COMITY, LODGE AND GRAND LODGE
Encyclopedia Masonica
Contrary to a popular misunderstanding etymologists do not derive comity from such roots as co or com (as in cooperation and committee) but from an old and little used Latin word for friendliness, the means of friendliness, friendly relations.
The word belongs to the technical nomenclature of Freemasonry, and is one of the subjects in Masonic jurisprudence. It is the name for that set of means by which Masonic local bodies and Masonic Grand Bodies work in friendly co-operation with each other, within and among the recognized Rites. Comity is in two major divisions:
Internal, by which Lodges cooperate with each other and with their Grand Lodge (or Chapters, Councils, etc.) within the same Grand Jurisdiction; External, the means by which Grand Lodges (Grand Chapters, Grand Councils, etc.) cooperate with other Grand Lodges, either at home or abroad.
I. INTERNAL COMITY
The means employed are in part departments or offices of Lodges and Grand Lodges, in part are voluntary activities initiated, encouraged, or sponsored by Lodges and Grand Lodges. Among these are : District Deputy systems; District Grand Lecturer Systems; Masonic periodicals; group or area assemblies of Lodges; "service committees" or departments for Masonic education, employment, and speakers bureaus, etc. The reception of visitors, the visiting of one Lodge by another, conferring of Degrees by courtesy, the right of demission (or dimission) are among the means of internal comity provided for in the Ancient Landmarks.
II. EXTERNAL COMITY
The complete system of External Comity is as yet in the making; thus far such methods as the following have been adopted .by each and every Grand Lodge or by a group of them: Official recognition of one Grand Lodge by another. The exchange of Grand Representatives. Foreign (or Fraternal) Correspondence Reports in Grand Lodge Proceedings. The visiting of a Grand Lodge by official representatives of another. Correspondence among Grand Masters and Grand Secretaries. Annual Conferences by Grand Masters, and by Grand Secretaries. Conferring of Courtesy Degrees. Demission or visiting from one Grand Jurisdiction to another. The Masonic Service Association, and similar voluntary service activities.
Periodicals of general circulation. Extra-Grand Jurisdictional services of Grand Lodge Libraries. Books, booklets, movies, etc., of one Grand Jurisdiction permitted for use in another. The sending of Masonic Committees and missions abroad. The exchange of Grand Lodge Proceedings. Etc., etc.
General agreement on some essentials of External Comity is still incomplete. Among these are: Specific conditions on which to grant official recognition to their Grand Bodies. Grand Lodge responsibility for constituting and fostering Lodges in foreign countries not already under any Grand Lodge. The true and correct Grand Lodge procedure in other countries in cases where general Masonic organization has broken down but where there are some (at least) regular Masons and Lodges. (As in Italy in the 1930's.)
The attempt to set up a single General, or National, Grand Lodge which began during the Revolutionary War and was not abandoned until after the Civil War was predicated upon the known need for ways and means to enable thousands of American Masonic Bodies and Grand Bodies to work in unity and harmony, lest the American Craft become intellectual by breaking down into self-contained, isolated, mutually exclusive local groups. That need was real but as events have proved a single American Grand Lodge could not have been the satisfaction of it; the body of means and methods which in purpose and practice comprise Comity are more extensive, more free, more adaptable, more satisfying, and more effectual than the means and methods of one Grand Lodge could have been. The system of Comity has given to American Freemasonry everything that a National Grand Lodge could have given to it; and it has given to it many things that a National Grand Lodge would have denied to it.
The Mother Grand Lodge of Speculative Freemasonry was set up in 1717 after it had been discussed by already-existing, self-constituted Lodges in London; though only four of them attended and elected the first Grand Master it is certain that others had consented and, as their actions proved, were ready to unite. In the beginning this Grand Lodge was for no purpose except to revive a general assembly, and to give the Lodges a center where they might occasionally meet. It was an act of comity. There was to be no new Freemasonry ; there was to be a means for the old Freemasonry to work more effectually.
There were many pre-1717 Lodges in England, Ireland, and Scotland; in Scotland alone there were more than 100 before 1700. When a new Lodge was formed (usually of seven or more) it was self-constituted by men who already were Masons, one from a Lodge in one place, another from a Lodge in another, and they thus had ties with other Lodges from the beginning. Each Lodge had a copy of the same old Charges that other Lodges possessed, or it had men in it who knew the essential portions by heart. A Lodge might assist a group to form a Lodge in a nearby community, help it during its formative period, and afterwards maintain close ties with it; these were daughter Lodges. Any Mason regularly made, possessed of the all-important modes of recognition, could visit in any Lodge. This was their comity, the means by which, before a Grand Lodge system was devised, separate and independent Lodges formed a single Fraternity.
