MASSONERIA

FREEMASONRY. – A secret society of a cosmopolitan and initiatory character, established with the aim of uniting men of all nations and organizing society on exclusively humanitarian and secular foundations.

I. OPERATIVE FREEMASONRY

Its origins are linked to the ancient guilds of master masons, which reached their greatest expansion and importance especially from the 11th to the 13th centuries. In the feverish building activity of that age, it is understandable how good architects and good masons, master builders, stonecutters, etc., were sought after and enticed everywhere with privileges, immunities, and exemptions, and how masonry acquired a kind of international character and a primacy over all other arts. The popes were no less generous than secular princes: Boniface IV (1110), Nicholas III (1277), Benedict XII (1331) recognized their right to govern themselves according to their own statutes, with exemptions from local burdens and obligations, to move freely from country to country, and to enjoy a kind of monopoly for the construction of the most important religious buildings. Hence the appellation *liberi, franc, frei, free*, and the title which, with legitimate pride, the masonic guilds attributed to themselves of *royal art*. To preserve and enhance this prestige, much was contributed by the strict observance of the rules established in the guild statutes regarding the initiation of new recruits and the promotion from the rank of *apprentice*, to which they were admitted to the art, to those of *journeyman* and *master*, the solemnity of ceremonies and rites with which they were invested with the symbols of the art—square, compass, apron, etc.—the solemn oaths, and the inviolable observance of professional secrecy and of the civil, religious, and moral duties imposed by the statutes. Through this investiture, the brother (as members called each other) was made a participant in a password, signs of recognition, etc., by which he was received wherever he went and welcomed fraternally by fellow craftsmen, provided for and aided in his needs.

The guild statutes were very demanding regarding not only the professional but also the personal qualities of the members, and they did not permit admission unless to persons of legitimate birth and of irreproachable religious and moral conduct. A French document from the end of the 14th century, the *Poème maçonnique*, which contains a kind of civil and religious etiquette of the good freemason, insists in particular on the devotion that he must have toward God, the saints, and the Church. The same precepts are inculcated in all the ancient guild statutes that have been preserved, up to the *Constitutions of Masonry* of 1704, which are the last known in England before the transformation of lodges from operative to speculative. The attachment of the freemasons to the Catholic Church is demonstrated in France by the prominent role they played in the movement of the Ligue, in England by the tenacious resistance they offered to the efforts of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth to introduce the Reformation into the lodges, and in Italy by the frequency of altars and chapels erected by the guilds of the “Lombards” wherever they were most numerous. Alongside the craft guilds, there often existed confraternities, which Protestantism (says Le Forestière) reformed but which still survive, observing the cult of brotherhood, respect for the official religion, and traditional customs.

The abandonment of religious architecture in countries invaded by the Protestant Reformation, as well as the dissensions that soon began to manifest themselves among masters and artisans (the latter organized in secret leagues of resistance [compagnonnage], with strange names, rites, and jargon no less bizarre; a sentence of March 14, 1655, from the Faculty of Theology of the Sorbonne declared their practices and rites impious, sacrilegious, and superstitious), brought about, along with the professional crisis, the decline of the guilds. To restore their prestige, they adopted the system of admitting influential honorary members from the upper classes. From the beginning of the 17th century in England, not a few nobles were counted among the members of the guilds, and it was a fashion, a gesture of exquisite elegance, to enroll in them. Little by little, the intellectual and aristocratic element became the true directing force, thus preparing the gradual transformation of Freemasonry from operative to speculative. “Everything leads one to believe,” says Bertolot, “that from the beginning of the 17th century the speculative elements will prevail over the operative ones, so that the substitution was already in progress at the beginning of the 18th century in all the great countries of Europe.” By now, serious historians, even Masonic ones, have definitively rejected as unfounded certain alarming versions that would trace Freemasonry back to Hiram, architect of the Temple of Jerusalem, to Zoroaster, to Confucius, to Pythagoras, to the mysteries of Egypt and Greece, to the Templars, and even to Noah and Adam.

II. POLITICAL FREEMASONRY

To gain an idea of the great evolution that took place within operative Freemasonry, one must consider what happened in political and social life in England from the end of the 17th to the beginning of the following century, and the vicissitudes undergone by the two great opposing parties, the Tories, supporters of the Stuarts and faithful to Catholic traditions, and the Whigs, advocates of parliamentarism and the Reformation. Masonic lodges, both because of the secrecy they maintained and because of their very nature, which inspired no suspicion, offered very fertile ground for conspiracies, for both parties. When, at the death of Anne Stuart († July 9, 1744), the Tories and with them the Scottish or Jacobite lodges decided to make a supreme effort in favor of James III, the last card was played not only for the dynasty but also for Freemasonry. The triumph of George I of Hanover († July 7, 1744) and the ascendancy of the Whigs marked the end of Jacobitism and of the Catholic Church and the first great success of English and Protestant Freemasonry.

III. ORIGINS OF SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY

During these events, four dissident operative lodges, existing in various districts of London, under the inspiration of a French Protestant immigrant, Théophile Désaguliers, a member of the Royal Society, united into a single grand lodge; this occurred on June 24, 1717, the feast of St. John the Baptist. Thus originated the Grand Lodge of England, destined to become the mother grand lodge of the world, and thus began true speculative Freemasonry. The Jacobite lodges were then subjected to raids, their archives were dispersed and burned. The main source of information remains the few notes left by Anderson in the preface to the *Constitutions* of 1738, but blind faith cannot be placed in them. One of the first founders of the Grand Lodge, Stuckeley, attests that much contributed to the vogue of the new institution was the mystery with which it surrounded itself, as well as the suggestive reputation that it cultivated occult sciences. Of the true character that Freemasonry was assuming, those first members did not yet seem to have a very clear perception.

Anderson’s Constitutions. – The task of compiling new constitutions was immediately entrusted to James Anderson, a Protestant pastor; on 27 December 1721 he presented the work, which was officially approved on 17 January 1723. Freemasonry (M.) is therein conceived as «a centre of union and a means of establishing sincere friendship among persons who, otherwise, would always have remained divided from one another». In the first chapter (Concerning God and Religion) the principle was expressed that a Mason who «understands the art well» will never become either a «stupid atheist» or an «irreligious libertine». Whereas formerly Masons were required to «practice everywhere the religion of the country», it was now deemed more expedient not to impose «any other religion than that in which all men agree», leaving «each one’s personal opinions entirely free».

It was also James Anderson who, in 1738, revised the Constitutions; in the chapter on religious duties a notable change was introduced whereby the Mason is bound to «observe the moral law as a true Noahide» and «recognise the three great articles of Noah as sufficient to preserve the cement of the law». In both editions of the Constitutions the concern is manifest to remedy, in some measure, the baleful effects of the Protestant Reformation by establishing peaceful coexistence on the basis of non-denominationalism and in a spirit of tolerance; but, above all—as Lantoine observes—to detach Freemasonry definitively from Catholicism and to align it with Anglicanism. The first step is taken in the 1723 Constitutions, the second in those of 1738, where the Bible is invoked as a doctrinal and moral norm, yet in so vague and indeterminate a fashion that persons of every sect and religious opinion might be accommodated within II.

IV. Expansion of Freemasonry

The rapid spread of Freemasonry throughout the world can be explained only by relating it to the power and prestige attained in those years by England. The ancient lodges of Wales, like those of Ireland and Scotland, were the first to submit to the Grand Lodge of London and each became a provincial Grand Lodge. By the middle of the century Freemasonry had penetrated into all the principal countries of Europe: France (1721), the Netherlands (1725), Spain (1726), Russia (1732), Italy (1733), Sweden (1735), Switzerland (1736), Poland (1739), Austria (1742), Denmark (1743), Norway (1745), and also Calcutta (1728), Gambia and Cape Coast Castle (1735), Massachusetts (1735).

1. Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry

In England, owing to the spiritual harm produced by the materialistic and irreligious doctrinalism within the lodges, a reactionary movement arose about the middle of the 18th century. The English Grand Lodge commissioned a new edition of the Constitutions from the Anglican pastor Entick and established as fundamental dogmas belief in God, the Grand Architect of the Universe, and respect for the Bible. Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry, faithful to these principles, has generally abstained from meddling in political and confessional matters and has preferred to devote its activity to humanitarian ends. Within the sphere it dominates (England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, the United States, etc.) that bitter anticlericalism characteristic of Freemasonry in Latin countries has not taken root, and the Catholic Church encounters no obstacles in the fulfilment of its religious and civil mission.

2. Trends of Freemasonry in France and England

Political Freemasonry took root in France from the close of the 17th century, when James II Stuart, having lost the throne of England, passed into France with the troops still loyal to him. Numerous Jacobite lodges then sprang up, serving to keep the exiles united among themselves and with their political friends in Scotland and England. In opposition to the Stuart lodges, which would have had as their first Grand Master the heroic and pious Charles Radcliffe, no less numerous were the Orangist lodges; until, with the cessation of political rivalries between France and England, an attempt was made to reconcile the two forms of Freemasonry as well. A distinguished patron of this reconciliation was the Chevalier Ramsay (1685–1743), a faithful friend, later biographer and editor, of Fénelon, by whom he had been reconciled with the Catholic Church. To Ramsay is owed a celebrated Discourse, first printed in 1738 together with Anderson’s revised Constitutions, which exercised on Freemasonry an influence no less extensive and profound than the Constitutions themselves. A man of idealistic and mystical temperament, he sought to free Freemasonry from the trammels of politics and to place it at the service of a spiritual, humanitarian and moral ideal.

The complex circumstances attending the development of Freemasonry in France prevented Ramsay’s generous purposes from reaching maturity. Under the long Grand Mastership of the Count of Clermont (1743–1790) and that of his successor, the Duke Louis Philippe d’Orléans (Philippe Égalité), French Freemasonry drifted ever further from the Christian ideal. The Masonic lodges, under the Count of Clermont, became theatres of unworthy spectacles; Freemasonry fell into disrepute and split into innumerable obediences bearing the most eccentric and bizarre names. The Duke of Orléans endeavoured to reorganise Freemasonry into a more solid and compact body, and in part saw his efforts crowned with success. Supported by high and powerful patrons, Freemasonry counted among its members many of the leading figures in the judiciary, science and the army. Among the many lodges of the capital, the Loge des neuf Sœurs was reserved for the foremost champions of the Enlightenment, encyclopedism and the Revolution: among its members were Lalande, Helvétius, Franklin, Condorcet, La Fayette and Voltaire. From the lodges emanated propaganda that dissolved every form of authority and corroded the very sinews of contemporary social life; and, while historians are not agreed on the efficacy of Freemasonry’s influence upon the French Revolution, all acknowledge that the lodges were the most active channels for the diffusion of those ideas which formed its ideological substratum. Strange but characteristic of the age is the fact that Louis XVI and his brothers were enrolled in Freemasonry, and that not a few ecclesiastics tinctured with Gallicanism and hostile to the Roman Curia flirted with II. «On the eve of the Revolution», writes Berteloot, «one meets in almost every lodge priests belonging to all religious orders..., priors and superiors of convents, not to mention curates and vicars». The same phenomenon occurred in Belgium: at Liège in 1774 all the canons of the cathedral were Freemasons; at Mons there existed a lodge reserved for ecclesiastics alone; in general, from 1745 onwards a rule prescribed to Belgian Freemasons the strict observance of the religion in which they had been baptised.

From the beginning of the French Revolution (1792) French Freemasonry officially went into abeyance; Philippe Égalité resigned as Grand Master, and the office remained vacant for several years. Only in 1799 did the Grand Lodge of France arise to claim the right, which it asserted belonged to it alone, of being the legitimate organ of French Freemasonry. The Directory, however, made extensive use of Freemasonry in the service of its diplomatic organs; several of its generals, such as Masséna and Cambacérès, were active Freemasons. When Napoleon became Emperor, he employed Freemasonry still more widely as an instrument of domination, resuscitating in all the countries he subdued a Freemasonry fashioned in his own image and placing at its head some of his brothers or favourites. Joseph Bonaparte was Grand Master in Paris, then in Naples, where Murat succeeded him; Louis Bonaparte in Holland; and Eugène de Beauharnais in the Grand Orient of Italy, created in 1805 in Milan and confederated with that of Paris.

3. Freemasonry in Italy

Once the Stuarts had settled in Rome, a few Scottish lodges sprang up there. The minutes of one such lodge operating at the time of Clement XII have been published (W. J. Hughan, *The Jacobite Lodge at Rome 1735–37*, Leicester 1910). In Florence a lodge was opened in 1733 through the efforts of the English antiquary Stosch and the Tuscan poet Tommaso Crudeli, his Italian tutor, who was consequently tried by the Inquisition in 1739 (F. Sibigli, *Tommaso Crudeli e i primi framasoni in Firenze*, Milan 1884). As early as 1736 the Holy Office in Bologna also had to deal with Freemasonry (Battistella, *Il S. Officio e la Riforma in Bologna*, ibid. 1905, p. 150). In Naples Queen Maria Carolina, sister of Joseph II, used Freemasonry as an instrument of government.

In the territories subject to Austria, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, Maria Theresa and Joseph II protected Freemasonry. The latter, by an ordinance of 21 January 1786, even placed it under “state protection,” and indeed his reign was the golden age of Freemasonry. Alfieri, in *L’Impostura*, bitterly denounces the sect and its adherents as too accommodating and ever on the lookout for personal gain.

4. Freemasonry after the Restoration

After the organization of Freemasonry in Italy had been destroyed and weakened in other Latin countries, it flourished in the Anglo-Saxon lands, favoured by sovereigns and ruling classes; this was especially true in the United States, where Freemasonry remained more attached to traditional principles than in England. It would be impossible to follow the fortunes of Freemasonry in every country without becoming lost in a labyrinth. A brief account of the fortunes of French Freemasonry will suffice, given its close connection with Italian Freemasonry. Louis XVIII (1815–24), initiated in his youth, took no repressive measures against Freemasonry; one of his ministers, Decazes, was Supreme Grand Commander. The July Days were celebrated by Freemasonry as a triumph of its own. Louis-Philippe (1830–48), although he had once held the office of Grand Master, showed no friendliness toward Freemasonry and refused to allow the Duke of Orléans to accept the title of Grand Master. The coup d’état of February 1848 was claimed by Freemasonry as the result of a masonic congress held at Strasbourg in 1847, attended by all the leading figures of the revolutionary government. Lamartine himself declared that the uprising had emanated *du fond des loges*. Napoleon III, imitating Napoleon I in this respect too, used Freemasonry as an *instrumentum regni*, placing at its head trusted men such as Lucien Murat, his cousin, Marshal Magnan and General Mellinet, manipulating it according to the religious or political needs of the moment and restraining its excesses.

Under the Republic Freemasonry regained full autonomy and gradually acquired such influence that it made the public authorities its own instrument, subjecting the country to a veritable sectarian tyranny. On 26 April 1871 a masonic procession of some ten thousand men, with banners and insignia, marched triumphantly to the Hôtel de Ville to pay homage to the government of the Commune, regarding the two powers as allies. It is unnecessary to dwell on the programme of secularization carried out by Freemasonry in France or on the methods employed to subjugate the ecclesiastical hierarchy and suppress religious orders and congregations (v. FRANCE). It is enough to note that in 1878 the Grand Orient of France resolved to remove from its Constitution the clause stating belief in God and the immortality of the soul as fundamental principles and ordered that all ritual references to these beliefs be eliminated; as a result, British and German Freemasonry broke off relations with II.

V. FREEMASONRY IN THE ITALIAN RISORGIMENTO AND PUBLIC LIFE

With the lodges closed and the two Grand Orients of Naples and Milan suppressed by the restored governments, Italian Freemasonry dispersed: the survivors took refuge under the protection of the Grand Orient of France and sought to carry on their activities through the Carbonari, often managing to secure positions of command. Domenico Angherà attests that in 1848 he attempted to reconstitute a Grand Orient in Palermo, but the initiative was short-lived. Italian Freemasonry revived in Turin in 1859 through the efforts of men closely connected with Cavour. The Turin lodge “Ausonia,” in union with the “Trionfo ligure” of Genoa and the “Amici veri vittoriosi” of Livorno, reconstituted the Grand Orient of Italy. The first Grand Master elected was Livio Zancheccari, who was soon replaced by Costantino Nigra, Cavour’s trusted man, clearly with the intention of not offending the government and of interesting French Freemasonry in the Italian cause, Nigra being ambassador in Paris. Lenzi attests that documents published by him in *L’acciaio* show that Cavour himself was the person designated for the high office, but that this plan was frustrated by his untimely death. Almost simultaneously with the Grand Orient of Turin, republican-leaning ones arose in Palermo, which proclaimed Garibaldi as Grand Master, and in Naples, at the initiative of the aforementioned Angherà. However, with the death of Cavour and the retirement of Nigra, struggles and schisms immediately began, in which much of the energy of these rival masonic nuclei was dissipated.

After the capital was transferred to Florence, a masonic constituent assembly held in that city in 1865 confirmed Garibaldi as Grand Master and appointed Antonio Mordini as his Deputy Grand Master. Garibaldi’s considerable efforts to reconcile the rival bodies of Palermo and Turin led in 1876 to the creation of a Supreme Council in Rome; then in 1879, with the participation of some foreign Supreme Councils, to a Supreme Council of Italy, naming Giorgio Tamajo as its first Sovereign Grand Commander.

Under the Grand Masters Giuseppe Mazzoni (1878–80), Giuseppe Petroni (1882–85) and above all Adriano Lemmi (1885–95), Italian Freemasonry made notable progress, also thanks to the withdrawal of Catholics from political life. Yet despite the fact that for several decades high-ranking masonic dignitaries such as Lanza, Cairoli, Depretis, Di Rudinì, Crispi, Zanardelli and Fortis held power, Freemasonry only partially succeeded in carrying out its programme of secularization, to which it had devoted its greatest efforts: the total separation of Church and State, the abolition of the guarantees, divorce, etc., all ran counter to the deep Christian sentiment of the nation. It did, however, succeed in preventing the reconciliation of Italy with the papacy, which it described as a “monstrous conciliation,” a “stupid conciliation,” and deplored as the greatest danger that could threaten the fatherland and liberty (Rivista massonica, 1883, p. 88; 1884, p. 103; 1886, p. 32). The interference of Freemasonry in sabotaging the soundings made by Leo XIII in 1887 through Father Tosti with Crispi is well known; the declamations of Bovio, with the replies of Zanardelli and Crispi; the solemn praise bestowed on the latter by Adriano Lemmi for having “strengthened with civic wisdom the struggle against the pretender of the Vatican” (25 June 1888). Thanks to its uncompromising anticlerical stance, Freemasonry, Lemmi attests (loc. cit., 1886), won the sympathy of world Freemasonry, which saw in it the vanguard against “the most inveterate, most bitter, most obstinate and ferocious enemy”: the papacy.

With the death of Lemmi (1906) Italian Freemasonry split: Saverio Fera, who was Lieutenant Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Palazzo Giustiniani, seat of the *blue* Freemasonry since 1901, succeeded in recognizing the elected Grand Commander Achille Ballori, and together with his followers constituted a Supreme Council.

(photo: Enc. Catt.) is the first page of the Statute. Ballori, together with his followers, established an autonomous Supreme Grand Council and a Grand Lodge of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (1908), recognized by the Supreme Councils convened in Washington in 1912. The Masons of Palazzo Giustiniani were reproached for having devoted themselves entirely to politics, for becoming a mere athletic club, for interfering in the activities proper to Parliament and the government, and for having given Italy a poor imitation of French Masonry. Supreme Grand Commander and Grand Master of the new Masonry was confirmed as Ferà, who was succeeded by Ricciardi, William Burgess, and then Raoul Palermi (1919). At Palazzo Giustiniani, Ballori was succeeded in the office of Grand Master by Ettore Ferrari (1904-17), Ernesto Nathan (1917-21), a fierce anticlerical who became famous for the vulgar insults hurled against the Vatican, and Domizio Torrigiani. The two obediences were linked to the two major Masonic currents in the world: one to Anglo-Saxon Masonry, the other to French Masonry.

VI. MASONRY AND FASCISM

For many years, the press and Catholic Action remained almost alone in the struggle against Masonic encroachment, which was gradually seizing the vital organs of Latin nations. In 1895, an anti-Masonic association was founded in Rome, and in 1897 the first international congress was held in Trento, followed by others. Unfortunately, these efforts lacked adequate preparation and resources, and naive apologists fell victim to the enormous hoax perpetrated by a vulgar impostor, Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès (1854-1907), under the false name of Leo Taxil, who claimed to be a defector from Masonry and fabricated the most astonishing revelations.

A movement of greater effectiveness against Masonic omnipotence arose in Italy, as in other countries, among the youth aspiring to make their way in the political arena and to challenge the old parties with renewed mentality and full freedom of movement. At the Socialist Congress of Reggio Emilia in 1913, Mussolini launched a vigorous campaign for the elimination of Masonry from the Party, and pursued it vigorously in *Avanti!*, arguing the incompatibility between Masonry and socialism. In the same year, *Idea Nazionale*, the organ of the Nationalist Party,

held a referendum on three questions: 1) whether Masonry was “compatible with the conditions of modern public life”; 2) whether the ideologies it inspired—materialism, humanitarianism, internationalism—corresponded to “the tendencies of contemporary thought”; 3) whether its action in public life, the army, the judiciary, education, etc., was “to the benefit or detriment of the country.” To general astonishment, the responses from the most prominent figures in terms of doctrine and social standing, published in the newspaper from 31 July to 9 October 1913, amounted to a grand and solemn plebiscite of condemnation. The referendum, collected in a volume, was published with a preface by Emilio Bodrero (*Inchiesta sulla Massoneria*, Milan 1925).

As for the First World War, the Masonry of Palazzo Giustiniani boasted of having decisively influenced the final outcome, but it was precisely at this moment that those spiritual currents gained strength, not only in Italy but in almost all European countries, which sharpened the anti-Masonic crisis, the deepest that Masonry had ever faced. With regard to Italian Masonry, a first offensive occurred following the International Masonic Congress in Paris in 1917, where it seems that the interests of the nation were poorly safeguarded in the face of the other Allied powers. Grand Master Ferrari was forced to resign. After the March on Rome and the rise of Fascism to power (October 1922), Masonry was second to none in its adhesion and applause. If in this the Masonry of Piazza del Gesù knew no measure or restraint, neither did Palazzo Giustiniani neglect any means to curry favor with the new Party, declaring in the public press that “even highly authoritative Masonic circles contributed to giving life and sustenance to that movement in its early stages,” and that Masonry had “a Fascist soul.” At a general assembly held at Palazzo Giustiniani on 28 January 1923 to discuss Fascist policy, although reservations were expressed, they concerned only the possible relations with the Vatican, reaffirming the principle of “laicity” (of the State) in its strictest conception. A reconciliation with the Pope, Torrigiani declared, “would in fact restore the Pope to a position of temporal sovereign.” The government responded, via the Volta news agency, that these declarations had provoked “a distinctly negative impression.” The Fascist Grand Council, on the one hand, and the Nationalist Association, on the other, invited their members to choose between Masonry and the Party (February 1923), and *Il Popolo d’Italia*, highlighting these events, affirmed that the hoped-for outcome of them should be an agreement between Italy and the Church. On 18 May 1925, Parliament unanimously voted to abolish secret societies, and by August 1926 negotiations with the Vatican were already underway that would culminate in the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929.

The Masonry of Piazza del Gesù dissolved itself spontaneously with vigorous protests of Fascist faith. That of Palazzo Giustiniani, in the act of dissolving (6 September 1925), constituted a clandestine organizing committee with full powers to keep the order alive in view of the needs of the moment. It continued to carry out its activities under the protection of French Masonry. Torrigiani, considered an accomplice in the attempt on the life of Deputy Zaniboni and General Capello against Mussolini, was arrested and sentenced to five years of internal exile on an island, but was later released; he died in Florence on 31 August 1932.

VII. EFFORTS TOWARD WORLD CONCENTRATION. FOR RECONCILIATION WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. — At an international congress of Masonic bodies of different rites in 1902 in Geneva, an attempt was made to bring together the various powers scattered around the world, to give them a basis of greater solidarity and unity. The religious principle, still upheld by the Anglo-Saxon powers (England, Prussia, Scandinavia, North America), was instead repudiated by the Latin powers (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Hungary, Egypt, Latin America); and an International Bureau of World Relations was established in Geneva, directed by Ed. Quartier-La-Tente, former Grand Master of the Swiss Grand Lodge “Alpina.” From it emerged in 1921 an International Monistic Association (AMI) with the main task of bringing together, now that the war was over, victors and vanquished, through the conciliatory action of American Masonry, which had become, as once English Masonry had been, the strongest and most authoritative Masonic power, the center of gravity of world Scottish Rite Masonry. But the aim was not achieved; neither French Masonry would recede from its Voltairean doctrinal stance, nor German Masonry bend its wounded national pride. Thus American Masonry withdrew from the AMI, followed by the other allied powers, and the Geneva Association lost much of its authority.

At the same time, Ossian Lang, Grand Chancellor of the Grand Lodge of New York, during a tour of the principal centers of Europe, founded in Vienna, with the support of leading figures in Austrian Masonry, Eugen Lennhoff and Dr. Kurth Reichl, an association akin to the previous one, the Freimaurerliga, which professed to respect any religious confession, with marked conciliatory tendencies toward the Catholic Church, as evidenced by some articles by Dr. Reichl in the organ of the League, the *Wiener Freimaurer Zeitung*. In September 1930 it held a convention in Geneva, to which representatives from many nations flocked.

Already in the English periodical *The Freemason* of 13 Nov. 1909, one could read expressions such as the following: “With the liberal spirit prevailing in the United States and England, we are confident that the Church will in time be persuaded that we are not its enemies, but its allies in the struggle against the atheistic monstrosities that usurp our name to the profit of their base maneuvers.” Now, during the inspection tour mentioned above, Lang took the occasion to conduct some inquiries. Together with Lennhoff and Reichl, he met in Aachen on 21 May 1928 with the Jesuit Fr. Hermann Gruber, one of the most esteemed scholars of Masonic matters of the time, to discuss the possibility of an understanding. The matter, which leaked into the secular press, gave rise to the most varied and strange comments. In public statements, Reichl and Gruber acknowledged the fundamental opposition of principles that made true reconciliation impossible. The only possible understanding could consist solely in better mutual understanding and greater honesty and correctness in polemics, the end of joining forces to resist effectively the encroaching atheism and communism.

Some years later, Albert Lantoine, the most authoritative modern historian of Freemasonry, who died in 1949 and was a member of the Supreme Council of the 33° of France, addressed a public and impassioned appeal to Pius XI in a pamphlet published under the title *Lettre au Souverain Pontife* (Paris 1936). He too invoked an armistice and truce, always with a view to better understanding in order to unite against the common enemy: atheistic communism, pagan National Socialism, and Fascism. The official organ of the Grand Lodge of France acknowledged Lantoine’s gesture, but it received wide coverage both in Masonic and in secular newspapers. Fr. J. Berteloot, as an expert on the subject, set forth the Catholic perspective in the *Revue de Paris* (15 Sept. 1938), a question that was then widely debated on both sides. A characteristic document remains in the two volumes by Fr. Berteloot (v. BIBLICA).

VIII. RESURRECTION OF FREEMASONRY IN ITALY

With the fall of the Fascist government in Italy, Freemasonry quickly returned to the positions it had lost; yet the number of Masonic bodies claiming to be the legitimate heirs of those that had disappeared was so great as to cause indescribable confusion. Dr. Melvin Johnson, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States, in a speech delivered on 18 Apr. 1950 at the Palazzo Brancaccio, revealed that “about twenty Supreme Councils and Grand Lodges” had been formed (*Mondo massonico*, 5 [1950], p. 34).

It should be noted that Article 13 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic, approved by the Constituent Assembly on 11 Apr. 1947, states: “Secret associations are prohibited.” The legal situation in which the Constitution places secret societies will have to be regulated by a specific law. In the meantime, it does not prevent Freemasonry from carrying on its activities in secret; rather, it requires it, like other societies, to report its statutes, its headquarters, and its responsible leaders to the public authorities. Four principal obediences now demand special attention:

1. **Symbolic Scottish Freemasonry of Palazzo Giustiniani.** Having preserved a continuous succession through provisional governing committees, it reconstituted its organs on 12 Nov. 1945, electing G. Guastalla as Sovereign Grand Commander and G. Lay as Grand Master, with headquarters in a modest quarter of the Palazzo Giustiniani, formerly owned by Freemasonry but now in the hands of the State. Lay was succeeded by the lawyer Ugo Lenzi, who holds both the office of Grand Master and that of Supreme Grand Commander. In various speeches delivered at regional conferences in Milan, Naples, and Turin, Lenzi insists on the point of secularization, maintaining a vigilant stance toward the democratic government. Otherwise, it professes a policy above party politics; in matters of religion, it is opposed to every dogmatic confession and stands for freedom of thought and conscience in the free search for truth without prejudice, without mythological tricks, but guided solely by common sense, reason, the discoveries of the natural sciences, and the aid of philosophy. It adopted a declaration of principles passed by the Swiss Grand Lodge “Alpina” on 21 May 1949, in which it recognizes and invokes the Great Architect of the Universe and restores the ancient rite of the Bible on the altar. It regards the Lateran Pacts as “an abdication of civil achievements already secured by the State in relation to the Vatican” and “a chain that must be broken.”

2. **Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Freemasonry.** — This branch only regained organic homogeneity after long and troubled negotiations, also because of the complete disarray in which it had been left by its last Sovereign Grand Commander, Palermi, now through abdication, now through the resale of offices he had previously held. It is to this branch in particular that Dr. Johnson’s observation refers. Finally, in October 1948, a congress was convened in Naples, which issued a Provisional Governing Junta with headquarters in Rome (Via Sistina 48), charged with preparing a national constituent assembly that met in Rome, at the Palazzo Brancaccio, on 24–25 Apr. 1949. Having achieved the merger of certain Grand Lodges that had sprung up after Fascism, it reconstituted a Supreme Grand Council, of which Senator Arturo Labriola was elected Supreme Grand Commander (resigning in September 1950); and a Grand Lodge, of which Senator Giuseppe Fusco was made Grand Master, then, upon Fusco’s resignation, Colonel Raffaele Ridolfi.

The Freemasonry of Palazzo Brancaccio, apart from its rite, does not seem to differ much in its program from that of Palazzo Giustiniani. The circulars issued by Labriola echo principles and proposals almost identical: “to restore the lay sovereignty of the country,” to react to “the new clerical usurpation of public powers,” “in the separation of Church and State,” to oppose the democratic party “entirely given over to the clericalization of Italy,” enslaved to the ambitious designs for power of the “ecclesiastical hierarchy” and the Vatican” (circulars of 25 June and 20 Sept. 1949).

3. **Autonomous and pseudo-Catholic Scottish Rite Freemasonry.** — This group is based at the old headquarters in Piazza del Gesù and resulted from the merger of a certain number of lodges that had been under the leadership of Baron Furio Romano Avezana, but in Rome on 15 June 1949, with other lodges dependent on G. C. Terzani and Manfredi de Franchi—the former with headquarters in Via della Mercede, the latter in Piazza del Gesù. *L’Età Nuova*, the organ of the group, in its September 1947 issue, made the following profession of faith: “In a Catholic nation like Italy, the Christianity of Italian Freemasons cannot be anything but the one, true, ethical Catholicism.” That is, it intended to inaugurate a Catholic Freemasonry. The secular press spoke of agreements between the Vatican and a certain Freemasonry, and noted intense propaganda in Catholic circles to attract adherents. The Archbishop of Trento, concerned about such maneuvers, asked

«Freely, spontaneously, with full and profound conviction of the soul, with absolute and unshakable will, by the venerated symbol of the Grand Architect of the Universe and by those of liberty, brotherhood and human equality, for the sake of and in memory of my dearest, I solemnly swear on my honour and conscience: not to reveal, for any reason whatsoever, the secrets of universal Freemasonry; to hold sacred the honour and life of all; to aid, comfort and defend my Brothers in the Order; not to profess principles that oppose those upheld by Freemasonry; and from now on, should I have the misfortune or shame of breaking this oath, I submit myself to all the penalties which the Statutes of the Order threaten to perjurers, to the ever-burning remorse of my conscience, to the contempt and execration of all humanity.»

(The Worshipful Master orders the Candidate to rise, and has him conducted between the columns.)

(photo: Enc. Catt.)

MASSONERIA – Oath of Initiates from the Catechism of the Degree, Naples 1874 – Rome, copy held in the Biblioteca nazionale.

As for what the Holy Office should think of this; and the cardinal, Secretary of this Holy Tribunal, on 20 April 1949, replied: «Nothing has occurred that could warrant changing the Holy See’s decision on this matter; therefore, the provisions of canon law regarding any form of Freemasonry remain fully in force.»

Yet these artifices did not cease. On 19 March 1950, L’Osservatore Romano published an article by Fr. Cordovani, Master of the Papal Palace, in which it was denied that Freemasonry, at least of a certain rite, was no longer in conflict with the Church; indeed, it was claimed that, by a kind of tacit agreement, Catholics were permitted to join. He reaffirmed that nothing has changed in the Church’s legislation regarding Freemasonry, adding: «Bishops know that can. 684, and especially can. 2335, which imposes excommunication on those who enrol in Freemasonry, without distinction of rites, remain fully in force today as yesterday; and all Catholics must know and remember this so as not to fall into deception.»

5. Scottish grouping of Bari

Founded near a Mother Lodge «Onore e Giustizia» in Bari, whose Worshipful Master was Liborio Granone, it established on 24 May 1945 a Supreme Orthodox Council for southern Italy and the islands; then, transferring to Rome, it founded a Grand Lodge, of which the aforementioned Granone became Supreme Grand Commander and Grand Master.

IX. STATISTICAL DATA

It is difficult to provide statistical data on Italian Freemasonry, still in the process of reconstruction. Based on official sources, it is estimated that, including regional and irregular families, there may be about one thousand lodges in Italy, with a total of 50,000 members. The Grand Orient of Palazzo Giustiniani exceeds 400 lodges with 25,000 members.

Freemasonry in Germany, which in the pre-Hitler period is estimated to have had about 70,000 members, was dissolved and its assets confiscated under the Nazi decrees of 1933. It began to revive in 1945 and soon reunited 6,700 Freemasons from all occupation zones, including those under Soviet control, where Freemasonry is still prohibited. A Grand Lodge has been reconstituted, with headquarters in Frankfurt, comprising 146 local sections, under the Grand Mastership of Dr. Theodor Vogel of Bayreuth (Bavaria).

Freemasonry in North America, already considered the strongest and most powerful in the world, has achieved remarkable progress in recent decades. It is divided into three distinct branches.

Symbolic Freemasonry (Master Mason), which traces its origins to the first Grand Lodge of London and confers only the first three symbolic degrees, is organised into regional Grand Lodges and a national Grand Lodge, and has about 3,000,000 members.

Scottish Rite Freemasonry, which confers degrees from the 4th to the 33rd, is divided into two jurisdictions: the Supreme Council of the Southern Jurisdiction, founded in 1801 with headquarters in Washington, whose Supreme Grand Commander is John Cowley, and has 250,000 members; and the Supreme Council of the Northern Jurisdiction, founded in 1813 with headquarters in Boston, whose Supreme Grand Commander is Melvin M. Johnson, and has about 300,000 members.

York Rite Freemasonry. In addition to the bodies recognised as regular, and others not so recognised, such as the «Negro Masonry» (The Negro Masons), believed to have about one million members, there exist in America countless confraternities of a humanitarian or recreational character (Friendly Societies), regarded as Masonic offshoots, with membership numbering from six to seven million. Given that statistics from 1910 list 1,321,530 members across the three jurisdictions into which the American states were then divided, one can judge the great progress made in less than forty years. No less significant is the increase in world Freemasonry, which in 1910 was estimated at about 1,744,878 members, whereas today it must be considered at least triple that number.

X. DOCTRINES AND RITES

The religious philosophy of Freemasonry, following the paths marked by Lessing, Herder and Fichte, places all religions on the same level, considering them nothing more than the product of the degree of civilisation and culture attained by the people that professes them; a stage in the evolutionary process of humanity towards that supreme goal in which all men will have attained possession of the «true light». The Christian and Catholic faith, to which the old operative guilds clung tenaciously, has gradually dissolved into a perfect religious agnosticism in Latin Freemasonry, which has dethroned God and placed the Divine Redeemer on a par with so many other heroes of humanity. According to Findel, what some would consider the true philosophy of Freemasonry is in reality not a late superimposition of the age of rationalism upon the genuine Masonic doctrine, which would consist in «eternal and immutable principles common to all religions», principles that each person has the right to examine and make their own with «full freedom of opinion». Since the human mind must not bow to any truths beyond those it can itself investigate and understand, it follows that the Catholic religion, with its positive and dogmatic revealed truths, must be eliminated like everything that does not submit to the control of reason and science, and relegated to the realm of myths and superstitions. Even the formula of the Grand Architect of the Universe that looms over the area of the Masonic temple, and the volume of the Bible, for most do not represent anything more than inherited traditions from the old guilds and do not imply a positive belief in a personal God and in Revelation, but only a vague religiosity that each person may interpret as they wish. The goal that Freemasonry sets itself is the emancipation of humanity from every kind of slavery—civil, religious and moral. This is the supreme degree of perfection to which the Mason can and must aspire, through the symbolism and the mysterious rites of the «royal art». The three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason, which in summary encompass the entire great pyramid of the other degrees, correspond to the different stages of this journey towards the «true light». The first degree represents the passage from the profane world to the threshold of the new world; the second, symbolised by the passage between the pillars of Boaz and Jachin, introduces one into the temple of pure humanity; the third, whose symbol consists in tracing signs on a board, makes the Mason the stone now fit for the building of perfect humanity. To such conceptions, shrouded in a vague and nebulous mysticism, are often joined other esoteric, Gnostic, theosophical, spiritualist and Cabalistic practices.

In the multiplicity of rites adopted by the countless Masonic sects, there is also a great variety of degrees. The notorious Giacomo Cagliostro founded lodges of the Rite of Memphis in several cities, which had 90 degrees, and of the Rite of Misraim, which had 96. But even within the same Scottish Rite, which is the oldest and most commonly adopted, there are discrepancies regarding the pyramid of degrees. Thus, the Philosophical Scottish Rite admits 18 degrees, the Primitive Scottish 25, and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite—resulting from the combination of the French Scottish Rite with a new rite introduced in 1801 in Charleston, in the Carolinas—has 33, which is now the most widespread of all. These 33 degrees are divided into four classes: the first three, called symbolic, include the traditional degrees of Apprentice, Companion, and Master; the next fifteen are called Capitular; the following twelve, Philosophical; and the last three, Administrative and Sublime. To the different categories of degrees correspond the various hierarchical organs of the Order, namely Lodges, Chapters, Councils, the Grand Orient, and the Supreme Council. The latter, which is headed by the Sovereign Grand Commander, assisted by a Prince of the Royal Secret, a Grand Inspector, and a certain number of 33s, is normally unique to each nation and wields the supreme legislative and judicial powers of the Order.

Many of the titles attributed to individual degrees derive from medieval legends concerning the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Hiram-Abi and the art of masonry. From the 30th degree onward, symbolism ceases and gives way to what in Masonic parlance is called the “royal secret” or “royal art,” it being supposed that at that point the light has manifested itself without veil or mystery. It is worth noting that the high degrees are not a recent invention. Already in operative and political Freemasonry, this method was adopted from the 17th century onward, both to curb individual initiatives that could degenerate into anarchy and for purely administrative or political reasons. However, the great vogue of the high degrees began at the start of the 19th century.

XI. CONDEMNATIONS ISSUED BY THE HOLY SEE

The Holy See soon perceived in Freemasonry an institution infested with religion and subversive of civil order itself: Clement XII, with the apostolic letter *In eminenti* of 28 April 1738, struck its adherents with a penalty of excommunication reserved to the Pope, and ordered bishops to proceed against Masons as persons vehemently suspected of heresy, declaring that, in public opinion, giving one’s name to Freemasonry amounted to incurring a mark of depravity and perversion. Benedict XIV renewed the condemnation with the constitution *Providas* of 17 May 1751, as did Pius VII, Leo XII, and others. Of particular importance are the constitution *Apostolicae Sedis* of Pius IX, the encyclical *Humanum genus* of Leo XIII, and the concistorial allocution of 20 November 1911 by Pius X. The Holy Congregation of the Holy Office declared on 27 June 1838 that the general condemnation also included the Scottish Rite of Ireland and North America; and on 20 June 1894, it included certain American humanitarian associations of Masonic origin. The Holy Congregation of Propaganda Fide issued instructions for mission territories. The current discipline is contained in canons 684, 2335, and 2336 of the Code of Canon Law: the first gravely warns the faithful to avoid giving their names to secret associations that are condemned, seditious, or suspect, or that in any way evade ecclesiastical oversight; the second imposes the penalty of excommunication *ipso facto* reserved to the Holy See upon those who give their names to Freemasonry; the third imposes special penalties on clerics. — See pl. XXV.

Historical and general works: N. Deschamps–Cl. Jannet, *Les Sociétés secrètes et la Société, ou Philosophie de l’histoire contemporaine*, 3 vols., Avignon 1883; G. Bord, *La France-maçonnerie en France des origines à 1815*, Paris 1908; W. Begemann, *Vorgeschichte und Anfänge der F. M. in England, in Irland, in Schottland*, 4 vols., Berlin 1909–14; *R. F. Gould, The History of Freemasonry*, London 1913; id., *A Concise History of Freemasonry*, 1912; *A. Lantoine, Histoire de la France-Maçonnerie française*, I, *La France-Maçonnerie chez elle*, Paris 1927; *G. Huard, L’Art Royal: essai sur l’histoire de la France-Maçonnerie*, Paris 1930; *E. Lennhoff, Die F. M.*, Vienna 1928; *A. Lantoine, II, La France-Maçonnerie écossaise*, Paris 1930; id., III, *La France-Maçonnerie de l’Est*, 1935; J. Berteloot, *La France-Maçonnerie et l’Église catholique*, I, *Perspectives de pacification*; II, *Motifs de condamnation*, 2 vols., Lausanne–Paris–Brussels 1942; id., *Les Francs-Maçons devant l’histoire. Origine et diversité*, Lausanne–Paris–Brussels 1949 (continuation). Regarding the famous hoaxes of the pseudo-convert Leo Taxil, see H. Gruber, *Leo Taxil: Palladismus-Roman, oder Enthüllungen Dr. Bataille’s. Domicilio Margiotta’s und Diana Vaughan’s über F. M. und Satanismus*, Berlin 1897. Regarding compagnonnage, see E. Martin Saint-Léon, *Le Compagnonnage. Son histoire, ses coutumes, ses règlements et ses rites*, Paris 1901; id., *Histoire des Corporations des métiers*, Paris 1941.

For the mission in particular, the following are noteworthy: H. Gruber, *Mazzini, F. M. und Weltrevolution*, Regensburg 1901, Italian trans. by P. Folladori, Rome 1908; D. Spadoni, *Sette, cospirazioni e cospiratori nello Stato Pontificio all’indomani della restaurazione*, Turin 1904 (of 3 vols. promised, only the first appeared); O. Dito, *M., carboneria ed altre società segrete nella storia del Risorgimento italiano*, Turin–Rome 1905; *U. Bacci, Il libro del massone*, Rome 1911; A. Luzio, *La M. e il Risorgimento italiano*, Bologna 1925, 2 vols. (detracting from the vaunted merits of Freemasonry in the Risorgimento); *G. Leti, Carboneria e M. nel Risorgimento italiano*, Genoa 1925 (polemicizing with Luzio in defense of the Masonic thesis); *U. Triaca, Abrégé de l’histoire de la France-Maçonnerie italienne*, Paris 1948, particularly interesting for details on more recent events. On the programs of the three principal Masonic obedience groups in Italy after their reconstitution, see, for that of Palazzo Giustiniani, besides the organ *La Rivista Massonica*, the programmatic speeches of the Grand Master *U. Lenzi, Ai liberi muratori italiani*, 20 March 1949, Rome 1949; *Riunione massonica lombarda*, 6 June 1949, ibid. 1950; *Rivendichiamo il XX Settembre*, 18 Sept. 1949; *Riunione massonica plemenitense*, 17 Dec. 1949, Rome 1950; as well as *G. Francocci, La M. nei suoi valori storici e ideali*, with a preface by U. Lenzi, Milan 1949; for the obedience of Palazzo Brancaccio: *Il Mondo massonico. Bollettino ufficiale della Commissione italiana della M. universale di rito scozzese antico ed accettato*, Naples–Rome 1949, 3 vols.; for the obedience of Piazza del Gesù: *Era Nuova. Bollettino massonico*, Rome 1946, 8 vols.

Concise and accurate notices: K. Algemissen, in LTHK, IV, pp. 167–72; U. Barengo, in *Dizionario di politica*, III, 1940, 65–67; B. Dolhagaray, in DTHC, VI, cols. 722–31; *Enc. Britannica*, IX, 732–39; G. Gautherot, s.v., in DFC, II, cols. 95–131; A. M. Ghisalberti, s.v., in *Enc. Ital.*, XXII, pp. 535–37; M. Rosi, s.v., in *Dizionario del Risorgimento italiano*, I, *I fatti*, 645–51.

The entries marked with an asterisk (*) are of Masonic source and profession.