November 2025 – Page 66 – Antipope John XXIII

Portrait of Benedict Aloisi Masella receiving jubilee honors at the Lateran Basilica with a marble monument to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Epistula ad Benedictum Aloisi Masella (1959.05.24)

amdg / 2025-11-09

John XXIII’s 1959 Latin letter to Benedict Aloisi Masella, then “cardinal,” bishop of Palestrina, archpriest of the Lateran Basilica, and prefect of the “Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments,” congratulates him on his approaching 80th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his episcopate. It praises the local clergy and faithful for planning solemn public celebrations, notes with particular satisfaction the inauguration of a marble monument in Palestrina in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the renewal of the consecration of the people to her Immaculate Heart, and grants Masella the faculty, on the set day and after a pontifical Mass, to impart in John’s name a plenary indulgence to the faithful under the usual conditions. The text closes with the “Apostolic Blessing.”

Archbishop James Duhig reading a letter from John XXIII in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Brisbane

Letters

A A A LA IOANNES PP. XXIII EPISTULA AD IACOBUM DUHIG… (1959.05.17)

amdg / 2025-11-09

At the end of the first century of the Brisbane ecclesiastical structure, John XXIII addresses James Duhig with courteous praise for a century of institutional expansion: new dioceses, parishes, churches, schools, hospitals, charitable works, capped by the dedication of a provincial seminary named after Pius XII. He attributes this growth to divine favour, exhorts to deeper charity, obedience to pastors, moral integrity, and zeal “for the name and glory of Jesus Christ,” and imparts an “apostolic” blessing to the hierarchy and faithful of Queensland.

Traditional Catholic bishop in pontifical vestments before an Argentine cathedral, symbolizing the shift from spiritual to naturalistic values in ecclesiastical diplomacy.

Letters

Si ingratae mentis (1959.05.11)

amdg / 2025-11-09

This Latin letter of John XXIII to Antonio Caggiano and the Argentine hierarchy marks the centenary of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Argentina and the 25th anniversary of several ecclesiastical provinces created there. The text congratulates the civil authorities and hierarchy on institutional growth—new dioceses, parishes, churches, religious institutes, schools, hospitals, and Catholic Action—and urges further collaboration between state and hierarchy, presenting Argentine national prestige and “Christian humanism” as signs of God’s favor.

St. Francis of Assisi kneeling in prayer in a serene landscape of Assisi's countryside.

Letters

Cum natalicia (1959.04.04)

amdg / 2025-11-09

The letter “Cum natalicia” of John XXIII, addressed in 1959 to the Ministers General of the Franciscan branches on the 750th anniversary of Innocent III’s approbation of the Rule, is a brief panegyric that praises St. Francis, exhorts external fidelity to the Rule, commends poverty, humility and apostolic zeal, and urges the Franciscans to adapt their preaching to “the conditions and ways of our time” while remaining devoted to the “Apostolic See.” Beneath its polished Latin and seemingly pious Franciscan vocabulary, the text functions as an ideological prelude: an attempt by the newly installed antipope to enlist the prestige of St. Francis and of the great mendicant tradition into the service of the coming conciliar upheaval, emptying poverty and penance of their doctrinal edge and subordinating authentic Franciscan spirituality to the programmatic naturalism of the neo-church.

A solemn Catholic ceremony in Venice, Italy, 1959, with Cardinal Giovanni Urbani presiding over the transfer of St. Pius X's bodily remains.

Letters

Primo exacto (1959.03.29)

amdg / 2025-11-09

Dated March 29, 1959, this brief Latin letter of John XXIII appoints Giovanni Urbani, Patriarch of Venice and newly created “cardinal,” as his legate for solemn celebrations in Venice in honor of “Saint” Pius X, on the centenary of Pius X’s priestly ordination, including the transfer of Pius X’s bodily remains from St. Peter’s Basilica to the Basilica of St. Mark. John XXIII heaps effusive praise on Pius X as vigilant pastor and dispenser of divine mysteries, grants his legate faculties to impart a plenary indulgence, and cloaks the entire operation in the aura of continuity with an “exemplar” of anti-modernist papal sanctity. This text is a quintessential specimen of pious cosmetics: a theatrical appropriation of Pius X’s authority to legitimize the very architect of the conciliar catastrophe that Pius X prophetically condemned.

Bishop Louis Shvoy receives a letter from John XXIII in a dimly lit bishop's study, symbolizing the subversion of the Catholic faith during the conciliar revolution.

Letters

Octogesimum Natalem (1959.02.25)

amdg / 2025-11-09

This brief Latin note of John XXIII, dated 25 February 1959 and addressed to Louis (Ludovicus) Shvoy, bishop of Székesfehérvár (Alba Regalis), offers congratulatory wishes for his eightieth birthday, praises his pastoral diligence and steadfastness in difficult circumstances, and imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” upon him, his clergy, and people.

Saint Antoninus of Florence in traditional episcopal vestments, holding a book of moral theology in a Florentine cathedral, with a faint figure of antipope John XXIII in the background.

Letters

A A A LA IOANNES PP. XXIII (1959.02.24)

amdg / 2025-11-09

The letter under review, issued by antipope John XXIII on February 24, 1959 and addressed to Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, commemorates the fifth centenary of the death of Saint Antoninus of Florence. It extols Antoninus’s personal holiness, austerity, doctrinal writings, Marian devotion, and pastoral zeal, urging the Florentine clergy and faithful to imitate his virtues and to let this jubilee produce spiritual fruits in the archdiocese.

A reverent Marian Congress in Saigon with Cardinal Agagianian presiding as papal legate, reflecting the pious yet politically charged event described in the 1959 letter Exeunte Iubilari.

Letters

Exeunte Iubilari (1959.01.31)

amdg / 2025-11-09

Dated January 31, 1959, this Latin letter of John XXIII designates Gregory Peter Agagianian, then Armenian Patriarch and head of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, as papal legate to preside over a Marian Congress in Saigon, linked to the Lourdes apparitions and enriched with plenary indulgences for the faithful of Vietnam, praising confidence in the Immaculate and promising spiritual benefits under his name and authority. The entire text, though wrapped in pious language, is a strategic consolidation of the nascent conciliar revolution: a sentimental Marian scenery masking the authority-void usurpation of the Apostolic See and conditioning the faithful to accept a new, pseudo-Catholic cult built on apparitionism, psychologized devotion, and papal personality rather than the immutable faith of the Church.

Archbishop Francis Spellman presiding over a Eucharistic Congress in Guatemala, surrounded by bishops and civil authorities, with a focus on the Eucharist and themes of social harmony.

Letters

Certiores quidem (1959.01.29)

amdg / 2025-11-09

This Latin letter, dated January 29, 1959, is addressed by John XXIII to Francis Spellman, appointing him papal legate to a regional Eucharistic Congress in Guatemala for Central American nations. It praises Spellman’s status and reputation, entrusts him to preside in the name and “authority” of John XXIII, and outlines themes to be treated at the Congress: the “utility” of the Most Holy Eucharist for domestic concord, youth education, harmonious collaboration of social classes, perfection of the human person, and the tranquillity and prosperity of the state, invoking the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin and imparting an “apostolic blessing” to ecclesiastical and civil authorities and participants.
It is a short document, but it concentrates in miniature the entire conciliar-program: the reduction of the Eucharist to an instrument of natural concord and social progress, the inflation of a compromised hierarchy, and the preparatory liturgical and doctrinal language that will soon be codified in the revolution of Vatican II.

A solemn Catholic Marian gathering in Saigon, Vietnam, with Vietnamese bishops and clergy praying before a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Letters

Animo Nostro (1959.01.25)

amdg / 2025-11-09

In this Latin letter of 25 January 1959, John XXIII addresses the vicars apostolic of Vietnam on the occasion of a Marian gathering in Saigon: he praises their plan to close the Lourdes centenary celebrations, commemorate three centuries since the establishment of the first apostolic vicariates in Vietnam, extols Marian devotion (notably Lourdes), lauds the growth of local hierarchy and clergy, emphasizes fidelity to the Roman Pontiff, and announces Gregory Peter Agagianian as his legate to the celebrations, crowning everything with his “Apostolic Blessing.” The entire text, under a veil of pious rhetoric, consolidates the cult of a problematic apparition, instrumentalizes true missions for a new ecclesiology, and binds the Vietnamese faithful to the nascent conciliar revolution, thus transforming an ostensibly devotional exhortation into a subtle charter of the coming neo-church in Asia.