Dated 20 February 1960 and issued in Latin, this letter of John XXIII to William Slattery, Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians), commemorates the third centenary of the deaths of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac. It praises their lives, exalts Vincentian works of charity (especially the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity), presents Vincent as a providential model for post-Tridentine renewal and for contemporary social needs, and urges renewed charitable zeal adapted to modern conditions, culminating in an “Apostolic Blessing.” From the standpoint of integral Catholic doctrine and historical reality, this apparently pious text is a polished manifesto of sentimental humanism and a subtle legitimation of the nascent conciliar revolution, instrumentalizing authentic saints to pave the way for a counterfeit church.
Sanctity Appropriated: How an Antipope Weaponizes Vincentian Charity
Personal Flattery as a Mask for Usurpation
Already at the outset, John XXIII’s letter functions as an act of self-legitimation. He writes as if exercising true Apostolic authority while addressing a major traditional congregation, cloaking his usurped status in deferential, sugary rhetoric:
“Quapropter in peragendis hisce sollemnibus vocem Nostram tacere non patimur…”
“I therefore do not allow Our voice to be silent in the celebration of these solemnities…”
The structure is calculated:
– Self-presentation as benevolent father;
– Appropriation of Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac as his “heavenly friends”;
– Affective reminiscences from his time as “Apostolic Legate” in France;
– Effusive blessing upon the Vincentian family.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the core problem is not emotional tone as such but the premise: an illegitimate head of a conciliar sect placing himself at the center of the Church’s memory of real saints canonized by true popes.
Pre-1958 doctrine is clear:
– The Church is a *societas perfecta*, divinely constituted, visibly governed by the Roman Pontiff (Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, especially condemned propositions 19, 23, 37).
– A manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church or hold jurisdiction: *non potest esse caput qui non est membrum* (this principle is expounded by St. Robert Bellarmine and reflected in canon 188.4 CIC 1917, as provided in the Defense of Sedevacantism file).
The letter must therefore be read as a document of the conciliar usurpation: an antipope leveraging the unimpeachable authority of St. Vincent de Paul to confer borrowed legitimacy on a paramasonic neo-structure that will soon demolish catechesis, priestly formation, and the order of charity. This is not an incidental pious text; it is part of a strategy of continuity-simulation.
Reduction of Vincentian Spirituality to Humanitarian Sentimentalism
John XXIII foregrounds charity; but the “charity” he promotes is subtly but fundamentally naturalised.
He accurately recalls, in part, the breadth of St. Vincent’s works: formation of clergy, popular missions, service of the poor, the Daughters of Charity. Yet his interpretive emphasis diverts their supernatural axis:
– St. Vincent is hailed as a “caritatis exemplar,” but the sacramental and doctrinal foundations of this charity are conspicuously thin.
– The letter dwells on social impact, organization, generosity, consolation, and “beneficent works,” presenting Vincentian initiatives as a kind of ecclesial NGO avant la lettre.
Key maneuver:
“…christianae caritatis opera… per totum catholicum orbem diffusa sunt veluti pacifer exercitus, qui sub evangelicis vexillis contra miseriarum omne genus… militat et serit solatia.”
“…the works of Christian charity… spread throughout the Catholic world like a peace-bearing army, which under evangelical banners wages war against every kind of misery and sows consolations.”
What is silenced?
– No insistence that the first misery is mortal sin, to be remedied by the *Most Holy Sacrifice* and sacramental penance.
– No assertion that almsgiving without true faith and submission to Christ the King is insufficient and can become a counterfeit virtue.
– No reminder that Vincent’s formation of clergy aimed at priests who would preach dogma, combat heresy, and administer the sacraments with fear of God—not social managers.
This silence is not neutral. Pius XI in *Quas primas* teaches that peace and social order depend on the public reign of Christ the King and obedience of states and individuals to His law; any approach that exalts “charity” detached from the rights of Christ the King and from doctrinal integrity capitulates to liberal naturalism. The letter never proclaims: peace and true mercy are impossible outside the full, public sovereignty of Our Lord Jesus Christ over nations and institutions. Instead, it elevates a deconfessionalized ethos of “helping the poor” easily assimilated by modernist ecumenism and secular philanthropy.
The Vincentian saints are thereby instrumentalized as proto-social workers of the conciliar project—precisely the betrayal Pius IX and St. Pius X warned against when condemning naturalism, liberalism, and the “social gospel” stripped of dogma.
Sanctity Without Dogma: Modernist Method in Devotional Vestments
The language is drenched in admiration yet theologically thinned out. Consider how John XXIII describes Vincent:
“…mysticus ardor… humanissimum ingenium… summa dexteritas… incredibiliter prompta peritia… tam tenero animo… erga Christum, erga Ecclesiam et pauperes et miseros, ab ipso ‘dominos’ vocitatos…”
He highlights:
– personal charm;
– organizational efficacy;
– tender affectivity;
– care for “the poor and miserable,” called “masters.”
What is missing or attenuated:
– Explicit reference to the centrality of the Sacrifice of the Mass as heart of Vincent’s mission;
– Emphasis that Vincent formed priests precisely to preach against vice, error, and to save souls from hell;
– Reference to original sin, judgment, necessity of state of grace, reality of damnation.
St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* condemns the modernist reduction of dogma to practical or ethical principles (prop. 26: the idea that dogmas are to be understood “according to their practical function”). Here we see such praxis-theology in devotional garb: Vincent’s sanctity is functionally collapsed into social, emotional virtues, made digestible for a world “allergic” to dogmatic claims.
This is not an innocent imbalance. It is a technique. By presenting saints primarily as ethical-humanitarian icons, the conciliar sect disarms them as dogmatic warriors. Vincent de Paul, who fought Jansenist rigorism without yielding doctrine, who revered the immutable Catholic faith, is made patron of a “charity” perfectly compatible with religious pluralism, state secularism, and ecumenical relativism.
Misuse of History: Post-Tridentine Renewal as Pretext for a New Revolution
John XXIII inserts a revealing historical analogy:
“Post Oecumenica peracta Concilia non unus vel alter, sed plures… heroes oriri solent… quod quidem, Tridentina… Synodo, manifesto apparuit.”
He claims: after ecumenical councils, God raises “heroes” by whom “the kingdom of God revives,” citing Trent and its saints—among whom he counts Vincent.
This rhetoric is not merely commemorative; it is strategic:
– 1960: the machinery for the so-called Second Vatican Council is in motion.
– He implicitly suggests: as Trent produced Vincent de Paul, so Vatican II will also yield new saints and a new flourishing. Therefore, to be truly “Vincentian” is to welcome and implement the impending conciliar changes.
But this is a counterfeit parallel.
– Trent reaffirmed dogma uncompromisingly, anathematized heresies, strengthened sacramental discipline, and restored the centrality of the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary*.
– The forthcoming conciliar revolution (as history confirms) dilutes dogma, glorifies religious liberty condemned by Pius IX, enthrones false ecumenism, and fractures the Roman liturgy, deforming the theology of sacrifice.
To align Vincent with this trajectory is abusive. Trent’s saints were instruments of stricter Catholic identity, not of “opening” to error. Pius IX’s Syllabus, *Quanta cura*, and St. Pius X’s *Pascendi* explicitly condemn the very principles which would later be marketed as “fruits” of that new council. By framing post-conciliar “renewal” as analogous to post-Tridentine sanctity, the letter subtly catechizes the Vincentian family into docile acceptance of the revolution.
This is historically mendacious and theologically corrosive.
Caritas Against Justice: The Muted Kingship of Christ
The letter briefly acknowledges moral disintegration, technological progress, selfishness, and international tensions, and then prescribes one remedy:
“Quam maxime egent nunc homines caritatis calore, ne pereant atque idcirco ut cum Deo… cohaereant.”
“Men now especially need the warmth of charity, lest they perish and so that they may be joined with God…”
He then quotes St. Augustine on charity as soul of virtues. All true, in itself. But in integral Catholic theology, *caritas* presupposes *fides*: *fides ex auditu* (faith from hearing), faith in the one true Church, submission to the law of Christ the King. Pius XI in *Quas primas* declares that public apostasy of nations from Christ’s Kingship is the root of modern disasters; true peace demands public subjection of rulers and laws to Christ.
What does this letter not dare say?
– No condemnation of liberalism and secularism as mortal sins against the social reign of Christ;
– No reminder that states must recognize the true Church as exclusive custodian of salvation (against proposition 77-80 of the Syllabus of Errors);
– No call to Vincentians to struggle for restoration of a Catholic social order.
Instead, the language of charity is deployed in abstract, universalist terms that can be—and in the conciliar sect are—seamlessly integrated into UN-style humanitarianism, “human rights” discourse, and religious indifferentism. The saints of Catholic *caritas* are placed at the service of a project that refuses to proclaim that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation, and that civil authority is bound by divine law.
In other words: *caritas* is invoked without *Veritas Christi Regis* (the Truth of Christ the King). This is not Catholic; it is a heretical inversion. To exalt emotional “love” while remaining silent on Christ’s juridical and doctrinal rights is to side, objectively, with the enemy condemned by Pius IX and St. Pius X.
Instrumentalizing Vincentian Works for the Conciliar Sect
The letter enumerates a constellation of Vincentian-inspired works:
– Daughters of Charity;
– “Ladies of Charity,” “Little Friends of the Poor”;
– Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul;
– Various associations “ubivis terrarum… auspicio, spiritu et interdum nominibus ipsis S. Vincentii…”
These are praised as a “pacifer exercitus” combating miseries.
Two intertwined problems emerge:
1. By 1960 many of these works were already under pressure from liberal and modernist infiltration, being nudged from explicitly Catholic apostolate (ordered to conversion, catechesis, and supernatural ends) toward neutral social service and interconfessional collaboration. This letter encourages precisely that trajectory by:
– Emphasizing breadth, reach, and adaptation to global social issues;
– Never insisting on strictly Catholic identity and doctrinal combat;
– Never warning against cooperation with anti-Catholic, Masonic, or secular agencies.
2. The upcoming conciliar revolution will exploit such congregations as laboratories for a new, desacralized model of “church”: horizontal, dialogical, activist, allergic to dogmatic clarity. By binding Vincentian spirituality to the figure and program of John XXIII, this letter effectively conscripts them into the “Church of the New Advent.”
Thus a double instrumentalization:
– of saints by an antipope,
– of authentic charity by a paramasonic structure.
The saints are not to be blamed; they are kidnapped. But the document is part of the kidnapping operation.
Silence on Modernism: The Dog That Does Not Bark
The gravest indictment is not what John XXIII says, but what he refuses to say.
In a letter ostensibly celebrating a champion of Catholic reform and priestly formation, in 1960—after:
– the modernist crisis condemned by *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*,
– decades of liberal and Masonic assaults denounced by Pius IX and Leo XIII,
– the devastating spread of secularism and socialism,
one would expect from a true Pontiff:
– warning that charity without faith degenerates into naturalistic philanthropy;
– reaffirmation that doctrinal modernism is “the synthesis of all heresies” (St. Pius X) and is incompatible with Vincentian spirit;
– mandate that Vincentian houses remain bastions of sound Thomistic doctrine, anti-modernist oath, strict discipline of liturgy and sacraments;
– insistence that the poor be taught catechism, modesty, and obedience to God’s law, not merely assisted materially.
Yet the letter is utterly mute on:
– Modernism (not named);
– Liberalism and religious freedom (not challenged);
– Freemasonry and organized enemies of the Church (not even alluded to);
– Defense of the anti-modernist measures of St. Pius X (not reaffirmed).
This is not a neutral omission. Pius X’s condemnation explicitly targeted those who, under guise of “pastoral” concerns, sought to adapt faith to the modern world. John XXIII’s letter fits that pattern:
– It exalts “pastoral charity” detached from doctrinal militancy;
– It sentimentalizes holiness;
– It uses the memory of pre-conciliar saints as a bridge between the true Church and the conciliar sect.
*Silentium de maximis*—silence regarding the gravest threats—is itself damning. Integral Catholic faith measures a shepherd by his willingness to defend doctrine openly. To celebrate Vincent de Paul while refusing to name and condemn the errors devouring clergy and religious in 1960 reveals complicity with the revolution those errors prepared.
Conciliar Adaptation: The New Geography of “Caritas”
Near the end, John XXIII notes that modern communications draw nations together and that charity must be directed so as to reach distant peoples and vast spaces. On the surface, this seems legitimate: Catholic charity is universal.
But placed in historical context, this language anticipates the conciliar reconfiguration of missions and works of mercy:
– From conversion to “dialogue”;
– From preaching one true faith to “accompaniment”;
– From hierarchical, sacramental apostolate to NGO-style activism.
The letter invites Vincentians to:
“…aptā temperatione in id conferre caritatem oportet, quod in egestatibus allevandis et dissitas gentes et amplissima spatia attingat.”
Charity is to be “adjusted” to contemporary conditions, reaching distant nations and wide spaces.
Absent is any admonition that such “adaptation” must never compromise:
– the integrity of the Catholic faith;
– the exclusion of false religions;
– the primacy of worship and catechesis.
The same conciliar sect which will shortly promote religious liberty, esteem for false cults, and ecumenical cooperation in “charitable” enterprises here receives its spiritual charter under Vincent’s name.
This is precisely the evolutionary, historicist logic condemned by St. Pius X: doctrine and ecclesial structures molded to “modern needs,” rather than modern needs judged and healed by immutable doctrine. *Lamentabili* (prop. 58-65) rejects the notion that truth changes with man, or that Christianity must be transformed into dogmaless humanitarianism. Yet this letter steers charity in that direction by its omissions and emphases.
True Vincentian Spirit Versus Conciliar Perversion
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, several contrasts must be drawn with precision:
– St. Vincent de Paul:
– Formed priests centered on the *Most Holy Sacrifice*, confession, catechism, preaching of judgment, hell, and necessity of conversion.
– Founded Daughters of Charity not as social workers, but as religious serving Christ in the poor within a clearly Catholic, sacramental framework.
– Obeyed and served true popes, defended Church authority and doctrine.
– John XXIII’s letter:
– Speaks as head of a structure which will soon undermine the Mass, confession, catechesis, religious life.
– Reinterprets Vincentian charity in a key of universalist, socially adaptable benevolence.
– Carefully sidesteps all the major doctrinal battles of his predecessors, while invoking their saints to soften resistance to change.
It is therefore necessary to state plainly:
– Any appeal to Vincent de Paul in the mouth of the conciliar sect is null as to magisterial value and dangerous as to spiritual effect, because it blends authentic sanctity with a heretical agenda.
– True followers of Vincent today are those who:
– Hold fast to pre-1958 doctrine and discipline;
– Reject Modernism, false ecumenism, religious liberty, and anthropocentric cult;
– Exercise charity firmly subordinated to the rights of Christ the King and the salvation of souls, not to the idol of “human fraternity.”
The saints belong to the true Church, not to the abomination of desolation enthroned via John XXIII and his successors.
A Call to Reclaim, Not to Romanticize
The spiritual and theological bankruptcy of this letter lies not in isolated phrases, but in the integral pattern:
– An antipope speaks as if vicar of Christ: formal usurpation.
– Authentic saints are praised, but selectively, in a way that prepares their co-option by a new religion.
– Charity is exalted, but detached from doctrinal militancy and the Kingship of Christ.
– The greatest condemned errors of the 19th–20th centuries—liberalism, naturalism, Modernism—are left untouched, even as they saturate the epoch.
– Implicitly, the Vincentian family is drafted into the conciliar project of a de-dogmatized, social-action “church.”
Those who wish to honour St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac must therefore:
– Explicitly repudiate the conciliar, post-1958 reinterpretation of their charism;
– Return to the doctrinal foundation laid by Trent, reaffirmed by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII;
– Recognize that any “Apostolic Blessing” issued by John XXIII in 1960 is devoid of authority and serves an alien agenda;
– Restore Vincentian works as instruments of:
– catechesis in the one true faith,
– promotion of the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary*,
– preparation of souls for judgment,
– and open rejection of Modernism, secularism, and the cult of man.
Only thus can the genuine spirit of Vincentian charity—supernatural, sacerdotal, doctrinally uncompromising—be rescued from the sentimental captivity into which documents like this attempted to lure it.
Source:
d P. Villelmum Slattery, tertio exeunte saeculo a pio obitu S. Vincentii a Paulo et S. Ludovicae de Marillac (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025