Octavio Carrera appointed sovereign grand commander of freemasonry in Spain

January 21, 2020

After more than 20 years of residing in Spain, Octavio Carrera González, former professor at the University of Havana, was elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Masonic Council of Spain, the highest figure of "liberal" freemasonry in that country.

A graduate in Philosophy, Octavio arrived in Spain in 1996 to pursue a doctorate in Humanities at Universitat Jaume I. Although he had already been drawn to freemasonry on the Island, it was in Spain where he was initiated as a mason.

Before emigrating, he had submitted his application to join the order through a childhood friend, but was not accepted.

Being a mason is not enough to simply want to belong. There is a process that must be fulfilled: three independent checks are made, carried out by three master masons (we call them aplomaciones), which must be positive and are submitted to a vote in the Lodge.

Second, one must undergo an initiation ritual that seeks to leave a vivential mark on the one being initiated. Freemasonry has an initiatory character that surpasses simple membership.

There is a freemasonry of a more conservative character, which makes a more absolute interpretation of the Landmarks, which are the ancient rules by which the order is governed. As a result of that interpretation, this freemasonry requires belief in a revealed god as an unavoidable condition (at least formally) to be admitted as a member, and does not accept that women can be initiated as masons.

Those who think this way call themselves "regular masons" and consider any masonic obedience that departs from these principles to be irregular. This "regularity" is sustained by the recognition granted by the United Grand Lodge of England to these obediences.

There is another way of practicing freemasonry that defends total freedom of conscience and opposition to any type of dogma. On that basis, it interprets the Landmarks and affirms that any person, man or woman, who is free (read autonomous) and of good customs (who respects social norms of coexistence), and who accepts the existence of universal values that transcend the individual, can be accepted as a mason once they pass the admission tests.

This way of understanding freemasonry is called "liberal," "adogmatic," or "humanist" to contrast it with the other, but these adjectives are merely designations to differentiate themselves from so-called "regular freemasonry."

Any way of practicing freemasonry, regardless of how the nature of the order is understood, agrees in making its own the principles of freedom, respect for difference, equality, humanism, fraternity, and the cult of reason over dogma.

Upon being accepted as a mason in Spain, Octavio had to be initiated and progress through the first degrees, wait for the brothers of the higher degrees to consider him worthy of being initiated into the 4th degree (first of the high degrees or philosophical degrees). Afterward, to study and deepen the meaning of these degrees and, once reaching the 33rd degree (the highest of the rite he practices), obtain the trust of his brothers to become Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree.

Throughout the world there are a considerable number of lodges that admit women, some exclusively female and others mixed. The majority are mixed.

Octavio was able to advance in the lodge in Spain because he has held Spanish nationality for 15 years. Moreover, the current Regulations of the Supreme Masonic Council of Spain, which is the Masonic Jurisdiction of which he is president (Sovereign Grand Commander is the masonic title), places no conditions regarding this to be elected.

Freemasonry, more than tolerance, practices respect and recognition of the different and, more than fraternity, solidarity. Freemasonry is a school of citizens that works toward human improvement. Working under cover, protected by the privacy of the lodge, helps in the perfection of people, and social changes begin with personal changes.

In today's world, where there is an accelerated deterioration of humanistic values, where there is a renunciation of the idea of human progress, freemasonry has not renounced education in values and the belief in achieving a better world.

Freemasonry asks its members not to conform, to be critical of themselves and society, and to practice in their daily lives the same principles they defend in the lodges.