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Freemasonry in Mexico

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Many presidents of Mexico were Freemasons. Freemasonry greatly influenced political actions in the early republic, as holders of conservative ideas gathered in lodges of the Scottish Rite, while reformists choose the York Rite. Hence escoceses became synonymous with Conservatives, and yorkinos with Liberals. Santa Anna was a Scottish Rite Mason.

History

Freemasonry arrived in colonial Mexico during the second half of the 18th century, brought by French immigrants who settled in the capital. However, they were condemned by the local Inquisition and forced to desist. It is probable, though no written evidence exists, that there were itinerant lodges in the Spanish army in New Spain. Freemasons may even have been able to participate in the first autonomist movements, then for independence, conveying the ideas of enlightenment in the late 18th century. Some historians, both Freemasons and non-Freemasons, including Leon Zeldis Mendel and José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli have emphasized that Freemasonry in Latin America had built its own mythology, well away from what history records. The distinction between Patriotic Latin American Societies and Masonic lodges is tenuous. Between the late 18th and early 19th century, their operative structure was very similar, as is indicated by the historian Virginia Guedea.

The first Masonic Lodge of Mexico, Arquitectura Moral, was founded in 1806. The year 1813 saw the creation of the first Grand Lodge of Mexico, Scottish Rite.

Jose Maria Mateos, a leading Liberal politician of the late 19th century, stated in 1884 that some illustrious autonomists and independentists, such as Miguel Hidalgo, Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon and Ignacio Allende, were Freemasons. According to Mateos, they were, for the most part, initiated in the lodge Arquitectura Moral (now Bolivar No. 73), but it is true that there are no documents to prove his point. However, there are documents that seem to prove that the first Governor of independent Mexico the emperor Agustín de Iturbide, and the Dominican friar Servando Teresa de Mier, were both Freemasons. But it is true that it was common for the Inquisition to use the charge of belonging to Freemasonry in order to attack autonomists and independentists, which guarantees the impossibility of proving the innocence of the accused, due to the clandestine nature of the Orders. Thus, the archives of the Inquisition don't eliminate the uncertainties on this subject.

From the independence in 1821 until 1982, it is believed that many of the leaders of Mexico belonged to Freemasonry. When political independence came about, the few existing lodges came out of hiding and multiplied. With the arrival of the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States Joel Roberts Poinsett, the young Mexican Freemasonry was divided into two political movements, without really being defined. Poinsett promotes the creation of the Lodge of York Rite, close to the interests of the United States. Meanwhile, conservative Freemasons of the Scottish Lodge of the young Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, headed by the last viceroy doctor from Barcelona, Manuel Codorniu, manifested their opposition to the realization of the interventionist theory Manifest Destiny in the newspaper "El Sol". Thus, Freemasons who support American-style liberalism met around the lodges of the York Rite, while Freemasons who would be seen as "conservatives" remained close to the Scottish lodges, although they considered themselves heirs of Spanish liberalism. Soon, those Freemasons who did not identify with the existing alternatives would choose a third way in founding in 1825 a national rite called the National Mexican Rite, which would aim to create a political model for, and a clean government in, Mexico.

During the French military occupation that placed Maximilian I of Mexico on the throne in 1864, various French military lodges, dependent on the Grand Orient de France, arrived in Mexico, but disappeared when the French left the country. Thus, it is very likely that these Itinerant Lodges of the French Rite, due to their status as being perceived as invaders, left no influences of ritual. At the museum of Masonic Grand Orient of France, one banner of one of those lodges is preserved.

During the nineteenth century Freemasonry was being heralded as a means of removing the influences of the Catholic Church. Several of the men who were masons had expressed a desire to free women from the church's grasp through education, and they approached Laureana Wright de Kleinhans to help spread freemasonry. Though she was totally committed to the education of women, she ultimately rejected the organization because they refused to acknowledge the equality of men and women and in fact had an initiation oath which declared "never admit to their ranks a blind man, a madman, or a woman".

According to historian Karen Racine, Freemasons in the presidency of Mexico included: Guadalupe Victoria, Valentín Gómez Farías, Antonio López de Santa Anna, Benito Juárez, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, Porfirio Díaz, Francisco I. Madero, Venustiano Carranza, Plutarco Elías Calles, Lázaro Cárdenas, Emilio Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, Abelardo L. Rodríguez, Miguel Alemán Valdés and Adolfo Lopez Mateos.

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