Ritual , Secrecy , and Civil Society
all . The crowning achievement of the congress is its practical decisions . We may have made too many .
In the same letter , he mentioned the external relations of the ULF and had to recognize that the climate was not necessarily very good . Many are hindering its development , he wrote . Some of them were Grand Lodges , especially in Belgium and France , “ where Brother Bernardin 13 is fighting us ,” without ignoring the hostility of the AMI , which might have thought that the ULF was encroaching on its turf . Yet he endeavored to maintain a constructive mindset : “ the idea works , we are constantly growing .”
Without numerical data , it is impossible to state an opinion on this point . The data that exists is sparse . For the Vienna congress , the minutes assert that the number of participants was 1,000 , but another internal document speaks of 700 . What should these numbers tell us , given that , traditionally , the brothers of lodges receiving the ULF congress can participate in the work without being members of the association ? 14 More important undoubtedly is another element particular to this congress : The presence of several Grand Masters and high dignitaries of European obediences and “ qualified brothers of the Grand Lodge of New York .” Rather than growing in number , which is impossible to confirm , the ULF had established itself on the international masonic landscape .
Little by little , national groups were formed , like in Belgium in June 1929 ... La Fontaine could do no less ! However , the Belgian structure quickly stagnated , and , in an August 1930 letter , he announced to a brother that he was ready to try to reorganize the Belgian section of the ULF “ on new foundations ,” without any further details . He also announced in this letter an accompanying “ project for immediately achievable activities ” that does not however figure in his archives .
In 1930 again , at the fifth congress of the ULF held in Geneva in August , Lennhoff celebrated the creation of national groups in Hungary
13 Charles Bernardin ( 1860 – 1939 ) was initiated in 1882 to the lodge Fraternité vosgienne ( Épinal ). He led a vigorous campaign to reconcile French and German Masonry , which had had no contact since 1870 , and it led to meetings between masons of the two countries . He took up his campaign again after the First World War , restarting the meetings in 1925 in Basel and organizing a large fraternal meeting in Verdun in May 1928 . Did he believe the ULF was competing with his mission ? The meeting of 1925 might lead one to believe it : The League participated , and its delegates proposed to combine the ULF with the Comité des manifestations internationales organized by Bernardin , but he refused their proposal .
14 The brochure published after the Amsterdam congress in 1929 claimed an even higher number of participants than in Vienna , but without providing statistics . For the Vienna congress in August 1930 , documents mention around thirty people present . Did it reflect an erosion of the League ? It is impossible to say . It can only be noted that the participants paid all the participation fees , which represented a significant expense . Soon , given the 1929 crisis , as can be read in certain documents and correspondences , some leaguers decided to no longer participate in annual congresses for financial reasons .
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