Latest news with #Freemasonry
Deccan Herald
24-06-2025
- General
- Deccan Herald
Bengaluru Freemasons celebrate Universal Brotherhood Day
Often perceived as a secretive society with rituals and coded traditions, Freemasonry observes Universal Brotherhood Day on June 24 to foster openness and share its activities with the public.
Otago Daily Times
19-06-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
60 years of masonic dedication
South Canterbury's oldest active Masonic Lodge member has been recognised for 60 years of service. Soon to be 97-year-old Owen Soal has become the second South Cantabrian to receive the honour after top lodge officials presented him with a service bar at a ceremony late last month. Mr Soal, a past master of the Caledonian Masonic Lodge, said his journey with Freemasonry began after an encounter while working as a traffic officer. "These chaps were out having a ball and they just overstepped it ... one thing led to another and we sort of got to know each other a wee bit better. We sort of seemed to click, and from there on we became quite good friends. "They never told me they were [lodge] members but nobody does, if you wish to join you're the one that's got to make the inquiry. I heard something being mentioned so I made a couple of inquiries and asked those two." Six months later he heard his name had been put forward and after being questioned along with his wife he ended up joining. "You wouldn't think it was 60 years ago. The time has just gone, I don't know many that have joined an organisation or a club and are still active after 60 years. "I did my first degree, that was the initiation, at the Caledonian Lodge, then I was farmed out to a country lodge at Pareora for my second degree and then did my third degree at Geraldine. "Over the years I've worked my way up through the various ranks. I've gone from nothing to a master, immediate past master and was also director of ceremonies for seven years." "Looking back, all I can say is, I don't think I would have got to here, in fact I'm sure of it, if I did not have the support of my wife and family," Mr Soal said. He was grateful to have had his tenure recognised. "My date was meant to be in July but they decided to bring my date forward for health reasons and the master's year finishes in June so he wanted to clean up a lot of things. "In doing such they held it at my home, I was absolutely blown away. The master was there and another chap [junior grand warden Paul Johnston] who represented the grand master of New Zealand, who happened to be away overseas. "He officiated the ceremony. At 50 years I was presented with a jewel and for my 60 years he attached a bar to it. I doubt if I'll see the 70th year." He said the camaraderie of the organisation was one of the biggest things that had attracted him to and kept him a member. "I'm very pleased I did go ahead and join, it's worldwide and anywhere you travel over the world, if you happen to have a lapel badge or something like that it's internationally recognised. "The only thing that I feel is really not right, is it's all for men. What about your wife? She's sitting at home, babysitting, night after night and you're out visiting, representing them. "I have raised this time and time again and it's starting to show a bit of progress." After a dip in membership over the years, Mr Soal said younger people were starting to join again. "I know in my initiation when I first joined, there was about 108 people, and when I went into the chair, there was 120 members in the temple. "Every organisation changes, some for the better, some for the worse. In our case our numbers have gone down a lot but I feel we are starting to climb up again. "It's a battle that I think applies to everyone, one year you've got a flood of people wanting to learn something and the next year you're struggling to try and find candidates." There was another important milestone, Mr Soal was hoping to tick off this year. "My wife turns 91 this month and I'll be 97 in July. "Our big hope is to celebrate our 70th wedding anniversary in November if this little old coot is still around. "But it's day by day, my wife supported me right through the years, I appreciate that and that's what I can do for her now."
BBC News
16-06-2025
- BBC News
'It involved the Mafia, Freemasonry and the Vatican': The mysterious murder of 'God's Banker'
Forty-three years ago this week, the BBC reported on the death of Roberto Calvi, an Italian banker whose body was found in strange circumstances in the centre of London. His bank was linked to the Vatican, a masonic group and the Mafia – and his murder left many unanswered questions. Roberto Calvi was the chairman of the prestigious Banco Ambrosiano, the largest private bank in Italy. He was so closely connected to the Roman Catholic Church that he was known as "God's Banker". Warning: This article contains references to suicide and murder But in June 1982, the 62-year-old Calvi went missing. And on the morning of 18 June, his body was discovered hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London. "Calvi was at the centre of an incredibly complex web of international fraud and intrigue," reported the BBC's Hugh Scully. "It involved the Italian banking world, the underworld, the Mafia, Freemasonry and, most startling of all, the Vatican." The banker's death would trigger a wide-ranging political and financial scandal in Italy. It would involve the disappearance of millions of dollars, and leave behind an enduring mystery. Calvi had been missing for nine days before he was discovered hanging from scaffolding beneath the bridge. But it was the strange circumstances of his death that puzzled UK police. His pockets were stuffed with bricks, and with some £10,000 ($14,000) in cash in multiple currencies. He also had a fake passport bearing the name Gian Roberto Calvini. Despite this, the initial coroner's report in July 1982 found no evidence of foul play on his body, so ruled that the banker had taken his own life. But even at the time there was suspicion that something far darker was afoot. "Calvi's last journey was hardly that of a man contemplating suicide," said Scully. "Indeed, he had made the most elaborate plans to get out of Italy secretly." The banker had shaved off his moustache to avoid being recognised before disguising his route out of Italy by going through other countries first and hiring a private plane to spirit him to London. "He had taken a one-month lease on a flat in Chelsea and then there was a false passport and an airline ticket," Scully continued. "Inside the passport was a current visa for Brazil and the airline ticket was for a one-way ticket to Rio de Janeiro. Why, you might ask, go to all those lengths simply to finish up on the end of a rope under Blackfriars Bridge?" Calvi's was not the only unexpected death at Banco Ambrosiano. The day before his body was found, his personal secretary Teresa Corrocher had also apparently jumped to her death from the fourth floor of the bank's headquarters in Milan. She left behind a note condemning her boss, writing that he should be "twice cursed for the damage he caused to the bank and all its employees". Calvi and his bank had operated in a murky world where finance, organised crime, politics and religion overlapped. Founded in 1896, Banco Ambrosiano had a long history with the Catholic Church – and the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), often known as the Vatican bank, had become its main shareholder. IOR holds the bank accounts of the Pope and the clergy, but it also manages the church's financial investments. Because the Vatican is its own country, Italian regulators have no control or oversight of the IOR. Mafia connections "The Vatican is entirely free of exchange controls and other government regulations; secrecy is everything," said Scully. "The Vatican has to account to no one for its financial dealings, and enormous sums of money can be sent anywhere in the world without anyone knowing about it other than those directly involved." Through his role as head of Banco Ambrosiano, Calvi had forged close ties with his opposite number in the IOR, its chairman Archbishop Paul Marcinkus. In turn, this American priest had financial connections and associates that raised eyebrows. "Best known of these was Michele Sindona, an international banker with mafia connections who is now serving a 25-year jail sentence for fraud in the US," said Scully. Sindona, who was known in banking circles as "the Shark", would later be transferred to prison in Italy where he would meet his own suspicious end in 1986, after drinking coffee laced with cyanide. Sindona had mentored Calvi in his banking career since the late 1960s, and they both belonged to a shadowy masonic lodge called Propaganda Two (P2). The masonic group was linked to extreme right-wing groups and was run by Italian multi-millionaire and avowed fascist Licio Gelli. It counted leading figures in the armed forces, politics, business and newspapers among its members. An Italian journalist, Count Paolo Filo della Torre, told the BBC in 1982 that while P2 was theoretically a masonic lodge, it "practically was something very much associated with [the] mafia and with all sorts of dirty dealings". In March 1981, Italian police raided Gelli's offices and discovered in a safe a list of hundreds of alleged P2 members, including politicians, military officers and media tycoon and future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The revelation caused a political explosion. The Italian prime minister Arnaldo Forlani and his whole cabinet resigned, a police chief shot himself, and a former minister was rushed to hospital after taking an overdose. The police raids also uncovered compromising documents that implicated Calvi in fraudulent practices and illegal offshore operations. By May 1981, the banker had been arrested and found guilty of currency violations. He was sentenced to four years in prison but was released on bail while pending appeal. Calvi used this as an opportunity to skip the country with a briefcase full of damning documents about Ambrosiano's activities. Within days of his arrival in London his bank had collapsed, leaving behind huge debts. Missing billions "Before Roberto Calvi disappeared, Italian investigators discovered that $1.5bn was missing from his bank," said Scully. "It's now believed that this money was sent abroad through the Vatican bank which escapes Italian exchange controls. Some of that money was lent to South American countries at low interest rates as directed by the Catholic Church. The rest was put into ghost companies in Luxembourg and South America from where it was returned to Italy to buy shares for Calvi in the Banco Ambrosiano. By this method he was able to use bank funds to build up his own personal fortune." Marcinkus was also sought for questioning but was granted immunity as a Vatican employee, and he maintained his innocence of any wrongdoing. The Vatican never admitted any legal responsibility for Banco Ambrosiano's collapse, but in 1984 said it had a moral responsibility for the bankruptcy and made a voluntary contribution to the bank's creditors of $406 million. More like this:• The woman who inspired The Sopranos• The bizarre siege behind Stockholm Syndrome• Why The Godfather was a stark warning for the US Investigators believed that the shell companies that Calvi had set up were being used to move money both to support secret political activities in other countries and to launder money for clients such as the mafia. "Police investigations of Calvi's affairs thus threaten many powerful people in Italy and some think provided a motive for his murder," said Scully. Filo della Torre, who knew Calvi, told the BBC in 1982 that he believed the banker had been killed, and that his body being left under Blackfriars Bridge indicated masonic symbolism. He said that P2 members wore black robes to their meetings and referred to themselves as "frati neri", Italian for "black friars". When Scully said that this made Calvi death's sound "like something out of the Borgias", the Italian journalist replied: "I'm afraid it does very much. We are going back in [a] sort of Italian tradition." Calvi's family also refused to accept the suicide ruling, which was overturned in 1983 when a second inquest delivered an open verdict on the death. But his family, including his widow, Clara Calvi, kept pushing for the police to investigate, hiring their own private investigators and forensic experts to look into the banker's death. After Calvi's body was exhumed in 1998, evidence mounted that he could not have killed himself. Forensic tests showed that injuries to his neck were inconsistent with death by hanging, and that Calvi's hands had never touched the bricks in the pockets of his clothes. In October 2002, Italian judges concluded that the banker had indeed been murdered. An Italian police investigation was launched, and in October 2005, five people went on trial in Rome, charged with Calvi's murder. The prosecutor, Luca Tescaroli, argued that the banker had been murdered for stealing Mafia money which he was meant to launder, and that Calvi was planning to blackmail several other prominent people, including politicians. In June 2007, after a 20-month trial, Sardinian financier Flavio Carboni, his former girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig, Roman entrepreneur Ernesto Diotallevi, Calvi's former driver bodyguard Silvano Vittor, and convicted Cosa Nostra treasurer Pippo Calo – who was serving two life sentences for unrelated Mafia crimes – were all acquitted of any involvement in Calvi's death. Speculation remains about who commissioned and ultimately carried out the killing of the Italian banker, but to date no one has been convicted. -- For more stories and never-before-published radio scripts to your inbox, sign up to the In History newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week. For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Otago Daily Times
24-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Freemasons' Arrowtown story ends
Among the last members of Arrow Kilwinning Lodge are, from left, Edis Embil, Chris Buckley, Gary Lonsdale and Kent Dow. PHOTO: SUPPLIED The curtain has come down on nearly 150 years of Freemasonry in Arrowtown. About 50 Freemasons from throughout Otago and Southland went to the final meeting of the Arrow Kilwinning Lodge in its historic Wiltshire St building on Monday. Its last 10 members will now join their Queenstown counterparts at the Lake Lodge of Ophir, based in their equally historic building in Marine Parade. Member Kent Dow says the loss of Arrow Kilwinning Lodge's identity is sad, but its membership's dwindled to the point where it didn't make sense to continue. "We need to share the load." On the bright side, the move will boost the membership of Lake Lodge of Ophir to about 60. Its numbers are on the rise, sustained by the Whakatipu's growing, multicultural population, Dow says. The Heritage New Zealand-listed Arrowtown lodge building will remain in Freemason hands though, and they're on the hunt for a tenant for its front room to help pay for its ongoing maintenance. The inner room, with its rare, hand-painted friezes and emblems depicting Masonic symbolism, will remain a "sacred space", he says. Fellow member Edis Embil says Arrow Kilwinning Lodge was formed in 1878, with members travelling on horseback from as far away as Skippers, Macetown and Cardrona to attend the monthly meetings. They met at a hotel for a decade until the Wiltshire St building was completed in 1888. Lake Lodge of Ophir was established first, though, with the Marine Parade building completed in 1864, Embil says. The oldest stone building in the resort town, it's also the oldest building in the country still in use by Freemasons. Freemasonry has its origins in the medieval stonemason guilds of Europe, and is the oldest fraternity in the world, he says. "It used to be thought of as a secret society ... it's a little bit more visible and transparent now." Dow says the idea is to "make good men better". "We're taught to be charitable in our personal lives, but we're fortunate to also be charitable as a lodge." In the past two years alone, it's made grants of about $200,000 to local organisations.
BBC News
17-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Jersey Freemasons to host open day to mark Liberation 80
The Jersey Freemasons are hosting host an open day at the Masonic Temple in St Helier to mark the 80th anniversary of Jersey's Liberation are remembering members who were forced to hide their community during the German Occupation of the island during World War group said the event would allow the public a chance to "explore the history and heritage of freemasonry in Jersey" and their involvement during the liberation in Dallas-Chapman, head of the Jersey Freemasons, said this year marked a "significant milestone for the island", and said he was "excited to celebrate with the community". Mr Dallas-Chapman was formally recognised as the new head of freemasonry in Jersey in December 2024. The group said the open day, which starts at 10:30 BST would include guided tours of the temple, presentations and also said there would also be a presentation on the life of Harold Le Druillenec, a concentration camp survivor and former head teacher of St John's School.
