Centum (1959.08.28)
The letter commemorates the centenary of the Pontifical North American College in Rome. John XXIII congratulates its superiors and alumni, praises the generosity and foresight of the American hierarchy in founding it, recalls the fruits it allegedly bore in clergy and episcopate, lauds Pius XII’s dedication of the new building on the Janiculum, and extols Rome as the privileged place for priestly formation, wishing abundant blessings upon the College and imparting his “Apostolic Blessing.” All this appears as harmless celebration of a seminary’s jubilee, yet it is in fact the polished facade of a program: the consolidation of a new humanist, Americanized, conciliatory clergy at the very nerve center of the nascent conciliar revolution.
The Mask of Continuity: A Jubilee Draped Over a New Religion
Already the signature IOANNES PP. XXIII signals the core problem. The document is dated August 28, 1959, after Angelo Roncalli’s usurpation of the Roman See; hence we are dealing not with a Catholic pontifical letter in the strict sense, but with one of the earliest textual organs of the conciliar upheaval emanating from the structures occupying the Vatican.
On the surface, the letter:
We gladly learned from you, Venerable Brother, that the hundred years since the auspicious founding of the Pontifical College of the United States of America in Rome give you and the other superiors and students of that sacred school just cause to rejoice and to give solemn thanks to God…
seems merely to encourage gratitude and priestly formation. But precisely here lies the deceit: a continuous appeal to “God,” “grace,” “virtue,” and “doctrine,” while carefully avoiding any doctrinal precision about the nature of the Church, the sacraments, the priesthood, and Rome’s obligation to guard the deposit immutabiliter (unchangeably). The text functions as a rhetorical anesthetic to prepare an entire national clergy to serve as the docile infantry of the coming conciliar sect.
Factual Level: The Fabrication of a Harmless Narrative
1. Selective memory of the College’s “fruits”
The letter triumphantly asserts that from this College came many priests noted for piety and learning, and not a few cardinals and bishops who left or bear a “noble fame” and “great merit” for the Kingdom of God. This is an evaluative narrative, not demonstrated fact; more importantly, it is constructed in 1959, on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, in view of which the American hierarchy and its Roman formation houses were to serve as engines of aggiornamento, religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man.
Measured by the doctrinal standard of the pre-1958 Magisterium – Quanta Cura, the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, Pascendi and Lamentabili of Pius X, Quas Primas of Pius XI – many of those very hierarchs trained in such institutions later became protagonists of:
– the glorification of religious liberty condemned in Syllabus 15–18, 77–80,
– the practical denial of the social Kingship of Christ condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas,
– the toleration and promotion of Modernist exegesis and theology explicitly anathematized in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi,
– the reduction of the Church to a “people of God” democracy and dialogue-partner with false religions.
A work must be judged ex fructibus (by its fruits). When the alumni of a formation house almost en masse collaborate in the demolition of Catholic dogma, liturgy, and discipline, a triumphalist reference to “noble fame” is not merely naïve; it is apologetic cover for a project of deformation.
2. Rome praised as if nothing were changing
The letter insists that in Rome, at Peter’s Chair, from the “limpid apostolic fountain,” one drinks pure faith and thoroughly learns Christian letters. That would be true if Rome still taught and defended what Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII defined, and if it anathematized modern errors with the same clarity.
But in 1959, Roncalli had already announced the intention of convening a council whose guiding principle was not the condemnation of errors but aggiornamento. Historical evidence (verifiable through the published acts and speeches of John XXIII and subsequent conciliar texts) shows the turn:
– away from explicit condemnation of condemned principles (e.g., religious liberty, collegiality against papal monarchy, ecumenical relativism),
– toward accommodating the very “modern civilization” rejected in Syllabus 80.
Thus the praise of Rome as the unique guarantor of doctrinal security functions as a carefully staged fiction, hiding an imminent betrayal. The letter is part of the narrative that “nothing essential is changing,” exactly the lie needed for the later hermeneutics of continuity.
Linguistic Level: Soft Bureaucratic Piety as Veil of Revolution
The rhetoric is deliberately mild, paternal, and decorous:
…to you, Venerable Brother, to the other superiors and students… we gladly impart the Apostolic Blessing, as a pledge of heavenly help and consolation.
Notice the dominant notes:
– “joy,” “gladness,” “thanks,” “serene and lasting cheerfulness,”
– “prospering,” “growth,” “splendid new house,”
– “broad and splendid structure rising on the Janiculum hill,”
– aspirations that the College “may flourish with every adornment of uprightness and holiness.”
On first reading, nothing appears problematic. Yet in the context of an institution being primed to generate the future administrators of liturgical, doctrinal, and pastoral subversion, this exuberant optimism bears the mark of what St. Pius X unmasked as Modernist methodology: an irenic, non-condemnatory tone, soothing and disarming, hiding the effective rejection of the Church’s combative mission against error.
Key absences are as revealing as the positive vocabulary:
– No mention of the need to guard against Modernism, despite Pascendi’s insistence that superiors must vigilantly exclude Modernists from seminaries.
– No insistence on Scholastic theology as norma normans for priestly formation, contrary to Leo XIII and St. Pius X.
– No grave warnings about naturalism, liberalism, secularism, and Freemasonry, despite the Syllabus, despite the exposure of sects as “the synagogue of Satan” plotting against the Church (see the Syllabus and related allocutions).
– No explicit call to uphold the Social Kingship of Christ in the public order, as Pius XI teaches that peace and order are impossible where Christ does not reign publicly.
Instead, we find vague praise of an “ample erudition” and a sense of “Catholic vigor” that “by its nature embraces the whole universe” – language fully open to the later distortions of ecumenism and religious liberty.
This is the linguistic profile of the conciliar sect: high-style Latinity, studiously anodyne, replacing doctrinal clarity with atmospheric benevolence. Dolus latet in generalibus (deceit hides in generalities).
Theological Level: A Seminal Document of the Conciliar Mentality
Let us weigh the central affirmations and silences against pre-1958 Catholic doctrine.
Rome as “Caput Rerum” Without Confession of Its Binding Magisterium
The letter cites Tacitus and Leo the Great to underscore Rome as “head of the world” and “priestly city”:
It must be ascribed to a truly singular gift of God if in Rome, which is the head of the world and the priestly city, close to the Chair of Peter, from the limpid apostolic fountain, pure faith is drunk and Christian letters more perfectly learned.
Correct in itself, but weaponized here. Pre-conciliar doctrine teaches that Rome’s primacy is not a sentimental symbol; it is a juridical and dogmatic authority demanding submission. Pius IX condemns the claim (Syllabus 23) that popes and councils have erred in faith and morals; Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi condemns the notion that the Magisterium cannot fix the meaning of Scripture or dogma.
Yet Roncalli’s Rome would soon:
– silently shelve the anti-liberal, anti-ecumenical condemnations,
– allow the Council to speak in ambiguous, pastorally elastic terms,
– reaffirm in practice the very principles once condemned (religious pluralism in public life, false ecumenism, democracy within the Church).
Thus, the praise of Rome is emptied of its concrete dogmatic content and turned into an atmospheric appeal: “come to Rome, absorb Roman spirit,” while that “spirit” is being reengineered. The letter conditions American seminarians to accept whatever the new Rome will teach as automatically “pure faith” – preparing obedient cadres for the neo-church.
Silence on the True Battle: No Mention of Modernism, Apostasy, or Sacrifice
Pre-1958 papal teaching is saturated with militant clarity:
– Pius IX unmasks liberalism, socialism, indifferentism, and Masonic sects as mortal enemies of the Church.
– Leo XIII and Pius XI insist on the public rights of Christ the King over states.
– St. Pius X brands Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies,” commands seminaries to use Thomistic philosophy, and imposes an oath against Modernism.
– Pius XII (at least in his doctrinal acts) continues to defend the objectivity of dogma, the sacrificial character of the Most Holy Sacrifice, the uniqueness of the Catholic Church.
What do we find in Centum?
– No reference to the Oath against Modernism.
– No command to the College to form priests as defenders of Syllabus, Pascendi, Lamentabili, Quas Primas.
– No warning about exegetical or dogmatic deviations.
– No binding doctrinal exhortation beyond generic appeals to “piety” and “doctrine.”
This omission is not accidental. It is a methodological rupture. The so‑called pontiff speaks of formation in Rome without even naming the gravest doctrinal danger condemned just fifty years earlier. In the realm of Catholic theology, such selective amnesia is itself a sign of defection.
Qui tacet consentire videtur (he who is silent is seen to consent). Silence on Modernism in a text about priestly formation in 1959 is functional complicity.
Rome as a Finishing School for American Liberal Catholicism
The letter praises the “flourishing and renowned homeland” of the United States, where allegedly the Catholic Church thrives and moves the respect of citizens, and declares that by reason of its greatness this nation requires a clergy:
…endowed with broader instruction, with a sense of Catholic vigor embracing the whole universe by its very nature, and adorned with that wisdom of thinking and acting excellently which constant study of Christian antiquity produces or nourishes.
Several theological distortions crystallize here:
– The United States is implicitly hailed as an exemplary environment for the Church, despite being the classic laboratory of separation of Church and State condemned in Syllabus 55 and repeatedly criticized by pre-1958 popes.
– The letter does not reaffirm that the Catholic religion must be the only religion of the State (Syllabus 77), nor that unrestricted public exercise of all cults corrupts morals (Syllabus 79). Instead, it speaks in terms easily harmonized with the Americanist error previously reproved by Leo XIII (Testem Benevolentiae).
– The “Catholic vigor” “embracing the whole universe” is stated in purely cultural and humanitarian tones, perfectly compatible with a dialogical, pluralistic, non-confessional ecclesiology.
By endorsing this paradigm without qualification, Centum contributes to the Americanist and liberal matrix that would later dominate the conciliar sect: a church content to enjoy “respect” within a pluralistic order instead of demanding the public Kingship of Christ.
This stands in stark contrast with Pius XI in Quas Primas, who teaches that only when individuals and states recognize and obey Christ the King publicly can there be true peace and order. Centum’s failure to reiterate such principles – in a letter about the clergy of the world’s most influential secular republic – exposes its theological anemia.
Symptomatic Level: Centum as Genetic Code of the Neo-Church
Viewed in the wider arc of events, this short letter is emblematic:
1. Institutional consolidation of the conciliar clergy
By affirming and celebrating a national Roman college precisely at the threshold of the council, the antipope ensures that:
– a large cohort of American seminarians will be exposed to the new atmosphere in Rome,
– their loyalty will be tied to the “spirit of Rome” as reshaped by the upcoming revolution,
– their prestige at home (“Rome-trained”) will later legitimize the implementation of the conciliar novelties: liturgical deconstruction, ecumenical worship, doctrinal relativism.
The text’s insistent praise of the College as a precious work of the American hierarchy pre-emptively canonizes a structure that will, in practice, become a transmission belt of post-conciliarism.
2. Displacement of the Supernatural by Harmless Edification
Authentic Catholic exhortation on seminaries (as found in pre-1958 directives) stresses:
– the danger of heresy,
– the necessity of Scholastic discipline,
– the vigilance against moral corruption,
– the primacy of the Most Holy Sacrifice, Eucharistic reparation, Marian devotion rightly ordered and tested,
– readiness for persecution, not love of comfort.
Centum emphasizes instead:
– architecture and material expansion (“broad and splendid building”),
– “serene and lasting joy,”
– generic “uprightness and holiness” without concrete dogmatic markers.
This is the spiritual psychology of the conciliar sect: spiritualized optimism without the Cross as doctrinal warfare. The letter reduces the supernatural combat to a polite wish for virtues, devoid of polemical teeth against error. Such tonality conditions souls to accept, a few years later, the liturgical and doctrinal mutation as though it were a natural maturation.
3. A pseudo-apostolic blessing as camouflage
The closing:
…to you, Venerable Brother… to the College… to all who have deserved well of it, we gladly impart the Apostolic Blessing, as a pledge of heavenly help and consolation.
is the solemn seal of the counterfeit. The structures occupying the Vatican use all the external marks of Apostolic authority to sanction the formation of clergy who will:
– sign onto religious liberty and ecumenism,
– collaborate in the suppression of the true Roman Rite in favour of a fabricated assembly-ritual,
– tolerate or promote doctrinal pluralism and moral dissolution.
Thus, the “Apostolic Blessing” functions not as transmission of Peter’s mandate, but as a pseudo-sacral rubber stamp for an emerging parallel religion. Forma manet, res fugit (the form remains, the reality flees).
Contrasting Centum with the Pre-1958 Magisterium
To expose the inner bankruptcy of Centum’s mentality, it suffices to recall a few clear points of genuine Magisterium (all verifiable in their respective sources):
– Pius IX’s Syllabus condemns as errors:
– that everyone is free to embrace and profess any religion according to private judgment (15),
– that Protestantism is just another form of the same true religion (18),
– that the State should be separated from the Church (55),
– that the Pope must reconcile with liberalism and modern civilization understood as emancipation from Church authority (80).
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that:
– peace will not come until states and societies recognize and submit to the Kingship of Christ,
– public apostasy through secularism is a plague to be condemned, not a neutral sociological fact.
– Lamentabili and Pascendi condemn:
– the evolution of dogma,
– the subjection of doctrine to historical criticism,
– the reduction of faith to religious experience.
A truly Catholic letter on the centenary of a Roman national college, written in continuity with this doctrine, would:
– reaffirm the binding force of these condemnations,
– warn explicitly against Modernist errors prevalent in American academia and seminaries,
– define the College’s mission as forming priests who will combat secularism, liberalism, and doctrinal relativism,
– insist on Scholastic theology and traditional liturgical piety as non-negotiable.
Centum does none of this. Its silence and its syrupy optimism are an implicit rejection of the combative, juridically precise, doctrinally binding character of the pre-1958 Magisterium. That is its spiritual bankruptcy.
Conclusion: Centum as a Courtyard of the Gentiles Within the Seminary
Under the guise of commemorating a centenary, this letter choreographs three strategic moves:
– It legitimizes John XXIII’s authority in the eyes of American clergy via warm paternal rhetoric and appeals to tradition.
– It affirms a Roman-American alliance shaped not by the Syllabus and Quas Primas, but by an unspoken accommodation to the American liberal model and by the incipient aggiornamento.
– It anesthetizes the College against doctrinal vigilance, habituating it instead to equate “Romanity” with optimistic cultural Catholicism – precisely the mentality that would accept the conciliar sect and enforce its decrees.
There is no explicit blasphemy or spectacular heresy in the text. Its evil is more refined: a calculated vagueness, a studied omission, a betrayal by silence. It replaces the clear trumpet of the pre-1958 Church with a velvet murmur of encouragement, just as the galleys of the neo-church are being launched.
In the light of the unchanging Catholic doctrine defined and defended before 1958, such a document is not a harmless historical curiosity; it is one of the preparatory notes of an anti-choral: a soft, mellifluous prelude to the clamour of the great apostasy.
Source:
Centum – Ad Martinum Ioannem O'connor, Archiepiscopum Tit. Laodicenum in Syria, Pontificii Collegii Foederatarum Americae Civitatum in Urbe rectorem: saeculo exeunte ab eodem Collegio condito (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025