EQUINOX OF AUTUMN
ROME - VILLA 'IL VASCELLO', 21 SEPTEMBER 1996

MAN IS ALL THE EARTH

ADDRESS BY GRAND MASTER VIRGILIO GAITO

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Authorities, Dear Sisters, Dear Brothers, Chers Frères, Lieber Brüder, Queridos Hermanos, Queridus Irmãos, Dragii Fratii, Carissimi Fratelli,

"Man is all the Earth" : this admirable conjecture of Jean Paul Sartre opened the speech by the famous Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasimin on the occasion of the inauguration of the second Latin-American Conference for the defence of human rights, held in Quito on 20th August 1980.
According to the speaker, the words of Sartre concerned the universal dignity of Man who, like the Earth, should be almost reverently respected.
And this concept is also valid for us as Masons : Man is that being created by divine inspiration that contains both the micro and the macrocosm, the centre of positive and negative energy, of ineffable but also disturbing sensations, capable of sublime heights as well as fearful abysses, artificer and, at the same time, destroyer of his own destiny, inhabitant in a world that surrounds him which he has conquered and which, in its evolution, identifies itself in him.
The four seasons, which alternate depending on the hemisphere, produce opposite and at the same time common phenomena. They correspond perfectly to the different ages of Man : spring as to childhood, summer as to youth, autumn as to maturity and winter to old age.
In an initiatic sense, the seasons accompany Man's journey towards his own elevation, from the perception of the light that the initiation reveals to him, which can be compared to the opening of the solstitial doors on the threshold of spring, to the awareness of one's own maturity obtained through the space of time covered by the glowing star which in summer is bright and in autumn is suffused in melancholy, which is the presage of the inevitable end for those who allow themselves to be enticed by the false hopes of profanity, the cold tomb of dark winter.
As Masons, the Equinox of Autumn represents the moment of full maturity, the conquest of wisdom symbolised by the perfect equilibrium between day and night ; in our northern hemisphere, it is the season to gather the tastiest fruits of the earth.
And it is the moment to meditate, looking back into the past from where we can gather auspices for the future.
A year ago, determined to win the no holds barred attack by our old and new adversaries nourished by extremism and bad faith, we solemnly celebrated the centenary of the inauguration of the monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi on Gianicolo hill - our extraordinary predecessor who held the position of Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy and who has become a universal symbol of liberty - in the presence of numerous foreign and national Masonic delegations and an enthusiastic crowd, in a blaze of banners, flags and fanfare.
It was an event that marked the culmination of the strong desire of the Grand Orient of Italy to claim its own role as an indispensable moral force in a Nation that seems to have forgotten its own past, by letting itself be snared by perverse manipulators of information. They are determined to charge Freemasonry, even the legitimate and historically valid Masonry, with the misdeeds, failures, responsibilities of a society that is in the midst of an identity crisis, as it has strayed from the main road of fundamental principles that have always been defended by true Masons.
Since then, our Brothers have once again savoured the pride of their membership to an Institution that has undeniably contributed with its best Men to the unification of Italy, freeing it from national dictatorship and from foreign invasion, to the construction and strengthening of a State that is truly democratic and defender of civil rights.
From the workshops throughout the Peninsula, one can hear the echo of mallets and chisels of the many Workmen intent on vigorously smoothing down the stones on which to build the Temple of Virtue, of Peace, of Tolerance, and of Universal Love, while from the profane world, there is an ever increasing number of people who are discovering the irreplaceable role of Freemasonry in the creation of a society that is fairer and more respectful of the duties and rights of the collective body as well as of the individual. In the first semester of this year alone, we received almost 1,300 requests for initiation from the profane and re-admittance of Brothers who had resigned following the negative events in the last few years and the persecutions against our Institution.
In the historic Sala dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, on the 10th February last year, a standing ovation was given to the memory of our outstanding Brother Lando Conti - the most loved Lord Mayor of the Florentines who was murdered by the Red Brigade because he was an irreproachable exponent of a public authority that it wanted to demolish - demonstrated the appreciation and the sorrow for an Initiate who, nourished by the principles of honesty, correctness, sense of Stateimproved in the Lodge, bore witness with his life to the contribution that any Free Mason is capable of offering with purity of intent for the good and progress of Mankind.
Many other Masons have sacrificed their lives for their Homeland during the Risorgimento wars and this century, during the Resistance and under the Nazi oppression. Eighteen of our Brothers, eight of whom belonged the Obedience of Piazza del Gesù, now Palazzo Vitelleschi, were massacred at the Fosse Ardeatine. We commemorated them on 31st March last, together with all the victims of the humanity, by raising a fierce cry of condemnation against any type of violence and against war which represents the most stupid, costly and unfit means to resolve conflicts.
And so, as jealous guardians of the memory of many men who have given their lives for this great Italian soil as well as the best of their hopes, the warmth of their enthusiasm, the scent of their ideals of liberty, unification, brotherhood, progress, without asking whether their neighbour were born in the North, South East or West, we cannot tolerate that their refulgent sacrifice is trampled on and made useless by the mounting egoism of whoever decides to oppose the unstoppable process of integration of all peoples in the name of arid economic evaluations.
More than ever therefore, there is a need for responsible, collective consideration on behalf of all the cultural, political, religious, social economic voluntary, women's, youth, Government and Parliamentary bodies as well as those European community and international organisations regarding the problems of our South.
With the authority that derives from being absolutely independent from any kind of conditioning except that of a great love for this Country, we have therefore planned to invite anyone in good faith and serious, who intends to finally free himself from the pernicious disintegration of the collective national tissue, to search for the road to salvation, not only for the South but for all the country.
It will also be the constructive and winning answer from the healthy part of the Nation to the perverse challenge given by the Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, the Camorra and by international criminality in the fiftieth year of the proclamation of the Italian Republic, whose Constitutional Charter - to which many illuminated Masons gave their contribution such as Meuccio Ruini, President of the Constituent Assembly, Mario Cevolotto, Ugo Della Seta, our Deputy Grand Master, Giuseppe Chiostergi, Roberto Bencivenga, Cipriano Facchinetti, Arturo Labriola, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando - is amongst the most modern in the world and has allowed the consolidation of an united democratic spirit, a unfailing bulwark against the repeated, bloody and subversive assaults.
This is one of the contributions that the Grand Orient if Italy of Palazzo Giustiniani believes necessary to give to our Homeland so that it can live a passionate rebirth, united and unanimous in the observance of duties before asserting rights, with the banishment of corruption, inequality, abuse of power so that honesty, justice, solidarity, culture, authenticity, the safeguarding of dignity, respect and freedom for all are rewarded instead.
It is an initiative that we will put into effect in the following months in the context of a vast cultural programme that, far from causing us to interfere in political questions, that is absolutely forbidden to Freemasonry as an Institution, will allow us to free ourselves once and for all from the shadows of the past, that our detractors, for want of proof, continue to hurl at us.
In fact we intend to take the leading role which belongs to an Institution that has always been dedicated to the spiritual elevation of Man, by spreading that particular way of being that is peculiar to the Initiate who has acquired knowledge through hard-fought inner searching, throughout the profane world.
Along this cultural line, the convention Science, Ethics and Communication organised by us last May in Milan at the Società Umanitaria created great interest. Many eminent speakers participated at this convention as well as at another convention of ours held in June in Selinunte regarding the esoteric subject ; "Structure and Symbolism of the Classical temple. The construction of the inner temple".
On 9th November this year at the Centro Congressi Frentani in Rome, along with renowned scientists, philosophers, writers, and men of the cloth, we shall discuss the theme :Science's answer to the three questions of Humanity : who are we, where are we from, and where are we heading ?
By then, we shall be in a position to present the guidelines of our Superuniversity set out on an integrated and panoramic preparation theorised by the great Pythagoras, to be situated in Crotone, where his famous school once was, to prepare, professional people, public and private administrators and managers which the Third Millennium is greatly in need of, in the context of the Progetto Uomo Vero (Project True Man).
It is a global project, once again precious for the liberation of the South especially in the Mediterranean Basin, and to which all the other Masonic Communions committed to working together to build a future of peace, harmony, healthy development and of real material and moral progress for all Mankind whose problems are common in any latitude, have shown a great interest.
This and other themes for the future of Freemasonry will be discussed at the world Convention of Grand Masters to be held in Lisbon from the 25th to 27th of September which will end with our intervention.
As our welcome guests here today, to help us celebrate the splendid Feast of the Equinox of Autumn, we have dear Brothers Glenn Capps, General Grand High Priest of the General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons International, Herald Weiland, Vice Chairman of the Recognition Commission of the Assembly of Grand Masters of North America, Sergio Muniz Gianordoli, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Espirito Santo, Claudio Aponte Rojas e Alonso Aguirre Ramos rispectively Grand Chancellor and Chairman of the Commission of Honour of the Grand Lodge of Valle de Mexico, Marcio Barbosa Carneiro, Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Minas Gerais, Gary Henningsen, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York, Farrokh Samii, Assistant to the Grand Master of the Regular Grand Lodge of Portugal, Francisco Silveira Mello, Grand Secretary for Foreign Relations of the Grand Lodge of Sao Paulo with the executive Grand Secretary Salim Zugaib and the District Delegate of Grand Master Giulio Cesare Cortese, George Stallone, Grand Representative of the Grand Orient of Italy at the Grand Lodge of New Jersey, Roberto Innocenti, Grand Representative of the United Grand Lodges of Germany at the Grand Orient of Italy, Fabio Giuli, Grand Representative of the Grand Orient of Italy at the Grand Lodge of Austria, Lamberto Scalabrino, Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Austria at the Grand Orient of Italy, Michael Spagnuolo, of the "G. Garibaldi" Lodge of New York.
We would also like to give our fraternal welcome to the foreign Grand Masters present, some of whom will also participate next week at the Convention of Lisbon and to whom I wish to give my warmest greetings as well as those of the Grand Orient of Italy of Palazzo Giustiniani, to the eminent Brothers : José Abelardo Lunardelli, General Secretary of the Conference of the Brazilian Symbolic Masonry, José Amerigo Merlo, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the State of Espirito Santo, Ramon Sifri Jimenez, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Valle del Messico, Celso Sergeio Ferreira, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Minas Gerais, Earle J. Hino, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York, with his delegation, Sever Frentiu, Grand Master of the National Grand Lodge of Romania with his delegation, Wilson Filomeno, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Brazilian State of Santa Catarina with his delegation.
These Brothers live in quite a different reality, as Freemasonry is among the most respected and highly regarded Institutions in their Countries. We witnessed an example of this esteem on 17th July this year in Montevideo, when the President of the Republic, Julio Maria Sanguineti, on the occasion of the celebration of the 140th anniversary of the foundation of the Grand Lodge of Uruguay, gave a stirring speech of tribute and exaltation of the role carried out by Freemasons in his Country and in the world, and then remained for some time with us to discuss the great figure of Giuseppe Garibaldi.
For all of these Brothers it is offensive and inconceivable that Freemasonry is subjected to such heavy and illegitimate discriminations and persecutions in Italy, while it professes the same principles and pursues the same cultural and solidarity objectives of other world Obediences.
The presence of many of them today also to bears witness to their unconditioned solidarity for the difficult battle of freedom that we are conducting and the great appreciation for initiatives we have programmed and put into effect, that are exclusively in the field of culture and solidarity.
We recently met some of these Brothers in Central and South America. and we were able to ascertain that we shared the same views about the necessity that Masons from all over the world need to gather all their energies, resources, minds, and above all their hearts together, to be at the service of a Humanity that needs to be saved from individuals or groups thirsty for power.
The universalistic spirit that pervades Freemasonry allows us to face the problems of our Nation with a panoramic vision, the only one suitable to definitively resolve them with the spirit of tolerance and reciprocal comprehension.
In this day and age, we live in a world without frontiers, in a global village in which it is no longer possible to ignore the reality of one's fellow man only because he lives a thousand kilometres away : the existential problem concerns each and every one of us and must be faced and resolved in a universal dimension in order to be valid.
Otherwise we risk finding only partial solutions, that are often contradictory and more often than not harmful, as well as sources of devastating conflicts for the world economy and for the moral and material growth of peoples and individuals.
For this reason the young are in our thoughts ; they need to be protected in their innocence, defended in every way from exploitation, helped to develop their best qualities in healthy and serene environments, educated to respect themselves and others, to understand the cult of truth, beauty and good, to be the protagonists of a different world where brotherhood, equality, and above all freedom and dignity must be the necessary characteristics of a new society. In each of them that concept of Uomo Vero (True Man) which we intend to build, based on the model of the Initiate, would become reality.
The conclusions drawn at the Convention of Grand Masters and Grand Secretaries of the world that we are organising for November 1997 in Rome on the theme : The Objectives and Responsibilities of Freemasonry in a changing society, are sure to give Freemasons the leading role as an irreplaceable moral force in the Third Millennium.
During the Initiation ceremony of the Grand Orient of Italy which is not unlike the ones in use in other Masonic Obediences of the world, the Venerable Master declares a solemn moral observance to the neophyte : "Never forget the universal and eternal precept : do not do unto others what you would not like to have done unto you, and do unto others all the good that you would like to be done unto you".
These words epitomise the distinctive characteristic of Masonic ethics that, admirably, fuses with the theological and humanistic ones.
The first draws on Aristotle's philosophical thought for which every thing in this world has an ultimate purpose which is God, in a way that man's objective is a contemplative life which allows, as far as it is possible, for some form of participation in a divine life.
Instead the second, the humanistic ethic bases morality not on the rapport between Man and a superior reality, but on Man's own needs, the first of which is survival. Moreover, here morality has the function of guaranteeing the survival of Man and the human community in that Man is seen as a responsible or rational subject and the community is seen as free collaboration and peaceful coexistence of these subjects.
Therefore Freemasons from all the world, in their Temples and in the profane life, who always work for the glory of the Great Architect of the Universe, that is to say that Supreme Being that is the origin and final destination of everything, must characterise their lives with respect for themselves and for others, directing their search for their own divine essence to reach perfection which is found in the Supreme Being and in none other. However, aware of his own nature as a man inserted in a society anguished by his own existential dramas, the Freemason sublimes egoism - that has finally become a positive quality - in the comforting altruism of donating his own spiritual victories to his fellowman.
This is how that extraordinary message of Love that the Venerable Master confides to the initiate is spread throughout the world. By opposing Vice, he can to help the rest of Humanity to live peacefully according to the moral laws of respect and dignity of each and everyone in order to project himself in a dimension of light and truth that is divine.
The spiritual path the Mason must take to find himself is difficult, as is his commitment of Love towards Humanity, but he knows that, above the walls of the Temple, where he gathers with his own Brothers in an invisible chain of energy which by enriching him purifies him, there is a starry sky - that mysterious dimension where Pythagoras urged us to look and in which only the conscience of pure men rests.
This is why the Freemason is all the Earth, source of that Love which moves the Sun and the stars, where he can walk head high, because he is a free and authentic being, a true Man !

To the Glory of the Great Architect of the Universe.