Venerable James Duhig is congratulated by John XXIII for one hundred years since the erection of the Brisbane diocese: the letter enumerates institutional successes (parishes, schools, hospitals, charitable works, multiplication of dioceses), applauds the dedication of a regional seminary named after Pius XII, and expresses paternal hopes for greater unity, obedience, and moral probity among clergy and faithful in Queensland, all framed in courteous, devotional rhetoric and supported by a brief citation of St Augustine. In reality, this seemingly pious epistle is a paradigm of the new conciliar mentality in embryo: a naturalistic glorification of structures and statistics, a studied silence about the combats of the true faith, and a preparatory stage-setting for the revolution that would soon devastate those very dioceses it flatters.
Complacent Self-Celebration as Prelude to Ecclesial Ruin
From Apostolic Vigilance to Pastoral Flattery
On the factual surface, the letter appears modest: an expression of goodwill for the centenary of the Brisbane diocese and the civil centenary of Queensland; a catalogue of visible works; encouragement for the new seminary; a blessing for unity and zeal. Yet precisely in this apparent harmlessness lies its theological toxicity.
John XXIII writes of Queensland and Brisbane in terms of:
– flourishing institutions,
– expanding diocesan structures,
– numerous clergy and religious,
– schools, hospitals, orphanages, charitable organisations,
– the happy erection of new dioceses from Brisbane’s territory.
He concludes all this is a clear sign that, like the evangelical seed, God has granted growth and favour. He then hails the dedication of a regional seminary under the name of Pius XII, hoping for many zealous candidates. The tone is unqualified optimism, institutional self-congratulation, and polite encouragement.
Measured against the integral Catholic doctrine consistently taught up to Pius XII, this letter exposes four fundamental defects:
1. Silence concerning the doctrinal war against Modernism already condemned by St Pius X and still raging.
2. Silence concerning the social Kingship of Christ and the public duties of a Catholic civil order, as if the parallel centenary of Queensland were merely a benign civil coincidence.
3. Silence concerning the gravity of apostasy, indifferentism, and liberal legislation in the Anglo-Saxon world—already fiercely denounced by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St Pius X, and Pius XI.
4. A naturalistic reading of ecclesial “success” by visible expansion, without reference to the preservation of sound doctrine as the primary note of divine favour.
This is not the language of a vigilant defender of the flock; it is the language of a man preparing a Church to drop its defenses. It is the rhetorical softening that precedes the Council and the conciliar sect.
Linguistic Cosmetics: The Theology of Numbers and Niceness
The vocabulary is carefully chosen:
– institutional,
– polite,
– smooth,
– sentimental,
– without a single concrete denunciation of error.
John XXIII speaks of:
…satis creber sacerdotum et religiosorum sodalium numerus, constitutae paroeciae, templa a solo excitata, ephebea, scholae, valetudinaria, orphanotrophia, piae sodalitates, caritatis fovendae et auxilio egenis ferendo opera aperte et magnifice testantur
English sense: “the sufficiently numerous clergy and religious, erected parishes, churches built from the ground, colleges, schools, hospitals, orphanages, pious sodalities, works fostering charity and bringing help to the needy, openly and magnificently bear witness [to divine favour].”
The implicit message:
– If structures grow, God is pleased.
– If numbers increase, we see the blessing of heaven.
– The Church’s vitality is read off from institutional statistics.
This bureaucratic triumphalism is precisely what the pre-1958 Magisterium repudiated when it taught that:
– fides, not mere external prosperity, is the criterion of divine favour.
– The Church’s enemies—the sects, liberal governments, and paramasonic networks—operate precisely through flattering language about “progress,” “charity,” “education,” while undermining dogma.
Pius IX’s *Syllabus* condemned the liberal thesis that the Church’s well-being consists in adapting to modern civilization and accepting secular criteria of success. He denounced those sects which, under pretexts of progress, undermine the rights of Christ and His Church. Here, John XXIII’s letter adopts almost exactly the opposite optic: harmony with a liberal Anglo environment is presented as self-evident good; no warning, no discernment, only compliments.
The one patristic quote from St Augustine—about walking energetically in the way prepared—is severed from Augustine’s relentless insistence on conversion, doctrinal clarity, and the two cities (*civitas Dei* versus *civitas terrena*). Instead of echoing Augustine’s war against heresy, it is reduced to a motivational slogan for generic “good works.”
Such usage is itself symptomatic: Catholic language emptied of its dogmatic edge and repurposed as spiritual ornament for a new, agreeable ecclesial ethos.
Theological Evacuation: What Is Not Said Condemns What Is Said
The gravest accusations arise from silence. Quod tacet, clamat (what it is silent about, it proclaims).
1. No mention of Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.”
– St Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi Dominici gregis* mandated relentless vigilance.
– This letter appears less than two years before the opening of the revolutionary Council convoked by this very antipope.
– There is no reminder of doctrinal battles, no warning against rationalism, indifferentism, secularism, or the sects Pius IX identified as the “synagogue of Satan.”
– Instead, the flourishing of outward works is taken at face value as proof of divine favour, without examining whether these works are doctrinally protected from the corrosive liberalism already infecting seminaries and schools.
2. No insistence on the Social Kingship of Christ.
– Queensland’s civil centenary is mentioned only as a happy coincidence and a frame for more ecclesiastical congratulations.
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* (1925) taught that peace and order are impossible unless states publicly recognise and obey Christ the King, and condemned laicism as a “plague.”
– Pius IX in the *Syllabus* (n. 55) condemned the separation of Church and State as an error.
– John XXIII’s letter is totally mute regarding the duty of the Queensland state to submit to Christ and His Church. No call for Catholic legislation, no condemnation of religious liberalism, no denunciation of Masonic influence in public life.
– By treating the secular anniversary as a neutral civic joy, he implicitly normalizes the liberal state—a direct betrayal of his predecessors’ doctrine.
3. No affirmation of the Church’s condemnations of liberal Catholicism, religious freedom, and indifferentism.
– The Anglo environment of Brisbane was already marked by Protestant influence, Freemasonic presence, and the ideology of pluralism.
– Pre-1958 teaching requires pastors to warn the faithful that error has no rights and that salvation is found only in the Catholic Church.
– Instead, the letter radiates the very ethos later codified by the conciliar sect: co-existence, institutional growth within a pluralist framework, absence of sharp confessional lines. This is an embryonic *Dignitatis humanae* mentality under a thin layer of Latinity.
4. No stress on the centrality of the Most Holy Sacrifice and the danger of profanation.
– Where the true Magisterium continually recentred everything on the Eucharistic Sacrifice as propitiatory, this letter relegates the supernatural to a generalised background.
– The sacramental life is mentioned only in terms of “seminary” and pious works; no call to safeguard the integrity of the liturgy, no warning against innovations.
– Within a decade, in those very lands, the neo-church would annihilate the Roman Rite and replace it with a fabricated rite that, in countless cases, is if not “just” sacrilege, then idolatry. This letter is part of the prelude: a leadership tone that refuses to see danger.
Seminary as Engine of Mutation: Praising the Instrument of Future Deformation
Particularly revealing is the delight in the new provincial seminary:
…Provinciale sacrum Seminarium, Pii XII nomine nuncupatum, affabre exstructum, sollemni ritu dicabitur. Paternis cupimus votis, ut ibidem sacrorum alumni numero crescant, virtutibus niteant, Ecclesiae quam plurimum emolumenti et decoris collaturi.
English sense: “the provincial sacred seminary, named for Pius XII, will be solemnly dedicated; we desire paternally that the seminarians there may grow in number, shine in virtue, and bring great benefit and adornment to the Church.”
According to pre-1958 doctrine:
– Seminaries are to be bulwarks of Thomistic philosophy and theology (cf. the insistence of Leo XIII, St Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII).
– Curricula must be governed by the Church, immune from secular and liberal contamination, and totally subject to the authentic Magisterium (see *Lamentabili* on the authority of the Magisterium and the duty of internal assent).
Yet John XXIII gives:
– no reminder of the Oath against Modernism (then still formally in force),
– no stern command to guard the future clergy against condemned errors,
– no warning that without doctrinal purity, all “adornment” becomes camouflage for apostasy.
Within a few years, such seminaries—hailed by John XXIII—would become laboratories for deconstruction:
– abandonment of Thomism,
– embrace of historical-critical relativism,
– dismantling of ascetical discipline,
– formation of men who would later preside over the destruction of the Most Holy Sacrifice and the faith in their dioceses.
The failure to raise a doctrinal trumpet here is not an omission of politeness; it is a sign of programmatic disarmament. Qui tacet consentire videtur (he who is silent appears to consent): and indeed, the subsequent conciliar revolution proves that this silence was not accidental, but ideological.
Equating Expansion with Grace: Naturalism Disguised as Providence
The letter claims that the growth of dioceses and institutions “openly and magnificently” testifies to God’s gracious favour. Measured by Catholic tradition, this is a theologically irresponsible inference:
– The Old Testament and Church history show that external prosperity often coincides with internal decay.
– St Pius X confronted a Church that outwardly seemed strong yet was infiltrated by Modernists; hence his ruthless exposure in *Pascendi*.
– Pius XII warned of internal enemies more than external enemies.
Pre-1958 teaching insists:
– Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church no salvation.
– Membership is defined not by numbers and edifices, but by unity of faith, sacraments, and submission to the Roman Pontiff in the true sense.
– Public errors—indifferentism, denial of Christ’s Kingship, naturalism—are mortal wounds, regardless of how many schools one builds.
By reading Queensland’s situation through the lens of:
– statistical growth,
– philanthropic works,
– structural complexity,
John XXIII tacitly shifts the axis from dogmatic integrity to sociological success. This is the same optic that would later justify the conciliar sect’s embrace of “dialogue,” NGOs, humanitarian discourse, and the cult of man.
This is not an accidental emphasis; it is the beginning of a new religion: a paramasonic humanitarianism clothed in Catholic language.
Concealing the Battle Lines: From Anti-Masonic Clarity to Muffled Diplomacy
Pius IX explicitly identified Masonic and similar sects as the power behind the liberal persecution of the Church. He wrote that these sects formed a “synagogue of Satan” and that their goal was to subject the Church to servitude, corrupt it, or abolish it. He defended:
– the inalienable liberty of the Church,
– her independence from the secular state,
– her right and duty to govern education,
– her right to possess temporal goods and exercise jurisdiction.
In this letter:
– there is no reminder that the state must not subject the Church;
– no defense of ecclesiastical rights;
– no warning about anti-Catholic legislation or secularising pressures in a British-Commonwealth context;
– no denunciation of the liberal principle condemned in the *Syllabus* (e.g., that the Church should be separated from the State, that all religions should enjoy equal public status, etc.).
The language of John XXIII instead creates the impression of:
– perfect harmony between Church and liberal state,
– peaceful coexistence as the normal ideal.
This is exactly the line later institutionalised by the conciliar sect:
– religious liberty as a “right” of error,
– mutual recognition and “dialogue” with false religions,
– the reduction of the Church’s social claim to a moral voice among others.
The Brisbane letter is a local, polished exemplar of this trajectory: it erases the older conflict-language and replaces it with frictionless niceties.
Pastors Without Teeth: The Betrayal of Vigilant Shepherding
John XXIII exhorts the faithful of Queensland to:
– unite more closely,
– obey their pastors,
– keep God’s laws more deeply,
– excel in holiness and moral probity,
– grow in zeal for the name and glory of Christ.
On the surface, these imperatives are orthodox. However:
– No criterion is given for recognising a faithful pastor as opposed to an infiltrated Modernist.
– No reference is made to the obligation to submit intellect and will to the pre-existing doctrinal condemnations of liberalism, Modernism, false exegesis, etc.
– The exhortation to obedience is detached from the duty to resist those who deviate from apostolic doctrine.
Authentic Catholic doctrine (e.g., St Robert Bellarmine’s principles on manifest heretics, reflected in the tradition and in Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code) affirms:
– a manifest heretic cannot hold authority in the Church;
– public defection from the faith itself strips ecclesiastical office.
By cultivating an atmosphere where:
– authority is to be obeyed without doctrinal discernment,
– optimism replaces watchfulness,
the letter forms consciences to accept, a few years later, whatever the conciliar revolution would impose:
– a new “mass,”
– a new ecclesiology,
– false ecumenism,
– religious liberty,
– the cult of man,
– an ever-expanding calendar of counterfeit “saints” of the neo-church.
Thus this letter prepares the faithful of Queensland, not to resist the great apostasy, but to walk into it singing.
A Prototype of the Conciliar Sect’s Local Strategy
The symptomatic significance of this document is profound:
1. Local anchoring of the coming revolution.
– By graciously confirming and praising existing structures, John XXIII legitimizes the entire local hierarchy.
– Those same hierarchs, once ideologically liquefied by the Council, will implement the destruction.
– The letter’s paternal tone ensures they receive the antipope’s future programme as continuity, not rupture.
2. Pastoralism without dogmatic claws.
– The rhetorical pattern: charity, unity, works, encouragement.
– Dogmatic specificity, condemnations, the language of anathema: entirely absent.
– This precisely mirrors the method by which the conciliar sect nullifies pre-existing magisterial clarity: never explicitly denying it (at first), simply never invoking it where it is most required.
3. Replacement of Militant Ecclesiology with Comfortable Self-Image.
– The Church is no longer presented as the Militant City of God fighting the world, the flesh, the devil, and organised sects.
– It is instead a benevolent provider of services, education, healthcare, social works, admired by the civil authorities.
– This naturalistic self-image makes the later surrender to “dialogue” and to the world almost inevitable.
4. Prefiguration of the “Church of the New Advent.”
– The letter’s approach is perfectly compatible with the subsequent post-1958 innovations:
– ecumenical relativism,
– religious liberty ideologies,
– interreligious syncretism,
– the anthropocentric liturgy.
– It is radically incompatible with the spirit of Pius IX’s *Syllabus* and Pius XI’s *Quas Primas*, which demand public, exclusive recognition of Christ’s Kingship and bluntly condemn liberal theories as perversions.
Integral Catholic Response: What a True Roman Pontiff Ought to Have Said
Evaluated in the light of pre-1958 magisterial teaching, a truly Catholic letter on such an occasion would have:
– Commended genuine growth, but explicitly taught that:
– only perseverance in the integral faith, untouched by liberalism and Modernism, is a sure sign of divine favour.
– external expansion without doctrinal purity is a snare.
– Recalled the binding authority of:
– the *Syllabus of Errors* of Pius IX,
– *Immortale Dei* and *Libertas* of Leo XIII,
– *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili* of St Pius X,
– *Quas Primas* of Pius XI,
– the encyclicals of Pius XII defending Catholic doctrine against existentialism, relativism, and communism.
– Warned clearly:
– against the sects and paramasonic forces subverting Christian society, especially in Anglo-Saxon environments;
– against state education separated from the Church;
– against religious indifferentism and mixed marriages;
– against any so-called “religious liberty” that denies the duty of the state to profess the Catholic faith.
– Commanded the new seminary:
– to root itself exclusively in Thomistic philosophy and theology;
– to ensure absolute fidelity to the anti-Modernist oath;
– to expel any professor infected with condemned propositions.
– Exhorted the faithful:
– to understand that Christ is truly King of Queensland and of all nations;
– to labour, through lawful means, for civil legislation conformed to the law of Christ;
– to reject, not merely ignore, liberal and secularist principles incompatible with the reign of Christ.
Instead, we find an anodyne pastoral compliment, devoid of doctrinal steel, which—functionally and historically—served to anesthetize resistance just before the operation of the conciliar revolution.
Conclusion: A Gentle Mask for the Coming Devastation
This 1959 letter to Archbishop Duhig is not an isolated trifle. It is a microcosm of the shift from:
– a Church militantly conscious of its divine rights and enemies,
to
– a conciliatory, euphemistic, institutional organism eager to see signs of grace in every civil harmony and every construction project.
By:
– praising visible success without guarding doctrinal integrity,
– ignoring the solemn condemnations of liberalism and Modernism,
– failing to proclaim the Social Kingship of Christ over Queensland,
John XXIII manifests the mentality that would produce the conciliar sect and its paramasonic praxis. It is precisely this type of “harmless” document that reveals—in its omissions, in its tone, in its naturalistic enthusiasms—the spiritual bankruptcy of the nascent neo-church.
Non in multitudine populorum gloria est Ecclesiae, sed in veritate doctrinae et sanctitate sacrificii (the glory of the Church is not in the multitude of her people, but in the truth of her doctrine and the holiness of her sacrifice). Everything in this letter trends in the opposite direction—and history has confirmed the consequences in Brisbane, in Queensland, and throughout the territories seduced by the so-called aggiornamento.
Source:
A Brisbanensis – Ad Iacobum Duhig, Archiepiscopum Brisbanenseni, qui publica Sacra indixit Sollemnia, exeunte saeculo ab eiusdem ecclesiae ortu, Die 17 m. Maii a. 1959, Ioannes PP.XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025