5.13.2009

Ernest Borgnine: movie star and freemason

An interview whith the Man and the Brother [a transcription]
(...) I am curious: he mentions God frequently and closes his book with the words "God bless." Is he a religious man? "I'm not, and this is how it came about. My mother's family had their own church in Italy. Her father was a count, the financial advisor to King Victor Emmanuel. My mother never told me this, it came from my father. I wanted to be an altar boy and she said, 'No! Period!' I wanted to know why but nobody was saying a word."One day my father told me that this priest in the family's church attempted to rape her. She turned against the church like a madwoman. To make a long story short, when we used to go to church with my uncle she'd say, 'You see those trees out there: that's your church. See those beautiful fields and those flowers: that's your church. This is what you worship.' "His religion now, he says, is Freemasonry. "I am very happy to say that I'm a 33rd degree Grand Cross Master Mason in the Scottish Rite. We believe in one thing, God. We believe in another thing: to help your fellow man. Be as kind as you can be to everybody. We support and take care of our own hospitals; we have a retirement plan, charities. You don't have to go to church. If you can do good like that, what's better" (...)
The rest here.