May
1989 by W. Bro. John M. Hamill, PJGD Grand
Librarian and Curator of the United Grand Lodge of
England.
For the last five years, Freemasonry in
England has been subject to fairly continuous media
attention and to attacks from various sections of
the community. The purpose of this paper is to
examine the nature of the attacks, their source and
why they should now occur, and the actions taken by
the United Grand Lodge of England to deal with and
to counter the attacks.
The attacks fall into
four main groups. First, that Freemasonry is a
secret society, secondly, that it is a religion and
anti-Christian, thirdly, that it is a hidden agency
for control in national and local government, and
fourthly, that it is an agency for corruption and
malpractice. The claims that Freemasonry is a secret
society arise from a failure to accept that there is
a distinction between privacy and secrecy.
In
England, Freemasonry has, perhaps, been
over-protective of its privacy and until recently
there has been a reluctance on the part of
Freemasons to discuss our institution. It is a
strange secret society however, whose aims and
relationships have been published in the press,
whose rules and regulations are in Books of
Constitutions which are available on public sale,
whose meeting places are well known in every town
where they exist, and whose members will cheerfully
acknowledge their membership when asked for good
reason.
Because there has been a reluctance to
discuss Freemasonry, because Masonic meetings in
England are closed to non-Masons, and because
listings of lodge membership are not available for
public scrutiny, the critics of Freemasonry claim
that there is at least the potential for wrong-doing
in our secret meetings. The desire for privacy is
seen as a pretext for hiding wrong-doing. Criticism
of Freemasonry on religious grounds predates the
formation of the first Grand Lodge in England in
1717. In 1694, a hand bill was circulated in London
warning all Godly citizens in the cities of London
and Westminster against the ungodly sect of
Freemasons.
At fairly regular intervals after the
formation of Grand Lodge clerical gentlemen of
various Christian denominations have delivered
sermons warning their congregations against the
evils of Freemasonry. The Papacy in 1738 issued the
first of a number of Papal Bulls condemning
Freemasonry and warning Roman Catholics that they
face excommunication if they joined. It is often
forgotten that before the unification of Italy in
1870 the Papacy was a temporal power as well as a
religious authority and, in that status, controlled
most of the central area of Italy.
The late
Brother Alec Mellor argued that the Papal Bull of
1738 was issued as much against the supposed
political intentions of continental Freemasonry in
Europe as against its supposed irreligious nature.
Until recently Freemasonry in England has been
relatively free of condemnation from the Christian
denominations. In 1927 the Wesleyan Methodists, at
the prompting of the Reverend J. Thurston Dart,
expressed doubts about the compatibility of
Freemasonry and Methodism. It was suggested that its
members should not join, or should resign if they
were Freemasons, and that Methodists should not
permit Masons to meet on their premises.
These
comments, however, were largely ignored and were
more or less forgotten when the various branches of
English Methodism united together in 1933. In 1951
the Reverend Walton Hanna attempted to raise the
subject of the compatibility of Freemasonry and
Anglicanism in the General Assembly of the Church of
England. His request was thrown out so he resorted
to print and produced two books "Darkness Visible"
and "Christian By Degrees".
In these he claimed
that, by having no references to Jesus Christ, the
Craft denied His existence; that Freemasonry was a
separate religion attempting to join all religions
and having its own God with special names used by
its members; that Freemasonry promised salvation,
either by means of special knowledge, or by the
practice of good works; and that the Christian
degrees contained ceremonies aping the sacraments
and were therefore blasphemous. His books sold well,
but were soon forgotten by the majority of the
populace.
Hanna resigned from the Anglican
Church, was reordained as a Roman Catholic priest
and emigrated to Canada claiming he had been hounded
out of England by both the Anglican Church
establishment and the Masonic establishment. After
Hanna, the English churches made no public comments
on Freemasonry. So it was something of a surprise,
when in 1984, two ministers of the Methodist Church
arose in its Annual Conference and demanded an
inquiry into the compatibility of Freemasonry and
Methodism.
They claimed that Freemasonry was
anti-Christian and that its rituals contained
elements of devil worship. This latter claim was, of
course, given banner headlines in the press and
caused the Methodist Conference to set up a
committee to investigate the compatibility. The
committee, which did not include any Freemasons, met
on three occasions. It relied on published
anti-Masonic works for evidence and showed a marked
reluctance to meet with, or take evidence from any
Freemasons, despite offers from the Grand Secretary
to discuss any problems they might have.
The
Committee report presented to the 1985 Methodist
Conference was inaccurate and intellectually shabby.
Rather than addressing the question of compatibility
it dealt with public misconceptions of Freemasonry.
It acknowledged that many fine men were members of
Freemasonry and that it did a great deal of good
work in the field of charity. Nevertheless, the
report criticized the Craft for not mentioning the
name of Jesus Christ and, without providing
evidence, claimed that there was a possibility a
Methodist could compromise his religious beliefs by
being a Freemason.
The committee, however, did
not have the courage of its convictions and refused
to call for an outright ban on Masonic membership.
Rather it simply asked Methodists who were
Freemasons to reconsider their membership and
suggested that anyone thinking of joining the Order
should think very carefully before doing so. We
would all expect a prospective candidate to do that
in any event. Almost as a gesture to the anti-Masons
within the church they recommended a ban on all
Masonic meetings on Methodist premises.
This was
a somewhat hollow gesture since no English lodge
meets in Methodist premises. The Committee report
was presented to the 1985 Methodist Conference and
despite a spirited debate was accepted. It is very
difficult not to come to the conclusion that the
committee had reached its recommendations before it
began to gather evidence and that the vote was a
political one, which days of debate would not have
altered. The media again had a field day claiming
erroneously that the Methodist Church had banned its
members from being Freemasons.
The Methodist
Conference however, had badly misjudged the feeling
within the church. Those attending appeared to
believe that, because few ministers acknowledge that
they are Freemasons, the Craft has little support
within the Methodist Church. A great many Methodist
layman however, are Freemasons; they were not
unnaturally greatly upset at the report on the
Conference decision. They were also upset that so
little attempt had been made to gain authoritative
information from individual Freemasons within the
church, or from the Grand Lodge itself.
They
immediately formed an association of Methodist
Freemasons dedicated to having the report withdrawn
and its conclusions rescinded. They achieved a
notable success at the 1986 conference when a
statement was officially promulgated correcting the
media statement that the Methodist Church had banned
its members from being Freemasons. The statement
pointed out that the 1985 Conference had not
condemned Freemasonry, but had only asked its
members to think about their membership in
Freemasonry.
The association of Methodist
Freemasons is continuing its work of educating the
Methodist Church as to the nature and purposes of
Freemasonry. Emboldened by the success of the
Methodist report, lay members of the Church of
England's General Synod called for a similar report.
Here, perhaps I should explain a little about the
Synod. The Church of England is established by law
in England. Any change proposed within the church
must be sanctioned by an Act of Parliament. In the
late 1960s because the laity wanted a say in the
church assembly, an act was passed setting up the
General Synod which has representation from the
House of Bishops, the House of Clergy, and the House
of Laity.
It is not, however, as I understand the
General Synod of the Anglican Church in Canada is,
the governing body of the Church of England. It is,
in fact, nothing more than a talking shop. It has no
authority and the church has no legal reason or any
other reason to accept any decisions of views
expressed by the General Synod.
Having been
established by Act of Parliament to have three
meetings a year, each meeting taking up a four day
weekend, they obviously have to find things to talk
about to fill those weekends. In an apparent attempt
to avoid the criticisms of the Methodist report, the
General Synod set up a six member working party
including two Freemasons and two women. An offer of
assistance from the Grand Secretary was eagerly
taken up.
In addition to written and oral
evidence, a number of informal meetings were held
and a lengthy correspondence on many points ensued.
It appeared from those discussions that the Synod
Working Group was at least going to do a honest and
academically sound job, although certain senior
members of the Church, not Freemasons, questioned
the General Synod's right to speak for Christianity
rather than speaking for Anglicanism.
Danger
signs went up when a promised early draft to check
for factual errors, and a prepublication copy of the
final report, failed to materialize. When a copy was
finally acquired it was easy to see why the promises
had not been honoured. The document, to avoid the
submission of a minority report by the two Masons on
the Working Party, was called a "Contribution to
Discussion".
It claimed that there were serious
difficulties for a Christian, who was a Freemason.
It claimed that the Craft rituals could be
interpreted as containing four types of heresy. It
also asserted that the Royal Arch word contained
references to two pagan gods and was therefore
capable of being interpreted as blasphemous. The
report had some very curious things to say about
Christianity and the ecumenical movement within the
Christian churches.
The media again had a field day, claiming that the
established church was about to ban Freemasonry. The
media also raised one constitutional and one legal
point. Our present Most Worshipful Grand Master in
England, his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, is
first cousin to Her Majesty the Queen, who is the
Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
If the
church banned Freemasonry how could the Duke of Kent
remain as Grand Master. Indeed, what the General
Synod's Working Group was saying to Her Majesty the
Queen was that her late father, King George the VI,
who was perhaps the most active of our royal
Freemasons, and very strong in the Royal Arch had
not only been the Supreme Governor of the Church in
England, but had also been four times a heretic and
once a blasphemer!
The charge of blasphemy was a
serious one since blasphemy is still a legal offence
under the common law system in England. Whilst legal
counsel advised us that the case would have fallen,
a great deal of nuisance value and publicity could
have been gained by anyone undertaking a private
prosecution of blasphemy charges against any member
of the Royal Arch. At the General Synod in York in
July 1987 the "Contribution to Discussion" was
presented.
Despite a very spirited three hour
debate in which Freemasonry was stoutly defended,
the paper was adopted by a very large majority and
referred for discussion within the Church. Like the
Methodist report and debate, it is very hard not to
think that the Synod Working Party had reached its
conclusions before taking any evidence and that the
voting and the debate was political. Indeed, in
private conversation immediately after the debate, a
very senior cleric stated that even had the debate
continued for three days, three weeks, or three
months the voting would have been the same.
The
members of the Synod had made their minds up before
the debate and no amount of reasoned argument would
change them. At the same time that the Anglican
turmoil was going on, the United Reformed Church in
England, a union of the former Presbyterian and
Congregational churches also prepared and debated a
report on Freemasonry.
The report, however, found no incompatibility
between Freemasonry and Christianity, or their
denominations' teachings on Christianity. The report
limited itself simply to the comment "that if a
member of the United Reformed Church was attending
to his church duties properly he should have no time
for involvement in other organizations". Needless to
say, since it was good news for Freemasonry, the
U.R.C. report received no attention in the media.
The 1980s saw a proliferation of tracts and
pamphlets condemning Freemasonry as anti-Christian,
as occult, as a group of satan worshippers and as a
separate religion, in opposition to Christianity.
A particularly nasty book by the Reverend John
Lawrence, "Freemasonry A Religion", reiterated the
claims of Walton Hanna. It attacked Freemasonry, not
only on religious grounds, but also as a conspiracy
for self promotion and self help at the expense of
non-members. Having timed his book's publication to
coincide with the Synod's debate, the author has now
lost interest in Freemasonry and is now attacking
youth groups, like the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides
because they now allow non-Christians into
membership and have non-denominational prayers.
In the words of his Bishop, "he is refusing to bless
the Brownie's toadstools". The idea that Freemasonry
is a subversive agency for political control is by
no means a new one. We must all be familiar with the
conspiracy theories that, the American Revolution in
the 1770s; the French Revolution of two hundred
years ago; the South American Liberation Movements
of the 19th century, and the Russian-Communist
Revolution of 1917 were not only planned, but were
executed by Freemasons purely for the benefit of
other Freemasons, The present conspiracy theory in
England runs that, because there is no published
list of Freemasons available for public inspection,
there are secret groups of Freemasons in both
National and Local government who are the actual
rulers.
These groups, it is said, are subverting
the elected majority rulers, and the civil servants
who carry out government policy and are forcing
through legislation for the benefit of Freemasonry.
What the Masonic conspiracy is, and who the
conspirators are, are questions which are never
explained. These childish attacks reached the height
of absurdity when, in response to a refusal of a
public enquiry into allegations of Masonic
corruption in the Metropolitan Police, an opposition
member of Parliament demanded of the Prime Minister,
Mrs. Thatcher, to know whether or not she was a
member of the Lodge of the Eastern Star for Women.
He was under the belief that a conspiracy of Masonic
parliamentarians led by Mrs. Thatcher and police
officers were blocking any enquiries. In the most
recent published attacks on Freemasonry the author
has a separate chapter in which he exposes the
secret Freemasons in Parliament. The press have made
much of a secret Parliamentary lodge, but have been
rather upset when the MPs, who have been named, have
reacted with the attitude "so what if I am a
Freemason" thus totally dim using attempts to
uncover a conspiracy or disclose a scandal.
In
local government circles there have been attempts to
whip up a scandal by claiming that the councillors
of differing political parties are using common
membership of Freemasonry to enable them to meet
secretly in lodges to discuss and fix council
business. This has led to disgruntled minority
parties calling for a Statutory Regulation forcing
elected councillors, chief officers, and employees
of local authorities, to declare their membership of
Freemasonry so that the electorate can be aware of
possible areas of conflict.
They have obviously
never been to a lodge meeting. How they think we
have the time, when we do everything else, to
discuss any other business, I am not sure. Claims
that Freemasonry is an agency for corruption and
malpractice arise from the wilful misunderstanding
of the third degree obligation, deliberately
fostered by the media and anti-Masonic writers.
Their claim is that a Master Mason is bound by his
obligation to protect, assist and favour another
Master Mason regardless of whether his actions are
legal or not.
As a result, the anti-Masons claim
that Freemasons will always favour other Freemasons,
to the detriment of others, when acting on
appointment boards or committees awarding contracts.
They also claim that because judges, lawyers and
police officers are Freemasons, it is impossible for
an non-Mason to get justice, particularly if his
complaint is against a Freemason. Additionally, they
claim that policemen who are Freemasons will pervert
justice by allowing other Masons, who have committed
crimes, to go unpunished.
They spread a
persuasive web of conspiracy theory claiming that
Freemasons who have erred have done so because they
were Freemasons and that the secret meetings and
lodges have created the opportunities in which
crimes. can be planned. But among so large a group
of men as are found in English Freemasonry (about
600,000) there are bound to be a very few who will
attempt to misuse their membership and would do so
regardless of the nature of the organization to
which they belonged. Occasionally criminals would be
able to gain admission.
That they would be
criminals, whether they are Freemasons or not, does
not seem to occur to the detractors of Freemasonry.
To them the organization is to blame and is seen as
the agency whereby corruption and malpractice are
able to flourish. . There is no doubt that the
catalyst for the recent spate of anti-Masonry in
England was the publication in January 1984, of the
late Stephen Knight's book, "The Brotherhood". For
the first time in England for over thirty years all
the various strands of anti-Masonry were brought
together in one book which attracted enormous
publicity and made its author a very rich man.
Claimed as a seriously researched, and impartial
study of Freemasonry, it is in fact a farrago of
innuendo, half truths, theories, gossip,
unsubstantiated claims, and basic errors of fact.
Written in a high-blown, yellow journalist style,
its claims of scandals in high places attracted
enormous media attention. This success led others to
jump on the bandwagon and deluge the press with
unsubstantiated and anonymous claims of Masonic
corruption.
Why should "The Brotherhood" have
caused such a stir and why should the non-Masonic
public have given any credence to the nonsense in
the book and the resultant articles and
correspondence in the press? The answer to both
questions is that English Freemasonry and the United
Grand Lodge itself were largely responsible. Up to
the late 1930s, Freemasonry had been a very visible
part of English social life. Grand Lodge and private
lodge meetings were regularly reported in the
national and local press.
There were two weekly
Masonic newspapers and a monthly magazine on public
sale. They contained Masonic news, articles on all
manner of Masonic topics, very frank correspondence
columns and notes and query sections. Public
processions celebrating national and local events
usually included the local lodges in their regalia
and carrying their banners. Many churches had annual
Masonic services at which the Brethren wore full
regalia.
There were few public buildings, churches, bridges
or monuments built in England and Wales during the
period between 1813 and 1930 which did not have
their foundation stones laid with Masonic ceremonial
in full view of the public. Masonic halls and lodge
rooms were well known and, in many small towns,
provided the venue for many local social non-Masonic
events. But above all, the local community knew who
the local Freemasons were. For some reason, which
has not yet been established, Grand Lodge began to
look in on itself in the late 1930s and the desire
for privacy spread downwards to individual
Freemasons.
This trend was greatly helped by the
outbreak of World War 11 where the population as a
whole began to foster privacy, out of a fear of
spies and fifth columnists, in the face of an all
too possible invasion of Britain. When peace
returned in 1945 and the popu- lace rushed to get
back to normality, unhappily Freemasonry continued
to look inwards, was over protective of its privacy,
and made no public response to media comments on
Freemasonry whether they were in favour of, or
against Freemasonry.
Regrettably, it reached the
stage where Brethren did not even speak about
Freemasonry within their families or circle of
friends. As a result Freemasonry became divorced
from the society in which it had existed and
generations grew up who, unless a member of their
family or a friend was a Freemason, did not know of
its existence unless it was brought to their
attention by the media. Grand Lodge's policy of "no
comment" on statements from outside Freemasonry, was
perhaps the largest contributor to the present
problems.
Initially, it was a period of privacy
which then became secrecy. It was from this secrecy
that the aura of suspicion grew up around
Freemasonry. The United Grand Lodge was faced with a
dilemma in 1984. With the Knight book, "The
Brotherhood", and the media reaction to it, it was
obvious that something had to be done, particularly
as suspicion about Freemasonry was beginning to
affect the careers of some brethren who are open
about their membership.
It was the Most
Worshipful Grand Master himself, the Duke of Kent,
who gave the lead. In his address to Grand Lodge in
March 1984 he stated his belief that the time had
come to alter the traditional response of "no
comment". He emphasized that he was not suggesting a
full blown public relations campaign and certainly
not a recruiting drive, But he believed that ways
could and should. be found of better informing the
public as to the nature, the purposes and the
history of Freemasonry and of countering factual
errors appearing in the media.
The Most
Worshipful the Grand Master having spoken it fell to
the Board of General Purposes to implement his
suggestions. Like all good boards they set up a
committee, but on this occasion it was a small
information committee whose brief was to investigate
and report back to the Board. The information
committee quickly realized that it had a double job
to perform, for channels of communication within the
Craft itself, left much to be desired. Moreover, if
the Craft was to be seen to speak with one voice,
and if we were to expect our brethren to discuss
Freemasonry with anyone, it would have to be
educated.
A number of major new policy decisions
were taken. The Grand Secretary was to be the
official spokesman on national matters. On
Provincial matters, Provincial Grand Masters were
asked to appoint local spokesman. A Grand
Secretary's newsletter was introduced and copies
were provided for each member of the Craft so that
within three weeks of every quarterly meeting of
Grand Lodge each member of a lodge would be aware of
what had taken place.
A series of leaflets on the
topics, "What is Freemasonry", "Freemasonry and
Religion", "Freemasonry and Society" and
"Freemasonry and Its External Relations" was
developed. Initially published to aid brethren in
discussing Freemasonry with their families and
friends, they were soon used to provide basic
information to nonMasons. When any organization
announced that it proposed to inquire into
Freemasonry, the Grand Secretary was empowered to
write to it with an offer to discuss Freemasonry in
general or any particular problems which were
perceived.
Although non Masons had been able to visit
Freemasons Hall in London and the Grand Lodge
Library and Museum for many years as the guests of
members, the hall was opened to the general public.
In 1986 a permanent public exhibition telling the
story of English Freemasonry was opened by the Most
Worshipful the Grand Master, with a full panoply of
media present. In the nearly three years that it has
been open, over 70,000 people have been through it.
Errors of fact or interpretation in newspapers,
magazine or on television programs are quickly
corrected by means of letters to the Editor and
official spokesmen take part in radio and television
interviews. In 1987 the Grand Lodge produced a
thirty minute video, "The Freemasons", showing what
Freemasonry is today, a little of its history, what
it stands for, and examples of the charitable work
carried out both within the Masonic charities and by
Masonic assistance to non-Masonic charities. The
list might not appear long, but it has involved an
enormous amount of back room work.
It's only fair
to ask how successful it has been. The problems to
be tackled have been enormous. Changes in public
opinion do not occur overnight, but a number of
achievements have been made. The public are now
aware that there is an alternative view to the views
they received from the media and antiMasonic
writings. They are also becoming aware that there
are sources of accurate information available to
them whether they are members or not.
The media
are now very much aware that any nonsense they write
about Freemasonry will be challenged immediately.
The more sensible members of the fraternity of
journalism now contact either Grand Lodge or a local
spokesman to verify details of stories they have
picked up. Groups seeking to inquire into
Freemasonry know that they can now discuss
Freemasonry with authoritative spokesman and if they
misreport Freemasonry they will be challenged, and
have been. A notable success occurred when the
London Borough of Hackney attempted to blame
problems within the authority on Freemasonry's
influence within the administration.
At the
expense of 500,000 pounds they employed a Queen's
Council to make an independent inquiry. As an
independent lawyer he was given unprecedented
confidential assistance by Grand Lodge and to the
chagrin of the local authority proved conclusively
that Freemasonry had nothing to do with its
problems, which were a result of maladministration
and lack of executive control. As a result of that,
four other authorities who had announced similar
inquiries decided they had better ways of spending
half a million pounds.
The Craft in general is
becoming more aware of itself and as a result of
that awareness, more willing to talk about
Freemasonry with families and friends, thus
spreading more knowledge amongst the public and
killing the idea that Freemasonry is a secret
society. The struggle has been and will continue to
be a uphill one. There are still those who will
never be convinced that Freemasonry, far from being
a conspiracy, is in fact a force for good in
society, but gains are being regularly made. The
reactions to the recently published follow-up to
Stephen Knight's "The Brotherhood", the ingeniously
entitled "Inside the Brotherhood" has been
interesting.
The national media has largely
ignored it. Of the nine national daily newspapers in
England, when the book was published on the 6th of
April, 1989, only three took any notice. Two of them
said, "if you are into conspiracy theory, have 15
pounds to spend, or want a cure for insomnia, buy
the book". One newspaper noted for being
anti-anything published a full page report saying,
"at last again we have got the evidence, the
Freemasons have had it this time". A non-Mason wrote
to them and they published his letter two days after
their review.
His comment was, "if Martin Short,
the author of the book, has got the evidence that he
claims he has, why in the book does he hide behind
pseudonyms and statements like 'I was asked not to
identify this person, he is a Freemason and fears
reprisal from his brethren'. If he has the
information and it is factual information, which
will stand up in court, why has he not reported it
to the legal authorities. Why is he hiding? Why is
he afraid of the laws of libel? The only conclusion
I can draw is that he has not got the evidence; it
is all gossip and innuendo again".
As with any
major policy change there were difficulties in
persuading many English brethren that the change in
1984 was necessary, and that the change would not
exacerbate the problem. Having seen how Grand Lodge
has handled the problems, the majority are now
convinced that the change was right and will ensure
the future of English Freemasonry. Starting from a
defensive position, those involved in the policy
change have now been able to move to positive
action. In an ideal world none of us would have
problems, but we live in an all too human world.
There will always be those who would decry any
organization which works for good. Rather than
converting any one to Freemasonry, what we would
like to see in England is a simple return to the
pre-1939 situation with Freemasonry being recognized
as a perfectly normal part of the social fabric of
England, working for the good of society in general.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q: What is the current
situation with the Roman Catholic Church and its
relationship with Freemasonry? A: The current
situation of the Roman Catholic Church is absolute
confusion. In the late 1960s there was a move from
both inside and outside the church to remove the old
Canon Law, which introduced immediate
excommunication for anyone joining Freemasonry. It
was spearheaded in Europe, particularly in France,
by a number of Jesuits Priests who had become
fascinated by Freemasonry.
They made a
distinction between, what they termed Anglo Saxon
Freemasonry, the Freemasonry that had come out of
the British Isles and gone around the world, and the
Freemasonry which had developed in Europe in the
18th century, which was largely what we would call
quasi Freemasonry today. This latter form of
Freemasonry, was adopted as a cloak for political
and anti-clerical organizations. There was also a
move afoot in England spearheaded by one of my late
colleagues in Quatuor Coronati Lodge, the late,
great Harry Carr.
He had correspondence and
meetings with the late Cardinal Heenan, the Cardinal
Archbishop of Westminster, the Senior Roman Catholic
Prelate in England in the early 1970s with the idea
of working with these Jesuits, and others in Europe,
and getting the Vatican to change its Canon against
Freemasonry. It looked as though there was going to
be a certain amount of success on that. Cardinal
Heenan certainly agreed with the Jesuits that there
was nothing that the church had to fear from the
Anglo Saxon type of Freemasonry.
He was going to
bring it up when he went to Rome for the Second
Vatican Counsel. Unfortunately, that Second Vatican
Counsel was totally stonewalled on everything
because the Pope brought out his encyclical on the
birth control pill and that just blocked anything
else that they wanted to discuss. Cardinal Heenan
said that it was best to let matters ride until
things had settled down again and it could be
brought up as an separate issue rather than as an
issue hanging onto other issues.
By 1976 there
were a number of requests from Roman Catholics as to
what the attitude was between the Catholic church
and Freemasonry. Our then Pro Grand Master, the Earl
Cadogan, wrote to Cardinal Heenan and informed him
of that we had people who had come into Freemasonry
who are Roman Catholics and want to continue
practising their faith and going to church. We have
others who are waiting to come in but they want to
know what the situation is.
Where do we actually
stand? Cardinal Heenan went to the Council of
Bishops in England and put the whole matter before
them. They produced a letter, which went back to
Earl Cadogan. We were given permission to circulate
the letter to our Lodges and to publicize it. Their
advice to us was "that provided a Roman Catholic
found nothing in his own conscience of
incompatibility between his Roman catholicism and
Freemasonry, provided it was not going to cause any
problems in his marriage, or his family, and
provided he discussed it with his Priest, there was
no reason why he should not come into Freemasonry
and the church authorities in England would not
excommunicate him".
We have been working on that
letter ever since. In the late 1970s there was a
move to reform a great deal of Canon law, including
the Canon against Freemasonry. In either 1980 or
1981, a new Canon law was published and instead of
various Canons against various organizations, they
put in a general Canon prohibiting Roman Catholics
from joining any society which worked against the
church. That is the most ambiguous statement I have
ever heard put in any sort of law.
There is in
the Vatican a Cardinal Ratzinger who is Head of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the
late 1970s he caused great distress when he was a
Cardinal in Germany, by getting the German Council
of Bishops to condemn Freemasonry. He had published
in the Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican
newspaper, an anonymous article saying quite
categorically that despite the dropping of the old
Canon the new Canon on organizations which worked
against the church covered Freemasonry.
So you
have a situation where half the church is saying the
ban no longer exists because the Canon has been
dropped. You have Cardinal Ratzinger, and his
supporters, who are still in the old hard line anti
Masonic tradition, saying this new catch-all Canon
covers Freemasonry. We approached Cardinal Hume, the
present Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster to ask
for clarification. His advice to us was "do not rock
the boat at the moment; you have my predecessor's
letter, continue working on that", So in England
that is what we are doing.
I know there have been
many problems in the United States of America,
because one of their Councils of Bishops has come
out with the Ratzinger view. The Americans had been
doing a lot of work bringing the Freemasons and the
Knights of Columbus together. They had the
Archbishop of New York address the Grand Lodge of
New York and they had a very happy situation
developing there. That has all been thrown into
doubt and really the present situation is just out
and out confusion.
The Vatican itself does not
seem to know which way it is pointed. The advice
given to most people who have enquired is "let it
sleep for the moment; continue the way you have been
going". When certain people have disappeared from
their present positions, that will be the time to
bring it up again, not before. Q: Does the Lutheran
attack stem from the Ratzinger approach? A: No.
That is a separate issue. If you take a religious
spectrum of, at the one end the fundamentalists
Evangelical, Pentecostal-, and Rome at the other,
they have totally different views. The reason that
the Missouri Lutheran Church has opposed Masonry and
the reason that most of tele-Evangelists in the
United States have taken a stand against
Freemasonry, is quite frankly, (and I make no
apologies for making an unChristian comment about
supposed Christians) they are grossly intolerant.
They do not like the fact that Freemasonry
practices tolerance and permits its members to meet
without differences of religion coming between them.
This fact was put to us by one member of the General
Synod of the Church of England Working Group on
their Report on Freemasonry. This person is a very
well known born-again Evangelical, working within
the Church of England. She put it to us that the
reason that we are wrong is that we do not mention
Jesus Christ in our meetings. We do not take these
non-Christians aside and bully them into becoming
her type of Christian and that is the aspect that
they do not like.
That is the problem identified
with the basic Craft. It is the fact that we engage
in prayer with those who are not Christian, or not
their particular brand of Christianity. The other
problems arise with the fundamentalist wing of the
Christian churches when you get into the appendant
orders. That applies particularly to those orders
that are still Christian and require their members
to be Christian.
They regard these orders as
being wholly blasphemous, despite the fact that we
satisfy them in one way and that is that in most of
the Christian orders, prayers are given in the name
of Jesus Christ and in most of them you have to be a
trinitarian Christian. In addition, most appendant
orders back up the principles of Christianity. The
fact that we do certain things, which the
fundamentalists say are aping the sacraments, they
condemn as blasphemous, and we as blasphemers.
That is the sort of angle that they are coming
from. Q: Has all the media coverage of these
disputes increased the interest of the public in the
Craft? A: Yes, not unnaturally, with all the media
attention. We use a press cutting service which
clips all the national, local papers and magazines
in England and Wales and sends any reference to
Freemasonry. Up until January 1984 we were receiving
something like 50 to 60 press cuttings a year. From
January to August 1984 we were getting 50 to 60 a
day. That was the sort of interest that was
stimulated.
Once we came out of our shells and
started explaining ourselves, the interest turned
from curiosity to an actual genuine interest in what
Freemasonry was and how it had developed. My
professional full time job is Librarian and Curator
of Grand Lodge. We have noticed in the last five
years, while this has been going on, that the number
of enquiries that we have been receiving each year
has quadrupled, if not quintupled, from the end of
1983 to the end of 1988 when I did my report for my
committee. A good 50% of those enquiries, are
sensible, reasonable enquiries coming from
non-Masons. The other 50% are largely sensible
questions coming from our own members.
There has
been a great deal of interest stimulated. The one
great joy for me is that at last Freemasonry and its
history are actually being recognized as history. I
have some very interesting work going on at the
moment with three professors of history at three of
our universities who have finally realized that
Freemasonry formed a very important part of the
social fabric of British life for 250 years. You
notice ridiculous things like the magnificent
biography of King George the IV printed four years
ago. He was the Grand Master of the Premier of Grand
Lodge in England for 21 years and yet the biographer
never mentioned that he was a even a Freemason.
That is all changing and so in that way, there has
been a very decided change for the better. The
reaction my staff were getting from a lot of people
initially, was that they had wanted to ask these
questions for a long time but they had thought if
they had got in touch with us they would have met a
brick wall and would not have received a reply. Now
that they know they will get answers, the questions
have been flooding in.
Q: Has all the media
coverage of these disputes influenced membership? A:
The effects on membership are a lime difficult to
really establish. We allow plural membership in
England and for every lodge of which you are member,
you pay a Grand Lodge per capita fee so that we know
that we have just over 600 thousand lodge
memberships, How many individual membership that
represents I do not know because you get people like
me who are members of five or six lodges, you will
get others who are just members of two, others who
are members of just one.
At the moment we are
going through the modern practice of being
computerized and should be able to sort it out at
the end of this year, but we do not know what the
fall off rate is and we do not know how many we are
losing by death. There are two ways we can gauge how
things are going, one is by the number of Grand
Lodge certificates that are issued to new Master
Masons each year and the other is by the number of
new lodges that are being formed.
We had a
definite dip in candidates coming in towards the end
of the 60s and early 1970s because we went through a
very bad economic depression. In the last ten years
the average number of Grand Lodge certificates
issued to new Master Masons every year has been
something like 15,000 to 15,500. We have been adding
something like 40 to 45 new lodges a year. Now that
needs a little bit of explanation. We believe in
small lodges. In London the average membership of a
lodge will be 40 to 60; in the provinces it will
probably be just over or just under a 1 00.
We
believe very firmly that any Master Mason coming
into a lodge, if he wants to, should be able to go
through the line of offices and become Master of his
lodge within a reasonable time. At our Grand
Investiture meeting in April, the Grand Master
defined "reasonable time" as ten years. Less than
ten years he thought was too hurried and if it gets
much more than ten years the lodge is too big.
As
a result of that statement and as a result of the
desire for small lodges, there is no official number
how many there can be in a lodge (with the exception
of one lodge), more lodges have been formed. If a
back log of work is being created or if people are
having to wait a long time before they can get into
office, then there is a general suggestion that a
daughter lodge should be formed so that those people
can have the opportunity of doing the work they want
to do. As a result of that principle, we have
something like 8,750 lodges under our Grand Lodge
and we are adding about 40 to 45 new ones a year.
The global number of memberships dropped in the
early 70s; because of the economic problems a lot of
people dropped their second, third or fourth lodge.
That has gone up again and although we dropped quite
considerably below the 600 thousand mark, we have
gone right over it again so that our general feeling
is that we are at least holding our own, and there
is a sort of gut feeling that we are slightly
increasing. If you consider the future of the Craft,
we had a horrendous situation in the early 70s where
the average age of our candidates was in the 50s. We
had the 1960s generation which does not join
anything, does not like anything particularly that
seems to be connected with anything establishment,
and they have not joined. We are now getting quite a
lot of late 20s, early 30s people coming in.
It
is a healthy sign that we are getting applicants in
that age range starting to come in. They are coming
in sufficient numbers for it to be noticed at Grand
Lodge when they are processing the returns of new
members. I think it was Horace Walpole in the 1730s
who said that a bit of persecution was good for
every organization occasionally. The one thing that
did happen when everything was going on in the
newspapers, as I said, was our break with tradition.
The Grand Secretary and myself are official
spokesman at the national level.
The Grand
Secretary came right into the twentieth century when
he appeared on a radio phone-in program with the
late Steven Knight. As a result of what he said on
that program we had a enormous mail bag the
following week from people saying "how do I join
this organization?" Q: How many members would be in
the English lodges that meet only four times a year
and what would be the membership of each lodge? A:
London, for Masonic purposes, is an area within a
radios of 10 miles of Freemasons' Hall, the Grand
Lodge building.
Within that area there are just
under 1700 lodges. They meet on average four times a
year; some might meet six times, but the average is
four. The average membership of a London Lodge will
be somewhere between 40 and 60. Having four meetings
a year they will take in one perhaps two candidates
a year, and possibly a couple of joining members as
we call them, affiliates I think you call them. So
that gives them three meetings plus the fourth
meeting for the installation of the new Master.
In addition to that, however, they have what we call
a Lodge of Instruction for the officers. Now that
will meet once a week, usually in a room above a
"pub", during the whole of the Masonic season from
the beginning of September till the beginning of
June. The officers of the lodge and new members of
the lodge, once they have gone through their Third
Degree, will be expected to attend. That is how they
learn the ritual. They will certainly be expected to
attend if they are officers and there is a ceremony
coming up.
They will be expected to attend the
three meeting of the Lodge of Instruction before
that meeting and they may do the odd social thing.
Basically, there are four actual meetings of the
formal lodge. We do not have a stated meeting and an
emergent meeting as you do on this side of the
Atlantic. In the meeting they will do the general
business of the lodge and then will do the degree
work that has to be done, but we deal with our
general business rather differently than you do.
Our Master, Treasurer and Secretary are given much
more authority. They deal with a lot of the routine,
recurring business of the lodge which does not
really need a decision from the full membership of
the lodge. The work done will be reported to the
lodge committee and to the lodge. The Bylaws of the
lodge will stipulate the amount for the cheques that
can be signed by the Master and the Treasurer
without reference to the lodge.
By that means,
they can deal with things like the cost of replacing
the candles without the bill having to go to the
lodge for decision. The actual administrative
business of the lodge is kept as brief 'as possible.
Major things are always brought to the lodge for
decision, but again the full discussion of them
would be done in the lodge committee to which
representatives of all grades within the lodge are
elected. They will give their report on what they
think.
If anybody in the lodge wants to object
they may do it and there will be a discussion about
it, but the usual thing is for the lodge to accept
the recommendation of the committee and vote on it.
Our ceremonies are slightly shorter than those in
Canada so we are able to do general business and
ceremonial work in the one meeting.
Q: How is
Freemasonry fairing in the former colonial
territories where an indigenous government has taken
over when independence has been granted? A: There
have been varied reactions and I think they varied
according to the situation that was going on before
independence came. You have the marvellous situation
of places like the Far East where there was complete
harmony between the locals and the lodges in places
like Singapore and Hong Kong. There was an initial
worry in Malaya because they had a Moslem
government.
Most Moslem governments tend to see
Freemasonry, because we use the old testament in the
Craft Ceremonies, as a arm of Zionism. They have
tunnel vision through which, anything mentioning
Israel and the old testament is immediately Zionist.
There was this reaction in Malaysia. What happened
there was the English District Grand Master, the
Provincial Grand Master of the Scottish Lodge, and
the District Grand Master of the Irish Grand Lodge,
went to see the government and said, "what are your
problems and what can we explain to you".
This
was before Grand Lodge had started its open policy.
They were very frank with the government and
explained exactly what they did in Freemasonry. They
explained it was not a religion; it had nothing to
do with the state of Israel; it had nothing to do
with Zionism. The government said, That is fine, you
have been honest with us so we have no problem". The
same situation came up in Burma where we still have
a District of eight lodges. Again they have a Moslem
government and the government has a law that a
government officer can enter any private meeting.
The District Grand Master discussed it with the
government and said, "well if that is the law, as
Freemasons we have obligated ourselves to uphold the
law of the country in which we are residing so we
obviously have to abide by that law. If you want to
send someone along we will have to receive him".
There was a story, probably apocryphal, that they
did actually send someone along and that he was so
bored nobody else has gone back.
Again however,
it was cooperation of going to them and explaining,
not cow-towing to them, but explaining to the people
what the situation was. Regrettably the opposite
happened in Pakistan where they had a very hard line
Moslem government until fairly recently. We, with
our tradition over there, had a very flourishing
English District and a very flourishing Scottish
District, even after independence. In 1967 a
hardline Moslem government came in one day and the
next day they sacked the Masonic temples; they
closed everything down; they destroyed all the
Masonic property; and that was it. You just closed
down with no discussion whatsoever.
Happily,
there has been a change of government and chances
are that in the next 12 months the anti-Masonic law
will be rescinded. Our lodges and the Scottish
lodges will then be able to take up their work
again. We have not erased them from our register
because of the way in which they were stopped, in
the hope that they would be able to begin working
again. In the various district in Africa there has
been a fairly mixed reaction.
In Nigeria there
was a great deal of trouble. The same thing happened
as in Pakistan. There was a change of government and
a law was introduced whereby nobody in government
employ could be Freemason and they closed down and
took over the various lodge buildings. Again that
government was thrown out. The President made the
mistake of going abroad for a conference and he
found that when he was on the airplane that he had
lost his job.
The new government gradually
allowed Freemasonry to come back in. In places like
Ghana or Sierra Leone there have never been any
problems at all. There is a marvellous racial and
religious mix within the English, Irish and Scottish
lodges there because they have wanted to remain
under the home Grand Lodges and have not wanted to
go independent. They have always been public in what
they have done and have had no problems up to now.
But again, you cannot tell if there is a change of
government. If you get a Communist government taking
over, the shutters come down immediately and
Freemasonry is finished. They will not tolerate
Freemasonry at all. There was a lot of worry about
what would happen in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe as it now
is. It appeared that there would be a lot of
interference, but basically what it came down to was
that all the names of various places were altered
from British names to names in local languages. We
had to change the name from the District Grand Lodge
of Rhodesia to the District Grand Lodge of Zimbabwe,
Salisbury became Harare, so Salisbury Lodge became
Harare Lodge.
There has been no direct
interference to the present and the reports we have
been getting are that there is not likely to be any
in the near future. The one thing that they are
worried about is that the local population is not
joining the way they used to and it is becoming very
much an ex-patriates club. That is another danger
which you get. A similar thing happened in Uganda
under Idi Amin, Freemasonry became very much a
European ex-patriates club, where before, it had
been a good mix of Europeans and the local people.
It depends very much where you look and where you
go; it depends very much how a government lasts and
what the attitude is. The situation in Ireland is
one of the things that confuses the press. Because
Northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom
the press always assume that the Northern Ireland
Lodges are under the United Grand Lodge of England.
There are two things which unite Ireland, one is
rugby football and the other is Freemasonry. The
Grand Lodge of Ireland has its headquarters in
Dublin and its strength in the six provinces of
Ulster, the northern part of Ireland which is still
part of the United Kingdom.
Both sides are happy
to be together. There are no differences of opinion
and they have been attracting Catholics into
membership over the last few years. It has been one
of the very interesting things that, in all the
dreadful troubles, there have been in Northern
Ireland there has never been any interference with
Masons or with Masonic lodge rooms. Where many other
buildings have been destroyed, lodge rooms have
remained secure.
It was said to me, by a very
senior Irish Freemason, that he very firmly believes
the reason that the northern brethren have not been
attacked by anybody is the fact that Freemasonry in
Ireland is united and ft is a uniting force. It is
not a divisive force within that country. Q: I
recognize the differences between England, Wales,
Ireland and Scotland but do we have problems between
Masonry related to established religion in Scotland?
A: There have not been similar problems in Scotland
mainly because Scotland has always been extremely
open about Freemasonry.
A Scottish lodge
secretary does not have the problem of mailing
summons or agendas to all his members. All he does
is to put a notice in the local paper so they always
have been open about everything. They always have
been known. They have not had the same sort of
pressures as England but they are starting to get a
little bit. The Kirk in Scotland, (the Church of
Scotland) has issued a Pastoral letter to the
Ministers of the Kirk, rather than a report, on
Freemasonry. This will go to the General Assembly of
the Church of Scotland which I think meets in July
of 1989. The letter says more or less what the
Anglican Synod report said.
I think they will get
a different reaction from the church assembly
because they have very badly misjudged how many
ministers of the Kirk are actually in Freemasonry in
Scotland. They have not had the same sort of
problems for that very important reason. They have
stayed within the community and they have stayed
visible within the community. When stories run in
the English papers about Freemasonry they do not run
in the Scottish papers because the editors of the
Scottish newspapers know they will be laughed at,
because all their people know who their local
Freemasons are, what they are and what they are not
doing.
Q: What is the Mormon stance toward
Freemasonry? A: The original relationship between
members of the Mormon church and the Freemasons in
America, is a very complicated one. Joseph Smith
himself, who formed the Mormons was a Freemason. He
had a lodge at Nauvoo Village. There was a great
deal of argument over what they were doing, and
there was also a great deal of argument between
three Grand Lodges as to whose jurisdiction he
should come under, because at that time the
territory he was in was not actually a State of the
Union.
The situation, as I understand it, is that
in the State of Utah, Mormons will not let their
members become Freemasons. Second, The Grand Lodge
of Utah used to require an applicant for Freemasonry
to renounce Mormonism. Why they should have done
that I do not know, because it totally goes against
the basic principle that we are open to men of any
faith, but it has some sort of grounding in the
historical conflict that went on in the 1840s, 50s
and 60s.
The very surprising thing about it was
that a very good friend of mine quotes a
professional colleague who actually lives in Salt
Lake City and is an ex-mormon as saying that anybody
who goes into the Mormon Temple and to the Mormon
Churches ceremonies, (particularly their private
ceremonies which only the senior of their clergy
actually get to see and participate in) will see
pure Freemasonry. If you go to their great building
in Salt Lake City, the part of it that you are not
allowed in as a non-Mormon, is probably one of the
most splendid Masonic Temples in the world.
The
unhappy situation is that Mormons will not allow
their members to become Freemasons and for very
complicated historical reasons and arguments that
went on over sixty or seventy years. I do not think
the renouncing of Mormonism by applicants for
Masonry pertained in other Grand Lodges in the
United States, but I may be wrong on that. Comment
from a participant. I spent a period of time in
Utah, and have friends amongst the Masonic
community.
In 1986, because of the pressure put on the Grand
Lodge of Utah by Mormon Masons coming from other
jurisdictions and returning to Utah, among other
things, the Grand Lodge rescinded its policy of not
accepting applications from non-Masons who were
Mormons. Their policy from that time to the present
is sorely on the ballot box and allow the
individual's character to either vindicate him or
have him not accepted into the fraternity.
The
Masonic fraternity there is comparatively small
because of the strong influence of the Mormon Church
in the state and that influence extends into every
facet of society - the judiciary, the constabulary,
the business community, and the press. The influence
of the Mormon church is absolutely unbelievable but
one of the benefits, (I am thinking back to your
earlier remark that a bit of persecution is good) is
that the Masonic community including the Concordant
bodies is a beautiful thing to see, in the way they
work together.
As far as the conflict between
Masons and Mormons, it no longer officially exists
on the part of the Grand Lodge of Utah and they are
relying on the ballot box. Q: Does the Grand Lodge
of England see any light because of the new policies
in the Soviet Union under Glastnost or about
Freemasonry eventually entering or reestablishing in
Communist countries? A: I cannot see that what is
going on in Russia at the moment will allow
Freemasonry to come back into Communist countries.
There is a very interesting development though, in
some of the Eastern Block countries, particularly
Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
There is a very
strong interest in Freemasonry in both those
countries as a historical subject. In the last ten
years there have been about a dozen books published
in the two countries that people who I have met
Masonically in London who read these languages, say
are written as history books and not as anti-Masonic
propaganda. They are pure factual history books. In
Czechoslovakia recently they discovered a hoard of
Nazi loot from the last war which had been buried in
mines.
Amongst it was a lot of material which had
been taken from Masonic Halls in Germany. Many of
these lodge halls are in East Germany now and many
of the items, libraries and documentation belonged
to lodges which no longer exist. They are actually
setting up, in a small 18th century castle in part
of Czechoslovakia or Poland, I am not sure which, a
study centre of the history of Freemasonry in East
Europe.
They are interested purely as a
historical thing and not as an organization to be
started up. Q: Regarding, privacy versus secrecy:
has the Grand Lodge of England given any direction
or guidance to its members as to whether they should
mention their membership or not? I know I have heard
from time to time people discussing whether or not
you should put Masonic affiliation on job
applications or curriculum vitae or any of these
biographies for people who have to be in public
spotlights.
A: A simple answer to your question
about what our advice is to people putting
membership information on C.V.s for job applications
and things like that is "NO". We very heavily drum
into our candidates that they do not join
Freemasonry to get anything out of it. It is one of
the reasons why there has often been reticence
amongst English brethren about declaring their
membership because we hammer this into them.
We
do not allow our members to frame their certificates
and hang them in their office or in their home. It
is one of the reasons we have been against Masonic
jewellery and things like that, because you could be
construed as advertising your membership to try and
attract business from other Freemasons. We have
always been very strong on that. On a job
application you could be misunderstood as trying to
let another Mason on the advisory board or selection
panel or whatever, know that you are a Freemason.
The subject of course came up with what has been
going on over the last four or five years,
particularly with certain local authorities asking
people to declare their membership. Our reply to
them was, "if you are asked say, 'yes', do not lie.
If you have to correct a lie in the future or you
are found out lying, that is only going to make your
situation worse. If, unfortunately, it comes to a
situation where by having declared membership, your
career is going to have problems, then what you do
is to temporarily resign from your lodge and you let
it be known to your employers.
When things have
settled down again you can come back into your
lodge. You will come back exactly where you were;
you will not lose anything by it. Your career and
your family must come first, but if you are asked to
formally declare your membership, on no account lie.
That will only get you into more trouble and it will
only bring disrepute on Freemasonry". Q: Where do
these lodges that David Yallup writes about, such as
P2, fit in, and are they perhaps the source of much
of the condemnation of our movement? Maybe we need
something worldwide to unite us and try to educate
the public on what a normal lodge is and what is
not?
A: I see three things: One, your last
comment about a worldwide authority. I think that
would be the worst thing that could happen for
Freemasonry. It would only confirm the conspiracy
theories of the anti-Masons and their idea that
there is an international conspiracy. I think the
individual sovereignty of each Grand Lodge is the
great strength that we have to stand on today.
Regarding David Yallup's book, "In Gods Name": David
Yallup was a good writer who became an investigative
journalist and has gone right down the line of
chasing money.
He wrote his book to make money
and there are a lot of very bad basic factual errors
in it. As to P2 lodge and other irregular lodges. I
referred to P2 a few moments ago in answer to the
question on the Roman Catholic church. One of the
attractions in the eighteenth century of European
Freemasonry was that Europe was a very rigid
monarchical society. They liked the political
freedom that there then was in the British Isles.
They equated our three basic principles of brotherly
love, relief and truth with liberty, fraternity, and
equality and a confusion arose between them.
They
could not hold political meetings so they held
so-called Masonic meetings to get on with their
political action and anti-clerical activities.
Particularly in France, anti-state politics were
tied up with anti-Roman Catholic church politics.
That has continued to the present day. There are a
number of so called "Grand Lodges" and "Grand
Orients" in Europe which are totally beyond the pale
as far as regular Freemasonry is concerned.
Perhaps the best known is the Grand Orient of
France, which up until 1875, was recognized as
regular. In that year they withdrew all reference to
the Great Architect from their Constitutions and
rituals, they threw the Volume of the Sacred Law out
of their lodge room and they rejected, what we
regard as the very essential qualification of every
candidate, a belief in a Supreme Being. They allowed
atheists and free-thinkers in. As a result of that
the Three British Grand Lodges immediately withdrew
recognition. It had no effect, and in fact, the
Grand Orient in France now is basically a third
political party in France.
They spend all their
time discussing political and social problems and do
very little of what we would actually recognize as
Freemasonry. P2 is a very tricky and very
complicated situation. P2, or to give it its proper
name, "Propaganda Due" was an Italian lodge on the
register of the Grand Orient of Italy which is a
recognized Grand Lodge. It has been recognized by
the British Grand Lodges since 1972. Initially, it
was formed in the 1870s as a sort of research lodge.
As time went on it became a sort of Grand Master's
private lodge in which he had all his friends and
his advisors as members. Under Italian law any
society has to register its members with the local
police. Certain Italian Grand Masters in the 1970s
wanted to bring people into the lodge who felt it
would be detrimental to their careers, usually in
politics and diplomacy, if it became publicly known
that they were Freemasons. So they began to use
"Propaganda Due Lodge" as a sort of double lodge.
There was a set of members whose names appeared on
the return to the local magistrate and the local
police. There was a second list which did not go to
the authorities which was of people who they thought
would be good for Freemasonry. Unfortunately, one of
the people they brought in was the notorious Robert
Calvi. He became Master of the lodge and found out
that there was this second list. He started
introducing all sorts of people who should not have
been Freemasons into it, and not just introducing
them in actual meetings of the lodge.
He would
hold a meeting of "Propaganda Due" in his hotel
suite and just make people Masons at sight. The
Grand Orient of Italy had a change of Grand Master
who got wind of this. The new Grand Master said
immediately to them, "you drop these people
immediately and return a list of all your members to
the police or you are out; and until you have done
that you are suspended, They were suspended. Calvi
was followed by a man called Licio Gelli who was
even more notorious.
He became the next Master
after Calvi. Gelli continued during the suspension
so the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy
served notice of erasure, in I think 1979. The lodge
has been erased and no longer exists. Calvi and
Gelli were basically using a secret lodge, not even
a proper lodge, to further their own financial
chicanery. When it all came out and the Bank of
Ambrosiano collapsed a great deal of information
came out about this so-called P2 lodge.
It caused
a great deal of harm to Freemasonry in Europe in
general, because it appeared as though a regular
lodge, under a regular Grand Lodge was doing exactly
what every anti-Mason has said we have been doing
for the last 1 00 years. It was a situation where
the Grand Master, for good reasons, had broken his
own constitution, and two people who should never
have come into Freemasonry, took advantage of that
and used it for their own purposes. The actual
regular members of P2 lodge did not know what Calvi
and Gelli were up to.
When the police made a much
publicized raid on Gelli's flat to seize all his
papers and found the notorious list of 900 members
this was a classic piece of misinformation. It was
the only piece of paper they found in his flat. Now
if he had very carefully cleared his flat of
everything and all that was left behind on his desk
was the list, it is most suspicious. The list has
never been fully published outside Italy.
Following an Italian parliamentary investigation for
three years into the whole P2 business two thirds of
the people on that list said they had never even set
eyes on Gelli or Calvi, He had put their names on
the list to just stir the pot up a bit. He was going
down and was determined to take as many people as he
could with him. Transcribed from recordings.
