QUAERITUR: Shhhhh! Secret evil societies!

From a reader:

Father, we have all heard the rumors of secret evil societies such as the illuminati, the freemasons, etc., the one world government
purveyors of evil, but what of their antithesis? I have never heard
any stories of, let’s say, a secret “defender of the faith” society or
“knights of Christ” society — are there any — real or imagined?

Now?

You will have to wait for my forthcoming book on the ultra-secret Vatican Assassin Vampires, VAV.

I would tell you more, but then I would have to … you know.

Contemplate this while drinking Mystic Monk Coffee and using my donation button.




About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Lighter fare and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

34 Comments

  1. Paul Young says:

    Father! On’tday iscussday ethay AVVAY! Ememberray ouryay ecretsay owvay.

  2. Jacob says:

    There are many secret Catholic societies, such as those whose members place hoods on their heads and practice mortification of the flesh by whipping themselves in public places. I’m not criticizing this, in fact I think self-flagellation is an excellent spiritual exercise.

  3. RichR says:

    Sadly, a book these days on Vatican Assassin Vampires would probably get more sales than a book on Catholicism itself.

    Reminds me of the movie, Silver Bullet, with Corey Haim, where the werewolf was a Baptist minister. It was based on a book by Stephen King called, “Cycle of the Werewolf.”

  4. disco says:

    It’s a good thing they’re called the Vatican assassin vampires. Probably couldn’t get permission to use the name ‘catholic’.

  5. Random Friar says:

    And it’s so hard to get vampire blood/zombie guts out of these white habits…

  6. Bea says:

    Is the sequel called “Vatican III”?
    Are you the head mastermind of the UGCCB (Underground Catholic Church Bilocated)?
    Does the Pope know about this?
    What’s the secret word?
    Do we win $100 (floated down on the beak of a dove) or
    do we gain entry into the innersanctum AKA WDTPRS.com/blog.
    by knocking 3 times and whispering low?
    “whispers in the log-in”
    where are the catacombs?
    Carls”good” Canyon?

    Or are they SOOOO secret that we haven’t heard about them?
    Hey, lets start one.
    “Will the real Catholic please stand up”

    I think I’m dating myself.

  7. pm125 says:

    Knew they had to be out there somewhere – the book imagined here is non-fiction … steadfast men otherwise engaged … bright of eye … intelligent … working quietly … a fierce defense … fervently beseeching … easy yoke … light burden – they must be out there. Just not so named, although vav would ‘sell’.

  8. JP Borberg says:

    There are plenty of good Catholic secret organisations, like The Ladies who Take Turns Cooking for The Priests, The Alter Linen Cleaning Roster, The Blokes in the Sacristy, Whoever the People Were who Sorted the Church for Holy Week, and The Old Guy who Does The Lawn (you may think there’s only one, but you go to any other parish and there’s one there too. Coincidence? I think not!).

    And before you complain that they’re not exactly secret societies, they hardly ever get mentioned, much less thanked. In fact, like any other secret society, they only get noticed when they do something wrong.

  9. Joseph-Mary says:

    There are indeed holy mostly unnoticed Catholic groups. There are still those who live in cloister and spend lives of prayer and penance for the rest of us sinners. There is the Blue Army and the Militia Immaculata. There are Third Orders and Oblates infiltrating into parishes. There are consecrated religious and holy clergy. And one holy person affects a countless number of souls.

    We can always use more! Holy lives are the antidote.

  10. Mark Scott Abeln says:

    Although Christians, from time to time, have to flee to the catacombs and practice the holy faith in secret, I think Christianity, in its most pure form, must be open, since we must give witness.

    Secret societies, in my mind, are suspect.

  11. Liam says:

    Real Catholic secret societies?

    Well, there were L’Ordre des Chevaliers de la Foi during the Napoleonic and Restauration eras in France and the Sodalitium Pianum during the Modernist Crisis and the First World War. The latter was officially suppressed by Benedict XV in 1921 although it continues to this day in a mutated, illicit, and rump form among sedevacantist Catholic integrists.

    Oh…and there was the secret intelligence service of the Vatican, La Santa Alianza, founded by St. Pius V.

  12. Elizabeth D says:

    The Universal Fraternity of Catholics in the State of Grace Tending toward Holiness, no one, even themselves, know for sure who is in this group, yet they are the greatest force for the Faith.

  13. Father Z. I think you have been watching too much Trinity Blood as of late. [I’ve never seen it. Reality is far more interesting than fiction, after all.] (For those of you not in the know, it’s a Anime/Japanese animation series with lots of blood gore, violence, and …. you guessed it, Vatican Assaination Vampires, the main one being Fr. Peter Abel Nightroad). [Really? Thieves.]

  14. Geoffrey says:

    If there are any real Catholic secret societies, we wouldn’t know it! ;-)

  15. dnicoll says:

    Love these ones. I’m scared though. The One Guy Who Does The Lawn is here too……. Perhaps there is something going on. Where’s Dan Brown when you need him to do a REAL job exposing the hidden secrets of Catholic infiltration in our communities? :-D

  16. AnAmericanMother says:

    And why, pray tell, has nobody mentioned Fr Alexander Anderson and the Iscariot Section XIII?
    :-)

  17. CDNowak says:

    The KofC was founded as a response to the Masons. Then there are the ‘ultra-orthodox’ agents persecuting liberal priests in Ireland. ( http://bit.ly/I3T9ee )

  18. Supertradmum says:

    Puhleeze. I had two men tell me when I was in Ireland that the real Pope Paul VI was imprisoned and a double was used for most of his papacy. That people believe these things astounds me.

  19. Gus Barbarigo says:

    I know Catholics of a certain age who will not set foot in a masonic lodge for any reason.

    Supposedly, even our Pope B16 is supposedly concerned about Masons, although I would like more verification of this:

    “‘Among the many interesting statements made in this report, one stands out: the statement that Pope Benedict, who is known to regard Canizares with favor, told Canizares personally meeting that he (Benedict) has three great fears:

    “(1) The secularization within the Church;
    (2) The peaceful invasion of Europe by Islam;
    (3) The ever-greater control — and the next words are within quotation marks, meaning Margheriti Mastino is presenting these words as an exact quotation of what Cardinal Canizares said to him — “of freemasonry on the cultural level and of the centers of power of the European Union.'”
    …from http://www.summorumpontificum.net/2011/09/for-fourth-anniversary-of-summorum.html (at the very end of the article).

  20. PostCatholic says:

    You’d think by now someone would have invited me to join one of those worldwide conspiratorial secret world domination anti-Catholic societies. I must not be rabid enough for them, do you think?

  21. Dismas says:

    I think the antithesis to the no longer so secret, secret societies of media, education and government would be the Legion of Mary or as Joseph-Mary already mentioned in a previous post, the Militia of the Immaculata. These must be secret societies since I hardly ever hear them mentioned any longer.

    Legion of Mary – Based on the teachings St. Louis Marie de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, http://www.legionofmary.ie/about/

    Militia of the Immaculata – founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe in 1917 that encourages total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary http://www.consecration.com/default.aspx?id=8

  22. akp1 says:

    @JP Borberg – you got it! People think that the church is transformed for Holy Week how??? By that group called ‘By Someone Else’! I don’t think it actually crosses most people’s minds, only if it’s not done, of course. Happy Easter all!

  23. justanothercatholic says:

    La Sapinière.
    Forget the sedevacanistas. It still exists.

    Et hic quidem, decimas morientes homines accipiunt : ibi autem contestatur, quia vivit.

    There are “Melchisedechs” out there that mantain the fidelity.

    St. Louis de Monfort spoke of they who would be faithful:
    Prayer for Missionaries
    http://www.ewtn.com/library/Montfort/pmission.htm

    Bl. Francisco Palau spoke as well.

    When things get tougher, we will see that God never abandons his Church.

    Prophets and priests shall arise!

  24. Tina in Ashburn says:

    Love the funny answers guys. haha!!
    For those who really want to know, it is forbidden to join the Freemasons. They are a serious bunch dedicated to the destruction of the Catholic Church. There are 98 [I think?] Papal documents describing what they do and warning about them. Those at the lower levels may only view them as a beer-drinking and charitable group, but alas, that is not the entire organization.
    Additionally, it is forbidden to join any secret society – the Church knows that if you have to be secretive, you are generally up to no good.
    This does NOT include us secretive wives, who maybe after Mass or rosary group, who sneak purchases into the house out of the trunks the car so our husbands do not know that we just spent more money on clothes or dishes [or name something]. There are a lot of us, but we are not an OFFICIAL secret society.

  25. AnnAsher says:

    Ok the Freemasons are real and they were established for the purpose of destroying the Church.

  26. YCRCMale, maybe you’re also familiar with Hellsing. :D Depicts Catholics in a terrible (fictional, not based in reality) light, but IMO they, as the series’ villains, ended up being far more right than the series’ “good guys”. :D

    I’ve always thought that the time is right for a really good Catholic action/adventure/drama movie. Maybe a gritty spy movie about an FSSP priest who finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy involving the US government… Sort of like James Bond meets The X-Files meets Father Brown.
    I’m thinking… Fr. Pius Trent, FSSP, the suave cassock- and biretta (or maybe saturno?)- clad man in black, chanting Mass by day, exposing top-level CIA coverups by night.

  27. AnnAsher says:

    Someone asked for more documentation of why Catholics can not be Masons.

    http://www.consecration.com/default.aspx?id=46

  28. AnAmericanMother says:

    Irenaeus,
    EGGzackly.
    I’m not particularly a Hellsing fan, but one Hallowe’en I got roped into making an Alexander Anderson costume. The purple cassock wasn’t so bad, but the silver bayonets took a lot of thinking . . . I agree with you though that for bad guys, they look better than the supposed good guys.
    Bring back Father Brown! OK, you can update him just a little, but . .

  29. of Trinity Blood that is.

  30. I would hate to hijack this thread, but I can’t help one last comment. :P

    I think the most (unintentionally?) funny part of Hellsing was the fact that both the Anglicans and the Catholics were devoted to destroying vampires, which is fair enough, but the Anglicans made one exception: they got to use vampires for themselves. The crazy Catholics on the other hand, were so radical that when they said they wanted to destroy vampires, they really meant all vampires! The shock.
    I just couldn’t help but think about King Henry VIII. He talked about defending Christianity (Defender of the Faith, lol!), but he made one little exception to the moral code, just for himself, to justify his attacks against Rome.
    I don’t know if it was intentional or not. I know I certainly don’t expect the average Japanese writer to understand some of the historical aspects of Christianity, but the parallel was just too good to ignore.

  31. CBDCBWST: Chestertonian Bellocian Distributist Catholic Beer- & Wine-Swilling Trads.

    We’re so secret we don’t even have T-shirts yet. But we’re working on that.

  32. HeatherPA says:

    Yep, Catholics cannot be Masons. Apparently there is confusion over this in the past couple of decades, with people thinking the Church somehow “changed” their position.
    They didn’t.
    There is a great, great little booklet by canon lawyer John Salza for $8 on Amazon that expertly explains the whys and hows. He used to be a 33 degree Mason.

    http://www.amazon.com/Why-Catholics-Cannot-Be-Masons/dp/0895558815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334676282&sr=8-1

Comments are closed.