“Freemasonry… has no pretension to assume a place among the religions of the world as a sectarian "system of faith and worship," in the sense in which we distinguish Christianity from Judaism, or Judaism from Mohammedanism. In this meaning of the word we do not and can not speak of the Masonic religion, nor say of a man that he is not a Christian, but a Freemason. Here it is that the opponents of Freemasonry have assumed mistaken ground in confounding the idea of a religious Institution with that of the Christian religion as a peculiar form of worship, and in supposing, because Freemasonry teaches religious truth, that it is offered as a substitute for Christian truth and Christian obligation.”

— Albert Mackey

91912), p. 618.
An encyclopedia of freemasonry and its kindred sciences, (1912)

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Albert Mackey 4

U.S. writer on freemasonry 1807–1881

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“A man who is convinced of the truth of his religion is indeed never tolerant. At the least, he is to feel pity for the adherent of another religion but usually it does not stop there. The faithful adherent of a religion will try first of all to convince those that believe in another religion and usually he goes on to hatred if he is not successful. However, hatred then leads to persecution when the might of the majority is behind it.
In the case of a Christian clergyman, the tragic-comical is found in this: that the Christian religion demands love from the faithful, even love for the enemy. This demand, because it is indeed superhuman, he is unable to fulfill. Thus intolerance and hatred ring through the oily words of the clergyman. The love, which on the Christian side is the basis for the conciliatory attempt towards Judaism is the same as the love of a child for a cake. That means that it contains the hope that the object of the love will be eaten up…”

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“In talking of the Christian world, in English and, I suppose, in all the other languages of the Christian world we use two terms: Christianity and Christendom. Christianity means a religion, in the strict sense of that word, a system of belief and worship and some clerical or ecclesiastical organization to go with it. If we say Christendom, we mean the entire civilization that grew up under the aegis of that religion, but also contains many elements that are not part of that religion, many elements that are even hostile to that religion. Let me give one simple example. No one could seriously assert that Hitler and the Nazis came out of Christianity. No one could seriously dispute that they came out of Christendom. In talking of Islam, we use the same word in both senses, and this gives rise to considerable confusion and misunderstanding. There are many things that are described as part of Islam, which are indeed part of Islam, if we take the word as the equivalent of Christendom, but are very much not part of Islam are even alien or hostile to Islam if we take the word Islam as the equivalent of Christianity. I think this is a very important point, which one should bear in mind.”

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“The noble image of the man is effaced, is destroyed. Instead of a man to love and to follow, we have a man-god to worship. From being the example of devotion, he is its object; the religion of Christ ended with his life, and left us instead but the Christian religion.”

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Fragments of Markham's notes
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: A man is born into the world — a real man — such a one as it has never seen; he lives a life consistently the very highest; his wisdom is the calm earnest voice of humanity; to the worldly and the commonplace so exasperating, as forcing upon them their own worthlessness — to the good so admirable that every other faculty is absorbed in wonder. The one killed him. The other said, this is too good to be a man — this is God. His calm and simple life was not startling enough for their eager imagination; acts of mercy and kindness were not enough, unless they were beyond the power of man. To cure by ordinary means the bruised body, to lift again with deep sympathy of heart the sinking sinner was not enough. He must speak with power to matter as well as mind; eject diseases and eject devils with command. The means of ordinary birth, to the oriental conception of uncleanness, were too impure for such as he, and one so holy could never dissolve in the vulgar corruption of the grave.
Yet to save his example, to give reality to his sufferings, he was a man nevertheless. In him, as philosophy came in to incorporate the first imagination, was the fulness of humanity as well as the fulness of the Godhead. And out of this strange mixture they composed a being whose life is without instruction, whose example is still nothing, whose trial is but a helpless perplexity. The noble image of the man is effaced, is destroyed. Instead of a man to love and to follow, we have a man-god to worship. From being the example of devotion, he is its object; the religion of Christ ended with his life, and left us instead but the Christian religion.

“While the Christian apostles preached their ideal in the open, the Talmud hides; and its two appendages, the Kahal and Freemasonry, are even more invisible. The three of them use, in order to remain in the dark, a scabrous and accursed means, namely the lie. In other words, the lie is the basis of the system used by Jews, to whom one can say.. 'You speak, therefore you be.' But the lie has a mortal enemy, namely the truth. For truth is the distinctive trait of Christianity.”

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Section 247
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

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