Paenitentiam agere is a Latin circular letter of the antipope John XXIII, issued shortly before the convocation of the so‑called Vatican II, ostensibly exhorting the hierarchy and faithful to intensified prayer and penance so that “graces” may descend upon the forthcoming council; it invokes Scriptural and patristic calls to conversion, recalls precedents before earlier councils, and details internal and external works of penance as preparation for a hoped-for “renewal” and “new age” for the Church. In reality, this text is a calculated instrument for sacralizing the conciliar revolution in advance, hijacking genuine Catholic ascetic doctrine as a pious alibi for the planned demolition of the public reign of Christ the King and the immutable Magisterium.
Penitential Rhetoric in the Service of Conciliar Subversion
John XXIII’s Paenitentiam agere must be read, in light of integral Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, not as an innocent devotional exhortation but as a programmatic manifesto that cloaks the coming subversion of the Church in the language of tradition.
The encyclical:
– Calls the world to “penance” so that the impending assembly (Vatican II) may bear “salutary fruits” and inaugurate a “new era” for the Church.
– Rehearses traditional loci: Scriptural calls to penance, the Fathers, Trent’s doctrine on the sacrament of Penance, precedents of earlier councils.
– Proposes widespread novenas, indulgences, and external mortifications “for the success” of the council.
– Infuses all this with a vague expectation of “renewal,” unity with those “separated from the Apostolic See,” and expansion of the “Kingdom of God.”
On the surface, it sounds Catholic. But under scrutiny, each of these elements is instrumentalized to legitimize an ecclesial project that would directly contradict the very doctrinal sources John XXIII invokes: the Syllabus of Errors, Trent, Vatican I, the anti-modernist magisterium of Pius IX–XII, Quas Primas, Lamentabili, Pascendi.
The text is thus internally duplicitous: it borrows the vocabulary of penance while preparing moral and psychological submission to what would soon become the conciliar and post-conciliar overthrow of that same doctrinal deposit.
Instrumentalizing Penance to Consecrate a Revolution
On the factual level, Paenitentiam agere constantly links authentic, necessary Christian penance to the success of Vatican II. This is the structural axis of the document.
John XXIII writes (translation first):
“Therefore, following in the footsteps of Our Predecessors, We earnestly desire, Venerable Brothers, that Catholics from both clergy and laity prepare themselves for the great event of the forthcoming Council by pious prayers, good works, and the practice of Christian penance.”
This seems unobjectionable until one sees what is smuggled in: assent to “the great event” is made the object of penitential zeal. Penance ceases to be ordered first to the glory of God, expiation of sin, and perseverance in the already-defined faith; it becomes a spiritual fuel for a future, undefined conciliar “renewal,” soon to manifest as religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, liturgical devastation, and practical denial of the social Kingship of Christ—errors solemnly condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (especially 15–18, 55, 77–80) and doctrinally opposed to Pius XI’s Quas Primas.
Integral Catholic doctrine:
– Penance is ordered to:
– Expiation of personal and communal sins.
– Restoration and preservation of supernatural life in the soul.
– Defense and affirmation of the one true Faith.
– It is never a mandate to lubricate doctrinal “updating,” nor a tool to bless structural concessions to liberalism and naturalism.
Paenitentiam agere subtly but decisively reorients this axis. Every traditional reference is chained to one practical conclusion: support this council. There is no doctrinal content of the council yet presented; the faithful are told to commit in advance. This is a psychological conditioning strategy, not Catholic ascetical theology.
Linguistic Piety Masking Doctrinal Ambiguity
The linguistic texture of Paenitentiam agere is deliberately devotional, heavily ornamented with Scripture and Fathers, and outwardly free from crude heresy. Its poisons are in the omissions, redefinitions, and the quietly displaced center of gravity.
Key features:
– Frequent use of classic ascetical language: “voluntary mortification,” “corporal chastisement,” “castigo corpus meum,” “paenitentiae opera.”
– Appeals to:
– Moses calling Israel to expiate idolatry.
– Prophets urging penance.
– John the Baptist: “Paenitentiam agite.”
– Christ’s “If you do not do penance, you will all likewise perish.”
– Paul’s doctrine on self-discipline.
But this rhetorical orthodoxy serves to:
– Build credibility for the speaker as a “traditional” teacher.
– Transfer trust to his next step: an unqualified endorsement of the forthcoming council as if its inspiration and outcome were guaranteed by the Holy Ghost.
The text deliberately avoids:
– Any precise reaffirmation of those doctrines which the 19th–early 20th-century Magisterium had defined precisely against liberalism and modernism.
– Any reiteration that the Church is bound to condemn error publicly and to assert her exclusivity as the one ark of salvation (Syllabus 21, 37; Lamentabili 21–22, 65).
– Any warning against the very forces—Freemasonry, naturalistic democracy, indifferentism—explicitly denounced by Pius IX and Leo XIII as the organized “synagogue of Satan” warring against the Church.
Instead, it hints at a “new age,” unity with the “separated brethren,” and a soft-focus vision of the “Kingdom of God” which is neither explicitly nor forcefully identified with the visible, juridical Catholic Church professing the unchanged pre-1958 Faith.
Such calculated ambiguity is the characteristic tactic of *Modernismus*, which St. Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi condemned as the “synthesis of all heresies.” The language is high, the content hollowed out and deferred to an undefined future event.
Theological Subversion: From Immutable Doctrine to Open-Ended ‘Renewal’
Measured by the pre-1958 Magisterium, several theological disorders emerge.
1. Conciliarism in pious vesture
Paenitentiam agere attributes to the planned Vatican II an aura that approaches de facto inspiration:
“In reality, the Ecumenical Council, as it is the gathering of the successors of the Apostles… will, as it were, confirm before the eyes of all the rights of God over the human race redeemed by Christ and the duties of men toward God their Savior.”
This is presented as if automatic, prior to any content. The council is assumed as salvific by the mere fact of its convocation. This is alien to the cautious, dogmatically anchored attitude of Trent or Vatican I, which never asked the faithful to pre‑emptively submit conscience and intellect to an undefined pastoral “event.”
Integral doctrine:
– Councils are authoritative insofar as they reaffirm, define, or safely apply the deposit of faith.
– They are not oracles of novelty.
– Obedience is owed to defined doctrine, not to an abstract enthusiasm for procedural assemblies.
By making penance the instrument for the success of a yet-unrevealed agenda, John XXIII demands a trust in persons and processes rather than a strict adherence to already-defined supernatural truth. This is an inversion of Catholic obedience.
2. Dilution of the Social Kingship of Christ
The encyclical speaks generally of the “Kingdom of God,” of “regnum Dei” being furthered by the Council, and of moral improvement; but it never robustly reaffirms that:
– Civil authority is bound to recognize and publicly worship Christ and submit to His Church.
– Religious indifferentism and liberal freedoms of cult are condemned errors.
Pius XI in Quas Primas made it explicit: peace and order are impossible unless states publicly recognize Christ’s Kingship and obey His law; the feast of Christ the King was instituted precisely to condemn secularism and liberal “neutrality.”
Paenitentiam agere, issued on the threshold of the very council that would enshrine religious liberty and the secular state, retreats into generalized spirituality. The grave modern errors identified by the Syllabus and Quas Primas are not named; no warning is issued that the forthcoming discussions must be bound by these condemnations.
This silence, in such a crucial context, is not accidental; it is programmatic. It prepares the faithful to accept a “renewal” in which the Social Kingship is practically eclipsed in favour of “dialogue” with the world and the cult of human dignity—all later codified by the conciliar sect.
3. Ecumenical ambiguity
The text expresses the hope that the Council’s fruits will stimulate those “separated from this Apostolic See” to seek unity and “enter the one fold under the one Shepherd.”
At first glance, this echoes traditional teaching. But:
– It is placed within a broader conciliarist expectation that Vatican II would be a magnet by its pastoral tone, not primarily by its unequivocal condemnation of their errors and call to unconditional return.
– There is no reminder that Protestantism and schism are objectively damnable errors, nor that unity requires submission to the Roman Pontiff and acceptance of all defined dogmas (Syllabus 18; traditional doctrine on extra Ecclesiam nulla salus).
This approach, as history confirms, preludes the false ecumenism of the Church of the New Advent: “dialogue” without conversion, mutual recognition without doctrinal assent—a direct betrayal of pre‑1958 teaching.
4. Naturalistic blurring of supernatural motives
The encyclical correctly recalls:
– Necessity of confession, sacramental absolution.
– Value of interior contrition and external mortification.
– Expiatory power of suffering offered with Christ.
But it subordinates these supernatural realities to the success of an ecclesiastical event conceived as a historical project of “renewal.” The axis becomes horizontalized: penance as technique to guarantee the prosperity of a humanly drafted agenda.
Authentic Catholic teaching:
– Penance is ordered to God’s glory, the forgiveness of sin, amendment of life, and defence of the Faith.
– Any invocation of penance for “projects” is valid only insofar as those projects are strictly submissive to immutable doctrine.
Here, the project is precisely to relativize what was once immutable. The vocabulary of expiation is weaponized against the very faith it purports to serve, by binding Catholic consciences to cooperate spiritually with an operation that would enthrone the very errors condemned in Lamentabili and the Syllabus.
Systemic Fruits: Paenitentiam agere as a Symptom of the Conciliar Sect
Seen retrospectively, Paenitentiam agere is entirely coherent with what followed:
– A council that:
– Allowed the anti-modernist condemnations to fall into desuetude.
– Introduced principles of religious liberty and ecumenism violating previous magisterial teaching.
– Opened the door to liturgical and doctrinal disfigurement.
– A “new church” that:
– Transformed penance into vague “conversion of heart” without clear denunciation of objective errors.
– Emptied the practice of fasting, mortification, and sacramental confession.
– Muted the four last things, divine judgment, and the fear of Hell.
– Replaced the Social Kingship with the “rights of man,” “dialogue,” and “tolerance”—all condemned as liberal illusions by Pius IX (Syllabus 77–80).
Paenitentiam agere thus appears as a transitional text:
– Still dressed in Catholic phraseology.
– Already steering the faithful away from militant confession of truth and toward docile support of a heterodox “updating.”
This is precisely how systemic apostasy proceeds: not by immediate denial of dogma, but by subtle reorientation of spiritual energies to serve a new, unconfessed ideology.
Silence on Modernism and the Internal Enemy: A Grave Indictment
One of the most damning features of the encyclical is what it does not say.
– No mention of Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies” (St. Pius X, Pascendi).
– No warning about doctrinal subversion within the clergy and theological faculties.
– No denunciation of those who sought to reinterpret revelation, dogma, Scripture in a historicist or evolutionist sense (errors systematically enumerated and condemned in Lamentabili).
– No continuation of the vigilance against Freemasonry and secret societies which Pius IX and Leo XIII exposed as principal architects of the war on the Church.
Instead, the only enemy implicitly targeted is generic sin, generic negligence, generic lack of fervour. The real enemy—that is, the organized modernist infiltration seeking to bend the council to liberal, Masonic goals—is left unnamed and thus free.
This silence is not mere oversight; it is functional. St. Pius X explicitly taught that the gravest danger comes from “enemies of the Church within her very bosom.” A legitimate successor of that anti‑modernist pontiff, on the eve of a worldwide council, would:
– Renew the anti-modernist oath, not dissolve it (as would soon be done).
– Reaffirm the binding force of Pascendi, Lamentabili, and the Syllabus.
– Explicitly warn that any attempt to relax previous condemnations, or to promote religious liberty/false ecumenism, would be null and void.
John XXIII does the opposite: he creates a generalized penitential atmosphere while strategically excluding the one concrete application demanded by pre‑1958 doctrine—the extirpation of internal error. This is compelling evidence of deliberate alignment with that very error.
Abuse of the Saints and Tradition as Decorative Legitimization
Paenitentiam agere quotes and invokes:
– Innocent III before Lateran IV.
– Gregory X before Lyons II.
– Pius IX before Vatican I.
– Classic ascetical prayers of Lent.
– St Augustine’s insistence on satisfaction for sin.
– St Paul’s bodily discipline.
However:
– Innocent III and Pius IX summoned councils that:
– Condemned heresies explicitly.
– Affirmed the absolute authority of the Papacy and the Church’s rights over states.
– Their use of fasting and penance was ordered to fortify the faithful for dogmatic clarity and combat against error.
John XXIII uses the same references to justify an event that would refuse to condemn modern errors, embrace “pastoral” ambiguity, and inaugurate a paramasonic structure inhabiting the Vatican.
This is a perverse typological inversion:
– The gestures of holiness are preserved; the intention is inverted.
– The saints’ words are put into service of a program they would have anathematized.
Such instrumentalization of tradition is itself a mark of the conciliar revolution: symbols kept, substance reversed.
Against Secular Idols: Penance Is Not for ‘Dialogue,’ ‘Rights,’ or Humanism
Measured by Quas Primas and the Syllabus, the ideological background of Paenitentiam agere is already compromised.
The encyclical does not yet openly preach religious liberty or egalitarian ecumenism, but:
– It is entirely silent on the condemned principles of indifferentism and liberalism.
– It creates a climate where the faithful are encouraged to pray for the Council’s success without any reminder that success means fidelity to prior condemnations, not reconciliation with “modern civilization.”
The subsequent conciliar texts would enthrone:
– “Human dignity” and “religious freedom” in a sense condemned in Syllabus 15–18, 77–80.
– “Dialogue” as a quasi-sacrament of the new humanistic religion.
– “Collegiality” and democratization of authority.
In this light, Paenitentiam agere’s vague pieties are exposed as the soft prelude to a betrayal: penance is subtly redirected away from reparating the crimes of liberalism and modernism and toward enabling their enthronement in the sanctuary.
The True Catholic Response: Authentic Penance Against the Conciliar Sect
From the standpoint of integral Catholic faith:
– Genuine calls to penance, mortification, confession, and reparation remain absolutely valid—but only when ordered to:
– Perseverance in the pre‑1958 doctrine.
– Reparation for the sins of apostasy, indifferentism, and profanation perpetrated by the conciliar sect.
– Defense of the Social Kingship of Christ against secular and Masonic usurpations.
– To “offer” one’s penance for the “success” of an enterprise bent on neutralizing the Syllabus, Quas Primas, Pascendi, and the entire anti-modernist magisterium is objectively disordered.
What Paenitentiam agere inadvertently reveals:
– The usurping hierarchy understood the spiritual power of authentic Catholic penance.
– It moved swiftly to harness that power to its own conciliar project, seeking to bind consciences to an unexamined enthusiasm for a council that would systematically undermine the very doctrinal patrimony invoked in this letter.
Therefore:
– The faithful must reverse the orientation demanded by John XXIII:
– Perform penance not for the triumph of Vatican II and the Church of the New Advent, but for their expiation and overthrow.
– Unite mortification, confession, and the Unbloody Sacrifice to beg God for deliverance from the paramasonic structure that occupies the Roman institutions.
– Cling to the immutable magisterium from Trent through Pius XII as the sole norm.
Anything less is to allow the sacred weapons of asceticism to be turned against the City of God.
Source:
Paenitentiam agere, Litterae Encyclicae quibus, adventante Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II, invitamentum ad paenitentiam inculcatur, I Iulii a. 1962, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025