Confusion of Names

Beginning in the 19th Century, Freemasonry, whose first lodge was established in England in 1717, attempted to bring respectability to its movement by adopting many of the titles and trappings of the once great and noble Templars. This order, the Knights of the Temple, which had fought with much heroism beside the Knights of Saint John in the Holy Land, hd been suppressed on March 22, 1312. However, by the 20th Century, many Masonic lodges claimed to be the continuation of the Templars, and a few even began to claim they were the Knights of Malta - claims which are absurd and unworthy of any consideration whatsoever. The three great military-religious orders of the middle ages were magnificent and intrepid military machines; they were profoundly religious; and they were all Catholic. They were not Protestant or masonic or heretical. They were comitted to the Church and the Papacy. They were devoutly, liturgically, doctrinally, obediently, charitably and militantly Catholic! Freemasonry has no rightful claim on any of the names of the ancient military-religious orders of the Church - not on the Order of Saint John or any of the names by which it has been through the centuries; nor on the Templars, which order ceased to exist more than four centuries before masonic lodges came into being.