is a shared, intuitive set of ethically self-evident truths. These foundational first principles include basic duties like the requirements of justice, truthfulness, mercy, good faith, and obligations to family, neighbors, and the vulnerable. All human moral reasoning and argument depend on these foundational moral platitudes being true. If you try to argue that all claims to divinity are true and therefore welcome, you are still appealing to a first principle of “truth” (or “lie”) to make your case.
Therefore, are all such claims true? If not, why would one or another be welcome in a fraternity? In other words, Freemasonry acts as if all claims to faith are true and therefore, moral. But are they all? Lewis was a Christian, but he argued such not being one but philosophically. He also applied this concept practically to human priorities and desires, writing about it in his essay First and Second Things (collected in God in the Dock). You cannot get “second things” (like happiness, peace, or artistic excellence) by putting them first. You only get second things thrown in as a bonus when you put “first things first” (seeking truth, goodness, God, or the highest good). If you make secondary things your primary goal, you end up losing both the first and the second things. As Jesus asks in Mark 8:36 and Matthew 16:26, chasing everything the temporary world has to offer isn’t worth losing your eternal soul for. Unequivocally, Catholicism has preached this truth up and down the centuries.
The fraternal organization’s animosity towards the Catholic Church goes way deep if one truly understands the implications for the soul. More than Freemasonry’s equal, non-discerning treatment of all beginner religions as a start, it is the potential advancement to a belief system fundamentally at odds with Christianity’s first commandment that invokes Catholicism’s rejection. As claimed by Christ: “No one goes to the Father except through Me.”
This declaration by the One and Only True God puts in their proper place all other claims to divinity by lesser gods which has profound implications for the human soul, believer or not. Whether we are keen to discern or not, light and darkness exist in the world. And not even the Almighty God is without self-declared enemies foremost of which is the Prince of this World. Deception is his strategic weapon of choice and the war of attrition of souls his tactical ways and means to accomplish such a mission: Prove God wrong. It all begins with catering to the weaknesses of men. The fallen nature of man has needs and wants, ranging from a need for attention through self-glorification by any means necessary.
Catholicism is targeted because it is God’s Church on earth. While the Church is the identified center of gravity to be attacked on earth, God Himself is the true target. Already today, the forces of darkness appear to be amalgamating through the chaos resulting from a post-Christian global moral order. Not just today, for instance, Satanists have been desecrating the Consecrated Host when they could get their hands on it, using the stolen Host in the black mass along with an inverted Crucifix containing Christ’s corpus in their Satanic worship.
Freemasons who are Catholic Christians need to take their faith more seriously than they do their secular fraternal associations. If one is truly a practicing Christian, one must know that their faith in Christ ought to weigh heavier than any benefit derived from Freemasonry. And if one is a Catholic Freemason, one ought to know that they effectively excommunicate themselves from participating in the Sacraments, though they may not realize it yet.
Have they ever wondered why priests could not give the Last Rites to a perished Catholic Freemason? Having been in the military, I once came to know about a deceased military commander in the field blessed and prayed for by the priest but refused Catholic funeral rites because he was a Freemason. As written by Cooper, “the Church has reiterated its opposition to Freemasonry even in more recent years. For example, in November 2023, in response to a formal question from a bishop in the Philippines, the Vatican once again clarified that Freemasonry is incompatible with Catholicism.”
Elsewhere in August 2026, “two Italian bishops canceled the previously scheduled Catholic funerals of prominent freemasons in their respective dioceses. These bishops noted that they were acting in accord with Canon 1184 of the current Code of Canon Law, a canon which forbids Catholic funerals for those notoriously guilty of unrepented public sin.” While seemingly harsh, the justification aligns with what was said earlier. It is more than “Dura lex, Sed lex.”
Because it is towards carrying out a moral law whose implication for the human soul is one that cannot be compromised at any time.
To provide a background and quite ironically, it was along the long campaign to spread the Good News of the Resurrection and to protect it from false claimants that the Knights Templar were dissolved by the Pope in 1312, and their last Grand Master was executed in 1314. Initially rewarded for their sacrifices in the Crusades, the Knights allegedly turned “rogue.”
But the Templars began as protectors of Christian pilgrims traveling through dangerous roads in the Holy Land. King Baldwin II gave the knights led by Frenchman Hughes de Payens quarters right on the Temple Mount, specifically inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which the Crusaders believed sat directly over the ruins of the ancient Temple of Solomon. Because of where they were stationed, the group took on the official name: The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, which, over time, was shortened to Knights Templar (derived from templum, the Latin word for temple) by the people. But Freemasonry as known today did not begin until 400 years later. We’ll get to this later.
Meanwhile, let’s be fair with the Knights Templar. The Templars didn’t exactly go rogue. But they became too rich, too powerful, and too independent for a broke and desperate King Philip IV of France who owed a massive sum of money to the Templars. To wipe out his debts and eliminate a perceived political rival that answered only to the Pope, the king fabricated wild charges of heresy, arrested the knights, and had them tortured until they “confessed”. The Templars became powerful because they were not only effective warriors but educated soldiers guided by chivalry. Thus, over time, they built Europe’s first major banking system, letting pilgrims deposit money in Europe and withdraw them in the Middle East. Because they answered directly to the Catholic Church, rather than local monarchs, they owned vast lands, castles, and businesses across Europe without paying local taxes or obeying local laws.
The debt of King Philip IV grew because he fought costly wars burning through France’s financial resources during his reign. He had already targeted and robbed French Jews and Lombard bankers, but the Templars were still his biggest creditors. The king then tried to take control of the order by merging it with another group under his thumb, but the Templar Grand Master flatly refused. This refusal made Philip find another way to get rid of the Templars and wipe out his debt. On Friday the 13th, 1307, the French king used his influence over the papacy and had secret, sealed arrest warrants opened simultaneously across France. Hundreds of Templars, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were arrested. The prisoners were reportedly tortured until they admitted to completely fabricated and bizarre charges of treason, heresy, and blasphemy. Under pressure from the French king, Pope Clement V officially suppressed the order in 1312. De Molay was burned at the stake in 1314.
In some four hundred years since, Freemasonry evolved through the local guilds of operative stonemasons in Scotland and England during the late Middle Ages. As the building of grand cathedrals declined over the centuries, these professional guilds began accepting wealthy, educated gentlemen who were not actual bricklayers (known as “speculative” masons). Eventually, the fraternity officially organized with the founding of the Grand Lodge in London in 1717. Thus, in the 1730s and 1740s, Freemasonry began spreading into continental Europe, particularly France. Wealthy French nobles and aristocrats, however, were initially hesitant to join a club that traced its roots to dirty, working-class stonemasons.
In 1737, perhaps to dispel the fears and anxieties of the wealthy class, a Scottish Freemason living in France, Andrew Michael Ramsay, delivered a famous speech claiming that Freemasons were descended from brave Crusader knights who had hollowed out allegorical temples in the Holy Land. Following Ramsay’s speech, other Masonic writers — most notably Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund in the 1750s — expanded the legend, specifically claiming that surviving Knights Templar had silently fled to Scotland, hid among the stonemasons, and preserved their secret orders. While the crusader origin is historically inaccurate, the myth became highly popular. Because Freemasons loved the romantic, chivalric imagery of the Middle Ages, they eventually incorporated these themes into their fraternity. Today, there is an appendant body within Freemasonry called the Knights Templar which is part of the York Rite.
Freemasonry claims to have no political agenda. Historically, however, freemasons have been involved in significant revolutions throughout the world. Perhaps the position of neutrality is a defensive mechanism against the bitter experience of the Knights Templar. It could also be for the universal relevance of the fraternity like the French Foreign Legion which does not differentiate nationality, legal status, or cultural belief systems as impediments to membership.
Towards championing the rightful causes of various peoples who could not defend themselves from tyranny, Freemasonry would appear to have been a welcome partner for democratic revolutions. But so long as the causes fought for remained secular without maligning the spiritual pathway for the salvation of souls, Freemasonry would seem like a legitimate fraternity not harmful even to Catholics. As it currently is, however, there is this core divide which Catholicism makes clear in its concern to save souls if not for anything else.
Judging through history, it would seem unrealistic and unfair to single out Freemasons as a singular force authoring revolutions throughout the world. But, like other stakeholders concerned with shared values even in other countries, it would not be remote that Freemasons were indeed involved in supporting or even participating in some notable revolutions not as a unified command structure, but as individual Masons.
For instance, while the 18th Century French Revolution dismantled the Monarchy, individual Masons ended up on every side of the political spectrum. Some were constitutional monarchists, some were radical Jacobins, and others became royalist exiles. Many lodges were led by nobles who stayed loyal to the Crown, including the Grand Orient’s Grand Master, the Duke of Orleans himself. The monarchy was abolished in 1792, and the First French Republic was declared. The consequent struggle for political power and transitional violence resulted in the execution of many prominent Freemasons targeted as political enemies during the Reign of Terror (1793-1794) led by Maximilien Robespierre. But the movement had in fact helped spread Enlightenment values championing equality and fraternity in open debates.
In another part of the world, many key leaders of the Philippine Revolution and the preceding reform movements were Freemasons. Freemasonry served as an important network and training ground for the ilustrados (the enlightened middle class) and revolutionaries fighting against Spanish colonial rule following more than three centuries of foreign occupation.
Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Antonio Luna, and Emilio Aguinaldo were Freemasons. Nonetheless, the killings of fellow Masons Bonifacio and Luna on orders of Aguinaldo are also a reminder that even fraternal brothers of the kind Freemasons portray themselves to be are not necessarily paragons of virtue either.
In the late 19th Century, Freemasonry in the Philippines and among expatriates in Europe provided a clandestine space to discuss liberal, anti-clerical, and nationalist ideas away from the prying eyes of Spanish authorities and friars. Some members of the revolutionary Katipunan (KKK) were Masons. Naturally, Spanish colonial authorities viewed anyone against the Spanish Crown as subversives, including the Freemasons. When the Philippine Revolution broke out in 1896, Spanish officials heavily persecuted suspected Masons, executing many because they saw the fraternity as the root of the rebellion.
In the Americas, the same kind and level of involvement as the preceding can be characterized by Freemasonry’s involvement in the 18th Century American Revolution against Great Britain. While the Fraternity maintained neutrality and many Masons remained loyal to the British Crown, individual Freemasons – including many prominent patriots and military leaders – played significant roles in the rebellion. Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Paul Revere, James Monroe, John Marshall, and Joseph Warren were Masons. Roughly 33 out of the 81 generals in the Continental Army (about 41%) were Masons. Many colonists found that their values aligned with the push for independence championing human dignity, self-determination, freedom of religion, and equality.
In the Philippines today, there are signs that some members of the fraternity are supporting the besieged Vice President Sara Duterte who is undergoing impeachment trial proceedings for alleged serious offenses including threatening the life of the sitting president.
While each one is free to associate with legal fraternities, the quantity and quality of such participation to support a suspected, wayward political leader raises serious alarm for it impacts national security at a crucial time in the nation’s history when there is a brewing war in the South China Sea over Taiwan and there are repeated incursions by China in supposedly exclusive Philippine waters.
Within the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of the Philippines, there is a deeply-rooted, disproportionately high representation of military and police personnel — particularly among high-ranking officers, generals, and institutional chiefs. While the total number of regular active Freemasons in the country sits around 21,000 members, a heavy concentration of this demographic is found in the upper echelons of law enforcement and defense.
Multiple past Chiefs of the Philippine National Police have served as prominent Grand Masters of the GLP, including MW Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. and MW Avelino Razon Jr. Commission on Appointments updates regularly highlight confirmation lists for dozens of AFP Generals, Flag Officers, and Colonels who are recognized publicly by fellow members as brothers of the Craft. In the Philippines, Freemasonry holds a prestigious societal status compared to many Western nations where membership has aged or declined. Because top-tier generals and defense officials are visibly active in the fraternity, joining the Masons has traditionally been viewed by lower-ranking officers as a respected avenue for networking, mentorship, personal, and professional advancement.
The fraternity operates distinct lodges across the country where members frequently gather to engage in various types of activities. Recently, some members have silently expressed their concern that if Duterte is acquitted, Freemasons who are Die-Hard Duterte Supporters will allegedly do everything within their power to help her win the elections in 2028 at all costs. One member intimated that a significant number of local Masons are DDS.
While there have been erring monarchs and popes through the centuries, this does not mean that the existence of God or the lawful governance of man is not what they are if they were believed or practiced right. It only means that there were bad kings and popes. In almost all cases, a fallen man can hardly live up to the perfect standards of divine revelation or the most advanced learning published by enlightened minds. Divine institutions are not the same as secular ones. And even divine institutions are differentiated by the kind of divinity worshipped in them. Purely human institutions are more down-to-earth. That is why it would be problematic indeed if we find purely human institutions mimicking sacramentals rightfully belonging to the divine. Unless that was the intent in the first place.
More importantly, the problematical nature of human involvement in these institutions can only be properly appreciated and addressed if viewed in their proper context and perspective. Nonetheless, it must be pointed out that when there is the involvement of liberal worship for the human soul, it becomes one of utmost concern. For the salvation of the soul is not an issue to be tampered with randomly and casually. Not even lightly.
Which brings us to the use of catechetical liturgy by Freemasonry. Merriam-Webster defines liturgy as “a prescribed form or set of rituals used for public worship in a religious tradition.” Masonic rituals use structured, scripted texts, responsive readings, and specific actions in ceremonies using vestments which match the general definition of a liturgy.
While members generally refer to them simply as “the ritual” or “monitors”, some bodies and writers have referred to them as “liturgies”. The rituals’ vocal exchanges are generalized and vague and so one wonders if this is deliberate and why. Again, as Lewis debunks, “what never claimed objectivity cannot be destroyed by subjectivism”. The “most worshipful” and their kind, are, in fact, “conditioners” and as the seer wrote, he was not “speaking of the corrupting influence of power nor expressing the fear that under it our Conditioners will degenerate; The very words corrupt and degenerate imply a doctrine of value and are therefore meaningless in this context for those who stand outside all judgments of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.” While Freemasonry insists it is not a religion, its “liturgies” in rituals “as allegories to teach morality, charity, and brotherhood,” make it like it is.
To disabuse unfamiliar minds as to what liturgy looks like, I share some parts of the Old Rite of the Church’s Traditional Latin Mass:
“Before Sunday High Mass, the priest, wearing a cope, intones the Asperges; he then sprinkles the Altar, the clergy and the people. … We must purify ourselves before we approach God; the priest makes a public avowal, taking as his witnesses the Church triumphant and the Church militant. All accuse themselves of having sinned. May God’s mercy, the intercession of the Saints, and the Church’s absolution cleanse our souls. All cross themselves as the priest gives the absolution. The word “Amen”, given in answer to these and to other prayers, indicates that all those assisting subscribe to the petitions in the priest’s prayers. The priest makes a final plea to God that he may go up to the Altar with a pure soul. … The Kyrie Eleison is a cry for mercy directed three times to each of the Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity. … (Stand) At High Mass, the Gloria is said by the priest and sung by the choir. The Gloria is the Church’s greatest hymn of praise. It renders honor, glory and thanksgiving to the Blessed Trinity. …
(Sit) The Epistle is a reading taken from the Bible and teaches some truth God wishes His people to know and practice. (Stand) The Gospel is a passage taken from one of the four Evangelists, selected for the useful lesson it imparts. With the priest, we sign ourselves on the forehead to show our belief in the Gospel; on our lips to show that we respect It in speech; and over our hearts to show that we love It. … (Sit for the priest’s Homily after the Gospel reading). (Stand) The Creed is our public and solemn profession of Faith. The Nicene Creed was drawn up in the General Councils of Nicea in 325 and Constantinople in 381 to condemn heretics who denied that Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are God. (Genuflect for these words) “And was Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man”. (Then rise again). The doctrines of the entire Creed have their basis throughout the New Testament. It forms a summary of the life of Christ. …”
(All sit) The Offertory marks the beginning of the Mass of the Faithful. The priest asks God to receive his offering of bread and wine. He offers the bread as Christ did at the first Holy Mass. .. The wine and water represent the two natures in Christ, the divine and the human. The water also suggests that which flowed from the side of the Crucified Christ. “The priest implores God that the sacrifice prepared may be acceptable to Him, and he calls upon the Holy Spirit to bless it. What is offered unto the living God is: 1) Bread; 2) Wine; 3) We ourselves — all the faithful. Hence this threefold gift unto God is incensed, because all the faithful, through this offertorial act, have become holy unto God. … The priest asks God through Jesus Christ our Lord, to accept the Sacrifice of His Son, offered for the redemption of mankind to the glory of His Divine Majesty. Next, he prays for the whole Church, for the Pope, and for the bishop of the diocese, and for the entire world … in union with the Saints of heaven led by the Blessed Lady, the Apostles and Martyrs to lay claim to their merits and prayers. A last, urgent prayer before the Consecration that God may be pleased to change our offering into the Body and Blood of His dearly beloved Son. …
Now the priest, identifying himself with Christ, Whose every gesture he reverently reproduces, bows low and pronounces slowly but without pausing, the words used by Jesus at the institution of the Eucharist on the day before He suffered and died. … To this thought of heaven is joined a humble, confident prayer, expressing the eagerness with which the faithful await their heavenly home. May the pardon of our sins enable us to share with the Apostles and Martyrs in the happiness of the Saints. (Kneel) The priest repeats the words of St. John the Baptist, who proclaimed to the Jews the Messias. In the Old Law, an unblemished lamb was used to atone for sin. In the New Law, Christ, the heavenly Lamb, takes away the sins of the world.”
To conclude, doesn’t the foregoing Church Liturgy generally look and sound familiar to one who gets involved in liturgies, but using only a different musical melody, lyrics, and attributions? For instance, who is the Grand Architect of the Universe specifically? Is it God? Or some other god?
If it isn’t God, then Catholicism’s rejection is thus made clear. If Freemasonry is apolitical or irreligious, then why does the Worshipful Master (why would a mere human being be titled “worshipful”?), “preside in the East”? In Catholicism’s Old Rite of Vetus Ordo, the priest presiding “in persona Christi Capitis” (in the person of Christ, the Head), leads the congregational worship facing the East towards God. In a worldly ritual even of secular brotherhood which “raises” the soul to a status of “Most Worshipful”, man ought to be mindful of where “right praise” belongs whether it is to himself, a mere creature, or to the One and Only True God, his Creator and that of the Universe. For as the Carpenter’s Son has revealed, “anyone who exalts himself shall be humbled and anyone who humbles himself for God’s sake shall be exalted (Matthew 23:12). And as C.S. Lewis explains for us about Heaven: “For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you — you, the individual reader, (Juan dela Cruz) or (Maria Trinidad).
Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another. All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction.”