It is very clear that the personality of the current Grand Master is conditioning the way the Grand Lodge of Spain is managed and damaging the status of the Grand Lodge of Spain.
The damage has reached such an extent that it is almost irreversible and will take a long time for the Grand Lodge of Spain to recover. Regular Spanish Freemasonry needs time to rethink and the Grand Lodge of Spain needs time to rebuild the damage caused by the Grand Master as well as to rebuild relationships between brothers and between lodges and even between brothers within the same lodge.
The Invisible College has called for the resignation of the Grand Master. We have asked him to do this for the good of the Grand Lodge of Spain and we have pleaded with him to step aside and call elections. We have received no response or success.
It is now time to force the Grand Master aside and stop allowing him to manage the present crisis situation of the Grand Lodge of Spain.
The Brethren of the Grand Lodge of Spain must take the initiative.
By not resigning or participating in the solution, the Grand Master is increasingly perceived to be behaving in a sectarian manner and is attempting to control the Grand Lodge of Spain by the use of his secretaries and certain Provincial Grand Lodges.
It seems that attempts are being made to collapse the operation of certain lodges by bureaucratic delays. Also attempts are being made to control the internal movements of brothers who want a change lodges. This control will fail as the bureaucracy cannot stop a brother from changing lodge once he has decided to and if the new lodge is happy with his incorporation.
The lodges and the brothers will advance beyond the control of the Grand Master not because they want to be rebellious, but because sovereignty corresponds to the lodges and is one of the most important precepts of Freemasonry. The sovereignty of the lodge is something the Grand Master can not change and he cannot control the evolution, dynamics and independence of mind which are embodied in every lodge!
On the other hand, a meeting of the Brethren will take place in Madrid on the 21st September.
This should be attended by the Grand Master as he was initially involved with this group of brothers. However, he is not expected to attend as he publicly labelled these Brethren as both good and bad, both regular and irregular, both persecuted and persecutor, all at the same time! These accusations are ludicrous! The situation is a shame! A missed opportunity!
The Invisible College has recently wrote an article about one of the provinces of the Grand Lodge of Spain, the Balearic Islands, as an example of what is wrong with the Spanish Grand Lodge.
However, if we focus on another province, Catalonia, and we analyse all the information that comes to us then, Catalonia is another good example of the bad situation within the Grand Lodge of Spain which cannot be disguised by triumphant publications by the Grand Master about Masonic acts or work or donations.
These announcements by the Grand Master are not important when the reality of the situation is that the Grand Lodge of Spain is the building foundations made of mud. The Invisible College wants our work as Masons to be built of polished stone in rows which are square and level. We are working on a plan which we will make known to all as soon as it is ready.
What is happening in Catalonia?
Recently the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Spain attended the installation of the Worshipful Master of a lodge of Catalonia. Also present was which was the Provincial Grand Master, the Provincial Grand Secretary and a guest. There were less than seven Brethren of the lodge present, and we are not talking about any lodge, but a recognised historic lodge within the Grand Lodge of Spain.
It appears that, because the Grand Lodge of Spain is failing in Catalonia. Brethren, who know a possible candidate to join Masonry are introducing them to the Symbolic Grand Lodge instead of the Grand Lodge of Spain because they have little faith that the Grand Master or our Grand Lodge will provide candidates with a good Masonic experience.
Last year the Symbolic Grand Lodge in Catalonia had 20 initiates with a certain social prestige presented to the Symbolic Grand Lodge by brothers of the Grand Lodge of Spain.
In Catalonia the Brethren are envious of the Symbolic Grand Lodge. It seems that the Grand Lodge of Spain Brethren in Catalonia are not perturbed by the Symbolic Grand Lodge being mixed or the Grand Master's claims that it is irregular and are aware that the Symbolic Grand Lodge has Lodges with well known brothers from the political class and Catalan Society (Parliamentarians, etc.) as members.
The Symbolic Grand Lodge has facilities and assets of € 3 million which are the envy of the Masonic world and there are only about 400 brothers.
Of the 3 million in funds, 1 million was contributed by the Brethren and the other two from an Interest-free credit from a very solvent banking entity in Catalonia and throughout Spain.
The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Spain has changed the address of the Grand Lodge of Spain from the historic Grand Lodge building in Barcelona. It appears the The Grand Master does not want to be seen in Catalonia. In Catalonia the Grand Master only received 20% of the vote in the last elections for Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Spain from all those who voted in Catalonia.
The Brethren suspect that the change of address of the Grand Lodge from Barcelona is how the Grand Master takes revenge for the lack of support he received in the last elections. He has also made the brethren from outside Catalonia nervous about visiting the building in Barcelona by the ridiculous claim that it has inadequate fire safety features.
The Grand Master knows that without the Grand Lodge use of offices and the temple in the building, which equates to 40% of the rent, the lodges that use the temple cannot pay the € 6000 per month rental and could lose their temple.
This has led to a commission being created to try and negotiate the rent of the old and ancient building on the Gran Vía to try and keep the building for Catalonian Masons. Petitions about this situation via the Grand Secretary on behalf of the Brethren in Catalonia have not been listened to by the Grand Master. With funds being such an issue, in Catalonia it is a major issue how the Grand Master abuses his use of his Grand Lodge Visa and they want his use of the Vias withdrawn from him.
Within Catalonia, the lodges of Girona are more akin to France and disconnected from the rest of Spain.
In Lerida masonry now barely survives. In Tarragona the situation is terrible. An example is the historic Mare Nostrum lodge which, when transferring the lodge location to the town of Reus, the Brethren asked the Grand Master to change the name to Joan Prim (General Prim who was from Reus). At first the Grand master appeared to see the logic of this name change and said yes, but later he said the name change was forbidden.
The Brethren, in response, told the Grand Master that they would leave the Grand Lodge of Spain. The Grand Master replied that this would give him joy. The 20 Brethren of Mare Nostrum lodge consequently all left and now they work at the Athenaeum of Reus with great success but not within the Grand Lodge of Spain. The historic brother Tomás G.: e (Deputy Mayor of the City Council, Parliamentarian in Catalonia, great criminal lawyer, etc.) is one of the biggest losses suffered from this action by the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Spain.
In Barcelona, the resignations of Freemasons from the Grand Lodge of Spain alternate with the incorporation of new members.
The lodges do not relate to each other and there is internal discord within all of them with some having not even carried out the mandatory election of a Worshipful Master for the next Masonic year.
What this indicates is that the dynamism and that the normal functioning of the Grand Lodge of Spain is bigger and stronger than the Grand Master. This claim is not acrimony on our part, but a recognition of the pure dynamics by which the Grand Lodge of Spain exists.
It cannot be ignored that, within this dynamic, the Grand Lodge of Spain is fractured. To deny this is to be blind.
We could talk about how many parts the Grand Lodge of Spain is divided into under the glass egg shell which encases the whole. There are at least two divisions, the most important sections. These parts seem at the moment nearly impossible to re-join together, but we must try which makes it imperative that the confrontational attitude and actions of the Grand Master cease immediately and that the divide is not widened.
As the Grand Master will not resign or call elections, there is nothing left but to let the dynamics created by all the members of the Grand Lodge of Spain flow and take a natural course. This means that the Bretheren of the Grand lodge of Spain must ask for a Grand Assembly of the Grand Lodge of Spain with a specific agenda. It would not be the correct procedure to ask only for the resignation of the Grand Master.
The correct procedure is to request, in accordance with Spanish legal legislation, that a Grand Assembly of the Grand Lodge of Spain be convened in order to discuss the current situation of the Grand Lodge and the approval of the measures, proposed and discussed in the assembly, for a solution to this situation.These solutions should include a call for immediate elections for the office of Grand Master. There must also be the approval of a provisional electoral law to justify legally the election of a new Grand Master.
Secondly, there needs to be the approval of an ethical code and a code of good practices and good conduct for the Grand Officers of the Grand Lodge of Spain.
Fraternal greetings, The Invisible College. Assembly Now!!!