Cuban Government Places Disgraced Past Grand Master Back In Charge. . . Again

by Christopher Hodapp

(For MUCH more background on this continuing story, see Cuban Freemasons Oust Grand Master in Called Session on May 29th.)

The government of Cuba has forced the Grand Lodge of Cuba to violate its own internal rules in order to re-install their former Grand Master, Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño (photo above). He had been forced to resign a year ago, put back into the job by order of the government's Ministry of Justice, and was removed yet again as the head of the order by the members off Grand Lodge in May, but the government has taken the unprecedented step of interfering with the fraternity yet again, putting their handpicked administrator back in the Grand East. 

Carreño was accused last year of embezzling almost US$19,000 from the Grand Lodge, and stealing another US$20,000 in cash from an office safe. When he resigned, he named his own successor, Mayker Filema Duarte, who was seen by the rank and file Cuban Masons as just another government informer. Duarte was supposed to hold elections on May 25th, but canceled their grand session, suspended elections until further notice, and locked the brethren out of their downtown Havana headquarters.

In protest, 120 Cuban Masons held an impromptu Grand Lodge session on the sidewalk outside, ousting Duarte and naming the then-current Deputy Grand Master Juan Alberto Kessel Linares as the new sitting Grand Master until a called meeting for general elections can be held in September. 

The massive Grand Lodge of Cuba building in Havana is a
prominent city landmark (although it's filled with government
offices that far outnumber Masonic lodge rooms and offices).

Now the government's Ministry of Justice has stepped in once more and demanded Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño be put back in as Grand Master again.

From the English language Cuba Headlines website on June 18th:

The Cuban government's reinstatement of Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño as Grand Master of the Supreme Council and the Grand Lodge has ignited a wave of discontent among Cuban Freemasons. Urquía Carreño was reinstated by the Ministry of Justice's Directorate of Associations (MINJUS), bypassing the majority's decision to reject him following accusations of embezzling $19,000 from his office earlier this year and other actions deemed "high treason" by the Masonic community.

"The Freemasons do not accept Urquía; many lodges will decide not to recognize him and will notify the MINJUS Register of Associations," a Masonic source who wished to remain anonymous told the independent outlet Cubanet. The same source added that there is "a lot of confusion but unanimous feeling of rejection."

The Freemasons appear determined to step down from their positions if the Grand Master does not resign. Others plan to gather in large numbers at the Grand Lodge building to protest and demand Urquía's removal, according to Cubanet.

One such individual is Master Karel Miralles Sánchez, who staged a sit-in at the Grand Lodge of Cuba as a form of protest, asking for Urquía to submit a formal signed resignation. "I am not calling for anything or anyone; I am driven by a personal situation, exercising my right to protest, one of the first rights conferred upon me when I joined this august institution," he stated in a video.

Another source interviewed by Cubanet argued that "if the majority of Freemasons decide we do not want him, he should step down. If MINJUS thinks this is not the correct way to expel him, we will repeat the process immediately." They added that "an overwhelming majority does not wish for him to continue leading our fraternity, as he is materially and morally responsible for the loss of funds donated to aid brethren in distress. Nothing imposed works in a democratic system like ours."

Echoing this sentiment, another Freemason accused the State Security of being behind the situation, suggesting that "they are playing with fire. This might be the push we Freemasons need to finally take the lead in the changes Cuba requires."

Several employees of the Grand Lodge of Cuba have resigned in protest, according to Cubanet. In March, Urquía Carreño was expelled from the semiannual session of the High Chamber.

 

That the Cubans' Marxist dictatorship even permits Freemasonry to openly operate, hold its own elections, and function as a charitable fraternal organization is remarkable among Communist regimes throughout the world. Such governments overwhelmingly distrust Freemasonry because of its reputation for secrecy. After all, you can't prevent an uprising by the Bougies and the Proles if they're going to be members of secret societies, exchanging secret handshakes, baking up black market meat loaf dinners, and telling private dictator jokes in lodge.

"Knock knock!" 

"Who's there?" 

"WE ASK THE QUESTIONS!"

So how did Cuban Freemasons avoid the firing squads under Castro and his successors? The story goes that Marxist revolutionary Fidel Castro and his brother Raoul were hidden and given aid and support by Freemasons during their revolution in 1959 against the Batista government. When Castro seized power, he praised the Masons and gave them the rare consent to keep their lodges and organization intact. 

It's hard to say where all this is headed, but it's been more than half a century since a grateful Fidel Castro clutched the Cuban Freemasons to his heaving bosom and gave them his blessing. The island's present regime may not be so loving anymore.

Embattled Grand Master Mario Urquía Carreño of the GL of Cuba Is Forced To Resign

Mario Urquía (left) and the Grand Masonic Temple of Cuba (right)

Image © Collage Facebook/Mario Urquía - CiberCuba

by Christopher Hodapp

Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño, the embattled Grand Master of the Gran Logio de Cuba (Grand Lodge of Cuba), has resigned following months of controversy and scandal. His resignation was officially tendered Sunday, August 18th after a contentious confrontation with representatives from more than 100 lodges on the island.

Carreño had already been removed from his office and expelled by the fraternity earlier this year in the wake of the disappearance of US$19,000 from the National Masonic Asylum's accounts, one of the principal charities of this grand lodge. He subsequently took his case before the Cuban Ministry of Justice, which decided to overrule the constitution and organizational authority of the grand lodge itself and ordered him reinstated. This unprecedented interference by the Cuban regime's judiciary also nullified the appointment of Juan Alberto Kessel Linares as Grand Master, as the Freemasons had overwhelmingly voted to do several months ago.

The resulting uproar by hundreds of Cuban Masons intensified and the story began to appear in the media over the summer. Carreño reacted against the protesters by arresting the charters of at least four Cuban lodges for failing to acknowledge his reinstatement, which only served to throw oil on the fire. When the story began to get independent media attention, the State Security officials of the Cuban Communist Party found it couldn't control the message any longer, and Carreño was compelled to call a special meeting last Sunday. 

From Mario Urquía Steps Down as Cuba's Grand Master After Months of Controversy by Emma Garcia:

The Masons gathered in the theater of the Grand Lodge building, where an anonymous source consulted by the cited media described that Urquía intended to manipulate the attendees. However, the Masons present did not allow it, and the unanimous phrase heard was “hand it over and leave.”

One of the meeting's witnesses recounted that tensions escalated to the point where Urquía left the theater but was followed by the Masons to the eleventh floor, where his office is located.

Under the pressure of those present, the Grand Master agreed to meet with a representation of them. During two hours, the terms of his departure were negotiated, although the details of those conversations remain secret.

Finally, Mario Urquía agreed to resign, and Deputy Grand Master Maykel Filema was appointed in his place. Filema will have the task of calling for elections in the next High Chamber session, scheduled for September.

Urquía's resignation is seen as a victory by the Masons. The problems began with the mysterious theft of $19,000 from the Grand Master's office, an event that culminated in his expulsion from the Order.

Despite this, the Cuban Ministry of Justice, in an act of interference permitted by the country's laws, did not recognize the expulsion and reinstated Urquía in his position in less than three months. This led to a massive protest by Masons outside the Grand Master's office on July 23 and caused dozens of lodges to rebel.

In recent days, Mario Urquía spoke in a video explaining that the stolen money belonged to the National Masonic Asylum and addressed the accusations against him, including those of treason and theft. Urquía Carreño categorically denied being responsible for the theft and clarified that the police document he signed, committing to return the money, did not imply an admission of guilt.

He explained that the delay in returning the sum was due to the need to comply with Cuban laws, which require the reimbursement to be made in Cuban pesos (CUP), resulting in a considerable loss due to the disparity with the dollar's value in the informal market.

The Grand Master also questioned the initial communiqué issued by the National Masonic Asylum's Board, calling it “incriminatory.” He emphasized that he had already made a deposit of 270,000 CUP, equivalent to $1,000, as a sign of his commitment to return the funds. Despite his intention to remain in the position, Mario Urquía ultimately had to yield to the pressure to resign.

“Before allowing the existing division to further harm the Institution and increase the attacks through social media, which would further denigrate the Grand Lodge of Cuba by its enemies, this Grand Master resigns for the good of the Institution,” Urquía Carreño stated in an official communiqué, as reported by the independent media outlet Cubanet.

[snip]

Regarding the reasons for his resignation, Urquía Carreño indicated that there is “an incompatibility in criteria for the correct application and interpretation of our laws” within the Masonic institution, leading to “divided opinions in our Lodges regarding the correct procedures.”

He further lamented that “hatred and insults have erupted among brothers, forgetting that we swore to defend each other, present or absent. The institutional situation today shows a dire division. Some Masons' actions indicate a growing danger of confrontations, and we will not allow this to happen; misunderstanding has subjected our brothers.”

Prior press accounts of this story can be seen at the following links:

Freemasons Protest at Cuba's Grand Lodge, Demand Assembly to Elect New Grand Master
Tuesday, July 23, 2024 by Madison Pena
https://www.cubaheadlines.com/articles/285593

Four Masonic Lodges Suspended for Rejecting Grand Master Mario Urquía
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 by Alex Smith
https://www.cubaheadlines.com/articles/286112

Detained Masonic Leader Ángel Santiesteban-Prats Prior to Official Meeting in Havana
Thursday, August 1, 2024 by Emma Garcia
https://www.cubaheadlines.com/articles/286170

Mario Urquía Steps Down as Cuba's Grand Master After Months of Controversy
Monday, August 19, 2024 by Emma Garcia

https://www.cubaheadlines.com/articles/287095

New York's Clemente Center Exhibit on Haitian Freemasonry

The New York Review of Books over the weekend published a notice of an art exhibition going on in New York City at the Clemente Center this month about Freemasonry on the island of Haiti. 

From "Picturing Haiti’s Freemasons" by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro:

"Haiti, good historians agree, is where the Enlightenment came home to roost. France may have been where Rousseau penned The Rights of Man, but it was in France’s most brutal and lucrative plantation colony—the Caribbean sugar island of Saint-Domingue—that a half million enslaved Africans rose up in 1791 to kill their masters and ask the West: How universal, really, is your idea of universal rights?

"Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti) was transformed, by Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, into a free black nation that France saddled with unpayable debts and whose sovereignty the United States didn’t recognize for decades. But the celebrated “Black Jacobin” revolutionaries were not the whole story of how Haiti came to be. Rousseau’s ideas were not the only influences to shape a society built from the ashes of its old plantations. And among the more mysterious facets of Enlightenment culture to leave their mark here was the secret society that the British artist and documentarian Leah Gordon explores, with several collaborators, in a marvelous exhibition about Haiti’s Masonic tradition, “Vernacular Universalism: Freemasonry in Haiti and Beyond,” now at the Clemente Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side..."

The website of the Clemente Center explains the exhibit this way:

"In Haiti, during the colonial era, the Freemasons were one of the few European institutions that allowed black membership. Freemasonry still thrives in contemporary Haiti, and its visual world pervades the Haitian imaginary. The symbols that recur throughout this exhibition once tethered a web of ideas that stretched across the Atlantic, encrypting the most precious values of the Enlightenment.

"This exhibition aims to visualize the mesh of magic and reason; alchemy and science; trade and metaphysical exchange that has stretched into the 21st century. By focusing on Haiti, this exhibition sheds light on the relationship between colonized peoples and the Enlightenment. It suggests that for some, Freemasonry offered a path to becoming an agent of modernity, rather than its reviled ‘other’. This exhibition will be a timely and significant contribution to an understanding of Freemasonry through the lens of the Black Atlantic."

The island of Hispaniola where Christopher Columbus made first landfall in the Caribbean has had a curious Masonic past. Controlled by Catholic Spain during the early colonial period, the western half of the island was ceded to France in 1697 as San Domingue — later to become Haiti. When Freemasonry took to ships and started to spread around the globe in the 1730s and afterwards, it came to Hispaniola, too. But it took longer on the island than elsewhere because of anti-Masonic policies from the Catholic Church. 

In 1749, the Grand Orient de France (GOdF) chartered two lodges in San Domingue, and another ten or so were established across Hispaniola by 1789. Meanwhile, Masons in Pennsylvania wasted no time after American independence was declared, and eventually chartered seven lodges on the island of their own between 1786 and 1806. Lodges opened and closed in quick succession in those days, as the colonizing European nations fought each other in their Caribbean territories, as well as back at home. While the French Revolution and a decade of slave uprisings and fighting on the island finally brought independence to Haiti after 1804, organized Freemasonry on the island wouldn't manage to withstand the combined turmoil of revolution and the Napoleon years. 

Hispaniola was split into two separate countries after 1800, Haiti and San Domingo (later the Dominican Republic in 1844), and Haiti became the first independent nation in the Caribbean and Latin America by 1804.

Between 1809 and 1817, four new English lodges were chartered in Haiti, at first becoming a Provincial Grand Lodge, and then declaring independence as the Grand Lodge of Haiti in 1824.  But just six years later, the Grand Orient de France came back to the island, importing with them the hauts grades — the "higher degrees."  By 1836, there was established a Scottish Rite Supreme Council and the Grand Orient of Haiti, and the competing groups fought for control of the Craft degrees. Remnants of that battle continue to this day. Meanwhile, on the Dominican side of the island, the Grand Lodge of the Dominican Republic was formed in 1865.

From Freemasons of the Caribbean on the Atlas Obscura website:

"When Haiti won its independence, and utterly abolished slavery at the end of the 1791-1804 Haitian Revolution, Masonry was so ingrained into local culture that the all-black revolutionary government inherited the Craft amongst their other spoils of war.

"François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, the former slave who led the revolutionary forces against the French, is himself reputed to have been a devout freemason. His own signature seems to attest to the fact, with its combination of two lines and three dots that mimic a popular Masonic shorthand symbol of the time. In fact, some sources claim that Masonry was so integral to Haitian culture and leadership, than any president of the country who was not a Mason prior to office was ordained on the occasion of their election.

"Meanwhile another of Haiti’s founding fathers, Jean-Jacques Dessalines — the self-styled “Emperor Jacques I of Haiti” — was similarly invested in the Craft. The National Museum of History, in the center of Port-au-Prince, houses artifacts such as the slave-turned-emperor’s own sword and scabbard, clearly engraved with square and compass motifs..."

Freemasonry today prospers on Haiti,. The Grand Orient d'Haiti currently lists 50 lodges with 9,700 members on its rolls, and they are widely recognized around the world as regular. They are currently recognized by all US and Canadian grand lodges, and the UGLE.

For a more personal description and photos of the New York exhibition, also have a look at The Art of Haitian Freemasonry by 'acorngrove' on the Steemit site HERE.

The Clemente Center is located at 107 Suffolk Street in New York City. The exhibition runs until June 23rd.