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Arnaud Beltrame
Arnaud Beltrame
In all the Masonic forums, secret(?) groups and public forums/fora members pay tribute to and remember the fallen hero of France: the policeman, the lt. colonel who happened to be a French Freemason, too.

Rightly, we all admire his brave character and the manly sacrifice to save another human being’s life. That the saved person was a woman it just makes the whole story more “French” – gallant, chivalric and elegantly heroic.
On a Hungarian website I’ve found even a – migrant Hungarian – neighbor praising his very human and kind character. His readiness to always negotiate peace and reconciliation between belligerent parties.

Many Masons of North America had kind words about the French hero… never missing to mention that he was a “brother”, another Freemason that we can be proud of. Just as we relate to those from times gone: During the history there were many outstanding figures and personalities who belonged to the Craft, and they are always listed on mediocre websites where the Brethren try to “prove” that our organization is a worthy institution: look, what kind of luminaries we have had among us during the past centuries!

There is only one problem. The simple fact that most of those on the lists, as well as this very fine Frenchman, were “Masons” in obediences that are not recognized as regular Masons by the mainstream Anglo-American Freemasonry. In plain English: none of those that are now praising the ‘fallen Brother’ would ever sit in a lodge with this man!

Some just would cry irregular, clandestine and similar ugly words without any external pressure to do it… others would gladly sit with him but are forced by the Masonic discipline and obedience to their own Grand Lodge’s rules to disregard him as a Mason. And the overwhelming majority doesn’t even understand what I am talking about.
And this is, my good Brethren, how the selective amnesia of our Freemasonry works!

Arnaud Beltrame
Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame. Photo courtesy of AFP
The selective amnesia of the Freemasons

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3 thoughts on “The selective amnesia of the Freemasons

  1. And that which divides us is that old Bugbear RELIGION !! as it divides the whole world. What a sad situation 🙁

  2. I have to disagree, every freemason is taking him as a brother. He is, no matter what jurisdiction he is belonging to. The difference is only the ritual. Don’t mix up the morals or a mason with the rituals of a mason. In every kind of gathering you can find ritual rules, like in freemasonry. A baptised christian cannot go through the ritual of bar mitzvah, by the rules of the ritual (in this case the religious laws). That’s the same with freemasonry (however freemasonry is not a religion), he was working in a different ritual, what counts irregular in the point of view of the Craft. But no freemason said (or can say) that he was a good man.

    1. To be precise he was not in an “irregular” lodge or Grand Lodge. You should brush up the basic notions of regular/irregular, recognized & unrecognized (plus, clandestine).
      My GL does NOT recognize his GL, so no intervisitation is allowed. Most likely, yours has a similar rule – so, what I wrote is still true: none of us would have been able to sit with him in a lodge.

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