Please click the icon to follow us on Facebook.Pope Clement XIV was forced to issue the Freemasons Edict in order to protect Catholic hegemony in North America.

Because in recent years the Vatican had become increasingly alarmed by the transformation of a simple trade and crafts association into a secret society which was actively promoting multi-faith, religious and political freedoms.
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Founded as a fraternal brotherhood in Edinburgh in 1599, Scottish emigres had taken the organization to North America where it had increasingly become a forum of discontent for the otherwise disempowered colonial power elite. Entirely reasonable measure for privacy in open public houses seemed to give way to a new form of secrecy required to enter the Lodges which had sprung up all over the Eastern Seaboard. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"And so by the late eighteen century, the travelling gentry could rely upon a more impressive network of resources than the Catholic Church. Quite simply, Freemasonry had become a competing power structure.

Of greatest concern to the Vatican was the pursuit of so-called "enlightenment" ideas, particularly the advocacy of multi-faith consensus. Because Freemasons had accepted the revolutionary principle that men of different faiths could worship a generic "creator" and perform charitable acts within the community regardless of their religion. That explosive concept was the greatest threat since the defeat of protestantism, and as a result a number of colonial gentlemen (pictured) were excommunicated from the Catholic Church. However the Church had seriously underestimated their determination of these so-called "founding fathers", and four years later, a declaration of religious independence would be forthcoming