John XXIII’s address of 20 June 1962 triumphantly celebrates the completion of the three-year preparatory work for the Second Vatican Council, exalting human collaboration, organizational structures, and an optimistic vision of history and “unity” as signs of the Spirit guiding his initiative. He presents the coming Council as a luminous dawn for the Church and humanity, calling for widespread prayers and meditation—above all on the Gospel of John—to accompany what he hails as a providential and pacifying event. From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine, this self-congratulatory discourse is not an innocent preface to a council, but the manifesto of a new religion: an anthropocentric, historicist, and diplomatically irenic program that prepares the systematic relativization of dogma, the subordination of the Church to the modern world, and the eclipsing of the social Kingship of Christ by the cult of man.
Programmatic Self-Glorification as the Matrix of the Conciliar Revolution
The entire allocution must be read as the spiritual x-ray of the conciliar project before it openly erupted in documents: a preamble in which a supposed “pope” sacralizes his own idea, his own optimism, his own structures.
Key features immediately emerge:
– John XXIII presents the Council as born from an inner “spark” in his mind, offered to the cardinals (“primam illam veluti scintillam… propositum nempe Concilii Oecumenici celebrandi”). The supernatural initiative of Christ the King, who founded once for all a perfect society endowed with everything necessary for salvation, is practically displaced by the inspiration of one man and the technocratic apparatus surrounding him.
– He exalts commissions, secretariats, procedures, “silently industrious” preparatory works, as if the solidity of a council depended primarily on bureaucratic perfection and broad consultation, rather than on guarding and reaffirming eodem sensu eademque sententia (“in the same sense and the same judgment”) the deposit entrusted once for all to the Church (Vatican I, *Dei Filius*; St. Vincent of Lérins).
– He wraps his project in sentimental optimism and pacifist rhetoric, speaking of “peace,” “unity,” “tranquil human coexistence,” while refusing even once—within this programmatic address—to speak clearly of:
– mortal sin
– the necessity of conversion of erring sects to the one true Church
– the Social Reign of Christ over states (Pius XI, *Quas Primas*)
– the condemned errors of liberalism, indifferentism, and naturalism (Pius IX, *Syllabus Errorum*).
This silence is not neutral. It is the signature of a new orientation already condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium: a laicized, horizontal agenda which Pius X unmasked in *Pascendi* as Modernism’s will to adapt the Church to “modern consciousness.”
Factual Level: A Council Built on Human Planning, Not on Guarding the Deposit
John XXIII’s narrative reduces the preparation of an Ecumenical Council to a managerial success story:
– he enumerates the Antepreparatory Commission, preparatory commissions, auxiliary commissions, technical offices;
– he praises their “constant and almost silent industry,” their efficient drafting work;
– he rejoices that after three years “the preparation is publicly brought to an end,” opening a time for bishops to study schemata, send remarks, and perfect procedures.
All of this might be materially legitimate—but only if ordered to a single supernatural end: reaffirming, defending, and applying integral Catholic doctrine against contemporary errors.
Here, the decisive element is missing.
Instead:
– The address never states that the Council’s purpose is to condemn named heresies, root out Modernism’s new forms, or recall states to recognize the Kingship of Christ.
– When he alludes to doctrinal topics (Church–State relations, the necessity of the Church, “ecumenical” questions, discipline, seminaries, Catholic schools, lay apostolate), he does so merely as dossier headings, emptied of the dogmatic weight with which Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII treated them.
– The “work of three years” is exalted without any mention that its first and principal norm must be what Vatican I solemnly defined: that the meaning of dogmas is to be perpetually retained and never understood otherwise than the Church has once declared.
This omission is lethal. The pre-conciliar popes repeatedly taught:
– *Syllabus* condemned the propositions exalting religious indifferentism, liberal freedom of cults, separation of Church and State, the subjection of the Church to civil power, and the reconciliation of the Pontiff with “modern civilization” understood as emancipated from God (Pius IX, errors 15–18, 55, 77–80).
– *Quas Primas* declared: peace and true social order depend on acknowledging Christ’s Kingship; the exclusion of Christ and His law from public life destroys authority and breeds chaos.
– *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili* condemned the evolution of dogma, the historicization of Revelation, the subjectivist reinterpretation of Scripture and dogma.
A truly Catholic council, in continuity with these teachings, would:
– reaffirm these condemnations,
– anathematize their renewed forms,
– correct the abuses of democratic naturalism and false ecumenism already gestating.
John XXIII does the opposite: he stages the Council as open, undefined “event,” a “flame” to be admired, without specifying that it must defend against the very modern ideas he subtly courts.
The fact that this address closes the preparatory phase proves historically what doctrinal analysis establishes: the conciliar project was intentionally detached from the prior anti-liberal, anti-modernist line, in open contradiction to the integral Magisterium.
Linguistic Level: Sentimental Optimism and Bureaucratic Euphoria in Place of Doctrinal Gravity
The rhetoric of the allocution is itself doctrinally symptomatic.
1. Exuberant self-congratulation:
– John XXIII speaks of “great joy and common delight,” “noble,” “beautiful,” “pious, devoted, active” works; the imagery is warm, affective, flattering. The Church appears as a harmonious assembly of experts and “insignes laici,” a technical symposium enchanted with itself.
– This is foreign to the sober, ascetical tone of pre-1958 pontiffs when convening councils or denouncing errors. Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII consistently combined charity with lucid, grave language about heresy, revolution, Freemasonry, and apostasy. Here: nothing.
2. Naturalistic and irenic vocabulary:
– He repeatedly emphasizes “peace,” “unity,” “tranquil human coexistence,” “spectacle” for the world, “fraternal concord,” “sincere will,” without grounding them in the prior condition: submission to the true faith and to the law of Christ the King.
– When Pius XI taught on peace, he anchored it in the Kingdom of Christ: peace is fruit of His reign, and secularism is “the plague” to be condemned. John XXIII dilutes this into emotive generalities, compatible with liberal and Masonic humanitarianism.
3. Symbolic displacement:
– He speaks of the “spark” born at St. Paul’s tomb, then of a “flame” shining in St. Peter’s Square in the Corpus Christi procession, linking his plan with Eucharistic symbolism.
– This is a rhetorical appropriation: he overlays the objective mystery of the Most Holy Sacrament with the self-referential glory of his council project, subtly turning adoration into legitimation of his innovations.
4. Manipulative use of Scripture:
– He urges daily reading of selected passages of John’s Gospel—prologue, Good Shepherd, farewell discourses, prayer “Ut unum sint”—as spiritual frame of the Council.
– These texts, in their true sense, proclaim:
– the divinity of the Word,
– the exclusive salvific mediation of Christ,
– the supernatural unity in truth and charity within the one true Church.
– But in this allocution, they are instrumentalized to support a vague, sentimental “unity,” preparing the later misuse of “Ut unum sint” to justify syncretic ecumenism, contrary to the constant teaching that unity exists only when heretics and schismatics return to the one fold.
The tone is not incidental; it is the chosen vehicle of a doctrinal shift. Lex orandi, lex credendi: when language ceases to confess the hard edges of truth, faith is already being altered.
Theological Level: Displacement of the Kingship of Christ by the Myth of Conciliar Humanism
The gravest aspect is theological: what is said and what is left unsaid.
1. Silence on the Social Reign of Christ:
– In an address dated 1962, on the eve of a global council, in the midst of triumphant secularism, socialism, Masonic domination of states, and the systematic expulsion of God from public law, John XXIII does not proclaim:
– that all nations must recognize Christ as King,
– that civil laws must be subordinated to divine and natural law (Pius XI, *Quas Primas*; Pius IX, *Syllabus*).
– Instead, he speaks of the Church as a “peaceful city of the Lord” among other human “towers,” acknowledging that others seek goods “not referred to God’s glory” yet calling them “also good in their designs.”
– This relativistic benevolence is incompatible with the papal condemnations of naturalism and laicism. Pius IX explicitly rejected the idea that the State could be religiously neutral or that “progress, liberalism, modern civilization” (understood as emancipation from the Church) could be reconciled with Catholicism.
2. Ecumenical ambiguity:
– He mentions “res oecumenica” among the themes, without reaffirming the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church and that non-Catholic communities are in objective error that must be renounced.
– Pre-1958 teaching (e.g., Leo XIII, Pius XI in *Mortalium Animos*) solemnly condemned the notion of doctrinally indifferent “ecumenical” cooperation or interconfessional parity. To mention “ecumenical matters” without qualification in a programmatic speech is to legitimize precisely what the Magisterium had forbidden.
3. Human-centered ecclesiology:
– He glorifies “fraternal concord,” “sincere will,” “energies” in the Church, both “visible and invisible, natural and supernatural, temporal and eternal,” as if the mere convergence of human goodwill guaranteed divine approval.
– Catholic doctrine teaches that divine assistance is promised to the Magisterium only under strict conditions; good intentions without fidelity to the deposit lead to ruin. Pius X warned that Modernists infiltrate ecclesial structures under the pretext of zeal, science, and reform. John XXIII’s language canonizes that illusion.
4. False reading of history:
– He sees in the preparatory debates a “spectacle” for the world, an “invitation to virtue,” and anticipates “certain hope” that God will reward this concord.
– There is here an implicit theology: where there is broad consultation, organizational harmony, and optimistic discourse, there is the Holy Spirit. This contradicts the entire historical experience of the Church, in which:
– councils can be manipulated,
– bishops can falter,
– majorities can drift,
– only strict adherence to prior dogma distinguishes true renewal from apostasy.
5. Abuse of Marian and Johannine references:
– He invokes the Blessed Virgin, St. John the Baptist, and St. John the Apostle as patrons of his council, tying his own assumed name “John” to them.
– But their authentic voice—preaching penance, denouncing sin, calling for conversion, proclaiming the exclusive truth of Christ—is absent from his program. This is symbolic usurpation: holy names in service of an unholy softening.
By these omissions and insinuations, the allocution stands in objective rupture with the integral Magisterium. It is not a neutral speech; it is a theological orientation diametrically opposed to the anti-modernist line solemnly established before 1958.
Symptomatic Level: Manifesto of the Conciliar Sect’s Self-Consciousness
Seen in light of subsequent history, this address is prophetic—not of the Holy Ghost, but of the conciliar sect’s logic.
1. Emergence of a new “church of dialogue”:
– The focus on “spectacle for the whole world,” on consensus, on commissions, on a “new dawn” is precisely the mentality that produced:
– the betrayal of the doctrine on religious liberty in *Dignitatis Humanae*,
– the equivocal ecclesiology of *Lumen Gentium*,
– the refusal to explicitly condemn communism at the Council,
– the legitimization of false “ecumenism” contrary to *Mortalium Animos*,
– the absorption of human rights ideology into theology, displacing the rights of God and His Church.
2. Structural democratization and technocratization:
– John XXIII’s praise for wide participation of “Cardinals, bishops, religious, university rectors, even prominent laymen” foreshadows the dissolution of hierarchical clarity into synodalist confusion.
– The true Church, as Pius IX and Leo XIII insist, is a perfect hierarchical society. The conciliar sect transforms this into a consultancy process where the immutable deposit becomes material for consensus, exactly as Pius X condemned: the “democratization” of doctrine, with the “Church listening” reshaping what the “Church teaching” should say.
3. Refusal to fight Modernism:
– In an epoch already marked by theological revolt, liturgical abuses, biblical relativism (all condemned in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*), John XXIII’s allocution:
– does not recall the anti-modernist oath (then still in force),
– does not demand renewed vigilance against condemned errors,
– does not warn against Masonic and liberal infiltration that Pius IX and Leo XIII had repeatedly denounced.
– Instead, he offers an idyll of harmony. This idyll is precisely what Modernism needed to step fully into the daylight and occupy the structures of the Vatican.
4. Subtle inversion of ends:
– The Council is presented as almost an end in itself: the “great event,” the “gift of Divine Providence,” the focus of prayers and expectations.
– But a council is a means, strictly bound to defend what is already given. When the means becomes a “mystical tower” of its own making, we face a new cult: the cult of council, of progress, of aggiornamento, replacing the cult of the crucified King and the worship due to the Most Holy Trinity.
5. The seed of the “church of man”:
– Later in the conciliar and post-conciliar discourse, we see explicit celebration of “man” as the center and partner of dialogue.
– This allocution already breathes that air: admiration for human efforts, optimism about modern aspirations, benevolent talk about those who pursue goods not ordered to God.
– In light of Pius IX’s condemnation of naturalism and of the assertion that moral order does not need divine sanction, this posture must be identified as complicity with the very revolution the pre-conciliar Church fought.
Exposure of the Underlying Spiritual Bankruptcy
From the perspective of the integral Catholic faith, several core indictments must be clearly articulated.
1. Absence of Zeal for the Conversion of the World to the One True Church
– The address says nothing of the solemn duty of nations, sects, schismatics, and infidels to abandon their errors and enter the Catholic Church.
– This muteness contradicts:
– the universal missionary mandate of Christ,
– centuries of papal teaching insisting there is no salvation outside the Church understood in its authentic sense,
– Pius XI’s condemnation of syncretic “ecumenical” initiatives.
2. Practical Rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ
– No call to states to submit legislation to Christ’s law, no warning against secularism, no echo of *Quas Primas*.
– This silence is particularly damning, as Pius XI explicitly instituted the feast of Christ the King to oppose laicism and enlist Catholics “to fight bravely… under the banner of Christ the King” against the usurpation of His rights over societies.
– John XXIII instead offers an anodyne vision where the Church coexists “pacifically” among many human projects, without asserting her sovereign rights.
3. Subordination of Dogma to Pastoral-Vague Objectives
– Rather than affirm that the preparatory schemata must uncompromisingly restate previous magisterial condemnations and doctrinal clarity, he highlights:
– prudence,
– practical ordering,
– avoidance of inconveniences,
– peaceful atmosphere.
– This is precisely the “pastoral” alibi by which, a few years later, the conciliar sect would smuggle in doctrinal novelties while claiming not to “define” dogmas, thereby attempting to bypass the traditional checks of the faithful and theologians.
4. Cult of Institutional Process Instead of Worship of the Sacrifice of the Cross
– The allocution uses Eucharistic solemnity and biblical language to baptize a human plan, not to summon repentance and militant fidelity.
– The Most Holy Sacrifice is turned conventionally into a backdrop for a bureaucratic spectacular global “event,” a liturgical décor for institutional self-affirmation.
5. Preparation of the Displacement of the True Hierarchy by a Paramasonic Structure
– By crowning a council project shaped by modernist periti and liberal prelates, while refusing to apply the anti-modernist discipline of St. Pius X, John XXIII effectively opened the door for the Church’s visible structures to be occupied by those who deny, in practice:
– the immutability of dogma,
– the exclusive truth of the Catholic religion,
– the binding force of prior condemnations of liberalism and religious freedom.
– What followed historically—destruction of the Roman liturgy, infiltration of ecumenism, doctrinal confusion, moral collapse—was not a betrayal of this allocution; it was its coherent development.
Against Both Modernist Clerics and Pseudo-“Traditional” Accommodation
This allocution also unmasks, retrospectively, the bankruptcy of those pretending to be traditional Catholics who tried or still try to read John XXIII and the conciliar program through a “hermeneutic of continuity”:
– The very text shows a deliberate departure from the pre-1958 magisterial stance. To insist on reconciling them is to repeat the modernist method condemned by *Pascendi*: affirming contradictory principles and then “harmonizing” them by elastic interpretation.
– Those who accept John XXIII and the conciliar sect as legitimate while lamenting “abuses” refuse to see that the corruption is in the program itself, in this foundational optimism, this refusal to condemn, this enthronement of humanism.
True fidelity to the Church’s perennial teaching requires:
– rejecting the ideological core manifested here,
– rejecting the authority claims of those who, beginning with John XXIII, have officially promoted doctrines and practices condemned by prior popes,
– adhering instead to the unchanging doctrine of the true Church, which:
– affirms the exclusive truth of Catholicism,
– anathematizes religious indifferentism and liberalism,
– demands public recognition of Christ the King,
– defends the integrity of the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– condemns Modernism as the synthesis of all heresies.
Conclusion: A “Mystical Tower” Against the City of God
John XXIII, in this allocution, praises the construction of a “mystical tower” which he blesses with Psalmic words of peace and abundance. But examined in the light of Pius IX, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, this “tower” reveals itself as:
– a Babel of commissions, experts, and ideologies,
– raised not to exalt the immutable law of God and the rights of Christ the King,
– but to negotiate with the world, to dilute dogma into “pastoral” formulas, and to enthrone man where only God may reign.
Against this counterfeit optimism, the perennial voice of the true Magisterium stands:
– proclaiming that truth does not evolve with history,
– that the Church must judge and condemn error,
– that peace is only possible in the Kingdom of Christ,
– and that any attempt to reconcile Catholicism with liberalism, indifferentism, or naturalistic humanism is already condemned.
The allocution of 20 June 1962 therefore serves as a crucial piece of evidence: not the prologue of a legitimate council of the Catholic Church, but the solemn preface of a conciliar sect usurping her structures, words, and symbols to erect, in place of the City of God, a paramasonic edifice of religious democracy, dialogue, and doctrinal dissolution.
Source:
Allocutio habita exactis laboribus Sessionis septimae Commissionis Centralis Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano secundo apparando: Summus Pontifex gaudet accuratam Concilii praeparationem ad finem esse perd… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025