Catana, a city near Mount Etna, is presented in this Latin epistle of John XXIII as the honoured site of a nationwide Italian Eucharistic Congress. The usurper praises the local hierarchy and faithful, appoints Marcello Mimmi as his legate, and exhorts that the Eucharistic celebration foster piety, unity, and peace, issuing his “apostolic blessing” upon clergy, officials, and people gathered to venerate the Blessed Sacrament.
This apparently devout document, however, perfectly reveals the programmatic reduction of the Eucharist and of Christ’s Kingship to sentimental humanism and civic harmony, while presupposing and consolidating an authority already cut off from the integral Catholic faith.
Eucharistic Language without Eucharistic Faith
John XXIII’s letter is short, but densely symptomatic. A few central threads suffice to expose its inner bankruptcy when measured by the unchanging doctrine of the Church prior to 1958.
On the surface, he calls the Eucharist the “summit of heavenly marvels” and “salutary nourishment,” and cites Augustine:
“Manduca vitam, bibe vitam: habebis vitam; et integra est vita.”
(“Eat life, drink life: you will have life; and life is whole.”)
Nothing in these isolated phrases, taken alone, contradicts Catholic dogma; they are lifted from the treasury of the Church. The poison lies elsewhere:
– He writes as self-styled “IOANNES PP. XXIII,” demanding obedience and representing himself as Vicar of Christ, while his own later deeds (calling the false council, promoting religious liberty, pacifist ecumenism, rehabilitation of condemned currents) show the rupture with the doctrine fixed by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– He frames the Congress primarily as a festive, national event, a radiant “magnificent Congress” for “religion” and “civil prosperity,” rather than as a solemn act of reparation to Divine Majesty gravely offended by apostasy and public sin.
– He instrumentalizes the Eucharist chiefly as a symbol and generator of human “unity and peace,” almost entirely omitting the hard doctrinal content inseparable from the Sacrament: state of grace, propitiatory sacrifice, transubstantiation as dogma to be confessed against error, the necessity of the true faith, the danger of sacrilegious Communion.
Thus the letter is an elegant facade for the nascent *religio nova*: the Eucharist emptied of its militant, exclusive, propitiatory character and deployed as a unifying banner over a people moving toward the cult of man.
Naturalistic Reduction of the Most Holy Sacrament
At the factual level, John XXIII’s exhortations are telling. He insists that from the Eucharistic Congress there may flow, among other things:
“in religionis emolumentum et decus, in civilis rei prosperitatem felicitatemque… supernae gratiae copiosi descendant effectus”
(“for the benefit and honour of religion, for the prosperity and happiness of public life, may copious effects of heavenly grace descend.”)
The ordering is already inverted:
– The Eucharist is primarily oriented, in his rhetoric, toward “prosperity and happiness” of the earthly polity.
– The phrase “religionis emolumentum et decus” is vague, aesthetic: “advantage and adornment of religion,” not the triumph of the one true Church over error, nor the conversion of sinners, nor the restoration of public submission of the State to Christ the King.
Pius XI teaches in Quas Primas that peace and order are possible only when individuals and states recognize and submit to the social Kingship of Christ, and that secularism and “laicism” are the plague destroying nations. He calls for public recognition of Christ’s dominion and for laws and institutions to be ordered by the commandments of God and the doctrine of the Church. This is precise, juridical, supernatural.
By contrast, John XXIII’s text:
– says nothing of the duty of Italy as a nation to recognize Christ’s Kingship and the exclusive rights of the Catholic Church;
– does not recall that modern liberties condemned in the Syllabus of Errors—freedom of false cults, religious indifferentism, the separation of Church and State—offend God and provoke His judgments;
– does not call rulers to submit their legislation to divine law, nor denounce legislation contrary to the natural and divine order.
Instead, the Eucharist is pressed into service as a generator of generic “unitas et pax” (unity and peace) that can coexist with the liberal order already reproved by the pre‑1958 Magisterium. This is not accidental; it is the nascent conciliar ideology: sacramental language used to mask capitulation to the modern world.
Linguistic Cosmetics: Piety as a Screen for Revolution
The rhetoric of the letter is typical of the conciliar sect’s early phase: devout, classical Latin, studiously “orthodox”-sounding, yet carefully drained of those elements that clash with modernist goals.
Key features of this linguistic strategy:
– Majestic but hollow praise of the local clergy and faithful: all is “studium fidei,” “operae sollertia,” “nobili contentione” (zeal of faith, diligence, noble effort). There is no examination of whether their preaching, liturgy, or catechesis remain faithful to the anti-modernist magisterium, no mention of the duty to reject condemned novelties.
– Emphasis on “magnificentissima Congressione” and “piissima laetitia” (most magnificent congress, most pious joy), i.e. sentimentalism and spectacle instead of contrition and doctrinal clarity.
– The Eucharist is described as “Salvific nourishment” in language that could be received by many merely as spiritual comfort food, without underscoring that those in mortal sin who dare to communicate commit sacrilege, and that heretics and schismatics have no access to this Sacrament except through conversion to the one Church.
– The passage on unity and peace:
“Cum autem natura sua Sacramentum sit unitatis et pacis, omnes qui christiano nomine censentur, si ab iis sancte et pie sumitur, artissime coniungit Deo et inter se solido vinculo, quo unam societatem, unum convictum, unum corpus se constituere animadvertant.”
(“Since by its nature it is the Sacrament of unity and peace, it most closely unites to God and among themselves all who are called by the Christian name, if it is received by them in a holy and pious manner, so that they perceive that they form one society, one fellowship, one body.”)
Observe:
– Vague collective “all who are called Christian,” without clear affirmation that formal heretics and schismatics are outside the Church and cannot licitly receive the Sacrament.
– No explicit assertion of the dogma *extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* (outside the Church there is no salvation).
– The unity described leans toward a confessional minimalism, prefiguring the false ecumenism of the “neo-church,” which will soon pretend that a common Eucharistic orientation overarches divisions of doctrine.
This is linguistic preparation for the later systematic betrayal: a Eucharist removed from the walls of dogma, made a sentimental bond between “Christians,” exactly as Modernism—condemned in Lamentabili and Pascendi—attempts: a Church that evolves, opening itself to the “Christian consciousness” of humanity.
Theological Evasion and Silent Denial of Dogma
Measured by integral Catholic doctrine, several grave omissions and distortions stand out.
1. Absence of the Sacrifice.
– The Eucharist is called “Summit of heavenly marvels,” “food,” etc., but there is no explicit affirmation of its nature as the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary* offered in propitiation for sins.
– The Council of Trent dogmatically defined the Mass as true propitiatory sacrifice and anathematized those who reduce it to mere praise or memorial. The encyclicals of pre‑1958 Popes constantly join “Sacrament” and “Sacrifice”; here the accent falls almost exclusively on Communion and its psychological fruits.
– This rhetorical shift aligns exactly with the direction that will culminate in the Novus Ordo: from Sacrifice offered by a sacrificing priest toward “assembly” and “meal” for community-building.
2. Silence on the conditions for fruitful and non-sacrilegious Communion.
– True Catholic teaching insists on the necessity of the state of grace, confession of mortal sins, and adherence to the true faith to receive the Eucharist. Trent condemns those who deny this.
– John XXIII only mentions Communicants should receive “sancte et pie” (in a holy and pious way), with no doctrinal explanation.
– In the context of the late 1950s—when laxity, liturgical abuse, and doctrinal confusion were spreading—this silence is itself culpable. *Tacere veritatem est erroris seminarium* (to be silent about the truth is the seedbed of error).
3. Ecumenizing overtones.
The language, “Sacrament of unity and peace,” “all who bear the Christian name,” without explicit delimitation, opens the way to:
– The later conciliar thesis that all “baptized” remain somehow in communion, contradicting the traditional doctrine that formal heresy cuts a man off from the Church and from jurisdiction.
– A Eucharistic ecclesiology where dogmatic differences are relativized under a higher experience of “unity,” precisely the tendency condemned by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, where he forbids non-Catholic joint worship and affirms that unity exists only by return to the one true Church.
4. Concealed contradiction with the Syllabus of Errors.
– The text’s orientation toward civil harmony and prosperity, without explicit call for Catholic confessional State or condemnation of liberal principles, suggests acceptance of precisely those propositions anathematized by Pius IX (e.g. that the State may be religiously indifferent, that civil liberty of all cults should be accepted, that the Roman Pontiff should reconcile with liberalism and modern “progress”).
– John XXIII’s later acts confirm this reading: convoking the council that would endorse religious liberty and the separationist, indifferentist agenda condemned as *error*.
Therefore, the letter must be read not as an isolated pious note, but as part of a coherent rebellion against the pre‑1958 Magisterium, cloaked in Eucharistic vocabulary. This is the essence of Modernism: “to speak in Catholic terms while emptying them of their traditional content” (*Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi* expose this tactic).
From Eucharistic Congress to Conciliar Sect: A Symptom of Systemic Apostasy
At the symptomatic level, several structural elements reveal how this text belongs not to the Catholic Church but to the unfolding conciliar revolution, the “paramasonic structure” that seized the Vatican.
1. Assertion of illegitimate authority.
– John XXIII writes and blesses as Pope, yet:
– his program (aggiornamento, opening to the world, council to reconcile with modern civilization) directly contradicts Pius IX’s condemnation of “reconciling with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” (Syllabus, prop. 80 condemned);
– he adopts a posture toward Freemasonry’s political and ideological demands opposite to that of his predecessors, who saw in these sects the “synagogue of Satan” undermining the Church (as clearly exposed in the continuation of the Syllabus and other pre‑1958 interventions).
– A manifest rupture in doctrine and purpose signals precisely the condition examined by St. Robert Bellarmine and other theologians: a public heretic cannot be head of the Church. The letter stands, therefore, as one of many acts of an antipope, not a successor of Pius XII in the same sense as Pius XI succeeded Benedict XV.
2. Church reduced to a sacral ornament of the liberal order.
– The letter envisions the Eucharistic Congress as a beautiful religious event integrated into national life, generating civic virtues and mutual benevolence.
– There is no trace of the Church’s indefectible claim to teach, legislate, and judge with authority over nations; no claim that civil laws opposing divine law are null; no confrontation with secularism.
– This reflects the new orientation where the “neo-church” becomes chaplain to the world, blessing its structures instead of calling them to conversion.
3. Liturgical sentimentalism as preparation for liturgical demolition.
– By presenting the Eucharist primarily as a sign of fraternity and peace, this text prepares the faithful to accept the later destruction of the Roman Rite in favor of a meal‑oriented, community‑centered rite (the Novus Ordo), in which propitiatory sacrifice is obscured.
– What Pius X condemned as Modernism’s drive to subject dogma, worship, and ecclesial structures to evolving “religious experience” begins here in an almost imperceptible, polished form.
4. Omission of supernatural combat.
Perhaps the gravest indictment is what is not said:
– No mention of mortal sin, Hell, judgment, or the necessity of conversion.
– No call to reparation for blasphemies, profanations, impurity, or atheistic laws.
– No denunciation of socialism, communism, laicism, or secret societies in the context of public life, despite their known assault on Church and society.
– No affirmation that the Eucharist is the heart of the Church militant, the Sacrifice offered for propitiation and victory over sin and error.
This silence is not accidental; it is the silence of accommodation. Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King precisely to reject such silence, insisting that ignoring Christ’s rights over public life is the root of modern evils. John XXIII, even when addressing a national Eucharistic Congress, refuses to proclaim clearly that kingship, replacing it with a bland invocation of “unity and peace.”
Silence here is complicity: *qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent seems to consent). Silence about supernatural realities is the gravest accusation against this text.
Instrumentalizing the Eucharist for Horizontal “Peace”
The central moral exhortation of the letter is directed against interpersonal conflicts:
“Quapropter nihil tam abhorret ab iis qui huiusmodi dape nutriuntur quam simultates, odia, invidiae et quidquid fraternae consortionis compaginem abscindit.”
(“Therefore, nothing so much is repugnant to those who are nourished by this banquet as enmities, hatreds, envies and whatever cuts asunder the framework of fraternal fellowship.”)
In itself, charity toward neighbor is essential. But in context:
– The Eucharist is harnessed primarily to resolve human antagonisms and party spirit.
– The only “enemies” mentioned are those of social harmony, not the enemies of God: heresy, impiety, Freemasonry, communism, the cult of man, false religions.
Thus a principle emerges: the “neo-church” uses the sacramental lexicon to preach natural concord, non-judgment, and pacification of earthly tensions, precisely the agenda of a humanitarian religion. By neglecting the vertical dimension—justice toward God, adoration, expiation, obedience to revealed truth—this approach becomes a subtle profanation of the Sacrament.
Pius IX, Pius X, and Pius XI warn that when human reason and human society are made the measures of religion, when religion is made to serve temporal welfare, this is naturalism and rationalism—in short, apostasy. John XXIII’s letter aligns the Eucharistic Congress with this human-centered vector.
Consolidation of the Conciliar Sect’s Authority
Finally, the appointment of Marcello Mimmi “as legate to represent our person” at the Eucharistic Congress is not a neutral canonical act; it manifests the consolidation of a parallel hierarchy.
– Once the head is false, the hierarchical acts that flow from him within the conciliar sect do not extend the authority of the Catholic Church but build the authority of a counterfeit structure.
– The letter presents participation in this Congress and acceptance of this legation as obedience to Peter, when in fact it is submission to a usurping regime preparing the devastation of the liturgy and doctrine.
The rhetoric of unity and peace thus masks the deeper reality: the Eucharistic Congress functions as a grand public rite of allegiance to John XXIII’s program—already oriented toward Vatican II and its modernist decrees. Those pretending to be traditional Catholics who clung merely to the external splendour of such congresses, while ignoring the doctrinal deviation of their organizers, became unwitting collaborators in the enthronement of the “abomination of desolation” in the holy place.
Conclusion: Pious Phrases as a Veil for Doctrinal Subversion
This epistle, read superficially, appears as a harmless and even edifying encouragement to Eucharistic devotion. Under the light of the integral Catholic faith, it reveals itself as:
– an act of self-legitimation by an antipope whose program contradicts the pre‑1958 Magisterium;
– a crafted example of modernist method: retain Catholic formulas, subtract their hard doctrinal edges, reorient them to serve naturalistic unity, civic prosperity, and a vague “religion” compatible with liberalism;
– a symptom of the shift from Christ the King and the Sacrifice of the Altar to the cult of fraternity and the table of assembly;
– a telling silence on sin, judgment, conversion, and the exclusive claims of the one true Church.
Far from being an isolated devotional text, the letter is a small but pure specimen of the emerging conciliar sect: a structure using the Eucharist’s name and imagery to crown its own rebellion, while slowly training souls to accept a Eucharist detached from the confession of integral Catholic doctrine and from submission to the true, perennial Magisterium.
Source:
– Ad Marcellum S. R. E. Card. Mimmi, Episcopum Sabinensem et Mandelensem, a Secretis Sacrae Congregationis Consistorialis, quem legatum mittit ad Eucharisticum Conventum ex Universa Italia Catanae age… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025