Concept

Serge Abad-Gallardo (Ex-Freemason)

Intro

Serge Abad-Gallardo spent twenty-three years as a Freemason, rising to Worshipful Master, the officer who leads a lodge. He was a French architect and a senior official in territorial government. Then, in 2012, on a visit to the Catholic shrine at Lourdes, he prayed the Rosary at the grotto for the first time, and as he stood up his legs gave way beneath him. He left Freemasonry and returned to the Catholic faith, and has since written several books warning about what he believes the Lodge really is.

He is the rare case in this collection where the "before" is not just a story: his rank, his career, and his authored books are all a matter of public record.

In full

Abad-Gallardo is a French former Freemason whose prior identity is documented to a Tier 1 standard. He was a member of the co-Masonic obedience Le Droit Humain for about twenty-three years and served as Vénérable Maître (Worshipful Master); his profession, his obedience, his rank, and his subsequently published books are all externally checkable. His 2012 conversion at Lourdes carried a bodily, encounter-shaped element (a collapse during prayer at the grotto), which places him within this collection rather than among purely intellectual exits. This is a Tier 1 (Documented) entry under the vetting standard.

The before

Abad-Gallardo joined Le Droit Humain, a mixed-gender ("co-Masonic") obedience, and over more than two decades rose to Worshipful Master, the presiding officer of a lodge. Alongside this he held a public career as an architect and a senior territorial-government official. He came to describe Freemasonry as an initiatory religion in its own right, one he judges incompatible with Christ, a reading he lays out at length in his books. The prior identity is the strongest anchor in this collection: rank, obedience, and career are all independently verifiable.

The encounter

The turn came at the Marian shrine of Lourdes in 2012. Praying a full Rosary at the grotto for the first time, Abad-Gallardo reports that as he rose to his feet his legs gave out under him and he felt momentarily paralyzed, a physical experience he received as an encounter with God rather than a mere change of mind. He left Freemasonry in the aftermath and returned to the Catholic Church.

The after

He resigned from the Lodge and became a public Catholic voice on Freemasonry, publishing with the mainstream Catholic house Artège: La conversion d'un franc-maçon ("The Conversion of a Freemason"), J'ai servi Lucifer sans le savoir ("I Served Lucifer Without Knowing It"), and Franc-maçonnerie démasquée ("Freemasonry Unmasked"). He has given interviews and lectures, including with the National Catholic Register.

Verification

Independently documented: his Masonic rank, his obedience (Le Droit Humain), his professional career, and his authored books. This is the load-bearing evidence and it is unusually strong for this genre.
Self-attested: the interior and bodily character of the Lourdes experience, as with any personal encounter.
No credible debunking. There is predictable ideological pushback from Masonic and secular writers, but no one disputes his rank or his authorship.
Honest caveat: exits from Freemasonry are usually conviction-driven, and Abad-Gallardo's case has a strong intellectual component (he concluded the Lodge is a rival religion). The Lourdes collapse is what brings him within the encounter scope; the entry does not overstate it as a healing or a vision.

Apologetic value

The documented ex-Freemason. He answers the common skeptical charge that these testimonies invent a lurid past. Here the past is a verifiable lodge rank and a public career.
Insider account of Masonic religion. His central claim, that Freemasonry functions as an initiatory religion incompatible with exclusive allegiance to Christ, carries the weight of a former Worshipful Master and engages the long Christian debate over the Lodge.
Marian-shrine encounter. The Lourdes setting ties the case to the Miracles collection's Lourdes cluster and to the wider pattern of conversions at the shrine.

Common questions this page answers

Q: Is there a real testimony of a Freemason becoming a Christian?

Yes. Serge Abad-Gallardo was a Worshipful Master in the French co-Masonic obedience Le Droit Humain for about twenty-three years before converting to the Catholic faith in 2012. His rank and his books are part of the public record, so his Masonic past can be verified independently of his own testimony.

Q: Why did Serge Abad-Gallardo leave Freemasonry?

He came to regard Freemasonry as an initiatory religion incompatible with allegiance to Christ, and his turn was sealed by an experience at the shrine of Lourdes in 2012, where he collapsed while praying the Rosary at the grotto. He later wrote several books, including one titled I Served Lucifer Without Knowing It.

Q: How credible is his testimony?

It is among the best-documented in this collection. His Masonic rank, his obedience, his career as an architect and government official, and his published books are all independently checkable, and no credible investigation has disputed them. The main caveat is that his exit was strongly conviction-driven, with the Lourdes encounter as the sealing moment.