Protected by the authorities, the Grand Master began to take action against those who demanded his immediate resignation.
14ymedio, Havana,27 December 2024 — No ingredient was missing from the drama that Cuban Masons have been involved in for almost ten months this year. The scandal, last January, over the theft of 19,000 dollars from the top – and safest – floor of the Grand Lodge building in Havana, led to a whirlwind of accusations and pronouncements that plunged the order into disrepute. The man whom all the fingers were pointed at was the Grand Master himself: Mario Urquía Carreño.
Even today it is not clear why the money, which belonged to the Llansó Masonic Asylum, was subjected to such irregular transactions among the high officials who were supposed to guard it. Urquía Carreño, who initially assumed responsibility – although not guilt – for the theft, entrenched himself in office and found an unexpected ally: the Ministry of Justice.
Protected by the authorities, the Grand Master began to take action against those who demanded his immediate resignation. Cuban Masons, historically intolerant of all forms of authoritarianism, counterattacked using the fraternity’s legal tools. During a meeting in March, he was expelled from the premises with cries of “Get out, thief!” Humiliated by his adversaries, but shrewd and well advised, Urquía Carreño demonstrated that his opponents had not followed the rules correctly and, with an endorsement from the Ministry of Justice, he was reinstated in his office.
Another variable was added to the equation: the independent press. The attention that the crisis received was another of the Grand Master’s weapons against his enemies: he accused them of revealing Masonic matters to the layman. The irony of the argument was that both State Security and some of its propaganda channels – especially the so-called Cuban Warrior – were tearing their hair out at such a lack of respect for the order.
When the situation could not be more surreal, Caridad Diego, the regime’s chief for religious affairs, intervened.
When the situation could not be more surreal, Caridad Diego, the regime’s chief for religious affairs, a person experienced in dialoguing with the fraternity, intervened. In a meeting with a group of Masons, the Communist Party official ordered the cell phones to be confiscated from the attendees and confessed that she “knew nothing of what was happening.” She urged, however, for a return to the fold of the Ministry of Justice, which is essential for the Grand Lodge to remain legal in the country.
In August, Urquía Carreño capitulated “for the good of the institution” and resigned from office. There had been months of extreme tension and schism, in practice, with the Supreme Council for the 33rd Degree – the second most important Masonic institution in Cuba – and with its leader, José Ramón Viñas, his antagonist. He had left Freemasonry on the brink of institutional abyss and one step away from losing the recognition, and therefore the financing, of Masons from other countries. Cuban emigrants in Florida already considered him an agent of counterintelligence.
A month later, in another equally unexpected move, the former Grand Master was arrested at the police station in Zanja y Dragones. He seemed to have lost the favor of his former protectors and his Masonic status was in question. Since then, it is unknown what has become of him.
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