A short Latin decree attributed to John XXIII announces the partition of the Apostolic Vicariate of Bukavu in Belgian Congo to create a new Apostolic Vicariate of Goma, entrusted ostensibly to indigenous clergy, with borders defined by civil and natural markers and with the usual canonical faculties and obligations attached to such a jurisdiction. Behind this dry bureaucratic act, signed in 1959 on the eve of the conciliar revolution, stands a paradigmatic gesture of the emerging neo-church: the instrumentalization of missionary structures and native clergy for a geopolitical, modernist, and ultimately anti-Catholic reconfiguration of authority, preparing the way for the demolition of Christ’s social Kingship and the usurpation of the very notion of apostolic jurisdiction.
Colonial Cartography of Souls: A Pseudo-Apostolic Constitution as Pre-Conciliar Rupture
From Apostolic Vicariate to Neo-Church Outpost: The Factual Subversion
The text presents itself with the full solemnity formula of a papal constitution:
“Ioannes Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei ad perpetuam rei memoriam…”
It claims:
“Ex iisdem novus alius excitaretur… novum Vicariatum Apostolicum condimus, Gomaënsem appellandum atque indigenarum sacerdotum curis concredendum.”
Translation: “From them another new [vicariate] should be erected… we establish a new Apostolic Vicariate, to be called Goma and entrusted to the care of indigenous priests.”
On the surface, this is a standard act: division of territory, establishment of a vicariate, specification of borders, mandate to the Apostolic Delegate to execute and report, assertion that contrary provisions are null.
However, set in its historical and theological context, this act is not neutral:
– It is dated 30 June 1959, already within the ascent of Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII), whose public and verifiable doctrinal, disciplinary, and ecumenical orientations stand in radical tension with integral Catholic teaching prior to 1958.
– It is issued in the wake of his decision to convoke what would become the Second Vatican Council, a project explicitly aimed (by his own speeches and subsequent developments) at “aggiornamento,” i.e., adaptation of the Church to the world — precisely what Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII had systematically condemned.
– It is framed as if papal authority were being used to strengthen the missionary presence. In reality, it functions as a canonical and symbolic prelude to the post-colonial, post-Catholic transformation of African jurisdictions into laboratories of conciliar experimentation, political syncretism, and later liturgical and doctrinal corruption.
Measured by unchanging doctrine, the central factual issue is not the possibility in itself of creating a new vicariate (which is legitimate when a true Roman Pontiff does it for supernatural ends), but the authority and intention of the agent and the direction of the wider program to which this act belongs.
According to classical theology consistently taught before 1958:
– A manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church: *non potest esse caput qui non est membrum* (“he cannot be the head who is not a member”). This is explicitly articulated by St. Robert Bellarmine and summarized in the principles cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file:
– A manifest heretic is outside the Church and therefore deprived of jurisdiction.
– Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code states that public defection from the faith vacates ecclesiastical office “by the fact itself and without any declaration.”
When a man like Roncalli, whose modernist sympathies, ecumenical relativism, and naturalistic rhetoric were already notorious, assumes the external levers of the papacy and issues an “apostolic constitution,” one confronts not a pious administrative measure, but an act lacking true pontifical authority and serving as an instrument in a broader neo-modernist strategy.
Thus, although the text mimics previous legitimate constitutions, its effective meaning is:
– To relocate and multiply apparent “apostolic” structures which will shortly be subordinated to the conciliar agenda.
– To prepare indigenous clergy not as guardians of integral tradition, but as first-line executors of liturgical subversion, false ecumenism, and political “liberation” ideologies that will soon emanate from the conciliar sect occupying Rome.
The act’s solemn threats of penalties against those who would “detrectare” (disregard) its provisions are, from the perspective of unchanging doctrine, juridically void, because they proceed from a claimant who, by embracing and promoting condemned tendencies, does not hold the authority he invokes.
Bureaucratic Piety as a Mask: Linguistic Symptoms of Naturalistic Modernism
Even before the overt explosion of Vatican II errors, the language of this document reveals a subtle shift from supernatural clarity to bureaucratic, horizontal pragmatism.
Key phrase:
“Cum… novas conditis ecclesiasticis circumscriptionibus, spe optima ducimur fidelium necessitatibus per id aptius consuli posse.”
Translation: “When new ecclesiastical circumscriptions are established, we are led by the best hope that in this way the needs of the faithful might be better met.”
On its face, this seems harmless. Yet in context:
1. The text speaks generically of “the needs of the faithful” without once:
– Mentioning *the salvation of souls as the supreme law* (*salus animarum suprema lex*), explicitly.
– Recalling the duty to preserve the integrity of the faith, condemn error, or defend against modernist infiltration.
– Evoking the reign of Christ the King over civil society and the obligation to structure mission territories as bastions of Catholic social order in pagan or Masonic-dominated political environments.
2. The rhetoric is technocratic and managerial:
– Carving territories by rivers, roads, and civil boundaries.
– Delegating execution to officials and notaries.
– Emphasizing procedural validity and the nullity of contrary acts.
None of this would be problematic if impregnated by explicitly supernatural purpose, as in pre-1958 papal acts that constantly tied any structural decision to the true faith, sacraments, and social Kingship of Christ.
Compare with Pius XI in *Quas primas*:
– He insists peace and order are impossible until states and peoples recognize the reign of Christ; he denounces secularism as a “plague.”
– He orders a universal feast of Christ the King precisely to publicly condemn the apostasy of states and subject all authority to Christ.
Here, in Bukavuensis, nothing of that spirit appears. The new vicariate is conceived and described in purely structural terms, as a human reorganization for “better service,” mirroring the language of modern governance, not the authoritative voice that proclaims:
“Non est aliud nomen… in quo oporteat nos salvos fieri” (“There is no other name… by which we must be saved,” Acts 4:12) and demands civil subjection to Christ.
This studied omission is already symptomatic: a pre-conciliar-seeming text breathing post-conciliar air.
Silence on the Supernatural Mission: The Gravest Accusation
If one examines not only what is said but what is carefully omitted, the spiritual bankruptcy of the mentality behind this text appears starkly.
The constitution:
– Does not exhort the clergy of the new vicariate to:
– Guard the purity of doctrine against modernism.
– Uphold the Most Holy Sacrifice according to the Roman rite as codified by St. Pius V.
– Resist socialism, communism, Freemasonry, and religious indifferentism integral to colonial and post-colonial politics.
– Defend the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church as the one true Church of Christ against Protestant missions, syncretistic tribal religions, or nascent ecumenical experiments.
Instead, the exhortation is vague:
“Sacrorum vero administros… paterne hortamur ut, ad gloriam Dei unice respicientes, nihil intentatum omittant ut magis magisque christianae rei fines summa diligentia ac labore proferant.”
Translation: “We paternally exhort the ministers of sacred things… that, looking solely to the glory of God, they leave nothing untried so that the frontiers of the Christian cause may be more and more advanced with the greatest diligence and labor.”
What is missing?
– Explicit reference to:
– State of grace.
– Necessity of baptism for salvation.
– The Church as a perfect society distinct from, and superior in spiritual authority to, civil powers (condemned errors in the Syllabus of Errors, especially propositions 19–21, 39–40, 55).
– Condemnations of indifferentism and false ecumenism (Syllabus 15–18).
– Warnings against secret societies and Masonic machinations (Syllabus IV; Pius IX’s clear attribution of persecutions to Masonic sects).
Bukavuensis is written as if these monumental doctrinal battles did not define modern history, as if the mission field were a neutral playground for administrative optimization rather than the combat zone of the *Civitas Dei* against the *synagoga Satanae*.
This silence is not innocent. It foreshadows precisely what Pius IX and St. Pius X denounced:
– A practical naturalism.
– The belief that rearranging ecclesiastical structures is sufficient, while omitting the militant, dogmatic, anti-liberal, anti-modernist stance that alone safeguards the faith.
Where *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi* condemn:
– The subjection of doctrine to historical relativism.
– The dissolution of dogma into “religious experience.”
– The muting of the Church’s magisterial authority.
Here we see the inverse: an overuse of juridical formality to cloak an absence of doctrinal clarity, as if structures could float free from the very truths that give them meaning.
Manipulation of Indigenous Clergy: From Apostolic Succession to Instrumentalization
The constitution emphasizes that the new vicariate is:
“…indigenarum sacerdotum curis concredendum.”
“to be entrusted to the care of indigenous priests.”
In itself, forming indigenous clergy is fully Catholic; indeed, the Church always sought to root hierarchy in every people. The pre-1958 magisterium, however, insists that:
– The same immutable doctrine, sacraments, and discipline apply everywhere.
– The local clergy must be deeply formed in the Roman tradition, vigorously defended from syncretism, nationalism, socialism, and the manipulations of secular powers.
– Missionary structures must fight Masonic and liberal infiltration.
Here, instead, this emphasis appears at the threshold of a process whose fruits are historically verifiable:
– African jurisdictions rapidly transformed after Vatican II into strongholds of:
– Liturgical deformation (the abolition of the Unbloody Sacrifice’s traditional rites).
– Theological relativism.
– Political theology, where “liberation,” ethnic ideology, or tribal religion merges with the new rites.
This is not accidental. By multiplying vicariates under an authority which is itself doctrinally compromised, the structures are primed to receive the conciliar revolution as a top-down imposition. The indigenization promoted here is not ordered to deeper insertion into the one Roman tradition but becomes a tool for:
– Horizontal “inculturation.”
– Subjection of Church life to post-colonial socialist regimes and international NGOs.
– Replacement of integral Catholic spirituality with anthropocentric activism, “dialogue,” and human-rights rhetoric condemned as such by pre-conciliar popes when detached from Christ the King.
Thus, what appears as respect for native clergy in fact risks using them as the avant-garde of the conciliar sect in Africa: authorities of a neo-church incompatible with the unchanging faith.
Abuse of Juridical Formulas: The Hollow Threat of an Illegitimate Authority
The document concludes with the standard solemn clauses:
– Declaration of perpetual validity.
– Annulment of any contrary prescriptions.
– Threat of canonical penalties for those who “spurn” the decrees:
“Quae Nostra decreta in universum si quis vel spreverit vel quoquo modo detrectaverit, sciat se poenas esse subiturum iis iure statutas, qui Summorum Pontificum iussa non fecerint.”
“He who would spurn or in any way reject these our decrees, let him know that he will incur the penalties established in law for those who do not carry out the orders of the Supreme Pontiffs.”
Two decisive points:
1. The theological tradition unanimously holds that:
– Obedience is due only to a legitimate superior commanding in accord with divine and ecclesiastical law.
– There is no obligation to obey — indeed there is obligation to resist — when commands serve the subversion of faith, discipline, or the salvation of souls.
2. If the “Supreme Pontiff” is in fact a manifest proponent of errors already censured by the solemn magisterium (modernist tendencies, ecumenism contrary to the Syllabus, openness to religious liberty that denies the exclusive rights of the true Church), then:
– His acts do not bear the guarantees of *suprema potestas*.
– Citations of penalties for disobeying him are rhetorical intimidation devoid of binding force.
The hollow character of these threats is especially evident when contrasted with the vigor of Pius IX and St. Pius X, who thundered against liberal and modernist usurpations. They did not simply rearrange jurisdictions; they named errors, condemned sects, and anathematized doctrines.
Bukavuensis, by contrast, relies on the shell of traditional juridical language devoid of that doctrinal substance, functioning as a mask for an authority that is in the process of hiding its apostasy behind continuity of form.
Symptom of the Greater Malady: Preludes to the Conciliar Sect’s African Front
Seen in the wider trajectory:
– 1959: Bukavuensis multiplies mission jurisdictions under Roncalli.
– 1962–1965: The same authority inaugurates a council whose texts and aftermath propagate:
– The cult of religious liberty condemned by Pius IX (Syllabus 77–80).
– Ecumenism that treats false religions as salvific avenues, contrary to the dogma “outside the Church no salvation.”
– Collegiality and democratization that undermine papal monarchy as defined by Vatican I.
– Anthropocentric, naturalistic language foreign to prior magisterial clarity.
Africa becomes one of the main stages where:
– The true Roman rite is replaced with fabricated rites.
– The militant doctrine of Christ the King, as taught in *Quas primas*, is suppressed in favour of humanist rhetoric, “integral development,” and submission to socialist-nationalist regimes influenced by Masonic and Marxist currents.
– “Inculturation” is used to permit pagan symbolism and syncretistic practices inside the liturgy, which, outside of the integral Catholic framework, are idolatry rather than evangelization.
Bukavuensis thus typifies the method:
– Maintain the outer canonical façade.
– Redraw the map.
– Seed new centers of authority whose loyalty is to the upcoming conciliar program.
– Use the language of “care for the faithful” and “glory of God” in a generic way, while never reasserting hated pre-conciliar condemnations of liberalism, socialism, and modernism.
Under the unchanging criterion of doctrine before 1958:
– Any act embedded in this trajectory and emanating from an authority whose public orientation contradicts prior magisterium must be treated with grave suspicion.
– Structural changes subordinated to a revolution against the faith cannot claim the protection of divine authority simply because their form imitates older constitutions.
Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi (“the law of praying is the law of believing and the law of living”): a canonical act that prepares the overthrow of the lex orandi and lex credendi cannot be venerated as a neutral administrative measure. It is a piece of the architecture of the conciliar sect.
Reasserting the Only Legitimate Measure: Pre-1958 Catholic Doctrine
In the face of such texts and their historical fruits, integral Catholic evaluation must be uncompromising:
– The true Church is a *perfect society*, with full and exclusive divine right to teach, govern, and sanctify (Syllabus 19–21).
– She cannot be relativized through:
– Subordination to secular “development” agendas.
– Dilution into a federation of local experiments managed by a usurping modernist center.
– Missionary structures are legitimate only insofar as they:
– Defend unmutilated doctrine.
– Guard the Most Holy Sacrifice and the Sacraments according to the tradition defined and defended by the pre-conciliar magisterium.
– Proclaim the Kingship of Christ over nations, laws, and public life.
– Protect the faithful against the very ideological currents that John XXIII and his successors in the conciliar sect have promoted.
Bukavuensis, judged by these standards, is not a luminous missionary milestone, but a clinical sign:
– A document that looks Roman but breathes conciliar.
– A gesture of jurisdiction that clothes the coming apostasy.
– An early sample of how the conciliar revolution would usurp canonical language to enthrone a paramasonic, humanist, ecumenical anti-structure in the place once held by the Mystical Body of Christ.
Therefore, this so-called apostolic constitution must be unmasked as part of the continuum by which the structures occupying the Vatican fabricated their authority over souls, especially in mission lands, replacing true apostolic governance with the scaffolding of the abomination of desolation.
Source:
Bugavuënsis (Gomaënsis) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025