“Benevolentiae caritatis”: Sentimental Flattery as a Program of Apostasy
The brief Latin epistle “Benevolentiae caritatis,” dated 29 November 1959 and signed by Ioannes XXIII, is presented as a congratulatory letter to Cardinal Iacobus Aloisius Copello on the occasion of his 80th birthday. In courtly phrases it recalls Copello’s long life, his work for the Church (especially in Buenos Aires), praises his diligence as Chancellor of the Roman Church, and imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” to him and those celebrating around him. Behind its polished surface, however, this text exemplifies the vacuity, anthropocentrism, and internal corruption that characterize the conciliar revolution: a pseudo-pontifical rhetoric that replaces supernatural doctrine with humanistic compliments, masks grave scandal under sugary courtesies, and reduces the Petrine office to a dispenser of banal civilities.
Personalist Panegyric Instead of the Kingship of Christ
On the surface the document seems harmless: a courteous message to an aging dignitary. Precisely therein lies its indictment. In the See of Peter, every official act is doctrinal in weight, either explicitly or implicitly. Here we are faced with an act of the claimed Roman Pontiff directed entirely ad hominem in the most horizontal sense: a celebration of human longevity, human achievements, and human satisfactions, with only the thinnest pious varnish.
The text reads, with affected warmth:
“The charity of benevolence, with which we embrace you, does not allow that that day pass in silence on which you will soon happily celebrate your eightieth birthday… You will recall with pious memory what you have done and accomplished for the glory of God, the salvation of souls, and the progress of the Catholic cause, especially when for so many years you governed the Church of Buenos Aires.”
Note what is done and what is omitted:
– Copello is praised for “progress of the Catholic cause” without the least doctrinal determination of what this “Catholic cause” is, as if the faith were a vague institutional brand.
– There is no reminder of *iudicium Dei* (the judgment of God), no pressing call to final perseverance, no mention of death, particular judgment, heaven, hell, or purgatory—precisely at the milestone of eighty years, when the Church’s perennial voice would exhort a prelate to holy fear, penance, and preparation for eternity.
– The “Apostolic Blessing” is lavished indiscriminately not only on Copello but on “all who will surround you with festive joys,” absent any condition of faith or moral disposition. It is an unqualified benediction of a milieu, not a paternal admonition to persevere in truth and grace.
This is not a small stylistic detail. It is a paradigmatic manifestation of the new orientation condemned beforehand by the Magisterium. Pius XI in *Quas primas* taught that peace and true felicity are only possible when individuals and societies submit to the reign of Christ the King, insisting that public authority is bound to confess Him and govern according to His law. Yet here the supposed successor praises a worldly ecclesiastical career in entirely naturalistic terms, without one syllable about the obligation of pastors to defend the rights of Christ against the secular powers, Masonic sects, and modernist errors that Pius IX in the *Syllabus* declared irreconcilable with the Catholic religion.
Where pre-1958 Popes never lost an occasion to reaffirm doctrine, Ioannes XXIII uses the Apostolic pen to offer a salon compliment. This is not harmless; it is symptomatic. *Lex orandi, lex credendi*: the emptying of papal speech reflects and produces the emptying of faith.
The Silence about Scandal: Copello as a Mirror of Conciliar Moral Collapse
Even on a purely factual and moral level, the letter reeks of complicity. Iacobus Aloisius Copello, long-time figure of the Argentine hierarchy, was no model of episcopal fortitude against liberalism and Masonic political power. Yet Ioannes XXIII writes as if his tenure in Buenos Aires were a radiant exemplar:
“The works carried out by you in favour of religion bear witness to your zeal and were held by Our predecessor Pius XI of happy memory to be worthy to be adorned with a special reward, when he called you into the College of Cardinals.”
The pre-conciliar Magisterium repeatedly and vehemently condemned complicity of clergy with anti-Catholic political forces, condemned liberal naturalism, and warned against the secret societies infiltrating states and ecclesiastical structures (Pius IX, *Quanta cura* with the attached *Syllabus*, numerous allocutions; Leo XIII, *Humanum genus*; Pius X, *Pascendi*, etc.). Yet the epistle refuses to scrutinize Copello according to that standard. Instead, it canonizes his career by bureaucratic flattery.
The theological problem is twofold:
1. The letter treats ecclesiastical promotion (cardinalate, chancellorship) as self-authenticating proof of virtue, a sacralized careerism. This flatly contradicts the traditional doctrine that office is ordered to the faith, not the faith to the office. *Non propter hominem fides, sed propter fidem homo iudicatur* (it is not faith that stands for the man, but the man is judged by the faith).
2. By wrapping potentially compromised careers in unconditional praise, the conciliar sect normalizes a conception of ecclesiastical life where institutional loyalty and external achievements eclipse doctrinal integrity and moral sanctity.
Pius X, in the introduction to *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*, diagnosed precisely this mentality: a class of clerics who, under the guise of Catholic positions and with ecclesiastical honors, corrode doctrine from within. The episcopal and cardinalatial purple, when detached from the defense of immutable truth, becomes the livery of the *synagoga Satanae* (Rev 2–3) rather than the garment of the Bride of Christ. Ioannes XXIII’s rhetoric here is a public baptism of that betrayal.
Language of Sweetness as Cloak for Doctrinal Emptiness
At the linguistic level, the epistle is a study in evasive sentimentalism. Its key motifs are “benevolentiae caritas,” “suavis animi commotio,” “dulcia solatia,” “felicia, salutaria, laeta.” Everything is gentle, soft, consoling. It is the vocabulary of a polite civil servant or bourgeois moralist, not of a successor of Peter conscious of his duty to warn, correct, and judge.
The contrast with the perennial papal voice is shocking:
– Pius IX’s *Syllabus* bluntly condemns propositions asserting that the Church must reconcile with liberal progress and modern civilization (proposition 80). Ioannes XXIII’s sugary style is the stylistic expression of the opposite: an ecclesiastical diplomacy designed to be acceptable in the salons of liberal society, never offensive, never dogmatic, never apocalyptic.
– Pius X in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* uses sharp, juridical language to identify, condemn, and anathematize errors. Here we find no category of error at all—only generic religious vocabulary that could be signed by any humanistic philanthropist.
This is not merely “kindness.” It is a carefully cultivated ambiguity that anesthetizes. When the papal office speaks only in humanistic consolations and careerist commendations, it ceases to be the trumpet of supernatural truth and becomes an instrument of flattery for the hierarchy of a neo-church.
The absence of dogmatic clarity, especially in an official act, is itself a doctrinal statement: a denial in practice of the necessity of precise truths. *Silentium de dogmate, confessio erroris* (silence about dogma is a confession of error) when such silence is systematic and programmatic.
Theological Vacuum: No Cross, No Judgment, No Grace
Measured by integral Catholic doctrine, the epistle is theologically void. Consider what should mark a papal letter to an eighty-year-old cardinal according to the mind of the pre-1958 Church:
– Recall of baptismal grace and the obligations of the episcopal character.
– Exhortation to perseverance in the integral Catholic faith, free from heresy and compromise.
– Warning about the nearness of death: *“It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment”* (Heb 9:27).
– Emphasis on the necessity of the *status gratiae* (state of grace), the frequent reception of the sacraments, and the model of the saints.
– Remembrance that any dignity is nothing if the shepherd does not faithfully guard the flock against wolves—above all against the wolves of Modernism, condemned repeatedly by the true Magisterium.
What do we actually find? None of these. The “spiritual” elements are reduced to generalities:
– Generic gratitude to God as “Giver of all good things,” without specification of revealed truth and the deposit of faith.
– Talk of “works for the glory of God” that is not anchored in defense and propagation of dogma.
– A blessing that presupposes nothing and demands nothing.
This is precisely the moralistic-naturalistic religion condemned in *Lamentabili*, where it is rejected that Revelation is reduced to vague religious feeling, that dogmas are fluid interpretations of experience, and that the Church cannot bind internal assent. The epistle breathes that mentality: Copello’s “works” are self-authenticating; the “Catholic cause” is a sociological project; no dogmatic edge disturbs the pleasantry.
*Quas primas* forcefully teaches that social and personal peace only comes under the royal scepter of Christ the King, to whom nations and rulers must submit publicly and legally. Here, however, the entire horizon is intra-institutional: the comfort of an official, the prestige of offices, the sweetness of his environment. The supernatural is reduced to decoration of a bureaucratic success story. This inversion is not accidental; it is the operating system of the Church of the New Advent.
From Pre-Conciliar Condemnations to Conciliar Adulation: A Symptom of Systemic Apostasy
At the symptomatic level, “Benevolentiae caritatis” is a small but pure specimen of the larger disease: the transformation of the papal office from guardian of immutable truth into ceremonial head of a paramasonic world-religion of fraternity and human dignity.
Key symptomatic features:
1. Personal cult of office-holders:
Ioannes XXIII exalts Copello’s ecclesiastical career as if hierarchical promotion were a sacrament of holiness. This contradicts the constant teaching that pastors are subject to the faith and can apostatize, as Pius IX and Leo XIII tirelessly warn, and as classical theologians (e.g., Bellarmine, quoted in the provided defense of sedevacantism) explain: a manifest heretic cannot hold ecclesiastical office. The conciliar sect, instead, canonizes structures and careers regardless of doctrine.
2. Suppression of the Church Militant:
There is no sense of *Ecclesia militans* fighting against liberalism, socialism, indifferentism, and secret societies—the very enemies singled out by Pius IX in the *Syllabus* and subsequent documents. Copello’s “zeal for religion” is praised apart from any demonstrated struggle against these condemned errors. Silence here is complicity.
3. Replacement of Evangelical seriousness with bourgeois optimism:
The letter’s tone is self-congratulatory, devoid of compunction. Contrast this with Pius X’s relentless fight against Modernism; his solemn warnings that innovators even within the clergy seek to twist dogma, subordinate the Church to modern philosophy, and corrupt Sacred Scripture. Ioannes XXIII’s sugary lines operate as if that mortal battle never existed, as if Modernism dissolved of itself, precisely the illusion condemned by Pius X.
4. Liturgical-pastoral reductionism:
Though this specific document is not liturgical, its mentality prefigures the liturgical revolution: language without dogma, celebration without combat, blessing without conditions. The same spirit will reduce the Most Holy Sacrifice to a communal gathering and flatten the sacred hierarchy into a democratic management structure. This epistle fits seamlessly into that trajectory.
5. Universal benediction without faith:
By extending an “Apostolic Blessing” broadly to all revelers around Copello, the epistle exemplifies the indifferentist tendency condemned by Pius IX: the false suggestion that external communion with a conciliar dignitary suffices for divine favor, instead of explicit adherence to the one true faith and separation from error. It is a practical denial of the dogma *extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* as traditionally understood.
The Church before 1958, speaking with the voice of true Popes, would never have allowed the papal magisterium to be reduced to such insipid niceties. When Pius IX writes to bishops under persecution, or Pius XI institutes the feast of Christ the King, or Pius X condemns Modernism, their pen bleeds doctrine, law, warning, and supernatural gravity. Ioannes XXIII’s pen here bleeds only sentimental ink.
Hermeneutic of Emptiness: The Letter as Anti-Magisterium
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic teaching, this epistle functions as a kind of anti-magisterial sign:
– It exercises the external forms of the papal office while evacuating its content.
– It legitimizes a compromised hierarchy by enveloping it in saccharine goodwill.
– It tacitly repudiates the militant, dogmatic, anti-liberal stance solemnly taught by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
The danger is precisely in its apparent harmlessness. Open heresy can be confronted; a steady stream of humanistic platitudes, stamped with the seal of Peter’s See, slowly trains clergy and laity to think of the Church as a benevolent chaplaincy for the modern world—no longer the Ark of Salvation confronting a condemned world of liberalism, Masonry, and unbelief.
*Lamentabili* condemns the proposition that the Church cannot demand internal assent to her condemnations, that dogmas are mere changeable interpretations, and that modern science dictates faith. Ioannes XXIII’s epistolary style is the practical implementation of those condemned ideas: he refrains from condemning, refrains from binding, speaks as though the Church’s role were only to encourage and congratulate. This is the “pastoral” mask under which Modernist dissolution proceeds.
Thus “Benevolentiae caritatis” must be read as a minor but clear token of the broader usurpation: a pseudo-pontificate that maintains external forms while systematically undermining the substance of the papal office and preparing the ground for conciliar documents that will enthrone religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man in defiance of the entire pre-1958 Magisterium.
Conclusion: From Flattery to the Abomination
The letter to Copello, in itself, does not proclaim dogma or legislate. Its significance lies elsewhere: it reveals a mentality. Instead of warning a high-ranking prelate at the threshold of eternity to render account before Christ the King, Ioannes XXIII bathes him in unqualified praise. Instead of reasserting the anti-liberal, anti-Masonic lines drawn by Pius IX and St. Pius X, he speaks a language indistinguishable from bourgeois humanism wrapped in pious clichés.
Such texts accustom souls to a counterfeit “church” where:
– Office is praised more than faith.
– Sentiment displaces doctrine.
– Blessings are scattered without condition, as if the narrow way had been widened.
– The gravity of the Last Things is silenced in favour of temporal satisfactions.
– The visible structures become an end in themselves, no longer an instrument of the reign of Christ over nations and laws.
This is why even the most apparently innocuous letter of Ioannes XXIII must be unmasked. It is not a neutral gesture of kindness; it is another small piece in the edifice of the neo-church, whose foundations were laid by precisely such betrayals of supernatural seriousness, until the abomination of desolation could stand where the holy ought to be.
True Catholics, bound by the perennial Magisterium—Pius IX’s *Syllabus*, St. Pius X’s ruthless condemnation of Modernism, Pius XI’s assertion that there is no peace outside the Kingdom of Christ—must reject this counterfeit sweetness and return to the hard, luminous clarity of the faith that judges both pastors and people according to the immutable law of Christ the King.
Source:
Benevolentiae Caritatis – Ad Iacobum Aloisium Tit. S. Hieronymi Illyricorum S. R. E. Presb. Cardinalem Copello, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae cancellarium, octogesimum natalem celebraturum, Die 29 m. Nove… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025