At first glance, this Latin letter of John XXIII (24 June 1959) is a brief congratulatory note to Alfonso Castaldo on the 25th anniversary of his episcopal ordination. It praises his pastoral initiatives in Pozzuoli and Naples: visitation of the diocese, multiplication of parishes, promotion of clergy and Catholic Action, care for seminaries, charitable institutions, and youth education; it grants him the faculty to impart the so‑called papal blessing with plenary indulgence on the jubilee celebration. Beneath this apparently pious surface, however, stands the programmatic glorification of an already deformed hierarchy and the quiet consolidation of the conciliar revolution that would soon devastate the Church.
John XXIII’s Panegyric as a Symptom of the Coming Rupture
This text must be read in AD mode: as an act of the first usurper of the conciliar line, already preparing the stage for the neo-church. Its importance lies not in length, but in what it reveals and conceals: an episcopal ideal reduced to administrative activism and social welfare, sanctified by the authority-claims of one who was about to convoke the most destructive pseudo-council in history.
The letter’s theological and spiritual emptiness is itself an indictment. The more one measures it against the integral pre-1958 Magisterium, the clearer it becomes that this is not the voice of the successors of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI, but an incipient foreign body: a paramasonic, sentimental, horizontal religiosity preparing to enthrone man and displace the Kingship of Christ.
Pastoralism Without the Cross: The Eclipse of Supernatural Finality
The letter constructs an image of Castaldo as “good pastor” by listing external works:
“paroecias auxisse numero, cleri et Actionis Catholicae profectui consuluisse, Seminarium … refecisse, plura condidisse hospitia … caritatis operibus …”
All of this, taken materially, is legitimate; the Church has always built parishes, formed clergy, founded hospices. But what is absolutely decisive is the supernatural orientation: are these works ordered to the *salus animarum* (salvation of souls) through the true faith, the Most Holy Sacrifice, repentance, and submission to Christ the King, or are they ordered to naturalistic “social benefit”?
Here the silence is thunderous:
– No mention of the *state of grace*.
– No mention of *sin*, *penance*, or *conversion from error*.
– No mention of *defense of doctrine* against the already rampant errors condemned by Pius IX’s *Syllabus*, Leo XIII, and above all by St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
– No call to preserve the flock from Modernism, laicism, and the sects, although they had been solemnly unmasked as the program of the *synagoga Satanae* (Pius IX).
– No reference to the necessity of integral adherence to the dogmas of the faith, nor to the Church’s exclusive truth and divine right over against the modern state.
This absence is not accidental. It reflects a shift from *Quas Primas*’s clarity (“Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ, when individuals and states recognize His reign”) to a rhetoric in which bishops are praised for administrative diligence and social engagement, as if the essence of episcopal office were efficient management of institutions.
This is precisely the mentality that Pius X condemned: the reduction of the supernatural to the immanent, the practical substitution of dogma with “pastoral” efficiency. The letter’s cheery optimism stands in direct contrast to St. Pius X’s sober recognition that Modernism is the “synthesis of all heresies.” By 1959, those errors had not disappeared; they had penetrated the clergy and Catholic Action. Yet John XXIII does not warn; he flatters.
Argumentum e silentio here is devastating: an alleged “supreme pastor” who, in officially commending a major archbishop, never once invokes the urgent duty to guard against condemned doctrines, gives a programmatic signal. The bishop is applauded as a functionary of humanistic benevolence, not as a defender of revealed truth with the sword of anathema.
Flattery as Governance: The Cult of Men Replacing the Fear of God
The letter’s rhetoric is saturated with flattery:
“boni pastoris exemplar”,
“egregia patrasse facinora, ut omnes cordati homines in te cum admiratione respiciant”,
“gemina messis ab uno repetitur satore”.
It wraps Castaldo in a halo of success, measured largely by:
– expansion of structures,
– promotion of Catholic Action,
– educational and charitable projects,
– civil recognition by public authorities.
But:
– The Fathers and traditional popes warn constantly against human praise. St. Augustine, whom the letter quotes (“help us by praying and obeying, that it may delight us not so much to rule as to be of use”), always binds usefulness to the truth of doctrine and the conversion of sinners.
– St. Pius X, in his first encyclical and in *E Supremi*, demands that bishops be warriors against error, not courtiers of public esteem.
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* insists that all social activity must explicitly confess the public Kingship of Christ and reject secularism; nothing of this is echoed here.
The panegyric tone fosters an episcopal psychology where fidelity is equated with outward projects and popularity. It is a subtle inversion: from *timor Domini* (fear of the Lord) to the craving for human approval, precisely the soil in which the conciliar sect would sow “dialogue,” “opening to the world,” and the cult of humanity.
This is not merely aesthetic. Theological content is carried in tone. A letter that never reminds a bishop that he will answer before Christ the King for every mutilated dogma and every lost soul, but only heaps praise, catechizes the clergy into spiritual anesthesia.
Instrumentalizing Indulgences: Pseudo-Magisterial Rewards in a Disordered Structure
John XXIII “grants” Castaldo the faculty to impart a so‑called papal blessing with plenary indulgence on the occasion of his jubilee:
“libenter id tibi concedimus, ut sacra sollemnia acturus ipse papalem Benedictionem cum indulgentia plenaria consueto more lucranda populo impertias.”
From the perspective of integral Catholic theology prior to 1958:
– The power of granting indulgences is intrinsically linked to the Petrine office, which cannot exist in a manifest heretic or one who prepares and promulgates a revolution against the received faith (cf. the principles recalled in the Defense of Sedevacantism file: *a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church; jurisdiction ceases ipso facto*).
– Pius IX and Leo XIII teach that no authority can overturn the divine constitution of the Church; St. Pius X condemns those who would “modernize” dogma and ecclesial structures.
If the one issuing such concessions is part of the line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII, his promises are devoid of supernatural juridical effect. Instead, they function sociologically: rewards and prestige within a paramasonic pseudo-hierarchy in order to bind obedient administrators to the coming conciliar program.
Thus:
– The indulgence rhetoric, instead of being the expression of the Church’s treasury for the remission of temporal punishment of sin, becomes a currency of loyalty to a new regime.
– The faithful are conditioned to associate spiritual favors with compliance to the conciliar leadership, rather than with fidelity to Tradition and conversion of life.
This perversion is subtle but deadly: the vocabulary of true Catholicism is retained, yet detached from its conditions and poured into the service of a neo-church.
The Strategic Silence on Modernism: From Lamentabili to Accommodation
Compare this letter with the spirit and content of *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*:
– St. Pius X explicitly condemns those who subordinate revelation to historical criticism, who evolve dogma, who reduce miracles and the supernatural to symbols.
– He demands strict submission to the Magisterium, censorship of deviant writings, and strong disciplinary measures against infected clergy.
Yet in 1959, with Modernism entrenched in seminaries, Catholic Action, and theology faculties, John XXIII:
– does not exhort the jubilarian to guard doctrine,
– does not mention vigilance against the very errors repeatedly condemned by his predecessors,
– does not warn against secular states, secret societies, and laicism, although Pius IX and Leo XIII had unmasked masonic conspiracies as principal enemies of the Church.
This silence is itself a betrayal. *Qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent is seen to consent). The omission of any reference to the intellectual and spiritual war raging in the Church reveals the emerging conciliar mentality: cease to fight, adapt, praise activity, mute dogmatic clarity, and prepare the ground for aggiornamento.
The letter thus participates in an implicit revocation, in practice, of the condemnations of Pius IX and Pius X, without formally denying them. This is the essence of Modernism’s tactic: do not openly contradict; simply act as if the previous doctrine had been superseded.
Humanistic Metrics: Measuring the Church by Secular Approval
The letter applauds that Castaldo’s beneficent works were publicly recognized by civil society:
“quae promerita publice etiam, ut novimus, recognita sunt.”
This is presented as a positive confirmation. But the pre-1958 Magisterium, especially the *Syllabus Errorum*, condemns:
– the subordination of the Church’s mission to the approval of the secular state;
– the idea that the Church’s value is measured by its contribution to “progress,” “social well-being,” or “civilization” in a naturalistic sense;
– the separation of Church and state and religious indifferentism (errors 55, 77–80).
By highlighting civil recognition as a seal of value, John XXIII’s text implicitly accepts the world’s criteria. Instead of warning that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4) and that masonic and liberal powers wage war on Christ’s Kingship, he delights in their applause.
This anticipates:
– the conciliar sect’s obsession with “dialogue” and “openness,”
– the idolatrous cult of “human rights” uprooted from the rights of God,
– the progressive muting of claims about the exclusive truth of the Catholic Church.
Where Pius XI in *Quas Primas* demands the public submission of rulers to Christ the King, this letter finds comfort in rulers’ compliments to an archbishop. The axis has shifted from *regnum Christi* to *benevolentia mundi*.
The Disguised Redefinition of the Bishop: Manager, Humanitarian, Collaborator
The portrait of Castaldo as ideal bishop focuses on:
– organizational expansion,
– close collaboration with Catholic Action,
– development of educational and charitable institutions,
– fruitful relations with civic life.
Almost nothing is said of:
– preaching “in season and out of season” against error,
– imposing canonical discipline,
– safeguarding the integrity of the liturgy and sacraments,
– resisting state interference in ecclesiastical life.
This is precisely the reduction St. Pius X fought: turning bishops into administrators and social leaders, whose orthodoxy is presumed, never examined, and whose doctrinal responsibility is veiled under a haze of “pastoral success.”
Moreover, exalting Catholic Action without caution is naïve at best, culpable at worst. By the mid-20th century, numerous currents within Catholic Action had already absorbed democratic, personalist, and proto-modernist tendencies that would fuel the conciliar catastrophe. Yet John XXIII offers only unqualified praise.
The result:
– Episcopal identity is re-coded: not as *custos fidei* (guardian of faith), but as effective agent of ecclesial modernization.
– The faithful are taught to judge their shepherds by visible activism, not by fidelity to the integral doctrine handed down from the Apostles.
This is a direct inversion of Catholic ecclesiology as taught uniformly before 1958.
Continuity in Language, Rupture in Substance: The Modernist Masquerade
A cunning characteristic of this letter is its stylistic continuity with earlier papal documents: Latin, scriptural allusions, citation of Augustine, praise of pastoral zeal. To a superficial observer, it appears “traditional.”
But Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X, operates precisely in this way:
– It retains formulas, empties them, and fills them with immanentist content.
– It avoids frontal denials, instead displacing emphasis and gradually altering practical orientation.
In this text:
– The name of Christ is present, but His claims as King of societies, His judgments, His doctrinal demands are absent.
– “Apostolic” is said, but apostolic severity, anathema, anti-liberal intransigence, and anti-masonic vigilance are missing.
– Blessing and indulgence are promised, but in a context of flattery and adhesion to a leadership that will shortly convoke the pseudo-council inaugurating religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, and the new cult of man.
The continuity is verbal; the rupture is essential. This is the very pattern against which *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* warned: doctrines “developed” so as to be changed; authority invoked so as to deny tradition in practice.
From Pre-Conciliar Clarity to Conciliar Apostasy: The Structural Fruit
This apparently insignificant 1959 letter exemplifies, in miniature, the gestation of the conciliar sect:
– A hierarchy accustomed to being praised for activism, not scrutinized for doctrine.
– A “pope” who withholds necessary condemnation of Modernism, laicism, and secret societies.
– The conflation of ecclesial merit with social acceptability, in tacit defiance of the *Syllabus* and *Quas Primas*.
– The use of indulgences and blessings as political instruments of cohesion under a new regime.
From such a mentality, the following pseudo-magisterial monstrosities naturally flow:
– the enthronement of religious liberty against the perennial teaching that error has no rights;
– the bastard ecumenism that places the one true Church on the same level as sects and false religions;
– the democratization of the Church via “collegiality” and synodalism;
– the liturgical devastation that obscures the propitiatory nature of the Most Holy Sacrifice and approaches Protestant and pagan rites;
– the rehabilitation and promotion of all the currents previously anathematized by the true Magisterium.
This letter is not yet the open explosion; it is the prelude: the smile before the demolition.
Unmasking the Bankruptcy: Why This Text Cannot Be Received as Catholic
Measured by integral Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, the spiritual and theological bankruptcy manifested here is clear:
– A true Roman Pontiff, conscious of the gravity of his office and the crisis of faith, could not limit himself, on such an occasion, to human praise. He would recall, as Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X did, the gravity of false doctrines, the assaults of masonry, the need to defend the flock against wolves.
– A true successor of Peter would not implicitly encourage an episcopate characterized by complacent harmony with secular powers, but would strengthen bishops in resisting liberalism, indifferentism, and false “progress.”
– A true Vicar of Christ would not adopt the naturalistic, horizontal categories that later blossomed into the “Church of the New Advent” and its cult of man.
Here instead we find:
– the replacement of supernatural vigilance with sentimental optimism;
– the reduction of pastoral excellence to quantitative and social criteria;
– the exploitation of traditional forms to secure loyalty to a program that would shortly overturn the visible expression of the Catholic religion.
Abusus non tollit usum (abuse does not take away right use); yet here the abuse is not accidental but systemic. The text does not merely fail; it reveals a different spirit.
Therefore, from the perspective of the unchanging Catholic faith:
– This letter has no binding authority.
– Its praise of an episcopal model aligned with conciliar activism is to be rejected.
– Its silences, omissions, and rhetorical choices expose it as one small stone in the edifice of the conciliar Antichurch.
What remains for the faithful is to cleave to the doctrinal clarity of the true Magisterium: Pius IX’s *Syllabus*, the anti-liberal and anti-masonic encyclicals, St. Pius X’s *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*, Pius XI’s *Quas Primas*, and the entire consistent teaching that proclaims: only in the open, public, and complete reign of Christ the King, through His one true Church, is there salvation, order, and peace. Everything that prepares, blesses, or excuses another project must be unmasked and refused.
Source:
Initi a te Episcopalis – Ad Alfonsum Tit. S. Calixti S. R. E. presbyterum Cardinalem Castaldo, Archiepiscopum Neapolitanum, Episcopum Puteolanum, quina lustra a suscepto episcopatu celebraturum, Die 2… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025