May 1989

CONTEMPORARY ANTI-FREEMASONRY

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.



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