The allocution of John XXIII to the members of the Central Commission preparing Vatican II (20 June 1961) is a self-congratulatory address praising the progress of commissions, the consultation of bishops, universities, clergy and laity, and the global expectations surrounding the coming council. He presents the council as a luminous, pastoral aggiornamento, emphasizes procedural questions (participants, experts, voting, languages), insists the event concerns the entire Church and even “all peoples,” and frames it as a benevolent, open, almost parliamentary encounter of the “Sacred Hierarchy” with the world’s desires. In one sentence: it is the programmatic manifesto of a naturalistic, horizontal, and ecclesiologically subverted project that would soon enthrone the conciliar sect in place of the Catholic Church.
Programmed Subversion: The Conciliar Machine in John XXIII’s Allocution
From Petrine Authority to Democratic Consultancy: A Factual Unmasking
John XXIII depicts the preparation of Vatican II as the fruit of an immense consultative process: requests sent worldwide, answers gathered from bishops, Roman dicasteries, Catholic universities, clergy, laity, all allegedly integrated into the work of preparatory commissions.
He boasts that:
“it can truly be said that, in preparing the Ecumenical Council, account has been taken of what priests and laymen desired in this matter.”
This statement, read in the clear light of pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, reveals several grave facts:
1. The very criterion of conciliar orientation is shifted:
– Instead of the immutable *depositum fidei* as the formal measure of all proposals (*fides divina et catholica*, Trent, Vatican I), the allocution celebrates the “desires” and “wishes” of clergy and laity as a quasi-legislative datum.
– This is the inversion of the Catholic principle that the teaching Church (*Ecclesia docens*) instructs the listening Church (*Ecclesia discens*), not the reverse. St. Pius X, in condemning Modernism (*Lamentabili sane exitu*, props. 6–7, 63–65), rejected precisely the idea that doctrine arises from the consciousness or aspirations of the community.
– John XXIII’s rhetoric operationalizes the condemned modernist thesis: *“The Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening”* (Lamentabili, condemned). His allocution does not state it dogmatically, but structurally installs it.
2. The council is framed as an answer to “the wishes of the Christian people” and to the attention of “all nations,” not as a solemn judgment against error and a reinforcement of dogma:
– Authentic ecumenical councils (Nicaea, Trent, Vatican I) primarily:
– define dogma,
– condemn heresies,
– legislate for discipline subordinate to doctrine.
– John XXIII instead lowers the horizon to a vague pastoral and social plane: “universal good,” “comfort,” “consolation,” “social apostolate,” “missionary spirit” understood as friendly openness. The sharp dogmatic and antimodern edge of the pre-conciliar Magisterium is strategically absent.
3. The allocution defines the council’s intent in horizontal terms:
– Clergy should “shine with new holiness,” youth be “well formed,” social apostolate supported, missionary activity animated by “fraternal” relations “with all and among all.”
– But he passes over:
– the universal and exclusive Kingship of Christ over states and societies, which Pius XI in *Quas Primas* declared absolutely necessary for true peace and denounced laicism as a mortal plague;
– the intrinsic incompatibility of Modernism, liberalism, religious indifferentism, socialism, Freemasonry, with the Church, forcefully condemned by Pius IX’s *Syllabus* and by St. Pius X.
Conclusion at the factual level: John XXIII publicly installs a consultative, democratic, human-centered paradigm of conciliar preparation, displacing the vertical, dogmatic, anti-liberal mission of the Church. This is not a neutral “pastoral tone”; it is the operationalization of the very system previously anathematized.
Soft Language as a Weapon: The Semantic Revolution of Conciliar Rhetoric
The allocution is drenched in a sentimental, irenic, and bureaucratically optimistic style. This style is not cosmetic; it is doctrinally symptomatic.
Key features:
1. Dissolution of militancy:
– No mention of:
– *heresy*,
– *error*,
– *condemnation*,
– *Satanic* or *masonic* assaults on the Church,
– the necessity of anathematizing modern errors listed in the *Syllabus*, *Pascendi*, *Lamentabili*.
– Instead, continuous references to:
– “joy,”
– “consolation,”
– “comfort,”
– “delight,”
– “generous efforts,”
– “spring-like flowers” of the council,
– an “inviting” Church that decorates itself and opens its arms to all.
This contradicts the consistent language of pre-1958 Popes, who:
– unmasked the “synagogue of Satan” (Pius IX against Masonic sects),
– recognized modern states and secret societies as active persecutors of the Church,
– insisted on doctrinal clarity and condemnation as works of charity.
2. Ecclesiological horizontalism:
– John XXIII claims that not only the assembled hierarchy is present, but:
“the whole Church is here present, occupied in exultant labors; here beats her maternal heart, which seeks the salvation and joy of each man and of all nations.”
– The imagery shifts:
– from the Church as *perfect society* (*societas perfecta*) with juridical structure and divinely instituted authority,
– to a vaguely affective “maternal heart” existing to promote “joy” of “all nations,” without doctrinal boundaries.
– The universalism is naturalistic: “each man and all nations” as such, not as called out of darkness into the one true fold (Pius IX, *Syllabus*, condemns that man can find the way of salvation in any religion; Pius XI in *Mortalium Animos* rejects the idea of placing all religions as equal paths to God).
3. Council as non-dogmatic, quasi-parliamentary event:
– He admonishes journalists that the Council is not an academy or a parliament of popular legislators, but “a solemn meeting of the Sacred Hierarchy.”
– Yet:
– the entire preparatory logic mimics parliamentary mechanisms: consultations, aggregated wishes, global opinion, public expectations.
– This tension is resolved in favor of praxis: although verbally he refuses the label “parliament,” the structure he outlines—listening to all, avoiding condemnations, aiming at consensus, openness to the world—implements the essence of a doctrinally neutered parliamentary body.
4. Manipulation of supernatural vocabulary:
– God, grace, and the Holy Spirit are invoked functionally:
– “we implore the light and strength of the Holy Spirit,”
– “Dei ope confisi” (trusting in God’s help),
– but only to bless a process whose premises are already aligned with the modernist program.
– There is conspicuous absence of:
– the need for *state of grace*,
– mention of *mortal sin*,
– warnings of *hell*,
– insistence on the *propitiatory* character of the Most Holy Sacrifice as centre of ecclesial life.
– Silence on these themes, in such a decisive programmatic speech, is not accidental; it is doctrinal self-censorship.
This linguistic smoothing is itself a betrayal. St. Pius X condemned in Modernism precisely the strategy of replacing clear dogmatic language with elastic, vitalist, experiential terms, to allow doctrine to “evolve” under cover of pastoral language.
Theological Inversion: From Dogma and Condemnation to Universal Embrace
Measured against the unchanging theology prior to 1958, the allocution contains, by assertion and—more gravely—by omission, several devastating shifts.
1. Council without Anathema: Direct Collision with Tradition
Authentic councils:
– Nicaea anathematized Arius.
– Trent anathematized Protestant errors on Scripture, grace, sacraments, sacrifice.
– Vatican I anathematized liberal rationalism regarding revelation, papal primacy.
John XXIII’s program:
– No mention of errors to condemn.
– No identification of the great plague of the 20th century: Modernism (called by St. Pius X “the synthesis of all heresies”), which had already penetrated clergy, seminaries, biblical institutes.
– No reiteration of the binding nature of the *Syllabus*, *Pascendi*, *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
– On the contrary, he frames the council as:
– an event that will encourage social apostolate,
– adapt to youth,
– please all peoples watching with “attentive eyes.”
This is de facto a repudiation in practice of the prior Magisterium’s battle line. When a supposed pontiff calls a council in the age of Freemasonry, communism, ecumenism, religious indifferentism, moral subversion—and says nothing of the doctrinal cancer but only of “springtime” and “joy”—he aligns with the Modernist error that dogmatic definitions and condemnations are obstacles to “pastoral” fruitfulness. This aligns with propositions condemned in *Lamentabili* (e.g. 58–65) regarding a “reformed,” dogma-less Christianity.
2. Horizontal Mission, Eviscerated Kingship of Christ
Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches:
– Peace and order are impossible until individuals and nations publicly recognize and submit to the reign of Christ the King.
– Secularism, laicism, and religious equality of cults are a “plague” to be resisted.
– The state must acknowledge the Catholic Church as the one true religion in its constitution and legislation.
In the allocution:
– No call for the social reign of Christ.
– No denunciation of religious liberty errors later enthroned by the conciliar sect.
– Instead, vague talk of:
– “social apostolate,”
– being “brothers and friends with all and among all,”
– the council being watched with interest by “all nations” and bringing “messages” that please “generous hearts.”
This language:
– Opens the door to the condemned theses that:
– everyone is free to choose any religion (Syllabus 15),
– man can find salvation in any religion (Syllabus 16),
– the state must be religiously neutral and separate from the Church (Syllabus 55),
– all forms of worship should enjoy civil liberty (Syllabus 77–79).
A council framed in these terms logically produces texts like those later of the conciliar sect on religious liberty and false ecumenism. The allocution is the theological seedbed of that relativistic explosion.
3. The “Open House” Ecclesiology: Embrace Without Conversion
John XXIII affirms that the council is not a speculative congress but a living body, a house adorned to welcome all, and that the Church:
“is the house which is adorned with festive dress and spring brightness; it is the Church which invites all men to her bosom.”
But:
– He does not say:
– “invites all men to renounce their errors, abandon false religions, submit to the Roman Catholic Church, and receive baptism and the true faith.”
– Instead, it is an unconditional, sentimental hospitality, compatible with Modernism and condemned “broad and liberal Protestantism” (Lamentabili 65).
True doctrine:
– The invitation is always:
– conditional on conversion,
– under the exclusive claim: *extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* (outside the Church no salvation), rightly understood.
– Pius IX explicitly condemned the notion that Protestantism or any other religion is just another form of true Christianity (Syllabus 18).
The allocution’s silence and rhetoric prefigure the conciliar sect’s later ecumenical aberrations:
– prayer with heretics and infidels,
– recognition of “elements of sanctification” in false religions,
– abandonment of missionary urgency for conversion.
4. Practical Denial of the Magisterium’s Anti-Modernist Authority
Another grave omission:
– No reference to:
– the binding character of antimodernist condemnations,
– the Oath against Modernism (1910),
– obligations attached to *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*,
– the *Syllabus* as guiding criterion.
St. Pius X explicitly renewed and confirmed these judgments and attached excommunication to opposing them. By preparing a council without reaffirming these doctrinal bulwarks—in a time when their denial was rampant in seminaries and institutes—John XXIII effectively:
– neutralizes their authority,
– sends a signal that the age of condemnations is over,
– legitimizes the very tendencies the Church had branded as lethal.
This corresponds exactly to the modernist tactic condemned by St. Pius X: maintaining a verbal respect for formulas while emptying them by new pastoral practice and reinterpretation.
Symptom of Systemic Apostasy: The Conciliar Sect in Embryo
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this allocution is not an innocent administrative speech; it is a genetic code.
1. Institutionalizing the Modernist Principle
The address:
– Sacralizes consultation of “desires” of clergy and laity.
– Celebrates lay organizations and their prayers as co-authors of the council’s direction.
– Treats the council as a response to world opinion and expectations.
This installs the modernist root error:
– That the Church’s doctrine and discipline evolve from the immanent life and consciousness of the community.
– That authority ratifies the demands of “the People of God,” rather than judging them by revealed truth.
This is precisely the condemned error that dogma “springs from the needs of the faithful” and evolves with “religious experience” (Pascendi).
2. Erasing the Enemy: From Militant Church to Psycho-Social NGO
What the allocution does not say is its loudest statement.
Missing:
– Any mention of:
– Freemasonry, whose infiltration and war against the Church Pius IX, Leo XIII, and others repeatedly exposed.
– Socialism, Communism, laicism, modernist biblical criticism.
– The “synagogue of Satan” as the organizational center of attacks on the Church (Pius IX).
– The very concrete anti-Catholic laws and persecutions in many states.
Instead:
– A serene, optimistic narrative about an admired Church, attentively watched by the world.
This corresponds to the deception that the world no longer stands as enemy of Christ’s kingdom, but as interlocutor and partner. Such a mentality:
– Disarms the faithful.
– Discredits prior papal warnings as “outdated.”
– Prepares acceptance of religious liberty, interreligious “dialogue,” the cult of man, and political collaboration with anti-Christian systems.
3. From Sacrifice to Process: Liturgy and Structure at Stake
The allocution invests enormous emphasis on:
– technical details,
– commissions,
– experts,
– norms of discussion,
– the status of Latin (with an opening to vernacular “when necessity requires”).
This anticipates:
– the ruthless bureaucratic demolition carried out by Bugnini and complicit structures:
– the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass replaced by an assembly meal,
– Latin marginalized,
– rites reconfigured ecumenically and archaeologically to please heretics and modern man.
In a speech where the centrality of the Holy Sacrifice and sacramental grace should dominate, they are practically absent. The Church is presented as a working group and public event, not as the Mystical Body centered on Calvary renewed in an unbloody manner. This silence is itself testimony of a tectonic shift.
4. Ecumenical Ambiguity Towards “Separated Brethren”
John XXIII briefly evokes those “separated from the Church’s walls” and even those without the sign of Christ, asserting a sincere appreciation of their “voices and deeds,” and tying this to the council’s nature.
Yet:
– He does not call them to abjure their errors.
– He does not remind them that schism and heresy are objectively mortal sins and that outside the one true Church there is no salvation except by extraordinary incorporation ordered to her.
– He instead prefigures the conciliar sect’s later approach:
– replace calls to conversion with “dialogue,”
– speak of “fraternal” relations and “esteem” without doctrinal demands.
This aligns with the condemned errors that:
– Protestantism is a legitimate form of Christian religion (Syllabus 18),
– the Roman Pontiff can reconcile himself to liberalism and modern civilization (Syllabus 80).
Supremacy of Divine Law Against Humanist Conciliarism
Confronted with such a program, the response of Catholic doctrine is unambiguous.
Lex divina, non voluntas hominum, regit Ecclesiam (“Divine law, not the will of men, rules the Church).
– The Church does not receive her mission from:
– “desires” of laity,
– public opinion,
– geopolitical expectations.
– The Church:
– dogmatically proclaims revealed truth,
– condemns error,
– sanctifies by valid sacraments,
– governs with divinely instituted authority.
John XXIII’s allocution:
– subjects the Church’s supreme act—a general council—to:
– psychological expectations,
– media interest,
– inclusive symbolism,
– sentimental narrative,
– procedural pragmatism.
It is the mentality of the conciliar sect:
– replacing the Kingship of Christ with the cult of humanity,
– replacing *anathema sit* with “dialogue,”
– replacing separation from error with inclusion of all positions in a “people of God on the march,”
– replacing the fight against Modernism with its enthronement.
Why This Allocution Unmasks the Conciliar Usurpation
Measured strictly by the pre-1958 Magisterium:
– Pius IX’s *Syllabus*:
– condemns the liberal theses that undergird the coming “opening to the world.”
– Leo XIII and Pius XI:
– uphold the necessity of the Church’s public rights and condemn separation of Church and state.
– St. Pius X:
– unmasks Modernism as the synthesis of all heresies and commands its extirpation,
– proclaims that those resisting *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili* are excommunicated.
John XXIII:
– calls a council in the very era stigmatized by these Popes,
– refuses to reaffirm their key condemnations,
– structures the event on modernist pastoral premises,
– orients it to please the world and integrate its expectations,
– spiritually disarms the hierarchy and faithful.
Such a program is incompatible with the continuous, integral Catholic doctrine. Where the perennial Magisterium builds a wall against errors, this allocution opens the gates, decorates them with flowers, and invites everyone in without conversion.
This is not a mere stylistic variant; it is a conceptual rupture. And what followed—Vatican II’s texts as interpreted and executed by the neo-church, the destruction of the liturgy, the enthronement of religious liberty and false ecumenism, the cult of man—is the organic fruit of the mentality confessed here.
The speech thus stands as an incriminating document:
– a prelude to systemic apostasy,
– a programmatic displacement of the Catholic Church by a paramasonic, anthropocentric “Church of the New Advent” occupying her visible structures.
Where the Fathers and pre-1958 Popes spoke with virile clarity, John XXIII speaks with sentimental obfuscation; where they condemned, he flatters; where they insisted upon subjection of nations to Christ the King, he dissolves the claim into a vague humanitarian openness. The result is not renewal but the enthronement of the abomination of desolation in the holy place.
Source:
Ad Eminentissimos Patres Cardinales, Excellentissimos Praesules ceteraque Membra Commissionis Centralis Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano altero parando, quae coetibus interfuerunt, quibus eadem Commissio … (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025