FREEMASONRY - FROM COVENT GARDEN TO MEXICO
Many Masons like to romanticise that the “Craft” began with the sons of Adam, with its more immediate roots supposedly lying with Hiram, the so-called Master Mason of Solomon’s Temple; but like most of Masocnic concoctions it was just clever shadow-boxing with fantasy. England’s first Masonic institution, prior to the Reformation in 16th century England, numbered around 1,300, and was a Roman Catholic trade guild for stonemasons and other building workers. These guilds or local assemblies developed precisely to meet the needs of workers whose jobs kept them moving from place to place. The actual working Masons today are in a small minority. The old craft guild was gradually diluted by outsiders and was taken over by the aristocracy and the upper middle classes. It became highly secretive with elaborate rituals, a bloodcurdling initiation ceremony, and a secret handclasp - the “Masonic Word” - by which members may recognise one another. Today, people join mainly for social and professional benefits.
The earliest known use of the word “Freemason” is 1376. The oldest surviving Minute of a “now extinct” Scottish Lodge is 1598. The oldest surviving Minute of a “still active” Scottish Lodge is one year later, 1599.
Kilionnung Lodge or Kilwinning Lodge, now called Mother Kilwinning No 0, 99 Main Street, Kilwinning, Ayrshire, was certainly established before 1598. The next lodge supposedly consecrated after that, but still before 1598, was Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary’s Chapel) No 1, 19 Hill Street, Edinburgh. Of course, Hill Street is part of Edinburgh’s New Town and the Town Council did not adopt the architect James Craig’s plans to build the New Town until 1767. It is possible, however, that No 1 moved from the Old Town after the New Town was built, but no previous address is entered in the Grand Lodge Year Book.
The first lodge to have been afforded an actual date of consecration (i.e. 20 December 1677) by the Year Book is Canongate Kilwinning No 2 at the Chapel of St John, 23 St John Street, Canongate, Edinburgh, where, in the course of time, Rabbie Burns is claimed to have become a member.
The first “solid” base that Freemasonry established for itself was in London. Four lodges met at the Apple Tree Tavern in Charles Street, Covent Garden in 1716 and decided to form themselves into a Grand Lodge. The first Grand Lodge, or headquarters, was thus formally inaugurated at the Goose and Gridiron Tavern at Covent Garden on 4 June 1717 for those who were known as the “Moderns”. The Masons who called themselves the “Antients” did not form part of the 1717 Grand Lodge because of its changes in practice, especially its break with Christianity. It took some time before the Antients found a rival Grand Lodge. Both these Grand Lodges by that time had members belonging to the aristocracy.
The 1717 model, formed at the “Goose and Gridiron”, went by the name of “Premier Grand Lodge of England”. It then grew steadily over a number of years and Grand Lodges of Ireland, then Scotland, soon followed, that is, 1725 and 1736 respectively. However, the United Grand Lodge of England in its present form was set up in 1813 by the unification of the “Moderns” of the Premier Grand Lodge of England and the “Antients” of the Grand Lodge of England, by which time there was no serious resistance to de-Christianisation.
With Freemasonry becoming de-Christianised, a collision course with the Catholic Church was inevitable. Accordingly, the first Papal Bull condemning the Craft was issued by Pope Clement XII in 1738. This is one of the most notable dates in the history of Freemasonry, as documented in the Masonic Year Book. Yet only a mere eight years before this Papal Bull, 1730, the Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk was installed Grand Master of England.
In 1991, Catholics throughout the world awaited eagerly for Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter commemorating the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, “Rerum Novarum” (Literally of New Things, and popularly called On Capital and Labour). Pope Leo’s 1891 Rerum Novarum was the seminal explanation of the modern social doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Though much discussed in 1991, few people realised that Leo’s Rerum Novarum, with its cutting criticism of Freemasonry’s controlled offshoots, was merely the economic expression of his unremitting war with Freemasonry. Apart from his 25-year endeavour to unite Christendom and reduce class warfare, virtually every act of his entire papacy (1878-1903) was aimed at attacking Freemasonry.
Two years after Pope John Paul II’s encyclical was issued, the Cardinal of Guadalajara and vice-president of the Mexican Conference of Bishops, Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo was gunned down in cold blood at Guadalajara airport on 25 May 1993 after attacking Freemasons for “reopening old wounds” in Mexico. Bishop Manuel Talamas Camandari called on the authorities “to refrain from giving hurried explanations regarding the murder of Posadas Ocampo, particularly since, across the country, credibility in the administration of justice is low, if not to say almost nil.”
Among the Governments, multiple cover stories was that Posadas Ocampo was mistaken for a drug trafficker, even though the coroner confirmed he was shot by 14 bullets at point-blank range, and that numerous eyewitnesses had confirmed that his Cardinal’s garb was apparent and unmistakable to all. Even more suspicious was the fact that an Aeromexico flight was delayed on the runway for a full 20 minutes to allow more than a dozen of the hit men to board and make their getaway.
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that the crime be investigated as a premeditated assassination; and
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that said investigation and punishment of those guilty be carried out with the utmost speed because any cover-up … could unleash a cataclysm of unknown dimensions which nobody wants. … We call attention to the fact that this crime takes place in the midst of an assault by the Masonry against the Catholic Church. ...
It is already proven that the Masonry is one of the leading instruments of the superpowers, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and one of the Malthusian cabal, to impose genocidal policies on the debtor countries, policies which have been systematically denounced by the Vatican and by Mexico’s Bishops.”
Barely a month before his assassination, Posadas Ocampo spoke out for economic and social justice and harshly denounced the neo-liberal economic policies imposed by the government of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in Mexico.
Some of the Cardinal’s statements appeared in the Mexican press. On 24 April 1993, Unomásuno reported his belief that “The Masonry in the country has every right to create a political party, but before that it has to demonstrate what its goals are, because if they intend to keep attacking the Catholic Church then we run the risk of reopening old wounds.”
In an interview, Cardinal Posadas Ocampo commented that if the Masons seek the common good of Mexicans, then the Catholic Church would be in a position to collaborate with them in the defence of rights; but if that is not the case, then they would be out of order. … He stated that if one analyses the principles and traditional philosophy of the Masons, it is clear that they do not act in our favour; nonetheless, we believe that this is not the moment for ideological confrontations, because tolerance, pluralism and freedom are a step towards truth.
Columnist José Cabrera Parra noted in the 31 May 1993 issue of El Sol de México that the murder of Cardinal Posada “occurred on the first anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Mexican Government and the Vatican.” A Cardinal had never before been killed in Mexico, not even during the darkest period of religious warfare in the 1920s, the so-called Cristero Wars, when Masonry launched a violent all-out attack on the Catholic Church. But the murder of Cardinal Posadas Ocampo was designed to terrorise into silence and passivity those elements within the Ibero-American church, military, and other nationalist sectors that oppose the new world order. It was also designed to enable the international financial and political elites to regain control of a continent that is fast spinning out of their grasp.
Marches were held across the country, calling for an investigation into the murder. Twenty thousand Catholics marched on 27 June 1993 in León, Mexico, to protest against the government’s claim that the Cardinal was an accidental victim of a drug mafia shoot-out. The march was led by the Bishop of Guanajuato, Rafael Garcia González who demanded a real investigation into the killing.
The President of the Latin American Bishops Council, Cardinal Nicolas Lopez said: “Powerful political and economic interests are related to the death of Posadas Ocampo.” High-level Masons will know exactly what he meant.
(The Grand Lodge of Antient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland have a sister Grand Lodge in Mexico, as well as in almost every other country in the world. Grand Lodge also has delegates affiliated to almost every sister Grand Lodge. They are referred to as “representatives ‘from’ Grand Lodge” and “representatives ‘at’ Grand Lodge”. With this in mind, the representative ‘at’ the York Grand Lodge of Mexico, ‘from’ the Grand lodge of Scotland, according to the 1994 Grand Lodge Year Book, is F W Von Son, and the representative ‘at’ the Grand lodge of Scotland ‘from’ the Mexican Grand Lodge is Duncan MacDonald Lowe of Greenbank, Edinburgh.
(Duncan Lowe is a Past Depute Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. He was initiated in 1946 in the Watsonians Lodge No 1375 in George Watson’s College, Colinton Road, Edinburgh, and was Master thereof in 1956 and 1957. Elected to the Grand Committee in 1962 he became a member of the Museum and Library Committee. Other committees he joined were the Metropolitan District Committee (Chairman 1974-77), the Petitions, Complaints and Appeals Committee (Chairman 1973-76), and the Committee of Benevolence (Convener 1981-89). Along with Lord Andrew Douglas Alexander Thomas Bruce the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, and Brigadier Sir Gregor MacGregor of MacGregor, et al, Duncan Lowe is a member of Overseas and External Affairs Committee and the Special Purposes Committee. Of the Masonic Homes Committee he is Chairman, and is representative from the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of India, and, as mentioned above, the York Grand Lodge of Mexico. He is also the Proxy District Grand Master of Barbados.
(The Grand Lodge of Scotland also has on its roll District Grand Lodges and Sister Grand Lodges in other parts of Central America and the West Indies such as Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, the Bahamas, Cuba, Dominica, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.)
Against the background of the pervasive Masonic involvement in Mexican politics, many Mexican patriots realise that the Brotherhood was responsible for the assassination of Mexican Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo at Guadalajara airport. They also know that the Southern Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, USA, a sister Grand Lodge of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, is an enemy of Mexico as well as an enemy of Christianity, and mankind in general.
Over the past 100-150 years, almost every atrocity Mexico has suffered at the hands of persons based in either the United States or in the former Confederate States of America, has been fostered by the Scottish Rite - the same faction of the Scottish Rite headed then by Albert Pike, a Confederate General during the American Civil War and one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan, headed more recently by C Fred Kleinknecht.
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is the most advanced form of Freemasonry in existence today. It began in 1801 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA and administers Freemasonry of the higher degrees of the so-called “Adept” Masons. The President of Mexico’s National Confederation of Masonic Organisations is at 1994, Carlos Vasquez Rangel. Like C Fred Kleinknecht, Carlos Rangel is also a member of the Scottish Rite.
On 1 June 1993, a week after the assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, a European intelligence source interpreted the murder as an attack on the Vatican itself, and told Executive Intelligence Review News Service (EIRNS): “The global attack on the Vatican is now in operation. Attacks on top Vatican targets are being planned throughout the world, coordinated by various secret services. If the threat is not recognised, in ten years from now the Vatican will be history.” The threat certainly did not escape the notice of Mexican patriots as they bravely marched in tens of thousands in protest of the murder of Posadas Ocampo.
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