Controversial comments by the new spiritual head of the Church of England have re-opened the debate on whether the powerful secret brotherhood known as Freemasonry is compatible with Christianity...

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Leaked comments from the new head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, have raised the controversial issue of Freemasonry and questions its compatibility with Christianity.

"I am not and have never been a mason," Williams wrote in a letter to Hugh Sinclair, an author investigating Freemasonry. "I have resisted the appointment of known masons to certain senior posts, Williams, who previously served as the Archbishop of Wales, said. I have real misgivings about the compatibility of masonry and Christian profession."

Williams comments, which were printed in two of Britain's leading papers, The Independent and The Guardian, have re-opened a long-standing controversy about Freemasons in the Church. Although the Church of England has millions of members in the United States, Williams comments did not appear in any U.S. newspaper. As a result the controversy was quietly squelched, according to a spokesman for the Church of England, who spoke with American Free Press.

Jonathan Jennings, a spokesman for the archbishop, told AFP that Williams had considered his comments to be private correspondence and that he did not intend to take the debate any further. The church's position on Freemasonry is quite complex, according to Jennings.

Thousands of leading clergymen and churchgoers in the Church of England are among Britain's 350,000 Freemasons, according to The Independent, which carried two articles on the religious controversy on Nov. 15.

Masons are members of the so-called brotherhood of Freemasonry, described on the organization's website as Britain's largest secular, fraternal, and charitable organization.

In Freemasonry there are ranks, or degrees, the highest being the 33rd degree. Only as a member achieves the highest ranks does he become fully aware of the brotherhood's core beliefs.

A number of U.S. presidents have been 33rd degree masons. President-elect George W. Bush, had requested to be sworn in as president on the same Masonic Bible that his father had used, although due to the book's fragile condition it was reportedly replaced with another Bible.

Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, David Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, and Ross Perot are all allegedly high-ranking members of the secret brotherhood.

The religious controversy about Freemasonry centers on whether it is a secular fraternity or a religion. According to the 1921 Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, it is a religion: Masonry is, in every sense of the word an eminently religious institution.

A spokesman for the new archbishop told The Independent: "From the end of the 19th century a lot of Anglican clergy got involved in Freemasonry. In the 20th century a number of very senior clergymen were Masons. In the 1960s people started turning against the idea of secret societies and a number of Anglican ministers saw it as possibly Satanically inspired."

At one stage Catholics were banned from being Freemasons, but the two are no longer seen as incompatible providing Catholics belong to a British branch of the Masons.

The influence of the brotherhood within the Church of England has continued and the Freemasons acknowledge that many clergymen and Anglicans are members.

Senior Freemasons have reached the Church's highest echelon, according to Louis Henderson, a spokesman for the Church of England. Henderson told American Free Press that several archbishops had been high-ranking masons.

Henderson named the former Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher, who headed the Church from 1945 to 1961. Fisher also held the senior post of Grand Chaplain for the [Masonic] United Grand Lodge of England.

Rev. Gregory Cameron, chaplain to the new archbishop, said: He [Archbishop Williams] questions whether it's appropriate for Christian ministers to belong to secret organizations. He also has some anxiety about the spiritual content of Masonry.

A spokesman for the archbishop said Williams was worried about the ritual elements in Freemasonry which some are seen as possibly satanically inspired and how that sits uneasily with Christian belief. He added: "The other idea is that because they are a society, there could be a network that involves mutual back-scratching, which is something he would be greatly opposed to."

Some observers say that at the heart of Freemasonry, and known only to those who reach the highest levels, is a sinister quasi-religion based on a composite Masonic God, known as Jah-Bul-On.

In a 1984 book, The Brotherhood, Stephen Knight wrote about the inner workings of the Masons: "I have spoken to 57 long-standing Royal Arch Freemasons [one of the most senior groups], who have been happy to talk to me. All but four lost their composure when I said, What about Jah-Bul-On," Knight wrote.

The Freemason's United Grand Lodge of England website says that it is not a secret society, but merely holds private meetings. Freemasonry does not try to replace religion or substitute for it. Freemasonry requires a belief in God and its principles are common to many of the world's great religions, it says. There are elements within certain churches who misunderstand Freemasonry and confuse secular rituals with religious liturgy.

A spokesman for Williams told The Independent that many Christians believed that Jah-Bul-On was considered to refer to the incarnation of Satan. He added that the Masons promised in the 1980s to drop any reference to Jah-Bul-On because of the offence it was causing.

There are clear difficulties to be faced by Christians who are Freemasons, a 1987 church report on Freemasonry concluded. The report pointed to a number of very fundamental reasons to question the compatibility of Freemasonry and Christianity. The church's General Synod endorsed the report by a margin of 8 to 1.

Church spokesman Henderson told American Free Press, "At the national level, there have been no formal developments since the 1987 debate."