POPE v. FREEMASONRY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 253, 24 October 1874, Page 2

POPE v. FREEMASONRY.

To the Editor of the 'Evening Mah,.', . Sir— Bravo 1, Mr "Free Thinker,*' arid thank von for your tarnishing us with a third edition of the names of Pope Piui IXl; try >ome more papers and you wt I find- the right one. The Belfast Weekly News, August 1. had named, him Mastsi Perretii, Then the O:atro Guardian had received intelligence by the last mail, th.it his name wan J'aoloMaatai Ferretti. Now yon bring J us the B?tk.Express, the Country Herald, and North Wilts Guardian, Aug. I, which callhM John Miutai Ferretti; According to these discrepancies, or rather forgeries, we must either ssy that in one lodge the Pop* enlisted himself under the name of Mastai Ferret' i ; in another under that if Paolo Majtai Ferretti; in a third one under thtt of John Mustai Ferretti, and likely so on in ether ;>pdges; or pronoume that ihete different names mast be so many different members of Freemasonry: and as we do not see the Pope enlisted in any lodge under his right name, which ia John Maria Mastai Ferretti, it is evident that he never wa« enlisted in Freemasonry. Now even suppo.-ing that the expelled man's name is the mime as that of the Pope,' will "Free Thinker's" logic conclude from that fact that the expelled man m«st be the Pope, and the Pope 1 only ? Will he prove thxt thete is only one niab of that name ia Italy? The charge again ft,. 1 the Pdpe is almp^pa foul calumny hurled agttiost an un justly persecuted, old, vecerabe m)»n. When Jean Jacques Rousseau w*s asked by his friends to write against the Jeiuits who were, at his time, unjustly persecuted in France, he replied ?'lam neither coward nor base enough to insult the unfortunate." '■ Free Thinker," and all those who revile the Pope would act more honorably if they would follow,- in th't point at least, the example of . one of their patriarchs. ;.' " „ •','''■. nj •. „- r . law, &c.,' ' "' : ■'' ■''. ': Hear Both Sides! P.S.— That the charge made against the Pope is a calumny is evident, among others, from the fact that the hostile press gives as reason of bis supposed expulsion front 'the Masonic lodge, oeeauiie i he beg'kn in 1865 to be aggressive as;aiost the Order. Now his various Encyclical letters of December 9, 1854-pecetnHe'r, lMsUAftri!, ii49-nay, even hid very flrtt Encyclical of No?ember t9. 184$, plainly show that from his ascending the throne of 8t Pejer lie never ceased to denounce them m the pest ol hqroan society,