Order of Eastern Star (PHA) and Ladies Auxiliary of the Knights of Peter Claver
 

Background: My half-sister's mother is an Eastern Star (under the Blue Lodge) and her family is full of Masons, Shriners...etc and my brother-in-law is a Mason under the Blue Lodge as well.

I asked them the following questions, and they weren't too sure of the answer so I wanted to ask people on here since I've seen some posts about OES in the past:
I'm still an undergrad in college and am not actively looking to join either group right now, but I am interested in both and wanted to know if a) Can you be a member of both Order of Eastern Star (PHA) and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Knights of Peter Claver and b) If you have relatives in the Blue Lodge, would you be able to join OES under a Prince Hall Lodge?

My sister's family is White and didn't know too much about the rules of PHA Lodges......at all. So I thought I would take my chances and ask here.

Thank you!

I want to preface this by saying that what follows is mostly informed speculation. I am a Master Mason with AF&AM, not PHA. So take what I say with about a mountain of salt. For your first question, I would have to say that it would depend on the particular chapter of Ladies Auxillary. They are a RC organization, so you being part of a Masonic Organization, or it can be not important to them. To illustrate, I am also the Eminent Commander of the local Commandary of The United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta. I reached out to the local Council (?) of the KoC to see if they would want to do some sort of event with us and they turned us done. However even in Idaho, much less the rest of the country, KT and KoC work together fairly often.

As for the second, I think it would have to depend on if the person you try to claim qualification based on is recognized as a Mason by the Grand Lodge the Grand Chapter is affiliated with. This can be a serious problem in the south, where most of the masonic recognition issues exist between AF&AM/F&AM and PHA.

Good luck in your pursuits, because from what I understand PHA OES is tiny. As a tangent, I was fascinated when I found out there was a completely parallel version of the Masonic Family among PHA Masons. I hope to visit a PHA lodge and some of the PHA concordant bodies once I move to a location they are more common.

I thought all PHA Masons are F&AM? Or is it where all PHA Masons are F&AM, but not all F&AM Masons are PHA?

Yeah, I think I read somewhere that Catholics were not allowed to be a Mason because of what an old Pope said, but there are a lot of things the Popes and I don't agree on. I just didn't know if it had been done before.

Yeah, that's what I was nervous about. Well hopefully once I graduate I can become more involved with the community and meet more PHA members and hopefully one of them might know. I just loved how the Auxiliary was able to really combine both serving the African American community as well as the RC side.

Thank you for your help!!

It's a little more than something an old pope said. Canon law of the Catholic Church prohibits Catholics from becoming masons under penalty of excommunication, and has since 1738. Per the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1983, "the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion." FWIW, this statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was written by the current pope, with the approval of JPII.

A 1985 letter of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which determined that "that the principles of Masonry are incompatible with Christian faith and practice whether or not a specific Masonic organization happens to be engaging in activity against the church," can be found here. That document gives a good summary of the various reasons that the Catholic Church prohibits membership in masonic groups.

That said, there have certainly been Catholics who have joined masonic lodges, and there have been those who believe that the ban doesn't apply unless a masonic organization is actively opposing the Catholic Church.

It's more of a case where there really is no satisfactory term to distinguish "mainstream" Freemasonry from PHA. I suppose the closest thing would be United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) Freemasonry, but many PHA Grand Lodges are starting to gain Masonic recognition from UGLE. *shrugs* And certainly there have been Catholic Masons and Eastern Stars. Just as there have been Catholics who have abortions, or support capital punishment or make use of birth control. A lot of it would depend on whither or not the Auxiliary chapter you are looking for membership in holds the same view as a local Benedictine monastery I know. "Rome is very far away."

And a final note on the naming thing. In the US, all grand lodges are free to style themselves they wish. Thus in the US you have Ancient Free & Accepted Masons (AF&AM, the way my lodge does it and thus the right way.), Free & Accepted Masons, (F&AM) FA&AM (I think it's something like Free Ancient and Accepted Masons) and I think like A&AM (Ancient and Accepted Masons).