Dated 29 November 1959 and signed by John XXIII, this short Latin letter is addressed to Cardinal Iacobus Aloisius Copello on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. It offers polite congratulations, recalls his service (especially in Buenos Aires), praises his zeal for religion and his role as Chancellor of the Roman Church, and imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” upon him and those celebrating with him. Behind its seemingly harmless courtesies lies the distilled mentality of the nascent conciliar revolution: a purely humanistic, horizontal, and self-referential clericalism that confirms a usurped authority and prepares the way for the dismantling of the visible Church’s supernatural constitution.
Sentimental Flattery as a Manifesto of Usurped Authority
The first and fundamental fact: this document bears the name of John XXIII, the initiator of the conciliar upheaval, the man who convoked Vatican II and inaugurated the systematic demolition of the public reign of Christ the King, condemned unequivocally by integral Catholic doctrine as Modernist in roots, method, and fruits.
From the outset we are faced not with an act of supernatural teaching, but with a self-celebration of a paramasonic clerical circle. The letter solemnly blesses a representative of that circle and thus manifests a threefold disorder:
– Assertion of a spiritual authority that, according to the perennial doctrine expressed for example by St. Robert Bellarmine (*De Romano Pontifice*) and reflected juridically in Canon 188 §4 of the 1917 Code, cannot belong to a manifest promoter and executor of heretical novelties.
– Reduction of ecclesiastical dignity to bureaucratic rank and human seniority.
– Substitution of supernatural criteria (faith, orthodoxy, sacrificial fidelity, defense of the flock) with worldly success, institutional longevity, and intra-clerical prestige.
In this sense, this apparently innocuous congratulatory letter is a precise diagnostic sign: it is a miniature of the conciliar sect’s ethos.
Human Praise without Supernatural Content
At the factual level, the letter consists almost entirely of praise for Copello’s long life and career:
“When you look back with the eyes of your mind upon this span of life — a long age for mortals — you will marvel, not without sweet emotion, at the benefits which God has lavished upon you…”
The only references to God and grace are generic and sentimental, functioning as pious decoration of a thoroughly horizontal message. What is striking is not what is said, but what is systematically unsaid:
– No mention of the *state of grace*, without which all works are dead.
– No mention of *judgment*, *death*, *heaven*, or *hell*. An eighty-year-old man is congratulated as if approaching a comfortable retirement banquet, not the tribunal of Christ.
– No exhortation to penance, reparation, or perseverance in the integral faith; no warning against the wolves which, already in 1959, were devouring the flock through Modernist theology, biblical relativism, liturgical subversion, and ecumenical indifferentism.
– No word about the social Kingship of Christ, as solemnly reaffirmed only decades earlier by Pius XI in *Quas primas*, where it is taught that true peace and order depend on public recognition of Christ’s reign. Instead, we see a purely intra-ecclesiastical, closed circle of mutual admiration, detached from the battle against the world’s apostasy.
This silence is not accidental. It reveals a naturalistic mentality.
Silentium de novissimis est gravissimum crimen (silence about the last things is the gravest crime) in a supposed shepherd’s discourse to an aged prelate. Where the pre-1958 Magisterium incessantly recalled *mors, iudicium, infernus, paradisus*, the conciliar sect replaces eschatological realism with soft, bourgeois optimism.
Language of Sweetness Masking Institutional Self-Worship
On the linguistic level, the rhetoric of the letter is emblematic:
– Repeated emphasis on “benevolentiae caritas” and “suavis animi commotio” (sweet emotion).
– A tone of gentle, almost syrupy cordiality utterly foreign to the militant clarity of St. Pius X, Pius XI, or Pius XII when confronting error.
– A clerical corporatism: Copello is extolled for administrative roles, his management of Buenos Aires, his elevation to the cardinalate, and then his function as Chancellor.
The language never once turns to the objective doctrinal battles of the time — Modernism, laicism, communism, Freemasonry — which Pius IX in the *Syllabus* and Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili sane exitu* had unmasked as the “synthesis of all heresies” and as organized instruments of the *synagoga Satanae* (“synagogue of Satan”). Instead, the words hover in an airless chamber of institutional self-congratulation.
This is the rhetoric of a *neo-church* that has already accepted the world’s categories: celebration of careers, emotional language, bureaucratic honors. The letter’s very softness is an alarm signal.
– No trace of the traditional ascetical vocabulary: sacrifice, the Cross, mortification, spiritual combat.
– No echo of the patristic and medieval consciousness that ecclesiastical dignity is fearful accountability before God, not a ribbon for long service.
Dulcia verba, dura silentia (“sweet words, harsh silences”): what is concealed by soft formulas is the refusal to speak truths that would condemn the conciliar project being prepared.
Selective Memory: Erasing the Anti-Modernist Magisterium
The theological dimension emerges most clearly in what is methodically absent: any continuity with the vigorous condemnation of errors made by the very popes John XXIII pretends to succeed.
Pius IX, in the *Syllabus of Errors* (1864), condemned:
– Indifferentism (propositions 15–18).
– The separation of Church and state (55).
– The reconciliation of the papacy with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (80).
Pius X, in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*, anathematized:
– The evolution of dogma.
– Historical relativization of Scripture and dogma.
– The laicization and democratization of the Church.
Pius XI, in *Quas primas*, proclaimed that the calamities of nations come precisely from excluding Christ and His law from public life and that only the open, juridical reign of Christ the King can restore order.
Now confront this robust doctrinal line with the content and tone of the 1959 letter:
– There is no echo of the anti-Modernist oath (imposed 1910).
– No militant awareness of the Masonic and secularist assault on the Church described by Pius IX and his successors.
– No indication that Copello is a defender of this doctrinal arsenal. He is praised simply as a successful administrator whose work pleased Pius XI — invoked selectively, not for his thunderous teaching on Christ’s Kingship, but as a mere auctor of ecclesiastical promotion.
Such selective memorialization is a classic Modernist tactic: retain names of past popes while silently shelving their binding doctrinal content. The letter tacitly “canonizes” the conciliar hermeneutic: history is invoked only as sentimental backdrop, not as binding norm.
Lex orandi, lex credendi (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”): if even official letters degenerate into sentimental courtesies devoid of doctrinal gravity, this signals a deformation of belief at the top of the structure.
Consolidation of a Conciliar Oligarchy
On the symptomatic level, the letter reveals the inner mechanics of the emerging conciliar sect:
– A self-referential elite: John XXIII, Copello, and their circle, mutually endorsing and blessing each other.
– Ecclesiastical offices understood as career peaks, not cruciform responsibilities.
– “Apostolic Blessing” extended automatically, without the slightest reference to the objective conditions for receiving grace (integral faith, rejection of heresy, supernatural life).
By confirming Copello in honor and consolation without reference to the objective crisis of the Church and the world, John XXIII implicitly teaches:
– That fidelity to the institutional machine suffices.
– That longevity in office is itself a sign of divine favor.
– That bishops and cardinals are not primarily guardians of dogma against Modernism, but pillars of a polite, worldly “Catholicism” ready to negotiate with error.
This is in direct conflict with the pre-1958 understanding:
– Bishops are successors of the Apostles precisely as *doctrinal judges* and *defenders of the flock*, bound to condemn and extirpate error. Pius X explicitly condemned the notion that ecclesiastical censures are signs that “the faith of the Church is contrary to history” or that one may ignore Roman condemnations with impunity (cf. *Lamentabili*, propositions 3, 8).
– Any tolerance or promotion of Modernist ideas was to be treated as betrayal. The same Pius X ordered that Modernist writings and their promoters be repressed, not caressed.
Yet here, less than two years into John XXIII’s rule, the new style is fully operative: *benevolentia* towards the inner circle, rigorous silence toward the wolves. It is the inversion of Christ’s pastoral model; the hireling caresses colleagues while abandoning the sheep.
“Benevolentiae Caritas” as Mask of Conciliar Indifferentism
The very title, “Benevolentiae caritatis,” betrays a confusion characteristic of post-1958:
– True supernatural *caritas* is inseparable from *veritas*; it urges correction of error and recall to the narrow path. It is not sentimental well-wishing but sacrificial adherence to divine law.
– Here, “charity” is reduced to institutional niceness: congratulating, praising, wishing “dulcia solatia” (sweet consolations) in the execution of office.
This reduction is precisely what Pius X denounced: under a humanitarian ideal of love and progress, doctrine is softened, dogma is relativized, and the Church is naturalized into a polite religious association among others.
The letter thereby:
– Teaches a purely immanent form of “charity,” emptied of its dogmatic and ascetical content.
– Prefigures the conciliar sect’s cult of “dialogue” and “accompaniment,” where nobody is admonished for error, but everyone is celebrated for their journey and milestones.
Caritas sine veritate est simulacrum (“charity without truth is an idol”): what parades here as benevolence is a mask for the refusal to exercise the Apostolic office as defined by Christ and the perennial Magisterium.
Absence of Christ’s Kingship and the Acceptance of Laicism
Measured against *Quas primas*, the omissions of this letter are devastating.
Pius XI insisted that:
– The calamities of the world come from rejecting the reign of Christ in public and private life.
– Rulers and nations must publicly submit to Christ the King.
– The Church has an inalienable right and duty to assert this Kingship in the face of secularism, socialism, Freemasonry.
In 1959, the political and cultural landscape was deeply marked by laicism, communism, and masonic infiltration, precisely as Pius IX had foreseen in the *Syllabus* and his warnings about secret sects. In such an hour, what does John XXIII’s letter do?
– It narrows its horizon to internal churchly ceremony.
– It does not summon a cardinal with a lifetime of influence to champion the social Kingship of Christ.
– It does not call him to resist the masonic systems and liberal errors tearing nations and Church apart.
Instead, the letter blesses his career and wishes consolations in his office.
This is laicization by omission. The supernatural mission of the Church — to subject all nations to Christ’s sweet and sovereign law — is quietly shelved. Public Catholic authority becomes a decorous chaplaincy to a secular world order and to its own internal bureaucracy.
Thus, in nuce, we see the ideological matrix that will soon legitimize:
– Religious liberty understood as a natural right of error.
– Ecumenism that places the true Church alongside false religions as dialogue partners.
– The abdication of the demand that states recognize Christ the King.
What Pius IX condemned in proposition 80 of the *Syllabus* — that the Roman Pontiff “can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” — is effectively anticipated here in attitude: an irenic, non-combative, worldly tone, utterly incompatible with the intransigent defense of Christ’s rights.
Instrumentalization of Past Popes to Legitimize the New Regime
The letter references Pius XI only for his act of raising Copello to the cardinalate, as if to wrap John XXIII’s praise in borrowed pre-conciliar authority:
“The works carried out by you for religion testify to your zeal, and were judged by Our predecessor Pius XI of happy memory worthy of a singular reward, when he called you into the College of Cardinals.”
But this invocation is purely tactical:
– No mention is made of Pius XI’s war against false “catholic” political movements, his condemnation of communism and pagan nationalism.
– No recollection of his strong language on the rights of Christ’s Kingship over the state.
– No integration of Copello’s role into this militant line.
By invoking a predecessor only as a dispenser of honors, John XXIII subtly detaches the continuity of personnel from the continuity of doctrine. This is the essence of the so-called “hermeneutic of continuity”: maintain external succession of offices, while hollowing out their doctrinal content.
Successio sine traditione est vacua (“succession without Tradition is empty”). The letter’s entire logic presupposes that the mere fact of being a cardinal and chancellor, praised by successive occupants of the Roman See, suffices as a sign of rectitude. But the pre-1958 doctrine teaches the opposite:
– A manifest heretic loses office *ipso facto* (cf. Bellarmine, Wernz-Vidal, Canon 188 §4).
– Promotion within a corrupt system is no mark of divine favor.
Thus the letter inadvertently testifies against itself: it blesses a hierarchy whose legitimacy is precisely what must be theologically scrutinized in the light of the unchanging Magisterium.
Theological and Spiritual Bankruptcy Condensed
When read through the lens of integral Catholic teaching before 1958, this brief document reveals a concentrated pattern of bankruptcy:
– Naturalistic reduction of charity: “benevolence” replaces militant supernatural love that defends truth.
– Erasure of eschatological seriousness: no call to prepare for judgment at the end of a long life.
– Institutional self-idolatry: ecclesiastical careerism presented as itself a sign of God’s favor.
– Strategic silence on Modernism and Freemasonry: at precisely the time when vigilant denunciation was most needed.
– Instrumental appeal to pre-conciliar popes emptied of their doctrinal teeth.
– Implicit legitimation of a conciliar oligarchy that would soon enthrone religious pluralism, ecumenism, and the cult of man.
Nothing in this letter breathes with the spirit of St. Pius X, of Pius IX, or of the anti-liberal, anti-modernist papal tradition. Everything in it aligns with the incipient ethos of the conciliar sect: soft words, sentimental optimism, bureaucratic decorum, polite blessings showered on the inner circle, and a deafening silence about the supernatural struggle for the Kingship of Christ.
In that sense, this letter is not merely trivial; it is revealing. It evidences how, even in minor texts, the structures occupying the Vatican were already speaking another language, obeying another logic, and serving another project than the one defined by the perennial Magisterium.
Non est hic vox Pastoris; hic est murmur concilii mundani (“Here is not the voice of the Shepherd; here is the murmur of a worldly council”). And where the voice of the true Shepherd is silenced, the sheep are abandoned to wolves, while the wolves are congratulated on their anniversaries and adorned with “Apostolic Blessings” that have no root in the authority of Christ.
Source:
Benevolentiae Caritatis – Ad Iacobum Aloisium Tit. S. Hieronymi Illyricorum S. R. E. Presb. Cardinalem Copello, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae cancellarium, octogesimum natalem celebraturum (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025