In 1976, the Masonic Grand Orient of Italy withdrew its charter
for the Propaganda Due lodge, otherwise known as the P2 Lodge. At
that time, they were surrounded by controversy. Overseen by the
notorious Licio Gelli, the organization had been involved in
political scandals, violent crime, money laundering schemes and
conspiracy. The P2 Lodge were deeply committed to far-right politics
and a number of prominent Italian men were connected to it. Whether
their ideas and practices had much impact on the real world, or even
a realistic chance of having any influence at all, is a matter up for
debate.
The lodge originally opened its doors in 1877. Initially simply
called the Propaganda Lodge, its highly exclusive membership was
limited to the elitist of the elite in Italian upper-class society.
Otherwise, it was unremarkable; an ordinary Masonic lodge that mainly
functioned as a social club for the rich and well-connected. The
Propaganda Lodge went into decline; the members of the fraternal
order lost interest and eventually it was little more than a list of
names. When Benito Mussolini and the fascists took over in the 1930s,
Propaganda, as well as all Masonic lodges, were banned by law. After
the Axis defeat in World War II, ex-fascist Licio Gelli revived the
defunct lodge with a plan to use it for his own nefarious purposes.
Born in Tuscany, Licio Gelli started his political career as a
liaison officer for the Italian fascists and Germany’s Nazi party.
With fascism apparently dead, the American government encouraged the
Italians to ratify a new law allowing freemasonry to flourish in
Italy once again, mainly as a bulwark against communism and a haven
for free-thinkers and pro-democracy theorists. The Grand Lodge of
Italy appointed Gelli to re-open the Propaganda Lodge, thereby
renaming it Propaganda Due. The center-left Christian Democrat party
was in power so Gelli used his contacts in right-wing extremist
circles to build up a network of quasi-fascist businessmen and other
people of influence; some of them were never formally initiated into
Masonic ceremonial but were considered members nonetheless. Included
in this consortium were high ranking members of the establishment
including politicians, judges, journalists, bankers, police
officials, secret service agents, mafiosi and Vatican
representatives. The son of former king Victor Emmanuel belonged as
did then media magnate and future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
They soon would embark on a plot to permanently rid Italy of all
leftist politics.
By the end of the 1960s, the left-leaning government started
growing suspicious of the Masons. They asked for a membership list.
When Gelli submitted his list of P2 members, it mentioned only the
“sleepers”, the people associated with P2 who had never actually
been initiated into the rites of the brotherhood. This made the Grand
Orient of Italy suspicious and, deciding that P2 was too hot to
handle, they revoked their charter in 1976 and officially banned them
from practicing freemasonry. Gelli himself claimed their charter had
only been suspended and the lodge continued to operate under the
radar without official standing.
Five years of secret activity came to an end in 1981 with the
death of Roberto Calvi, the president of Banco Ambrosiano. Calvi’s
corpse was found in London. At first, the police deemed it a suicide
but subsequent investigation revealed that he was murdered. The Banco
Ambrosiano had collapsed and investigations into Calvi’s death
revealed a trail that led through Mafia hitmen to the Vatican and
finally to Propaganda Due itself. The bank apparently had been
laundering money for the Vatican who were funneling funds supplied by
the American Central Intelligence Agency to the P2 Lodge in an effort
to combat the Communist Party of Italy who were growing in popularity
and becoming the biggest communist party in Europe.
The scandal of the Banco Ambrosiano led to the discovery of the
P2 Lodge who had been operating clandestinely since being banned half
a decade earlier. When police raided Gelli’s home, they found a
list of P2 Lodge members. Then in 1982, a Propaganda Due manifesto
was discovered in the false bottom of a suitcase belonging to Gelli’s
daughter. In an attempt to flee the country, officials found the
document when she tried to clear the airport’s passport control in
Rome. The papers laid out detailed plans for infiltrating, at the
highest levels no less, all the major institutions of Italy for the
sake of establishing a dictatorial regime to permanently govern the
Italian nation. It all seemed clear, especially since Licio Gelli had
once, in a newspaper interview, claimed that he aspired to be the
puppet master of Italian politics.
A further revelation was that the P2 Lodge was somehow
associated with terrorist activities. On the morning of August 2,
1980, a bomb exploded in the central train station of Bologna, Italy.
80 people were killed and more than 200 were injured. The police
prosecuted a neo-fascist group called the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei
as the perpetrators of the attack. The group proclaimed their
innocence and the trial was not conducted well; that is possibly
because it was later learned that a couple high-ranking police
officials were P2 Lodge members who had used their influence to
hamper the investigation. Whether Propganda Due orchestrated the
attack or not has never been proven.
The long term effects of the P2 Lodge were mostly legal and not
in the organization’s favor. The Italian government passed
legislation banning secret societies. Although fraternal orders are
still allowed to remain open, government officials are forbidden to
join them. Propaganda Due may no longer exist but when Silvio
Berlusconi became the prime minister of Italy, Licio Gelli declared
that it was a sign that the P2 Lodge was being reborn. Gelli died in
2015. Now with the current swell of neo-fascist and right-wing
extremist groups emerging again in Europe, some with
Masonic-associated names like the Golden Dawn in Greece and the
anti-Muslim Knights Templar orders in other countries, we should be
aware that, regrettably, the spirit of the P2 Lodge lives on.
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