The letter attributed to John XXIII to the bishop of Gubbio, on the 8th centenary of the death of St. Ubald, superficially exhorts to renewed piety, highlights the saint’s pastoral zeal, his defence of moral life and social peace, and concludes with a blessing that presents the celebrations as an occasion of spiritual renewal for the city and diocese. Behind this devout facade stands the programmatic use of a true saint to decorate and legitimize the nascent conciliar revolution and the authority of an antipope heading a structure already ruptured from the integral Catholic faith.
Instrumentalizing St. Ubald for the Conciliar Revolution
The text is brief, apparently harmless, and directed to a particular Church. Precisely for that reason it is revealing. It shows how the conciliar sect from its inception cloaked its subversion in traditional language, saints’ cults, and local devotions, all while silently evacuating the supernatural and the dogmatic clarity that defined the Church before 1958.
The letter was issued in 1960, under John XXIII, at the very moment when the revolutionary project of the so‑called Second Vatican Council was being prepared. A document like this must be read in continuity with his speeches calling for “aggiornamento,” his disdain for the “prophets of doom,” and his practical suspension of the anti-modernist fight of St. Pius X. The same man who convened the council that enthroned *religious liberty*, *ecumenism*, and the cult of man is here presented as the benign promoter of devotion to St. Ubald. This is not coincidence; it is method.
Already Pius IX exposed the logic of such liberal operations when he condemned the idea that the Roman Pontiff must “come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” (Syllabus, prop. 80). John XXIII’s pontificate, however, was programmatically oriented to precisely that reconciliation. Therefore every apparently “pious” letter drafted in his name must be tested against the immutable pre-1958 doctrine, not received with naive sentimentality.
Factual Level: Selective Truth Pressed into a New Service
The letter recalls genuine elements of the life of St. Ubald:
– His holiness.
– His pastoral charity and paternal care.
– His work for moral reform, concord, and the protection of the city.
– The people’s centuries-long confidence in his intercession.
None of this, taken materially, is erroneous. But truth, *abrupta a fine suo* (torn from its end), is easily weaponized.
Several omissions are decisive:
1. There is no explicit recall of St. Ubald as a confessor of the integral Catholic faith, defender of dogma, and upholder of the divine rights of the Church over states and societies.
2. There is no doctrinal precision; the saint’s holiness is described primarily through psychological and social categories: love of people, reconciliation, peace, liberation from temporal danger.
3. There is no reference to:
– the necessity of the *state of grace*,
– the danger of mortal sin,
– judgment, hell, heaven,
– the Most Holy Sacrifice as the heart of Christian life,
– the authority of the Roman Pontiff as defined by Vatican I against liberalism and collegialist tendencies.
Instead, the letter orbits around a vague “renewal of Christian life” and “religionis ardor” without articulating the doctrinal content that alone gives such expressions Catholic meaning. This is the typical tactic of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi: retain traditional words, empty or shift their content, and gradually adjust the faithful to a different religion.
Where a true pope would have taken such an occasion to reaffirm immutable doctrine—especially against the liberal, masonic, and modernist currents explicitly unmasked in the Syllabus and the anti-modernist decrees—John XXIII offers devotional varnish without dogmatic edge. Pius XI in Quas Primas speaks with supernatural clarity: peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ, that is, when individuals and states publicly recognize His social Kingship. Here, in contrast, St. Ubald’s role as protector of the city is invoked without any reminder of the duty of civil authorities to submit to Christ the King and His Church.
This silence is not an accident; it is programmatic.
Language as a Veil for Doctrinal Evacuation
The rhetoric is outwardly pious yet internally hollowed.
Key traits:
– Sweet, affective language about “alacre pietatis studium” and “periucundo laetitiae sensu.”
– Heavy emphasis on civic and emotional bonds: St. Ubald “bound” the people with a “sweet bond of love,” he is linked to the “good of the city,” he once saved them from temporal ruin.
– Repetition of general calls to “renew Christian life” and “religious fervor” without defining what Christian life objectively is in Catholic terms.
This sentimental devotionalism is characteristic of the conciliar sect:
– It replaces *lex credendi* with affect, atmosphere, and community feeling.
– It praises peace and concord abstractly, detached from the war against heresy, error, and sin.
– It proposes saints primarily as ethical and psychological inspirations rather than models of supernatural faith and militant confession.
Contrast this with the pre-1958 Magisterium:
– Pius IX, in the Syllabus, names and anathematizes concrete modern errors: indifferentism, liberalism, naturalism, the separation of Church and State, the supposed harmlessness of masonic sects.
– St. Pius X, in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi, condemns the entire method of speaking about religion in vague, evolving, experience-based terms, refusing precise doctrinal content.
– Pius XI in Quas Primas denounces laicism as a “plague” and grounds all social restoration in the explicit, juridical Kingship of Christ over nations.
In the letter in question, there is no echo of this militant clarity. Instead, we hear the tone of the coming revolution: edifying phrases, no anathemas, no explicit doctrinal demarcations, no warnings against modern errors.
Silentium dogmaticum—the dogmatic silence on all the burning questions of the age—condemns the text more than any explicit phrase could.
Theological Level: Subordination of Sanctity to a New Ecclesiology
At the theological level, the decisive problem is not what is affirmed about St. Ubald, but the order into which his cult is being inserted.
1. The letter is issued in the name of John XXIII, the inaugurator of the conciliar upheaval.
2. It praises local piety and urges a renewal of Christian life, while the same regime is:
– preparing to dismantle the traditional liturgy,
– relativizing the dogma of “no salvation outside the Church,”
– rehabilitating precisely those modernist currents condemned by St. Pius X.
Thus, the saint’s authentic Catholic holiness is repurposed as a sort of spiritual capital to finance an ecclesial project radically opposed to the doctrine he himself lived and preached.
From the standpoint of integral Catholic doctrine:
– Sanctity is inseparable from adherence to defined dogma, obedience to the perennial Magisterium, and rejection of condemned errors.
– The invocation of a saint for purely “communitarian,” affective, or horizontal outcomes without doctrinal combat is a form of falsification.
By omitting:
– explicit reference to the dogmatic authority of the pre-existing Magisterium,
– any condemnation of the liberal-masonic project devastating Church and society,
– any insistence on the absolute necessity of submission of public life to Christ the King,
the letter effectively abstracts St. Ubald from the concrete Catholic order and makes of him a neutral symbol: a pious mascot for a new, humanistic “church” already gestating.
Abusus sanctorum est abusus Ecclesiae (the abuse of the saints is an abuse of the Church). The text accomplishes precisely this: it covers the deviation of authority with the perfume of the saints.
Symptomatic Level: A Micro-Icon of the Conciliar Sect’s Method
This apparently minor document is symptomatic of a larger pathology already condemned by the pre-conciliar popes, especially in their battle against Modernism and liberal Catholicism.
Several symptomatic points stand out:
1. Absence of Anti-Modernist Militant Spirit
At a time of unprecedented doctrinal and moral collapse, with masonic, socialist, rationalist forces ravaging Church and society—realities documented and condemned in the Syllabus and in numerous papal allocutions—the letter is utterly silent.
No:
– denunciation of Freemasonry’s work against the Church;
– warning against indifferentism, secular schools, liberal legislation;
– instruction on sacramental life as the objective channel of grace;
– reference to the objective demands of the First Commandment in public life.
This serene blindness matches exactly what Pius X condemned: the refusal to recognize and fight doctrinal error as such. It is the mentality that leads directly to “dialogue,” religious liberty, and ecumenism—terms not present here linguistically, but fully present in the underlying spirit.
2. Transformation of the Saint into a Civic Patron and Moral Symbol
The letter dilutes St. Ubald into:
– a guarantor of civic protection,
– an exemplar of social concord,
– a unifying symbol for the population.
The pre-conciliar doctrine certainly recognizes saints as patrons of cities and peoples. But always under the primacy of:
– right faith,
– sacramental life,
– subjection of laws and customs to divine and ecclesiastical law.
By stressing the “good of the city” and harmony, without reasserting the primacy of Christ’s Kingship and the Church’s jurisdiction over morals and education, the text slides into a quasi-civic religion, a sacralization of social cohesion.
This tendency is precisely the seed of the later cult of “human rights,” “peace,” and “universal brotherhood” divorced from Christ the King—errors crushed by Pius XI in Quas Primas and by Pius IX in the Syllabus, but enthroned by the conciliar sect.
3. Suppression of the Anti-Modernist Magisterium
By 1960, the anti-modernist oath still formally existed; Pascendi and Lamentabili were in force; the Syllabus had not been revoked. Yet in this letter:
– none of these doctrinal ramparts are recalled;
– no continuity with their harsh, precise condemnation of liberalism and Modernism is affirmed.
The silence is eloquent; it prepares what followed:
– the practical obsolescence of the anti-modernist oath,
– the de facto shelving of the Syllabus,
– the replacement of clear anathemas with ambiguous “pastoral” language.
Qui tacet, consentire videtur (he who is silent appears to consent). The governance expressed in this letter shows no intention of maintaining the anti-modernist front line. It breathes the atmosphere of capitulation masked as kindness.
4. Legitimization of a Usurped Authority Through Harmless Devotions
One must underline the political-ecclesial function of such texts. By issuing apparently orthodox, devout letters about saints and jubilees, the conciliar usurpers:
– reassure the simple faithful that “nothing has changed”;
– place their signatures beneath names loved by Catholics;
– thereby secure an affective obedience that will later be exploited to introduce doctrinal novelties and liturgical devastation.
The method is evident:
– first, continuity of tone and devotions;
– then, gradual poisoning of doctrine and worship;
– always claiming to act in the same “spirit of the saints.”
This is why it is essential not to read such documents sentimentally, but under the light of the unchanging pre-1958 Magisterium. When that light falls on this letter, the verdict is clear: the text is not a beacon of Catholic restoration but a soft-focus veil drawn over a revolutionary enterprise.
Primacy of Christ the King and the Condemnation of Naturalistic Humanism
From the standpoint of authentic Catholic doctrine summarized in Pius XI’s Quas Primas:
– Christ’s Kingship is universal, social, juridical.
– States and peoples must recognize and publicly honor Him.
– Secularism and laicism are condemned as a “plague.”
– Peace comes from the submission of individuals and nations to His law.
Measured against this standard, the letter’s approach to St. Ubald’s patronage is gravely deficient:
– It lauds his role in saving the city and promoting concord,
– yet it omits the foundational truth that all such benefits flow from fidelity to the one true Church, submission to its doctrine, and rejection of liberal-naturalist principles.
This omission, repeated and normalized, habituates Catholics to consider:
– sanctity without dogmatic exclusivity,
– civic peace without the Kingship of Christ,
– religious sentiment without militant confession of the integral faith.
Such a mentality is not neutral; it is the seedbed of the conciliar cult of “dialogue,” “human family,” “religious liberty,” all condemned before 1958.
Silence About the Sacrifice and the Sacraments: The Deepest Accusation
Most damning is what the letter does not say.
On the 8th centenary of a confessor-bishop:
– No exhortation to greater participation in the Most Holy Sacrifice understood as propitiatory and God-centred.
– No emphasis on confession, penance, reparation.
– No call to restore families, laws, customs according to the precise moral teaching of the Church.
– No reminder of the Four Last Things, which always formed the backdrop of genuine Catholic preaching about saints.
This radical spiritual minimalism is an unmistakable mark of the emerging neo-church:
– God reduced to benevolent backdrop.
– Sin and hell veiled.
– The Cross muted.
– Supernatural life dissolved into general “religious fervor” and “devotion to the patron.”
Omissiones loquuntur (omissions speak). Where a true Roman Pontiff, faithful to his predecessors, would seize such an anniversary to re-arm the faithful against the very errors denounced in Lamentabili—especially the reduction of religion to sentiment and moralism—John XXIII offers only mild, civic-friendly spirituality. In light of St. Pius X’s condemnations, such an approach is not merely weak; it is symptomatic of doctrinal betrayal.
Conclusion: A Pious Mask Covering Systemic Apostasy
This letter, read superficially, appears orthodox, reverent, consoling. Read in the light of:
– Pius IX’s Syllabus,
– the anti-modernist Magisterium of St. Pius X (Lamentabili, Pascendi),
– Pius XI’s solemn doctrine on the Kingship of Christ (Quas Primas),
and situated within the historical reality of John XXIII’s program and the subsequent conciliar catastrophe, it reveals itself as:
– the calculated use of a genuine saint to legitimize a regime already turning away from the integral Catholic faith;
– a specimen of sugary, empty rhetoric that carefully avoids reaffirming the hard, exclusive, supernatural claims of the Church;
– an early icon of the method by which the conciliar sect wrapped its apostasy in the language of tradition, keeping the faithful docile while the foundations were being demolished.
Authentic devotion to St. Ubald today demands the exact opposite of what this text implicitly serves. It demands:
– firm adherence to the unchanging doctrine of the pre-1958 Church;
– rejection of modernist novelties, ecumenism, religious liberty, and the cult of man;
– renewal of public and private life under the explicit social reign of Christ the King;
– return to the Most Holy Sacrifice and the sacramental life in structures that truly preserve the Catholic priesthood and faith.
Anything less is not to honor St. Ubald, but to conscript his holy name into the service of the abomination that has occupied his Church and city.
Source:
Alacre pietatis – Epistula ad Beniaminum Ubaldi, episcopum eugubinum, octavo expleto saeculo a Sancti Ubaldi, illius civitatis caelestis patroni, pio obitu, d. 5 m. Maii a. 1960, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025