This little story caught my eye: a non-denominational Christian pastor was expelled from his Masonic lodge for promoting same-sex marriage.

Once a Southern Baptist missionary, “Brother” Tag Thompson was running his own “non-creedal” church which had a particular outreach to the LGBTIQ community. Thompson had become interested in Freemasonry after reading the Da Vinci Code and joined after discovering Masonry’s supposed focus on exterior works such as helping the community and “fraternity”.

A Facebook post in which he offered to officiate at same-sex weddings drew the ire of some of his fellow Masons. Thompson had to face a tribunal of the Tennessee Freemasons and it was established that his behaviour violated their statutes: he was eventually thrown out, although some other Masonic lodges disagreed with the decision. Notably and unsurprisingly, these included California and Washington DC.

The conservative stance taken by the Tennessee Masons is quite a contrast to the attitude of our reigning pontiff who has an open-arms policy towards members of the LGBTIQ community – he has issued no condemnation of the German bishop attending a same-sex wedding, and has had little to say about the German church’s general promotion of same-sex unions. On top of that, the attention shown by the Pope to sodo-priest James Martin is nothing short of scandalous.

So does this mean that Freemasons are becoming more virtuous or that this is evidence that they should be admitted into the Church? By no means at all!

Rather, it is simply another an indication that the human element of the Catholic Church is wallowing in the mire of corruption – so much so that even Masons are capable of making the Pope look bad.