PART TWO: Freemasonry as Philosophical Anthropology (The Moral Question of Freemasonry in Italy)
To Freemasons scattered across the globe, my long-standing and repeated call to respect the moral and universal principles that underpin Freemasonry may seem strange and incomprehensible. I started doing this with my “transparency” project when I was Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy. When I realized the serious state of crisis that the GOI was in, spurred on by the Grand Masters of the Grand Lodges abroad, I began a radical cure that should have brought it back to legality and respect for moral principles. I was vehemently opposed by all, by those who did not understand it and by those who wanted to take back power. The rest is history. What is the situation today? From the “confessions” that are made to me, from what we learn from the media, from what you yourselves report, it seems that the saying: “the pitiful doctor made the sore gangrenous” has prevailed. In the case of the GOI, the doctors who have succeeded me, Gaito, Raffi and Bisi, have done nothing to cure the cancer that lurks in their Obedience, but have even declared that the cancer does not exist (the denialism I mentioned in the first part of my Commentary). And this is how you get to … Matteo Messina Denaro and his Freemason accomplices. And this is how we arrive at Alfonso Tumbarello, doctor to the mafia chief, member of the Lodge “Valle di Cusa-Giovanni di Gangi” (number 1035) in the East of Campobello di Mazara, obedience of the Grand Orient of Italy. Grand Master Bisi has decreed his ‘indefinite suspension’. This means that Tumbarello continues to be a member of the GOI. In this affair, the moral issue of Italian Freemasonry vehemently breaks out.
Having made this premise, I will explain to all Italian Freemasons why morality is not an optional extra but the very essence of Freemasonry. I start from the unanimously accepted definition of “Freemasonry” itself: “Freemasonry is a particular system of morality veiled with allegories and illustrated by symbols”. Transferred to Masonic anthropology, I reformulate it with the following philosophical annotation: “Freemasonry is a conception of man that requires the pursuit of ethical ends oriented by transcendence in an initiatory manner”. From this it follows that the aims of Freemasonry are a set of moral principles, the pursuit of which takes place on the basis of rituals and symbols that give Freemasonry the typical characteristics of an initiatory society. The Freemason’s perfecting, which takes place by passing to higher degrees of knowledge, is a striving towards the good, the just, the true. Freemasonry, therefore, is an edifice that rests on two pillars: morality and symbolism. If you remove the pillar of morality, the whole edifice collapses. Just as it collapses if the pillar of symbolism is removed because it is deconstructed of its initiatory foundation. One has Freemasonry if, and only if, it is supported by both morality and symbolism. Otherwise, one does not have Freemasonry.
Morality and symbolism, in turn, rest on the foundation of universality. A specificity of the Masonic conception of man consists in its tendency towards universality. This characteristic is not found in any other conception of man. To understand it better, I compare it with religious anthropology, which, by definition, aspires to bring together all and only those men who ideally identify with it. The society of Christians is made up only of those who have adhered to the anthropology of Christianity. Freemasonry, on the other hand, proposes to men who share different anthropologies to come together in society, realising universality and avoiding conflicts among its adherents. But how is this possible? How can Christians, Jews, Islam and others live together in harmony in the same temple and recite the same ritual in different languages? It would seem that the biblical Babel had given way to a communion of men who, regardless of subjective differences, live in harmony and polish the rough stone to ascend to the higher degrees of human knowledge. In order to explain this Masonic reality, which mainly finds expression in Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723 and in the Declaration on Freemasonry and Religion issued by the United Grand Lodge of England in 1985, I formulated the theory of “non-exclusive regulativism”, which is the foundation of Freemasonry’s philosophical anthropology.
When the object of investigation of philosophy is man, we have philosophical anthropology, which is the conception of man according to the philosophical point of view. Different anthropologies are proposed by philosophical schools on the basis of different interpretative criteria. For my purposes here, it is sufficient to consider two of them: that which distinguishes anthropologies into religious and secular, and that which distinguishes them into exclusivist and non-exclusivist.
An anthropology is religious, if man is considered in his relationship with god who is considered his creator, while it is secular if man is defined apart from his relationship with the divine. An anthropology is exclusivist, if it is based on certain specific values, whereas it is non-exclusivist, if it is based on common values that belong both to its own anthropology and to other anthropologies. Religious anthropology is, by its very nature, exclusivist, since the values accepted are only those that constitute the specifics of that religion. From this it follows that there can be no reconciliation between one religious anthropology (characterised by a certain set of specific values, e.g. Christianity) and another religious anthropology (characterised by other specific values, e.g. Islam). On the other hand, secular anthropology is, by its very nature, non-exclusivist (pluralist), as it is based on values common to different anthropologies.
What is the anthropology that characterises Freemasonry? It is secular and non-exclusivist. It is secular because it does not recognise the creative act of man by God. It is non-exclusivist because it admits the specific anthropologies of all Freemasons, whether secular or religious. The philosophical theory that justifies this Masonic reality I have named ‘non-exclusivist regulativism’.
Anthropologies are made up of a set of elements that express their nature. What are the constituent elements of Masonic anthropology? They are ‘freedom’, ‘tolerance’, ‘brotherhood’, ‘transcendence’ and ‘initiatory secrecy’. The first three express moral concepts, the fourth a philosophical concept, the fifth the specifics of Freemasonry. We can represent them with the following quintuple: <Freedom, Tolerance, Brotherhood, Transcendence, Initiatic Secret>. The first four elements Freemasonry shares with other anthropologies (they are common), while the fifth element is exclusive to Freemasonry and is its specificity. The elements of the quintuple must be understood globally. This means that if only one of them is missing, one no longer has this philosophical anthropology. Those who would deprive Masonic anthropology of freedom, or tolerance, or brotherhood, or transcendence, or initiatory secrecy would not achieve the result of weakening or limiting the scope of its validity, but rather the annulment of Freemasonry itself. For further study, I recommend reading my volume THE MASSONERY. Splendour and Decadence, which can only be found on Amazon, in hard copy and digital.
Masonic anthropology is the ideal, the ought-to-be, that justifies and orients Masonic reality. There is always a gap between the ideal and the real. When the gap widens, a rupture occurs and the ideal no longer represents the real. In that case, the real can be everything and the opposite of everything since it is devoid of the ideal reference.
I take the point of view of the ‘gap’ to analyse Freemasonry in Italy, which specifically concerns the Grand Orient of Italy and the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy, which are the Obediences of which I was Grand Master and Founder. How big is the gap?
The Masonic Royalty of the Grand Orient of Italy, during my Magisterium (1990-1993), was characterised by violations of moral principles that concerned the formation of covered Lodges prohibited by the Spadolini-Anselmi law, arms trafficking, participation in insurrectional events in Calabria, the infiltration of the n’dranghera in the Calabrian Lodges and the infiltration of the Mafia in the Sicilian Lodges. It was an alarming situation that greatly worried the Grand Masters of the Grand Lodges of Europe and the United States, who feared the occurrence of a scandal more destructive than that of the P2. I tried to deal with this situation with the “transparency” project, but everyone rose up against me and tried to force me to resign. The 1993 Grand Lodge meeting, which was supposed to achieve this, contrary to all predictions, was won by me alone against everyone. Afterwards, and only then, as victor, did I leave. It was April 16, 1993, when I sent the letter of my irrevocable resignation to the Grand Secretary. A few months later, the Central Court of the GOI ruled on my expulsion. The expulsion came after my resignation, but the GOI leadership narrated that I had been expelled. Future historians will reconstruct the truth.
Since then, and it has been exactly 30 years, to date, I have continued to denounce the ‘irregularities’ of the Grand Orient of Italy, starting with the Prosecutor of Palmi Agostino Cordova and continuing with the anti-mafia magistrates, the Anti-Mafia Commission chaired by Rosy Bindi and Nicola Morra, the ‘mammasantissima’ and ‘gotha’ trials. Newspapers and television stations, local and national, have reported my statements in great detail. But mine has been a lone voice ranting in the wilderness… until today.
Although I knew that it would be highly improbable, I hoped that the Grand Masters who followed me in the governance of the Grand Orient of Italy would at least proceed to the necessary “reclamation” of the Lodges from criminal infiltration. I wished this with all my might, thinking above all of the true Freemasons who belong to it. That mine was a vain and futile hope is demonstrated by all that is happening around the arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro. At the moment, there is talk of Alfonso Tumbarello as the mafia leader’s doctor and a member of the “Valle di Cusa-Giovanni di Gangi” (1035) Lodge in obedience to the GOI, but I fear that the magistrates, in examining the extensive documentation seized, will find other similar cases. We shall see.
Alfonso Tumbarello’s connection with the Mafia is not an isolated event, a bolt from the blue, but follows similar events that occurred a few years earlier in Sicily. On 25 November 2019, the editorial staff of ‘Teletermini’ reported in full the communiqué of the ‘Giordano Bruno’ Lodge of Termini Imerese by which this Lodge left the Grand Orient of Italy. It reads: After the arrests, which took place last summer, of the Worshipful Master of the Lodge of Licata “Arnaldo da Brescia” and the former Worshipful Master of the Lodge “Thought and Action” of Palermo for mafia offences, the Lodge “Giordano Bruno” of Termini Imerese, which has always informed its action to the principle of transparency, has asked the leadership of the GOI to dissolve the Lodge of Licata by demolishing its columns and publicly condemn the serious events that occurred. However, taking note of the inexplicable silence behind which the GOI Council entrenched itself, the majority of the members of Giordano Bruno decided to leave the Grand Orient of Italy with the intention of establishing a free and independent Lodge, which would be an expression of a primitive, identity-based and unstructured Freemasonry to be looked upon without suspicion and prejudice. Roberto Galullo, a profound connoisseur of Italian Freemasonry, in an article in “Il Sole-24 Ore” of 21 January 2023, takes up this affair and provides us with further information. The Lodge of Licata, mentioned above, which had the privilege of initiating Nobel Prize winner Salvatore Quasimodo on 31 March 1922, had, as Worshipful Master, Vito Lauria, who on 31 July 2019 was arrested by the Ros of the Agrigento Carabinieri as part of an anti-mafia investigation. On 25 July 2022, Vito Lauria was sentenced by the Court of Appeal of Palermo to eight years’ imprisonment, on the grounds that ‘it must be considered adequately proven that the defendant in question was part of the Licata mafia cell’. How is it possible that the Worshipful Master of the Quasimodo Lodge was a Mafia affiliate? Whose responsibility is it? Despite such blatant evidence, the Grand Master of the GOI continues to deny and repeat that everything is fine. Are the ‘workers’ happy?
While the limelight is still shining on Alfonso Tumbarello, Matteo Messina Denaro’s doctor and member of the “Valle di Cusa-Giovanni di Gangi” (1035) Lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy, a thunderbolt strikes this Obedience that hits one of its most acclaimed events: the inauguration of the new Masonic house in Cosenza. We read from the GOI website: ‘On 2 July, the new Masonic House was inaugurated in Cosenza, one of the most prestigious seats of the Communion and another feather in the cap of the Goi Foundation. Over 400 people were present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony held by Grand Master Stefano Bisi, including Pino Munno of the Municipality of Rende and other local authorities’. Pino Munno, who is he? The answer can be found on the Internet, with a wealth of details that I prefer to omit. But I must ask myself in what capacity he was with the secular authorities and close to the Grand Master. He is a well-known figure because he was involved in many investigations by the judiciary. Pino Munno, four months after his appearance as guest of honour at the inauguration of the Masonic House in Cosenza, was placed under house arrest for an investigation by the Cosenza Public Prosecutor’s Office, on charges of embezzlement. If he was given a place of honour, there were good reasons. What are they?
Also in Calabria, in Vibo Valentia, Rocco Gramuglia, secretary to the prefect of Vibo Valentia, is arrested in the anti-mafia investigation called ‘Olympus’. Gramuglia is a member of the ‘Pitagora-29 Agosto’ Lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy in Palmi. Grand Master Bisi has ‘suspended him indefinitely’, as he had done with Alfonso Tumbarello.
In the following lodges of the GOI, ‘Valle di Cusa-Giovanni di Gangi’ in Campobello di Mazara, ‘Arnaldo Brescia’ in Licata, and ‘Pitagora-29 Agosto’ in Palmi, magistrates have arrested GOI members for connections with the Mafia and the ‘n’drangheta’. Grand Master Bisi adopted the measure of “indefinite suspension” against them, leading to reactions of dissent from Lodges and brothers in his obedience, as, for example, happened in the Lodge “Giordano Bruno” of Termini Imerese. If I had been in his place, I would have expelled them with a solemn act to show, not only to Masons but also to the Italian people, that the Grand Orient fights criminal organisations and severely punishes its affiliates.
If the cases of the lodges of Campobello di Mazara, Licata and Palmi concern the relations that the GOI has with the secular outside world, the Claudio Bonvecchio case highlights a profound crisis that exists within, which shakes its foundations in both form and substance. Professor Claudio Bonvecchio has always been the jewel in the crown of the GOI not only for his intelligence but also and above all for his humanity. Quite rightly, he was appointed Deputy Grand Master. In his role as guardian and defender of the GOI (he was also Grand Orator), he showed disappointment and disapproval when Grand Secretary Emanuele Melani issued a circular letter, wanted by the Grand Master, which categorically states that “It is therefore necessary to reiterate forcefully that recourse to profane justice constitutes serious Masonic misconduct, regardless of the outcome, precisely because of the failure to fulfil the commitments undertaken at initiation”. In other words, it establishes that the GOI’s internal Justice Bodies must be understood, by the Masons in its obedience, to be of a higher rank than those of the Italian State and that every decision adopted by them is the only one that must be valid, even if in contrast to that of the State which is subordinate to it. It is precisely against this circular that Professor Bonvecchio takes a stand, accusing it of a guilty attack on the legality of the GOI and of unconstitutionality. For expressing this opinion on the Grand Secretary’s circular, Professor Bonvecchio was expelled from the Grand Orient of Italy.
It may be a case of injustice like so many others, but it is something more. As the expiry of Stefano Bisi’s second and final term at the Grand Maestranza of the GOI draws nearer, the pretenders to his succession are beginning to emerge. Among the many, there is the one preferred by the current leadership. A regular electoral competition would make one prevail to the detriment of the others. However, to favour the desired candidate, Masonic ‘justice’ is used to prevent other candidates, especially those most likely to succeed, from participating in the electoral competition. Against them, a ‘Table of Accusation’ is made, with the intention of bringing them to the condemnation of ‘solemn censure’ by which they will not be able to stand as candidates for three years. And the game is played. It seems that Professor Claudio Bonvecchio, at least from what we read in his statements, has fallen into this trap, as he has expressed his intention to run for the office of Grand Master, with a high probability of success. He reacted to the expulsion by writing a letter, translated into the main world languages and sent to the Grand Masters of foreign Freemasonries, which is an indictment of the leadership of the Grand Orient of Italy.
The moral issue, which I am decrying aloud, does not only affect the Grand Orient of Italy, but also and above all the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy and concerns the current Grand Master Fabio Venzi. I will put aside personal judgements and focus on objective and incontrovertible facts. When I founded the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy on the model of English Freemasonry, I wanted and imposed that the Association’s balance sheet be certified by the English company “Ernst & Young” to give maximum transparency. After my resignation in 2002, Fabio Venzi renounced certification. I ask him why.
Having experienced at first hand in the GOI the age-old problem of the lists, I wanted and imposed that, in the new GLRI, the complete list of all affiliates, with their personal details, be delivered, at the beginning of each year, to the Ministry of the Interior, to demonstrate that there was no ‘cover’ of any kind. The minister at the time, Nicola Mancino, instructed two prefects to take delivery of the lists and give a receipt. In the application for admission to the GLRI, the candidate had to give his consent to the delivery of the lists. This was the case as long as I was Grand Master. Then, Fabio Venzi stopped delivering the lists to the Home Office. To justify himself, he could use the pretext that the law on privacy does not allow it. True, unless all the affiliates give their consent, as they used to do with me. I ask him why. When in 2017 the Hon. Rosy Bindi, president of the Anti-Mafia Commission, asked Grand Master Fabio Venzi to hand over the lists of Calabria and Sicily, he categorically refused. I ask him why. In the Report of that Anti-Mafia Commission, we read that, as far as the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy is concerned, in Calabria and Sicily, there are 73.7% ‘unidentifiable’ affiliates. What does this mean?
With the above considerations, I wanted to highlight the differences between Fabio Venzi and myself in the governance of the GLRI. He has made choices for which he has taken full responsibility. However, there are two instances in which Fabio Venzi has flagrantly violated all the moral principles that must guide the practical conduct of a Freemason: the tenure in the office of Grand Master and a salary that is in no way justifiable. These are two incontrovertible facts. Fabio Venzi, who was elected Grand Master in 2002, has been in office for 21 years. No Grand Master of any foreign Freemasonry, except the King of England or the Duke of Kent, has been in office for such a long time. Fabio Venzi receives a salary, as can be seen from the balance sheet of the Association “Gran Loggia Regolare d’Italia” that I founded in 1993, of about 300,000 euro, which is 30% of the total income. No Grand Master in the world takes a salary like this. As far as I am concerned, I renounce any salary. These facts speak for themselves and need no comment.
From a moral point of view, the Grand Orient of Italy and the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy are in different positions. The GOI, in order to restore respect for morals, must eliminate the infiltration of the Mafia and ‘ndrangheta, make the Central Court function properly and restore harmony in the life of the Lodges. It is a demanding task that requires determination and courage from the Grand Master and the Council. As far as the GLRI is concerned, the situation is less complex: it is sufficient to replace Fabio Venzi with another Grand Master to restore it to its former glory. The gap between ideal and real is different in the two Obediences.
Before concluding this Commentary, I will reflect on two aspects highlighted in the Letter that Professor Bonvecchio sent to the Grand Masters, which concern the Constitutions of the GOI and the philosophical anthropology of Freemasonry. In order to avoid an instrumental use of the Central Court that generates cases of blatant injustice, Bonvecchio argues the need to bring the Constitutions of the GOI into line with the laws of the State. This proposal, given the current state of the GOI, is the only one that can safeguard the subjective rights of Freemasons to its obedience. But it is not the right solution. To understand why it is not right, it is necessary to refer to true Freemasonry, which is practised in England, Ireland and Scotland. First of all, in these Freemasonries there is no “Masonic justice” but a committee of wise men who advise the misbehaving brother what to do. And everything is resolved peacefully. In these Freemasonries, it does not occur to any brother to have recourse to the organs that administer state justice. The idea that Masonic justice could be different and superior to that of the State is not even imaginable. Anderson’s Constitutions govern different aspects of Masonic life from 1723 to the present day. This simple comparison makes it clear just how great the gap is between English Freemasonry (understood as a duty to be towards) and the Grand Orient of Italy (understood as a specific Masonic reality). Professor Bonvecchio has proposed a solution within the reality of the GOI, but that reality is not Freemasonry.
Another error I see in his Letter concerns the concept of “initiatory tradition”, which Bonvecchio takes from René Guénon’s reflections on Freemasonry when he defines it as metahistorical, outside of history. In my cited volume Freemasonry. Splendour and Decadence, I argued and justified that Freemasonry is not a religion. Here I argue, unlike Guénon and Bonvecchio, that Freemasonry is not mysticism either. To understand why Freemasonry is not, nor can it be, mysticism, it is necessary to have recourse to the philosophical anthropology of Freemasonry that I outlined 35 years ago.
From the above reflections, it emerges that the state of crisis that grips the Grand Orient of Italy and the Grand Regular Lodge of Italy is mainly due to the abandonment of the moral principles that must always inspire the practical conduct of the Mason, from the apprentice to the Grand Master. I hope that Grand Masters Bisi and Venzi will follow my advice and bring their Obediences back into the fold of initiatory tradition and strict respect for moral principles. If they do not do so, there may be the collapse of the Masonic edifice. Then, and only then, will there arise from the ashes, like the phoenix, the Grand Initiate who will gather around him all those who wish to live the true initiatory experience.
