How Freemasonry United Italy

By Mirella Ionta

With structures that have accommodated masonic activities still standing today in major cities in the Western World, we are often reminded of the existence of a secret society that is believed to have controlled the political and financial events of modern history. A famous speech, delivered by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, underlining the dangerous power of such an active fraternity "in a free and open society," confirms the evil nature of an "efficient machine" that is equipped with military, diplomatic, scientific, economic, and political enterprises and is supported by unelected, elite intellectuals and private financial bankers. In a time when the Federal Reserve, the central banking cartel owned by such wealthy bankers as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, held a firm partnership with the American government to which it loaned large sums of money with interest, the concern of Kennedy evoked an older concern expressed by the papal authority during the Risorgimento period in Italy. As the former was left with the heavy burden of publicly informing his people of their eternal debt to an illegitimate enterprise, Pope Pius IX, whose "divine" order was threatened and eventually became disenfranchised by the masonic movement in revolutionary Italy, reacted with the same Kennedian urgency to the anti-clerical "propaganda" spreading like a forest fire in his time.

If masonic activity was necessary to undermine the power of the papal state which was believed to hinder the process of unification in Italy is not a thesis that is easy to develop. The insufficient documentation that exists at our disposal limits our understanding of such concealed masonic encounters, marking a great disservice to the pursuit of truth. From what is available for public scrutiny no one can confirm with certainty that the Italian underground was solely based on a genuine patriotic desire to unite Italy. Declarations of the masons' mysterious inclination toward Satanism and occultism render the society's activities suspicious. Moreover, the involvement of united Italy's official national poet, Giosue Carducci, in an established masonic allegiance, helped shape a new literary tradition, tainted by radical convictions. Providing a cultural and literary rhetoric for the secret society, the poem "Ode to Satan" is a perfect reflection of "New World Order" visions which were interpreted as being serious threats to the Old World Order. The pope's reaction to the masonry, whose doctrine of NWO spirituality may have inspired the early poetic sensibility of Carducci, discloses the serious implication the clandestine operation was deemed to have had on a changing Italian society.

Today, with the benefit of hindsight, stating that a secret society composed of a tight group of the powerful gentry was responsible for world wars, political divisions, global Ponzi schemes, economic crashes, and 9/11, would not be considered as being highly speculative or unlikely. Even in risorgimentale Italy, Pope Pius IX, in an effort to preserve his absolute power, realized the harmful effects such a society would have on the supremacy and duration of his reign. Lilith Mahmud, a researcher published by the University of California, concedes that the practice of discretion was what made and what still makes the society detrimental to more transparent, legitimate processes. She quotes Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt when describing the nature of the fraternity: "Those who think that the secret of Freemasonry consists in signs or words are sadly mistaken. The secret is actually a lived experience, and thus it is only a secret insofar as it is incommunicable in human words."

Modelled after religions that assigned certain rituals, symbols, temples, and statues as being sacred and transcendental, the exclusive society heavily depended and still depends on these elements to legitimize their collective world vision and aspirations. They also developed an ability to identify other fellow members outside the confines of their "sacred" temples. Such distinct symbols as the compass in a square and pendants shaped as a pelican or a star were assigned to represent the organization. Calculated gestures, handshakes, nods, and styles of dress were all established to serve as features that would allow members to recognize each other in ordinary environments. Born in London, in the 18th century, Freemasonry was inspired by the enlightenment idea of "rationality." With human reason, Freemasons believed in their power to affect and change the political and historical events of the times. In Italy, the construction of masonic lodges in the 19th century coincided with other nationalist conspiratorial associations such as the Carboneria, who were in favor of developing Italian nationalism, creating a constitutional monarchy, and eradicating absolutism.

This brings a person to ask a million dollar question: Was the existence of secret societies necessary to build the nation-state of Italy? Discovering that an underground society, which deviates from the norms of the state and challenges decisions made by the current ruling command holding the population in disregard, launches a concerted effort to oppose the unjust state of affairs may offer some relief to the oppressed. However, this coercive way to incite change in society or to develop a cultural identitymay not be the right solution to existing or future political and social dilemmas.