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Friday, June 10, 2011

UGLE Responds To French Imbroglio

Speculation has brewed over whether the United Grand Lodge of England would withdraw recognition or take any other steps over the ongoing mess with the Grande Loge Nationale Française and its embattled Grand Master, François Stifani. Today, the Myosotis Ligerien in English blog is reporting that Stuart Henderson, the Grand Secretary for the UGLE's Metropolitan association of lodges in London, has issued letter with an announcement made by the President of the UGLE's Board of General Purposes made at their Quarterly Communications on June 8th. Presumably, similar letters are going out to all UGLE lodges.

It reads, in part:

Whatever may be the reasons for the discord it is obvious that there are opposing factions who are deliberately adding to it. The current [GLNF] Grand Master has now written to the {UGLE] Pro Grand Master advising that he will be giving up his Mandate on the 27th of this month. We hope that the election that follows will end the discontent, and that harmony will be restored.

The Board will continue to monitor the situation closely and if it continues to deteriorate it will not hesitate to recommend at a future Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge that steps are taken which will adversely affect recognition of the Grande Loge Nationale Française.

In the meantime, while not restricting visitation from our French Brethren to our own Lodges the Board considers that our Brethren must refrain from visiting Lodges in France in order not to get involved in the dispute."


See here for the entire message.

Meanwhile, word is that the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts AF&AM may have also temporarily suspended recognition of the GLNF.

2 comments:

  1. I just got the memo passed to me from our Lodge Secretary. I find it odd that we are not to visit French Lodges, but our French brethren are able to visit outs. I suppose that UGLE did not wish to completely break recognition with the only French Grand Lodge which it recognises, as non-recognition would leave France with no recognised lodges at all.

    I expect that once the dust has settled, if GLNF has cleared itself out then this directive will be rescinded. Otherwise, I presume that some group of Lodges in France will feel encouraged to organise itself into another Grand Lodge that UGLE can then recognise.

    I, for one, would be quite wary of visiting ANY Lodge in France.

    W.Bro. Chris Hansen, WM
    Goliath Lodge #5595, UGLE

    ReplyDelete
  2. A public post of the UGLE memo is welcomed. May it can help to settle matters quickly.

    A French Freemason

    ReplyDelete

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