CONFUSION OF NAMES
Beginning in the 19th Century, Freemasonry,
whose first lodge was established in England in 1717, attempted to bring approval
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,
had 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. The three great military-religious orders
of the middle ages 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 devout, obedient, charitable, 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.