Freemasonry - what's the fuss?

Let me note at the outset that I have never been, nor am, or will be in the foreseeable future, a member of any Masonic lodge, so this letter should in no way be interpreted as a form of apologetic pro-Masonic defence.

My business makes me spend a lot of time in Scotland. Since 1998, my organisation has been providing marketing consultancy to the Friends of Rosslyn, a Scottish registered charity organisation that promotes and safeguards the historic legacy of Rosslyn Chapel.

This chapel, built in the 1450s, is a unique work of architecture, depicting in stone a sculptured encyclopedia unlike any other chapel or cathedral in Europe. Mass and other services are, to this day, conducted weekly.

Due to its historic association with the Knights Templar and also with freemasonry, the chapel attracts freemasons from all over the world, also because it was built by the Sinclairs, the hereditary Grand Masters of Scottish Freemasonry.

In my marketing chores with the board of the Friends of Rosslyn, I have personally met many freemasons. Even the board itself is composed of Masons and non-Masons. All the individuals I have met, even those very high up the Masonic hierarchy, such as Grand Masters and District Grand Masters, are God-fearing, church-going Christians who would never dream of any moral or spiritual wrongdoing.

I have met parish priests, canons and archbishops, all Christian - some Protestant, some Catholic - who are vociferous Masons while being very active Christians. For example, Scottish Freemasonry's No. 2 man is a very influential ecclesiastic, renowned all over Scotland for his religious zeal.

So why is it that in Malta, this subject is shrouded in such mystery and melodrama? In all countries, freemasonry is just another organisation. You join if you want to, or you don't. The choice is entirely yours. No private investigator is needed with a hidden camera to project on TV those horrific, anti-Catholic, mysterious rituals.

All one needs to do is go to the United Grand Lodge in London, visit a free exhibition open to everyone, including non-Masons - I know, because I've been there - and purchase from the same place an official video on freemasonry or any other book and publication on sale. One can also browse freely on the Internet and find any information on the subject. That is how secret this 'secret' organisation is!

I honestly cannot understand how we Maltese in the 21st century still use bogeymen or bogey stories to baffle minds. If the pathetic Masons shown on Bondi+, who were so idiotic and clumsy in letting in a virtual and relative nobody - in fact, a private investigator just waiting to become famous on TV as the guy who 'busted' the Masons - join their club for three whole years, if these are the Masons that invisibly run my country, then let's get out of here!

This "organisation with secrets" is seemingly incompatible with the mores and customs of mainstream Catholic Malta. Period. There is no other reason to create mountains out of molehills on a subject that may be of interest to a handful of Boy Scout fanatics and to some historians or amateur history enthusiasts.

After all, one notes that an extensive list of great names, including a whole list of the Royal Family (official patrons of English Freemasonry), most of Malta's Governors, Churchill, Napoleon, most US Presidents, Garibaldi, Sir Isaac Newton, Mozart, Cavour, and countless hundreds of others throughout history were Masons.

Just before Gunther Verheugen became a household name in Malta, there was another EU Commissioner who was always in the news here - Hans Van Den Broek. I have read at least two books which list him as a very active Mason. Should he be condemned as well? Of course not!

Some of these bright gentlemen from all over the world would have participated in a specific Masonic degree in the York Rite, which is universally known as the Malta degree! In this Malta degree, Masons learn how friendly, caring and hospitable the Maltese were when St Paul visited our islands. And you don't need to be a freemason to know this.

At least most of the millions of Masons around the world would have heard about our country by means of this degree, which is good for us as a whole. That, in my limited opinion, is the only tangible link that anyone can make between Malta and freemasonry!