I’ve been skeptical in the past, but maybe we really do live in a simulation

The Free Masons prohibit any athiests from becoming members.

It’s in South Carolina. Super strange

Regular Freemasonry is 100% Catholic in Spain. Not the society itself, but its members.

And to add to this, as matter of fact, there is a very strong and irreconciliable "implicitly Catholic" (Regulars) vs "explicitly non-confessional (and actively prosecuted as a consequence)" divide among Freemasons here. The former are the ones who keep relations and mutual recognition with the Anglo lodges and host influential people, and the vast majority of members generally speaking. Not that there are many members anyway. The latter are on the verge of extinction and the heirs of a much more left-leaning political program, which if I'm not wrong even allows for female membership, and doesn't make a big deal of paying dues and so on.

Yeah Biden is going into effectively a Black lodge so it would appear this factionalism within Masons is common around the world. Sounds like a weird setup in Spain though!

Not really. When I was living in Singapore I met a very senior local mason there and I spent some time around it (I even went to one of their Christmas dinners at the lodge) and my conclusion was that the way Regular Masonry is organized, it's unavoidable that the members are well to do financially, and influential in their field. They also have a duty to be obedient to the local laws and generally speaking to avoid partisan politics. I guess in Singapore that's an easy ask. The thing is, because government and private wealth are so deeply embedded in each other currently, it's a given that they also have "access". But that's a consequence of having money and being successful in the first place, in my opinion. As for the particular case of Spain and Catholicism, yes, it may sound strange, especially because Franco was furiously anti-Mason (rumor says because he did not make the cut). But again, influential and well to do people who are for the established legal order in Spain tend to be overwhelmingly Catholic, regardless, and Freemasonry was basically eradicated during the Franco era and "reconstructed" from scratch, so I imagine they "repopulated" it with people from the Spanish status quo. In any case, regular Masonry insists that members pledge their belief in a supreme being (an "Architect"), and that they do so in the presence of a Holy Book of their choice (so, the Bible, basically). So it's not a stretch for Catholics to connect the dots (in their head). As a personal note, my friend in Singapore never once asked me to join - they have a strict policy of waiting for you do ask. After a while I openly asked him to what extent they would really make me pledge a belief in a "supreme being" which I simply do not share. He said that as long as I had my own interpretation of what that meant, it'd be OK, implying that even an atheist could join, if I had a vague notion that the universe is "rational" (as in based on the Architect's "plan"). I told him I am a resolute atheist and I simply could not rationalize it or make it work with my view of the universe, so I kept the relation, but strictly outside of the Lodge. Completely unrelated to my Singapore experience, back home I came across another senior mason, but belonging to the "non regular" lodge over here. That's when I got to ask about their thing, and I felt equally uninterested in the end.

but they must stay completely clear of such Societies, Companies, Assemblies, Meetings, Congregations or Conventicles, under pain of excommunication for all the above mentioned people, which is incurred by the very deed without any declaration being required, and from which no one can obtain the benefit of absolution, other than at the hour of death, except through Ourselves or the Roman Pontiff of the time.

In eminenti - Papal Encyclicals

CLEMENT, BISHOP, Servant of the Servants of God to all the faithful, Salutation, and Apostolic Benediction. Since the divine clemency has placed Us...

This is just one in a long line of things that he has excomunicated himself for doing. Hopefully he can repent but he doesn't have much time.

🤷‍♂️ I don't belong to either club, so their inconsistencies are not on me. It's true though that the preferred secret society/cult among the Spanish status quo directly involved with the Franco regime and the Bourbon monarchy is the rather infamous Opus Dei. Then, in the 90 and 2000's when the post-Francoist mainstream party first took power (I mean after Franco's death), there was a lot of noise surrounding the Legionaires of Christ. Incidentally, it is my understanding that this Catholic cult demands a vow of "humility" that includes not looking for positions of power and influence. Which is rich (no punt intended), since there have been several Spanish ministers and CEOs who belonged to it. So there you have it, religion, exclusive/secretive/"discreet" (as the Freemasons prefer to describe themselves) societies and power, usually conform to a similar pattern.