Regularity and Recognition

[Tamrin]

Regularity and Recognition
By W. Bro. Tony Pope

(Excerpt)

The terms 'regular' and 'irregular' are used to describe individual Masons, their lodges, and their Grand Lodges or other ruling bodies. 'Recognition' (and its vern, 'recognise') are used to describe the relationship between Masonic ruling bodies. These terms are often confuded, with 'regular' being treated as a synonym for 'recognised', which it is not.

[Tamrin]

Basic Principles for Grand Lodge Recognition

In 1929 the United Grand Lodge of England adopted eight, Basic Principles for Grand Lodge Recognition. In his book, The Freemasons, Jasper Ridley tells us (p.263):

The condition excluding women was strongly worded: ‘that the membership of the Grand Lodge and individual lodges shall be composed exclusively of men, and that each Grand Lodge shall have no masonic intercourse of any kind with mixed lodges or bodies which admit women to membership.’

Ridley went on to observe (ibid.):

At a time when Freemasons in many countries were confronted with the rise of Fascism and the greatest threat that there had ever been to Freemasonry and to the principles of toleration in which Freemasons believe; when local lodges were taking independent action to resist this threat in the face of the hesitation and subservience of their Grand Lodge; when women were beginning to demand equal rights with men; [the] English Grand Lodge chose this moment to insist that they would have no dealings with any Freemasons who extended religious toleration to atheists, who were prepared at least to have dealings with women’s and mixed lodges, who allowed local lodges to have any independence from their faltering Grand Lodge, and who were prepared to introduce politics into lodge meetings by referring to the Fascist threat that was confronting them.

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Speech by the MW The Pro Grand Master
The Most Hon. the Marquess of Northampton, DL
at the European Grand Master's Meeting
on 5th & 6th November 2007

[UGLE's Site - Excerpt - Linked Above]

Regularity is an absolute. It cannot be partial or conditional. A Grand Lodge is either regular or it is not. In England’s terms, to be regular a Grand Lodge must conform to each of our Basic Principles for Grand Lodge Recognition or it cannot be considered as regular.

Those Basic Principles, agreed with the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland, were codified and published in 1929 but were not something new. They had been developed and refined over more than 150 years as Freemasonry spread around the world and Grand Lodges began to emerge outside these islands. We believe them to be fundamental and unchangeable, as they define what is for us the essence of regular Freemasonry. The Principles were further confirmed by the three Home Grand Lodges in 1938 in the statement they each issued entitled “Aims and Relationships of the Craft”. We firmly believe that if any of these Basic Principles were removed or varied, that removal or variation would materially alter the nature of Freemasonry.