Venerable Melchior Giedraitis is praised by John XXIII on the 350th anniversary of his death as a model bishop for Lithuania: an apostolic pastor faithful to Trent, defender of Catholic doctrine, founder of parishes, promoter of catechesis, clergy formation, and Eucharistic life, proposed as an exemplar for clergy, parents, and youth amid communist persecution, with a closing appeal for perseverance, Marian devotion (Šiluva), and fidelity to the “Roman Pontiff” and “legitimate hierarchy.” The entire text, while externally recalling authentic Catholic themes, functions as a sophisticated instrument to legitimize the conciliar revolution’s usurped authority and to redirect heroic Catholic fidelity toward the nascent neo-church rather than the immutable Faith of all ages.
Epistolary Paternalism as a Mask for Revolutionary Usurpation
Instrumentalizing a Tridentine Bishop to Canonize a Non-Tridentine Regime
The letter constructs a seemingly edifying tableau:
– Melchior Giedraitis: presented as zealous shepherd, *bonus miles Christi*, implementing the Council of Trent, restoring discipline, founding parishes, promoting catechism, defending Catholic unity, leading nobles back to Roman obedience.
– Lithuanian Catholics under communism: portrayed as persecuted yet steadfast; bishops exiled or limited, clergy imprisoned, laity suffering, schools destroyed, atheism propagated.
– Exhortations: to priests to imitate Giedraitis in defending Catholic rights and teaching catechism; to laity to remain faithful, attend churches when possible, receive sacraments, obey the “Roman Pontiff” and “legitimate hierarchy”; to parents to replace forbidden catechesis; to youth to defend the faith; to all to cultivate Marian devotion.
On the factual surface, almost every line borrows from authentic Catholic vocabulary: persecution, *fides catholica*, catechesis, sacraments, Eucharistic Sacrifice, Marian piety, obedience to the Apostolic See. Yet precisely here lies the poison: the heroic Tridentine bishop and the suffering Lithuanian faithful are chained rhetorically to the authority of John XXIII as if his person and his program were the legitimate continuation and norm of that very Tradition.
“Novimus… eosque itidem Romano Pontifici et legitimae Hierarchiae se fidelissimos praebere.”
The usurper exploits the genuine Catholic faith of the Lithuanian people to validate his own position and that of the developing conciliar sect. This is the fundamental perversion: historical, rhetorical, and theological.
Rhetoric of Consolation as a Political Technology
On the linguistic level, the text uses soft paternal tone, emotional grammar, and carefully staged pathos:
– Repeated diminutives of affection: “dilectissima gens,” “dilectissimi filii,” “dilectae Lithuanorum Nationis.”
– Moral admiration for persecuted clergy and laity.
– Idealization of Melchior Giedraitis as a national and ecclesial father.
This is not harmless; it is calibrated:
1. To seize the pathos of martyrdom and weld it to obedience to the new Roman regime.
2. To neutralize any instinct of doctrinal discernment: if you are faithful to Rome under persecution, then you must be faithful to the one who currently occupies Rome, without asking whether he professes the same doctrine as Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII.
3. To translate supernatural heroism into a sentimental loyalty to persons, regardless of their doctrine.
This tone is precisely the opposite of the pre-1958 Magisterium’s clarity toward subversive errors. Pius IX, in the *Syllabus Errorum*, denounces liberal, masonic, and naturalistic systems with juridical precision, not with ambiguous sentimentality. St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi* condemns the very principles later embraced by the conciliar revolution: doctrinal evolution, reduction of dogma to religious experience, relativization of Tradition. Pius XI in *Quas Primas* proclaims that peace is possible only in the social reign of Christ the King, explicitly rejecting laicism and religious indifferentism.
The 1959 letter, however, is conspicuously silent where those Popes were thunderously clear.
Strategic Silences: The Loudest Accusation
The gravest indicators of apostasy often lie not in what is said, but in what is systematically unsaid. This letter is a study in programmatic omission.
1. No denunciation of Communism as intrinsically satanic error.
The persecution is described; the persecutors are anonymized. No explicit, doctrinal condemnation of atheistic communism as condemned by Pius XI (*Divini Redemptoris*, 1937) and other pre-conciliar documents. The terror is treated as a generic “difficultas,” a circumstance, rather than a coherent anti-Christian system condemned by the Church.
This displacement from dogmatic judgment to sentimental lamentation is thoroughly modernist. It refuses to name the ideological enemy, precisely when clarity would strengthen the faithful. A pastor who sees wolves and refuses to call them wolves, speaking instead of “unfavourable circumstances,” betrays the flock by omission.
2. No mention of the social reign of Christ the King.
Pius XI: *“Peace will not be given, as long as individuals and States refuse to recognize and obey the reign of our Savior”* (cf. *Quas Primas*). The Lithuanian persecution is the direct fruit of the systematic rejection of this doctrine. Yet John XXIII’s letter remains within a purely interior, privatized framework: Mass attendance “if possible,” personal piety, family catechesis, Marian devotion, but no call for states to submit to Christ’s law.
This naturalistic shrinking of the Church’s mission to the inner forum and the sacristy aligns precisely with what Pius IX condemned (Syllabus, 55: *separation of Church and State*; 77–80: compatibility of Catholicism with liberal and modernist principles). The epistolary silence protects the modern schema of religious liberty that will soon be dogmatized in the conciliar sect.
3. No doctrinal warning against compromise with anti-Christian regimes.
The letter does not clarify that collaboration with atheistic structures, communist or liberal, at the price of silence on truth, is betrayal. Instead, it gently hopes for peace and concord once “suspicions” and “disturbances” cease. The conflict is framed as mutual misunderstandings, not as an objective clash between the rights of God and a militantly anti-theistic state.
Such language neutralizes the teaching that civil authority is bound to recognize and serve the Church (cf. *Quas Primas*, *Syllabus*, pre-conciliar encyclicals). It prepares the way for conciliar coexistence with error, replacing the intransigent *lex Christi* with pacified coexistence.
4. No doctrinal precision on the nature of the Church.
The text constantly praises fidelity to the “Roman Pontiff” and “legitimate hierarchy,” but offers no doctrinal content to define legitimacy. No reference to the duty of that hierarchy to defend immutable dogma, no mention of Modernism or of the condemnations by St. Pius X, no insistence that obedience is conditioned by fidelity to Tradition.
This is decisive: obedience is detached from truth and relocated onto institutional succession, regardless of doctrine. Such a move contradicts the consistent teaching of theologians like St. Robert Bellarmine and the doctrine summarized in the Defense of Sedevacantism file: a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church, *non potest esse caput qui non est membrum* (he cannot be the head who is not a member).
The epistolary structure attempts the contrary: to make the persecuted Lithuanian Church the moral capital with which John XXIII purchases legitimacy.
Perverting Authentic Obedience into Submission to a Conciliar Usurper
“Eosque itidem Romano Pontifici et legitimae Hierarchiae se fidelissimos praebere.”
On a theological level, this is the central operation of the letter: to graft the authentic Catholic instinct of fidelity to the Papacy onto a person and regime that are in rupture with the pre-1958 Magisterium.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith:
– Obedience to the Pope is obedience to the faith he is bound to guard, not to his arbitrary novelties.
– The Papacy is defined precisely through its function as *custos Traditionis* (guardian of Tradition), not creator of a new religion.
– When someone enthroned in Rome promotes or prepares doctrines condemned by previous Popes (religious liberty, false ecumenism, collegiality, humanist cult of man), the faithful cannot be bound to him without betraying the faith.
This letter, dated 1959, belongs exactly to the time when the revolutionary project of the “Second Vatican Council” is being prepared. It intentionally:
– Wraps the revolutionary “good Pope John” image in the mantle of a Tridentine bishop, to suggest continuity where there is preparation for rupture.
– Reaffirms “fidelity to Rome” in an abstracted sense, to later weaponize that fidelity in favour of conciliar innovations.
– Uses persecuted Catholics whom the communist regime hates precisely for their attachment to pre-1958 doctrine and liturgy, to authorize the very hierarchy that will dismantle that doctrine and liturgy globally.
This is not mere imprudence; it is the psychological and rhetorical conditioning typical of the conciliar sect: capture Catholic instincts, redirect them toward the new program, anesthetize doctrinal vigilance.
Naturalistic Reduction and the Absence of Supernatural Combat
Although the letter mentions sacraments and the Eucharistic Sacrifice, even here a symptomatic weakening appears.
1. Sacraments are invoked primarily as sources of “strength” and “consolation,” with no clear reminder of the necessity of the state of grace, mortal sin, final judgment, hell, or the objective obligation to avoid sacrilegious communion.
2. The persecution is narrated in a horizontal key: suffering, exile, injustice. There is no explicit call to interpret events within divine providence as chastisement for infidelity, as all traditional Roman Pontiffs repeatedly did. No warning against modern errors infecting the West and the very structures in Rome.
3. The invocation of peace and concord is left vague and diplomatic:
“…ut meliores vobis dies illucescant… ea vigeat pax atque concordia, quae firmo veluti fundamento una innititur Christi religione.”
Such wording can be read in a Catholic sense, but in the concrete historical context, it functions as a bridge to the later conciliar rhetoric: peace based not on the exclusive rights of the true religion but on a diluted Christianity compatible with pluralism. This duplicity is the mark of the modernist method condemned by St. Pius X: orthodoxy in words, heterodoxy in implications and praxis.
The highest symptom of theological bankruptcy is precisely this bifurcation: Catholic vocabulary emptied of its integral doctrinal content, placed at the service of a new orientation—toward interconfessional coexistence, political accommodation, and internal doctrinal evolution.
Hijacking Martyrdom While Silencing the Real Enemy: Modernism
The letter dwells on communist persecution. That suffering is real, and the heroism of Lithuanian Catholics is undeniable. But notice the decisive deflection:
– The external enemy (atheist state) is pointed to indirectly.
– The internal enemy—Modernism, condemned as the “synthesis of all heresies” by St. Pius X—is totally absent.
Yet by 1959:
– Modernist theology, condemned in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*, has resurfaced in seminaries, universities, episcopal conferences.
– The circles preparing the future council openly seek “aggiornamento,” doctrinal adaptation, rapprochement with Protestantism and laicism.
A genuine successor of St. Pius X, facing the double assault of communism and Modernism, would:
– Encourage Lithuanian Catholics to persevere not only against red persecution, but also against the infiltration of errors within the Church’s visible structures.
– Recall the condemnations of Pius IX and St. Pius X, insisting that no council, no pastoral fashion, can reverse them.
– Warn that the gravest danger is not bodily persecution but corruption of the faith.
This letter does the opposite: it uses the blood and tears of persecuted Catholics to shield the rising conciliar structure from scrutiny. The faithful are told to trust precisely those “hierarchies” who, in other countries, are dismantling catechesis, tolerating heresy, and preparing liturgical deformation.
This is morally and spiritually monstrous: the courage of confessors is appropriated to legitimize future betrayers.
Marian Devotion Employed as Sentimental Cement for Doctrinal Erosion
The conclusion appeals to the Immaculate Virgin, mentions the 350 years of Marian devotion at Šiluva, and encourages increased filial piety.
On its face, this sounds orthodox. Yet:
– There is no Marian call to crush heresies, no echo of *“she alone has destroyed all heresies throughout the whole world”*.
– Marian devotion is detached from doctrinal militancy and reduced to spiritual comfort.
In pre-1958 teaching, Marian piety is inseparable from doctrinal integrity and militant opposition to error. Here it becomes a soft-focus unifier for a Church being quietly reprogrammed. Again: the most cherished Catholic elements are retained lexically, but bent functionally toward a new end.
Why This Letter Manifests the Logic of the Conciliar Sect
Taken in isolation, one might read this document as a piously weak letter under diplomatic constraints. But within the wider doctrinal and historical context, its structure reveals the inner grammar of the neo-church:
1. Appropriation of authentic symbols:
– Tridentine bishop, martyrs, catechesis, sacraments, Marian shrines, fidelity to Rome.
2. Omission of non-negotiable doctrinal stances:
– No explicit anti-communist doctrinal condemnation.
– No denunciation of Modernism.
– No affirmation of the absolute necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation according to the perennial sense.
– No reference to the social kingship of Christ over states.
3. Redirection of loyalty:
– From the Faith as defined by prior Magisterium to the person occupying the Roman See and his undefined “legitimate hierarchy.”
– From doctrinal clarity to generalized “unity,” “peace,” and “consolation.”
4. Preparatory function:
– Conditioning persecuted Catholics to see the coming conciliar revolution as exercised by the same “Church” for which they suffer.
– Disarming resistance: to question John XXIII later would seem to betray the very fidelity praised here.
In this sense, the letter is not merely deficient; it is structurally ordered toward the upcoming betrayal. It illustrates the transition from the true ecclesial order—*Ecclesia docens* handing on what she received—to a paramasonic structure that speaks Catholic while planning to enthrone religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man.
Integral Catholic Response: Reclaiming Giedraitis and Lithuania from the Neo-Church
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine before 1958, the correct reading is inverted:
– The heroic Melchior Giedraitis, faithful to Trent, is an argument against, not for, the conciliar revolution. His life condemns any dilution of doctrine, any softening toward error, any adaptation of catechesis to the world.
– The persecuted Lithuanian faithful, instinctively attached to the real Mass, real sacraments, real catechism, are model Catholics precisely insofar as they cling to what the neo-church has globally subverted.
– True fidelity to the Papacy cannot be invoked to canonize a line of usurpers who abandon the Syllabus, contradict *Quas Primas*, neutralize *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*, and dissolve Christ’s Kingship into liberal democracy.
Thus:
– The exhortation to persevering catechesis is valid only if it means handing on exactly the same doctrine taught by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII—without conciliar contamination.
– The exhortation to sacramental life is valid only if it refers to the authentic, propitiatory *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary* and valid sacraments, not to the mutilated rites and sacrilegious practices of the later neo-church.
– The appeal to obedience is valid only insofar as the authority obeyed professes the integral Catholic faith; once a claimant betrays that faith, the traditional principle applies: a manifest heretic cannot hold office or bind consciences in the name of Christ.
The epistle of John XXIII to the Lithuanian bishops thus stands as an early and revealing artifact of the conciliar method: it dresses itself in venerable piety while working—through silence, rhetoric, and subtle displacement—to prepare the acceptance of a new religion under the old names. Authentic Catholic fidelity demands that such texts be read unmasked, weighed against the pre-1958 Magisterium, and rejected wherever they serve the conciliar deformation rather than the immutable Kingdom of Christ the King over nations, societies, and souls.
Source:
Ut Filiis – Ad Lithuaniae Episcopos, trecentesimo et quinquagesimo volvente anno a Pio Melchioris Giedraitis, Episcopi, obitu, die 8 m. Decembris a. 1959, Ioannes PP.XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025