THE
P RTAL
October 2017
Page 19
A stone uncovered
Ordinariate priest, Fr Simon Heans, has been reading
Freemasonry and the Christian Faith
by Fr Ashley Beck (CTS Explanations, 2017)
T his CTS
pamphlet by former Anglican priest, Fr Beck – he entered into full communion in the 1990s
– is a revised and updated edition of the title the same author published in 2005.
The previous year I had moved to
Beckenham, where Fr Ashley was and
remains Assistant Priest in the local
Catholic parish, to become Vicar of
St Barnabas, a Roman Rite church
under the episcopal care of the Bishop
of Fulham. I therefore came to know
Fr Ashley quite well especially after I
realised that the subject of his booklet
impinged directly on my ministry.
Early in my time at St Barnabas,
nosing round the choir stalls after
saying my evening office, I came across
my lay reader’s bible. It was the one I had
taken the oaths of office on during my
induction a few weeks before. Opening
it idly, I started to read the introduction
and discovered a character that I’d
never come across in any other bible.
His name was Hiram Abiff whom I
was informed was the chief architect of
Solomon’s Temple who had been foully
murdered after refusing to reveal the
secrets of the master masons. A few
days later I raised the matter of the
distinctive nature of his bible with its
owner.
in 1933 to celebrate the centenary of the
Oxford Movement) there protruded
the corner of a set square and the point
of a compass.
Fr Ashley Beck This new edition of Fr Beck’s
booklet has an extra chapter entitled
Freemasonry and Other Christian
Churches. There he discusses the
involvement of the Masons in the life of
Anglican cathedrals such as Liverpool’s
where in 2012 the cathedral received a
grant of £69,000 for a new elevator.
Fr Simon Heans He reports also the £300,000 grant
received by Canterbury Cathedral after
the service led by the Dean, the Very
Reverend Robert Willis in February of
this year, marking the tercentenary of
the founding of English freemasonry.
Closer to home for many readers of
this review is the sad tale recounted
by the author of Fr Jonathan Baker’s
resignation of the masonic membership
he had held since his Oxford student
days after it came to light following his
appointment to the See of Ebbsfleet in
2011.
My inquiry was greeted with an insouciant smile and
a cheerful admission of his membership of ‘the Craft’.
In the next few weeks I discovered that two other
members of the serving team were masons and that
they used to practise their rituals in the basement of
the local barber’s shop which was owned by another
regular server at St Barnabas who had recently moved
away.
Fr Beck does a superb job of answering the question
posed in the sub-title of his booklet as to whether
Freemasonry and Christianity are compatible. He
demonstrates that, despite masonic protestations to
the contrary, Freemasonry is a religion and, moreover,
one whose teachings, both theological and moral, are
at odds with Christianity.
Are there any Ordinariate Freemasons? “The faithful
who belong to Masonic associations are in a state
In addition, I found out that my predecessor as vicar of objectively grave sin and may not receive Holy
had been involved in the life of the lodge, playing Communion” (Declaration on Masonic Associations
the organ for ceremonies and performing chaplaincy 26th November 1983).
duties. Another discovery I made was that out of the
workman’s bag held by Zechariah in one of the fine
Certainly, this bit of Anglican patrimony has no
stained-glass windows of the Lady Chapel (dedicated place in the Catholic Church.