On January 1st, 1869, Allied forces occupied militarily the Paraguayan capital. They found it deserted, except for some foreigners and starving animals. With the invading forces, came many sutlers and Paraguayan exiles. Among the officialities of Brazil and Argentina, there were many initiated into Freemasonry, that centennial brotherhood of fighters for republicanism, democracy, public education, knowledge and living according to civilized rules of games. The Presidents of the belligerent countries and generalissimos of these armies were Grand Master of Freemasonry in their respective countries: Mitre, Sarmiento, Caxias, Peixoto, Osorio, etc.
It is known also that most of the American War of Independence was done under the direction of renowned Masons: San Martin, O'Higgins, Sucre, Miranda, Bolívar. The exception was Paraguay, where political ideas and ideologies came with relative backwardness, due to their landlocked, far from the ports where arrived goods, people and ideas. Two of the Freemasons were together in the national defense during the War of the Chaco: Marshal José Félix Estigarribia and Dr. Eusebio Ayala.
On the other hand, recall that in obtaining political independence of the American countrises, Masonic Lodges had great influence. To cite just one example, the United States of America: Of the 54 commanders and officers who fought for independence, 50 belonged to Freemasonry, led by George Washington. In Central and South America, leaders were also Master Masons.
In Paraguay, some news of the presence of Freemasonry is dating from the early years of the government of President Carlos Antonio Lopez; in 1845, worked-in hiding-the Pythagorean Lodge, led by the Worshipful Enrico Tuba, Freemason of Italian origin . The first Masonic independent autonomous power in South America was the Grand Orient of Brazil, founded on June 17th, 1822 in Rio de Janeiro. Its first Grand Master was the patriarch of Brazilian independence, Jose Bonifacio de Andrade e Silva.
In 1896 was the official inauguration of the first Masonic Lodge in Paraguay. Was called Fe Lodg and worked under the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, under the auspices of the Grand Orient of Brazil, of the the Benedictine Valley of Rio de Janeiro.
On the July 28th, 1869, the Supreme Council of 33rd Degree of Freemasonry for Argentina authorized one of the leading members, doctor José Pérez Roque, to establish Masonic Lodges in Paraguay and to confer Masonic degrees, and that way, was founded in Asunción the Unión Paraguaya N° 30 Lodge. Dr. J. R. Perez was the special envoy of the Argentine Government for the establishment of the provisional government of 1869. In those days augural of the Republic of Paraguay, were initiated other personalities, many of which reached the greatest heights of political power, as Juan Bautista Gill, John G. González etc.
On June 1st, 1871 was established the Supreme Council for the Republic of Paraguay of Freemasonry of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. At that time, was elected the first Sovereign Grand Commander, the title of the highest authority of each Grand Masonic Jurisdiction, Dr. Juan Adrián Chaves, head of the medical corps of the Brazilian Navy in Paraguay, who was assisted by his compatriot Colonel Hermes Ernesto da Fonseca.
On February 3rd, 1873,was inaugurated in Asunción one of the monuments that bear witness and point to the presence of Freemasonry in Paraguay: La Libertad, a Masonic idea materialized on a monument consisting of a portrait of a woman, showing the Constitution addressed to the East, topping a column.
On January 3ed, 1896 was restored, the Supreme Council of 33rd Degree of Paraguayan Freemasonry of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. On the following February 22nd, all Masonic Lodges in the country were united under the auspices of the Supreme Council. The installation of the Grand Orient of Paraguay was in charge of the Grand Masters Bernardino Caballero, Serafin Rivas and Ricardo Garcia. On June 28th of that year, the government of Juan Bautista Egusquiza (Freemason) approved the statutes and granted legal status to the Paraguayan Freemasonry.
Another important date in the history of the Freemasonry of Paraguay is the adoption on April 30th, 1923, of the Masonic Code of the Grand Orient of Paraguay and its General Regulations. On May 13th of that year, the Masonic People of Paraguay made the oath of the Code and regulations.
On June 6th, 1887, in Asunción was founded on the oldest Lodge in running in the country: Aurora No. 1 of Paraguay, with 122 years of operation. Subsequently many more were founded, many of them having a ephemeral existence. Now, some Lodges, member of the Grand Orient of Paraguay, in Asuncion are: Aurora del Paraguay, Sol Naciente, Federico el Grande, Libertad, Universo, Fraternidad Masónica, Paz y Justicia, Bernardino Caballero, Concordia, Pitágoras, Acacia, Arandú, Giusepe Garibaldi, Lautaro, Millenium 3033, Fénix, José Gervasio Artigas, Igualdad, Pensamiento Activo, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Piedra Angular.
There are Lodges in various parts of the country, such as: Caballeros de San Juan, in Ñemby; Tekokatu, in Capiatá; Saint Germain, in Mariano Roque Alonso; Luz y Progreso, in San Lorenzo; Unión y Progreso, Igualdad y Fraternidad y Toribio Díaz, in Encarnación; Alborada del Amambay, Hermandad sin Fronteras, in Pedro Juan Caballero; Luz y Amistad, José Félix Estigarribia, Fraternidad, Cedro del Líbano y Libre Pensadores, in Ciudad del Este, and Perfecta Armonía, in Concepción.
In recent years, the Paraguayan Freemasonry lived situations that seriously undermined its prestige in the eyes of the profane world. In 1996 it suffered a serious schism. "The folly of some, the cowardice of others and misunderstood by most, driven by secular interests, - says a scholar of Paraguayan Freemasonry - was the cause of the injury which the institution could not even heal. It seems more like a metastasized cancer and leads to the death of a living organism that got it."
That schism of 1996 would have been the explosion of a number of situations that came incubated for more than a decade ago. In later years, new divisions led to so many landslides, claiming every thing for itself, the authenticity and accuracy, - mutually denied - the other lodges. Also appeared on the Paraguayan Masonic horizon other Lodges and Rites, including mixed Lodges, attributing each its own regularity, which is denied by the other, thereby giving rise, every so often, to annoying and embarrassing situations that result in the loss of the Order's prestige.
On January 18th, 2009 were completed 140 years since the regular installation of Freemasonry in Paraguay.
The memory of great Brethren Masons, as Cirilo Antonio Rivarola, Cayo Miltos, Juan Bautista Gill, Higinio Uriarte, Bernardino Caballero, José Segundo Decoud, Antonio Taboada, Juan Gualberto González, Otoniel Peña, José Urdapilleta, Cecilio Báez, Eusebio Ayala, José Félix Estigarribia, Juan Manuel Frutos and others, deserve a high gesture.
Courtesy of DIARIO MASÓNICO (from Mexico)
