HAVANA, Cuba – “Once again, the personal interests of some members of our jurisdiction are evident above the interests of the Institution. The actions carried out on July 23 by these Masons They are trying to foment once again a massive rejection of this Grand Mastery,” said Mario Urquía Carreño, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Cuba, in a message transmitted to the Masonic community signed on July 24 and to which CubaNet had access.
In this way, Urquía Carreño responds to concentration of around two hundred Masons that took place this Tuesday, July 23, in the building of the Grand Lodge of Cuba for demand of him to resign from office.
The Masons gathered together declared to CubaNet They were there because Mario Urquía had been reinstated in his position by the Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) despite the fact that he had previously been expelled from the Order for “violating morality” and “betraying its principles.” For this reason, they do not recognize him as Grand Master and demand that the Government cease interference in their internal affairs.
They also clarified that their presence there occurred after exhausting all legal, Masonic and secular avenues, without being heard.
Although they have waited seven months for the peaceful resolution of their internal conflicts, they say that the element that finally motivated them to make the claim was Decree No. 1791 dated July 19, 2024, where Urquía suspends the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Recognition between the Grand Lodge of Cuba and the Supreme Council. In this way, he breaks with 200 years of Masonic unity and peace, as well as putting the Masonic community to choose between one body or another and endangering the international recognition of the Cuban Order.
Urquía has refused to comply with his expulsion, which took place in January of this year by the Supreme Council (which heads degrees 4 to 33), and which the Masons demand due to the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Recognition. According to this, if a Mason is expelled in one of these instances, the other party must also comply.
The expulsion of Mario Urquía occurred after the alleged theft of 19,000 dollars in his office in January of this year. From then until March, when he was prevented from opening and presiding over the session of the Upper House with cries of “get out, traitor and coward”, most of his senior officials resigned from their posts.
For Urquía, the “legal Masonic reasons” for not applying such expulsion and “the decision adopted by the governing body of the Associations in our country, once again violating one of our Ancient Limits which establishes that Masonry respects the civil and political organization of the country in which it is based” are unknown.
Although he acknowledged that the gathering was peaceful, he asserted that “the claims made within the so-called Masonic laws were in no way carried out in accordance with our precepts and oaths.”
Rejection of the press
Since the beginning of the protest, CubaNet was broadcasting live from the site. There were two foreign news agencies there – at the invitation of the Masons – AFP and NBC.
The news coverage went viral and captured media attention. This, for Urquía, was “regrettable.”
“It is regrettable how the independent press was used through Ms. Camila Acosta, who is widely known to have exposed internal Masonic matters through social networks from the beginning, the same one who has attacked this Grand Lodge of Cuba and this Grand Master with information that a layman should not be familiar with.”
For Urquía, “the planned media coverage of these actions, by those who only seek to profit from the current Masonic situation, once again discredits our Grand Lodge of Cuba of AL and AM at the national and international level, which brings with it unfavorable consequences” for the Order.
Urquía’s mention of Acosta coincides with a program dedicated to the journalist on “El guerrero cubano,” a YouTube channel dedicated to disinformation about current events in Cuba and allegedly manipulated by State Security.
Political connotation
Two days before the protest, Urquía Carreño issued a statement stating that the purpose of the call was to “directly attack government institutions with marked political positions, which for many are disguised as alleged Masonic motives.”
In his new statement, he referred to this again and added: “It should be made clear that the principle of discretion that our actions must have was violated by some, and not allowing our internal affairs to be exposed outside our lodges and much less with spurious interests of another kind.”
He was also referring to the presence of the Cuban writer, mason and former political prisoner Ángel Santiesteban Prats, “who has played a leading role in the campaign of discredit and the distortion of the facts.”
Santiesteban declared to CubaNet It is evident, both from Urquía’s message and from the manipulations of the State Security media, that “what has hurt a lot has been that what is happening in Freemasonry has become known internationally, that the news went viral and traveled around the world.”
“They prefer things to be as they were before, in silence, so they can do whatever they want without anyone finding out about their injustices,” he said.
The MINJUS is not involved
At the beginning of June, the MINJUS invalid the expulsion of Mario Urquía Carreño and, without further ado, ordered his reinstatement in office. A few hours before the demonstration of the Masons in the Grand Lodge of Cuba on July 23, the state institution issued a informative note in which he stated that he had carried out “an exhaustive evaluation of decisions adopted” by the Supreme Council and the Grand Lodge of Cuba “on issues related to sanctions against members of Masonic bodies and the elections of their directors held in the aforementioned Grand Lodge of Cuba AL and AM on March 24, 2024, detecting irregularities due to non-compliance with its internal statutes.”
Thus, “it was indicated that these processes should be carried out again in accordance with the statutes and the will of its members.”
This means that the Supreme Council would have to go through the process again through which it ruled on the expulsion of Mario Urquía, and that the High Chamber of the Grand Lodge of Cuba, the same one that, by virtue of that expulsion, had rejected Urquía’s presence and elected a new Grand Master, would have to repeat the elections.
However, for the Freemason Sergio Vidal Águila the problem is not that but the attempt to invalidate the sanction of expulsion of Urquía Carreño.
For Santiesteban, “the fact that the MINJUS has decided to try to manipulate, justify and lie about the reality of its interference in our affairs, gives an idea that it was thanks to the press that we exerted that pressure or they would have remained silent as they have until now.”
He added: “If Freemasonry has to bow down to survive, it will be the end of its credibility.”
The Contest of Truth
Urquía Carreño ended his message by calling on people not to participate in “conspiracies” of “internal enemies” and to resolve their “conflicts internally and in accordance with Masonic laws, not through social networks or the press.”
However, he did not explain why he refused to open the door of his office on July 23 to the hundreds of Masons who, protected by Masonic legality, demanded that they be heard and that he be removed from office.
Regarding Urquía’s message, Vidal Águila commented to CubaNet which is a sign of a “deep disrespect he feels for what was once the Institution in which he was a member. He is being consistent with his ambition, with the discourse of the state entities that support him and with those who through the media seek to carry out a logic that distorts the reality of the facts, constructing a parallel reality, attacking Masons with prestige gained fraternally.”
And he sentenced: “This is a contest of truth against lies, of a Mason expelled under all rules who feels firm and protected by a ruling that violates, above all, Cuban law, which is what gives validity to both Masonic legal bodies, but we Masons are taking our postulates and making them firm to defend our sovereignty.”
Follow our channel WhatsApp. Receive the information from CubaNet on your cell phone through Telegram.
