The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 2 – Historical Background 45
on different conceptions are lawful or not. As Henderson and Pope put it,
Masonic Grand Lodges can be divided into two categories. The first category
includes Grand Lodges that require the belief in a Supreme Being, and do not
permit discussions of politics or religion in lodge. The second category consists
of Grand Lodges that vary of such requirements. As an example, the French
Grand Orient would constitute a Grand Lodge of the second category, since it
does not demand of its members the belief in a Supreme Being. Grand Lodges of
the first category are called "regular," and those of the second category
"irregular" (although they define themselves as regular, liberal, a-dogmatic,
while they reproach the first category lodges to be conservative and dogmatic 88 ).
Grand Lodges of both categories claim more or less to adhere to a kind of
Masonic "law," i.e. to Anderson's Constitutions, which they interpret in a
different way. With one of these constitutional requirements being that a Mason
has to be a man, all auxiliary female or androgynous or children's orders are
therefore of disputable "regularity." This will be evaluated in detail in the
chapters dealing with the rituals of the corresponding orders.
Yet another problem is that "mainstream" is not a chronologically fixed term
but its definition changes with the time. Just like Prince Hall Masonry for
colored people that gained recognition by several Grand Lodges at different
times, there are some other Grand Lodges that are hopeful or likely to receive
mainstream recognition in the future. The expression "recognition" is
ambivalent. We can see this very well at the example of Prince Hall Masonry.
During the long fight for "recognition" of the latter, this term has acquired
different meanings:
'Recognition' is a vague term, and over the years Masonic leaders have
interpreted it flexibly. Depending upon the racial climate of the country
they have given it different public meanings, emphases that would
allow at least some hope of achievement [...]. In the years after the Civil
War, recognition was simply a gentle way of asking for complete
integration; as the American race system hardened, it increasingly
came to mean inter-visitation between lodges in the manner of the
colored and white churches, where ministers were able to speak at each
other's meetings. With the full flowering of segregation, the official
definition of recognition was narrowed to a simple declaration of
"legitimacy" that the blacks could use in fighting the 'bogus' black
Masonic organizations that sprang up all over the country and competed
with the Prince Hall Fraternity for members. 89
88 Cf. ibid, p. 5.
89 Muraskin, p. 206. Bold print added.