Changes

====Freemasons====

====Freemasons====

In many countries the Church faced off against the Freemasons, a secret society that was politically active in numerous countries. The Papacy coordinated a attack. For example, in Brazil, the religious question in the 1870s centered on Masonry and the struggle between regalist and ultramontane forces. One method of Catholic action was to found Catholic universities. Mgr. Ignace Bourget, second bishop of Montreal, Canada, founded Laval University, saying that the university would be the principal instrument for "wresting the elite from the clutches of liberalism."  

Freemasonry is a secret society that was, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, politically active in numerous countries. The Catholic Church opposed Freemasonry and forbade its members to belong to Masonic lodges. This was partially because Masons were often aligned with popular uprisings that had the objective of replacing traditional monarchism and class privilege with national independence and voting rights. A large number of the signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence had been Freemasons, for example.

 

The Papacy coordinated attacks against Masonry in countries such as Brazil, where the religious question in the 1870s centered on Masonry and the struggle between regalist and ultramontane forces. One method of Catholic action was to found Catholic universities. Ignace Bourget, second bishop of Montreal, Canada, founded Laval University, saying that the university would be the principal instrument for "wresting the elite from the clutches of liberalism." At the time, political Liberalism was closely associated with national liberation and democracy.

====Women====

====Women====