Arthur Preuss, Essay on American Freemasonry, CLS, Verrua Savoy 2014, pages. 334, euro 18,00.

To request the book: https://www.sodalitiumshop.it/epages/106854.sf/it_IT/?ObjectPath=/Shops/106854/Products/003

The author
Arthur Preuss was born in Saint Louis (Missouri, United States) il 22 March 1871 da Edward and Concordia Schuricht, both of German origin. He was a writer, Catholic journalist and publisher. After studying at Canisius College in Buffalo (New York), Preuss began his journalistic and literary career collaborating with his father on the Saint Louis Daily America (1890-1892). In the 1893 founded the Chicago Review, which became The Review (1894) ed infine The Catholic Fortnightly Review (dal 1905). As an editor, Preuss spread texts on dogmatic and moral theology especially in the United States. As an author, he published The Fundamental Fallacy of Socialism (1907), A Study in American Freemasonry (1908) e Dictionary of Secret and Other Societies (1924).

Our author is situated in the current of thought that can be defined as "integral Catholic". According to some, Arthur Preuss belonged to the famous Piano Society (better known in France by the name of Sapinière), founded by mgr. Umberto Benigni (1862-1934) and encouraged by Saint Pius, who used it in the fight against modernism. What is certain, is that Preuss and Mons. Benigni were in a close relationship (see E. Poulat, Fundamentalism and integral Catholicism, Casterman, 1969, p. 69), even if their paths diverged after the death of Saint Pius, in the changed climate inaugurated by Benedict XV. The two champions of integral Catholicism both died in 1934: mons. Benign the 27 February, in Rome; Arthur Preuss, il 16 December in Saint Louis. Preuss was also in relationship with Mons. Ernest Jouin (1844-1932), founder and director of R.I.S.S. (International Journal of Secret Societies), the most important and documented Catholic magazine on "Judeo-Freemasonry" (to use a word forged by Mons. Jouin) and on occultism, which was published between 1912 and the 1939. The work of the R.I.S.S., approved by Benedict XV since 1918, it is not identified with that of integral Catholicism (which ends with the end of the pontificate of Saint Pius); to this magazine, However, the main exponents of the Sodalitium Pianum collaborated, Mons. Benigni and Father Boulin. It was precisely the R.I.S.S. of Mons. Jouin to translate Preuss's most successful work into French and spread it among his readers, which went through five editions (the last of which in 1924), ovvero Study on American Freemasonry, which we present here in the first Italian translation.

“A Study in American Freemasonry” di Arthur Preuss
Compared to the Masonic obediences of other countries, Freemasonry in the United States is certainly little known. Many consider it harmless and not at all hostile to the Church, and they even wonder if it could be considered a Secret Society, given that in Anglo-Saxon countries, and especially in the United States, Freemasonry is a highly visible institution and, apparently, without anything mysterious. On the contrary, Freemasonry seems to be confused with the largest democracy in the world: “our American democracy, – wrote Harry L. Baum in 1950 in the Masonic magazine New Age – with its insistence on the inalienable rights and freedoms of the individual, it is freemasonry in government".
Aware of how widespread this mentality was even in his time, Preuss, in his A Study in American Freemasonry he wants to demonstrate that Freemasonry, although divided into many often rival obediences, it is one in its doctrine and its purposes, therefore there is no essential difference between American and European Freemasonry (cap. XVIII). Freemasonry is in fact a religion (cap. V) irreconcilable with the Christian one (cap. XII). Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry prides itself on imposing belief in God on its followers; Preuss demonstrates that the “god” of Freemasonry, the Great Architect of the Universe, he is actually the Jehovah of the Kabbalah (cap. IX). The strength of Preuss' book lies in the fact that it is based exclusively on Masonic sources, such as Pike and Mackey, che ancor oggi fanno autorità nelle logge americane.

Il lettore del ventunesimo secolo si chiederà senza dubbio se vale la pena di ristampare un’opera risalente al principio del secolo scorso: non ha forse perso di attualità?

Noi pensiamo, on the contrary, che il libro di Preuss sia ben più attuale nel 2014 that in 1908, quando fu dato alle stampe la prima volta. Since then, the United States (That, let's remember it, sono la “Massoneria al governo”) hanno vinto due guerre mondiali e, after 1989, con il crollo dell’Unione Sovietica, sono diventati la più grande potenza mondiale. L’America governa il mondo. Ma, per utilizzare un’espressione di Henri Coston, “qui gouverne l’Amerique?” Here then Preuss' book becomes indispensable for knowing and understanding the Masonic religion which informs the institutions and principles of the United States with its thoughts.

There is also another reason that pushed us to publish Preuss's fundamental study on American Freemasonry. Liberalism is undoubtedly the exoteric and political expression of Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry. The Statue of Liberty, which welcomes visitors arriving in the United States, reminds everyone of the "cult of Freedom" that exists in that country: freedom of thought, of conscience, of religion… This mentality has ended up influencing, inevitably, also a good part of the Catholics of that country; already in 1899 Leo XIII condemned, nell' encyclical Testem benevolence, Americanism. Eppure questa misura non fu sufficiente, poiché dobbiamo ad un religioso americano, Padre John Courtney Murrey, l’elaborazione della dottrina sulla libertà religiosa, definita dal Concilio Vaticano II nella dichiarazione Dignitatis humanæ.

Stupisce pertanto che dei cattolici che si definiscono “controrivoluzionari”, non esitino, in questi ultimi anni, a propagandare la scuola cattolico-liberale o conservatrice americana (che annovera pensatori quali Kirk, Novak, Neuhaus) come loro modello di pensiero. Secondo questa scuola vi sarebbe una distinzione essenziale tra le rivoluzioni comunista e giacobina da un lato, e le rivoluzioni liberali del 1688 (in England) and of 1776 (in the United States). Il passaggio ideologico dal cattolicesimo controrivoluzionario e antiliberale al pensiero liberale anglosassone si compie passando da de Maistre a Edmund Burke, both critics of the French Revolution, but both passed through the lodges... From Burke to Anglo-Saxon liberal-conservative thought it is a short step, in fact it shouldn't even be done.

You will be amazed, At that time, to see the Middle Ages and Ronald Reagan praised at the same time, St. Thomas and Locke, Leo XIII (bit) e Adam Smith (Very), the defense of tradition, of family and property, and that of religious freedom and economic liberalism. Finally, there is no shortage of disturbing contacts between some of these "counter-revolutionary" Catholics and exponents of "right-wing" Freemasonry. The work of Arthur Preuss, which underlines how the undeniable difference that exists between Anglo-Saxon and Latin Freemasonry is only accidental and not substantial, It is therefore extremely timely to warn, today like yesterday, from Masonic infiltrations into the Church and Catholic circles, even in those closest to the defense of tradition.

Arthur Preuss's Study of American Freemasonry, which the Italian reader will be able to read for the first time in their own language, he hasn't lost anything, we wrote, of its current affairs. This is because the Author does not deal with the historical events of Freemasonry in general, and the American one in particular, but of the doctrine thereof, doctrine in itself immutable or at least de facto unchanged to this day. It is the preface of 1998, rather, which suffers the ravages of time, and needs a short update. Il tentativo di conciliare la Tradizione della Chiesa cattolica con il pensiero illuminista anglosassone non è più, come allora, espressione di qualche autore del laicato cattolico. This, at least, dopo il discorso alla Curia Romana di Benedetto XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) of the 22 December 2005, sull’ermeneutica del Vaticano II. In quel discorso, giustamente famoso, Benedetto XVI cercava di risolvere l’innegabile e non negata “discontinuità” che si può facilmente riscontrare tra la condanna del diritto alla libertà religiosa quale si trova nel magistero di Gregorio XVI e di Pio IX, e l’affermazione del medesimo diritto nella dichiarazione Dignitatis humanæ personæ del Vaticano II. In his speech, Benedetto XVI storicizza il problema dottrinale, collocandolo all’interno del conflitto tra la Chiesa e il mondo moderno. The conflict – according to Ratzinger – between Church and world, was born due to the “radical phase of the French Revolution”, following its initial phase in 1989, which provoked "bitter and radical condemnations from the Church". But today we understand - according to Ratzinger - that "the American Revolution had offered a model of the modern state different from that theorized by the radical tendencies that emerged in the second phase of the French Revolution". The United States would create a “secular modern state” that is “not value-neutral, but lives by drawing on the great ethical sources opened up by Christianity". To anti-Christian secularism, Ratzinger therefore opposes a "positive secularism" recognized by Vatican II. Ratzinger's idea was extensively developed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini in the speech he gave on 6 maggio 2013 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Magna Carta Foundation. According to Ruini, with the Edict of Theodosius of 380, Christianity “has become, against its origin and its deepest nature, state religion". At the basis of this position there would be “medieval objectivism, that is, the unilateral primacy of the instance of truth over that of freedom". A record that, for Ruini, led to religious wars, from which it was only possible to escape with the secularization of politics and secularism. However, French 'secularism' implies the "closure of religions to any public role". Not so in the United States of America, where secularism and the separation between State and Church was promoted by the "free Protestant churches". “In this America, with its specific identity, the Catholics have integrated well, recognizing early on the positive character of the separation between state and church linked to religious motivations and the importance of religious freedom thus guaranteed". One obstacle remained, but: the condemnation of the principle of separation and religious freedom by the Church. “Vatican II overcame this difficulty with the Declaration on Religious Freedom, decisive document for the relationship between the Church and modernity (…). It is no coincidence that the Declaration on religious freedom was drafted with the strong contribution of North American bishops and theologians. (…) Vatican II represented the overcoming, at least in principle, of that historical delay of Catholicism in the modern era... Therefore also on secularism, as on religious freedom and the centrality of the human subject, one could hope that after the Council the dispute between 'Catholics' and 'lay people' (…) was now behind us. In particular for Italy, the obstacle of the Concordat also seemed substantially removed, after the Revision Agreement of 1984 had expressly recognized that 'The principle is no longer considered to be in force, originally referred to in the Lateran Pacts of the Catholic religion as the sole religion of the Italian state'". If difficulties remain, explains Ruini, this is due to the preference of the French model over the American model of secularism. Ruini therefore admits that the current doctrine on religious freedom finds its origins in the thought of the Protestant "free churches" that gave rise to the United States of America. You should remember that these are the same "free churches" that contributed to the birth of Freemasonry, in England and then in the American colonies, of which in this essay Preuss studies the thought and doctrine. Thought and doctrine common to all Masonic obediences, be they French or American, Latin or Anglo-Saxon. Reading Arthur Preuss's essay is therefore a sure antidote against an increasingly widespread and dangerous error.

SOURCE: http://www.centrostudifederici.org/saggio-sulla-massoneria-americana-2/