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So the fateful day has arrived .....
First of all I must thank all the Brethren that were present to this that we can define, without doubt, an historical event for the Italian
masonry; I want to thank you for the faith and affection that you have given me and that I hope that I deserve.
You know very well how much care I have lavished for the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy; now, after that all of You has decided that I am worthy of being invested from the highest degree, the one of
Grand Master, my responsibilities have increased and I swear that I will use every gram of my energy for the good of the GLRI.
I hope that I won't fail to comply with the faith that You and Prof. Giuliano Di
Bernardo, the founder of GLRI, have given to me and I hope to be able to increase the force and credibility of our obedience.
Which will be the programmatic lines that in my porpouse I will follow in my way to the guide of GLRI?
The thing that I hope for the Italian masonry and for the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy, that represents on the Italian territory the AngloSaxon tradition, is the conquer of a real "Dignity" for Freemasonry: the creation of the conditions that will make feel proud the masons of being masons.
Today all this hasn't been possible because on the Italian territory there are many self-styled crafts that with their presence mine the credibility of all the movement and masonic thought. Starting from a vision strictly ethical and cultural of
Freemasonry, my intention is to make become the GLRI with its attachment to traditional masonic principles, the catalyst of all a united movement that otherwise, breaking up, would continue to damage the imagine and credibility of the same masonry.
As a sociologist, I can say that is absolutely inexplicable that a phenomenon like the one of masonry, that, I want to underline it, though its peculiarities, it enters anyway in the phenomena called "associative" , and that involves the entire world and at all latitudes millions of fellows, of Brothers, is surprisingly remembered in Italy only foe the sad event of P2.
The responsibility is in particular of the studious that haven't considered the presence of the Italian Masonry in the European culture of del'700 to nowadays, and that should study the roots of the masonic thought in the humanistic and renaissance philosophy.
This is an operation that has been already enterprise from a great researcher recently disappeared, Francis Yates, studious of the famous Institute Warburg.
For example, the same concept of'researeh of Light' , one of the capisaldi of the masonic thought, is a typical concept of the umanistic Neoplatonism. For the neoplatons, to copperhead the truth with their own means was impossible, the human mind in fact, is comparable to an eye that needs light to see, and this fact explains even the allegoric meaning of the "Light" in Masonry.
Serious studies and without preconceptions would be very useful to give to Masonry that dignity and that place in the occidental culture that deserves as a right. The masonic thought, that with error a superficial analysis could limit at a sort of
eclecticism and downright syncretism, is really the capture of conscience of a plurality of points of view, of a variety of visions that are integrated among them and susceptible of a higher harmony.
The masonic thought, as a consequence, is not to be identified in a block like a whole heterogeneous of opinions and convictions but is instead characterised by a cultural ideal and by a great gamma of philological, literary, intellectual interests that each Brother may successively combine with a variety of philosophic, moral, personal ethics and opinions. But surely is necessary to departure always with a common denominator, that, in my opinion may be found in the humanistic philosophy, and in particular in the thought of man like Pico Della Mirandola (in particular in the Oration: "De Hominis Dignitate").
So a new type of education, and it would be useful be able to read again together the wonderful and unforgettable pages of Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel, were is represented gorgeously the radical change of an education in a emblematic form.
If in any case we want to find a definition ,the masonic one could be called "Civic Humanism", as to say an interpretation of the humanistic culture as an instrument at the service of the active life of each citizen. And here I link up at my concept of Masonry as the Third Pillar of the Civil Society already enounced in my Essay published on the review "De Hominis Dignitate" and that you already know.
This would help even to understand better some of the masterpiece of the Masonic thought; for example when we affirm that masonry tends? To the perfection of the fellow, to avoid to make banal the concept, we could intend it at the light of what just said, like perfecting, like an allegory of
"will" of knowledge of the man in relation with the universe, because "him" is able to learn to know all his determination only if he covers the universe in all its extension. But, as remembers Cassirer, this "being open" at the world mustn't never mean a reduce in it, a "loosing in a mystic-pantheistic", this because the Mason has even the duty of giving his contribute in the social. We must not forget, in fact, that when Pico talks about the "Dignity of man", he intends even the man as a "craftsman" and his value is proportional to his capacity of "creating", "producing" concretely.
The term "virtue" for the humanist, is the action of the cultured man in all his height of ethical and civil value.
In conclusion, a sort of "Renaissance" were to born again means an order word for the actuation of a project, an ideal that is instrumental for an action.
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