The Founding Texts and Declarations of the ULRF

The founding of the Union of Regular Lodges for France has already been announced on LML in English.

This development is moving ahead in all respects at considerable speed and requires a rapid decision from all our lodges.

We remind you that lodges can adhere and individual masons can adhere equally, to the Union of Regular Lodges for France.

We also remind you that it is not necessary to inform the GLNF or any other body of your decision, except, of course, the Union (ULRF)

As we move towards a federation of lodges grouped together under their rites, a new classification of lodges and brethren registered will gradually take place with full concertation of all concerned. The important thing is to get started. But you need to know the philosophy and Masonic intentions behind all this.

Here we give you in English some of the essential founding declarations behind the event. This week, probably, the Statutes will be published. These will apply to what will most probably become the next French “Obedience” (i), to which you are invited, as lodges or as individual masons, to adhere.

“Obedience” is the word used in France and in other Continental countries, to designate the civil association registered under the law of the country which underlies the Masonic Craft Order of the same name. It is often used to designate the Masonic body in question as a whole.

Just to tell you who the sponsors of the lodges are, now well over 600, there are the spontaneous adherents, joined by those who follow the French Rite declaration, and now, today, the declaration of the A&AS Rite. (REAA)

ORIGINS OF THE ULRF

The  W.M. of a lodge made an appeal resuming our dilemma and concluding:

It is no longer possible to count on the institutions of the GLNF… to hope for a re-founding of it. We must now join together to organize our future and assemble all those that believe we have a future in common.

FOUNDING DECLARATION

Following the break down in relations between the GLNF and the UGLE and the provisional suspension of recognition by the former, possibly leading to a definitive loss of regularity which is a founding principle of Traditional Free Masonry,

Desirous of founding a safe haven for the Regularity of our Lodges and Brethren

Firm set on recovering international recognition as soon as possible

We, Masons Free of the GLNF, will form a Union   of the Regular Lodges of France whose founding principles shall be as follow and which each signatory commits and promises to defend and respect.

• Free Masons meet together and labour TTGOTGAOTU in the presence of the Three Grand Luminaries, the VSL, the Sq and the C.;
• They submit to the Ancient Landmarks, customs and usages of the universal Masonic Order.
• Respecting the liberty of free thought of their members, they particularly commit to forbidding political, religious or socio-political discussion in their midst.  
• Ambitious to protect their ideals of Brotherhood, Love and initiatory and spiritual research, they exalt humility and organize their functioning along the lines of simplicity with respect for the brethren and lodges.
• They consider the rite they practise to be the only way ahead for their initiatory progression within that rite and promise to guard and preserve its particular identity, usages and customs, while also acknowledging an equivalent dignity for all the other rites. 

Comments

[English Brother]

Lodges "grouped together under their rites" sounds dangerously close to having some element of the governance of Craft Lodges controlled by the governing bodies of the additional Degrees, which
would be irregular. Even if that's not actually what you intend, the way you express it rings alarm bells to an English ear. This might therefore not be the way to achieve early recognition by UGLE
and other English-speaking jurisdictions.

[Arturusrex]

Dear Brother


We understand the readiness of your alarm bells to ring, but be assured, total respect for regularity is the first aim of what we will be
doing over here and there will be no link let alone any degree of subordination or or interference  between the Jurisdictions of the Higher Degrees and the Craft lodges..


Your fears arise from the expression used in our translation of the original which is available onhttp://www.ulrf.over-blog.com/


The passage most pertinent to your remark is the following which we will retranslate adhering closely to the original:


L’Union des Loges Régulières Françaises fédère aussi
les initiatives des loges qui ont choisi de se regrouper par Rite, non pour s’inféoder à un corps maçonnique extérieur à la GLNF, mais pour se rassembler dans cette période de crise autour des
seuls véhicules de la progression initiatique de leurs membres afin d’en protéger les us et coutumes.


The Union of Regular French Lodges also federates the initiatives of the
lodges  that have chosen to re-assemble according to their rites, not in order to be subordinate to any masonic body outside of the GLNF, but in order to regroup together during this period
of crisis around the only vehicles permitting the initiatory progress of their members and to protect the usages and customs of such rites.


 


It is difficult, no doubt, to understand this question of the Rites in England, where there are no "rites" operating in the craft
degrees, as the UGLE has not allowed any lodge to set up under such workings as we have in France and all over the Continent. (A&ASR, Rectified  Scottish, French or Modern, etc);
Emulation and co (the local variants all being so similar from a Continental point of view!) is not, of course, a Rite, not having any vertical extensions beyond its third degree. But, the UGLE
has nevertheless long come to accepting and recognising foreign Grand Lodges that work, for example, only or mostly A&AScottish in the Craft, in the knowledge that such lodges would send
their members on to further degrees under the Jurisdiction of a Supreme Council rather than to a Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch. Recognition of such Grand Lodges has not been a headache, I am
sure, for Queen Street, because there is no interference between the Craft and the Jurisdiction of the Higher Degrees, both being under separate governance, and London knows that.


Thank you for your interest and comment.    Arturusrex