The letter praises the Franciscan custodians of the Holy Places in Palestine on the fourth centenary of the stable establishment of their seat at the convent of Saint Saviour in Jerusalem, extols their historical merits in guarding the Locorum Sacrorum patrimony, encourages continued material and spiritual support from the faithful for the Holy Places, and confirms earlier norms requiring an annual collection in every diocese for this cause, presenting all this in a tone of piety, gratitude, and institutional continuity. Yet beneath this devotional veneer, the text functions as a polished instrument of the conciliar revolution, instrumentalizing the Holy Places to sanctify a counterfeit magisterium and a naturalistic, diplomatically useful religiosity detached from the integral Kingship of Christ and from the true Catholic Church.
The Holy Places as Scenery for a Counterfeit Magisterium
Subtle Self-Legitimation of an Usurper through Sacred Geography
From the first lines, the document proceeds as if nothing epochal had occurred in 1958: the writer assumes for himself the authority of the Roman Pontiff, employs the traditional rhetoric of piety toward the Holy Places, and embeds his signature—IOANNES PP. XXIII—into the venerable continuity of the Church. The entire construction is ordered to one central practical point: the confirmation and promotion of the norms for the annual “Holy Places” collection.
At the factual level, nothing seems objectionable: encouraging support for the shrines associated with the life of Our Lord, praising centuries of Franciscan presence, and recalling the sufferings endured. The letter recalls the Custody’s merits, speaking of the Holy Places as:
“religionis incunabula nostrae … monumenta illa … ‘quasi quaedam victoriarum Domini sunt erecta vexilla’”
(“the cradle of our religion … those monuments, consecrated by the birth, life, and death of the Divine Redeemer, are ‘as it were certain standards raised for the victories of the Lord’”).
In itself, such language echoes Catholic tradition: the Church has always revered the Holy Land as the concrete theatre of the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection. But here that reverence is usurped: the usurper clothes his claim to universal jurisdiction in precisely those accents which the faithful associate with true pontiffs, in order to induce habitual, uncritical obedience. The entire epistle is an exercise in *simulatio* (feigned continuity) and *captatio benevolentiae* (winning favor) in the most sacred register.
Why is this gravely problematic when evaluated exclusively by the unchanging pre-1958 Catholic criterion?
– Because the authority claimed is objectively incompatible with integral Catholic doctrine once one considers the later acts and programmatic teaching of John XXIII: convocation of the Second Vatican Council in a Modernist spirit condemned by St. Pius X (*Pascendi Dominici gregis*; *Lamentabili sane exitu*), the aggiornamento rhetoric, and the opening to religious liberty and ecumenism contrary to *Quanta Cura* and the *Syllabus Errorum* of Pius IX and to *Quas Primas* of Pius XI.
– Because Catholic theology, as synthesized by St. Robert Bellarmine and reiterated by classical canonists (see the principles recalled in the Defense of Sedevacantism file), holds that a public, manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church. Once his program is known, his earlier “devout” texts cannot be read as innocent; they are structurally ordered to consolidate his usurpation.
Thus the document’s primary function is not truly the supernatural care of the Holy Places, but the liturgical-theological framing of a new, fraudulent authority. It is a pious mask for a paramasonic regime that within a few years would enthrone religious liberty, false ecumenism, and the cult of man as its dogmas.
Naturalized Piety and the Eclipse of the Supernatural End
At no point does the letter recall the central dogmatic principles that must govern Catholic engagement with the Holy Land:
– That the Holy Places exist to perpetually preach the exclusive truth of the Catholic faith.
– That their ultimate purpose is the salvation of souls through the *Most Holy Sacrifice* and the one true Church.
– That the visible custody of these Places is inseparable from the public Kingship of Christ and the rights of His Church over society.
Instead, the language remains horizontal, sentimental, institutional:
– The Holy Places are “common and most excellent patrimony of Christians” (commune illud praestantissimumque christianorum patrimonium), language that easily dilutes the note of exclusivity of the Catholic Church condemned in the *Syllabus* propositions 15–18 (indifferentism and latitudinarianism). The text does not sharply confess that only the Catholic Church has the right and competence to guard and interpret these Places. Silence here is already betrayal.
– Pilgrimage is invoked as venerating “the footprints of Our Lord” (*sacrosancta Domini nostri vestigia*), but without a single explicit mention of the necessity of sanctifying grace, Confession, or the danger of sacrilegious “Communion” in the conciliar sect. A truly Catholic exhortation, especially in 1960—under the shadow of condemned Modernism—would have pressed home the necessity of faith, repentance, and adherence to Catholic doctrine.
This omission is not an accident. It is symptomatic of a nascent religion which maintains devotional surfaces while evacuating doctrinal sharpness. *Quas Primas* thunders that there will be no peace until individuals and states recognize the reign of Christ the King; this letter never once affirms Christ’s social Kingship over Palestine, over its governments, over false religions present there. It speaks of generosity and historical merits, but not of the obligation of nations to bow to the Cross that stood on Golgotha. The result is a picturesque Christianity that can coexist with Zionism, Islam, liberal secularism, and every diplomatic configuration—precisely what the pre-conciliar Magisterium condemned.
Instrumentalizing the Franciscans: From Guardians of the Passion to Couriers of Conciliarism
The writer exalts the Franciscan Custody:
“Longum est omnia persegui beneficia, quae ex nova illa sede per saeculorum decursum profecta sunt … apostolatus atque caritatis opera…”
(“It would be long to recount all the benefits which, through the passing of the centuries, have flowed from that new seat … the works and initiatives of apostolate and charity…”)
There is truth here on the historical plane: pre-conciliar popes repeatedly commended the Franciscans’ heroic defence of the Sanctuaries and the faithful. But within this 1960 letter, this praise is bent in a decisive direction:
– The Franciscans’ loyalty to the Holy See is invoked now to bind them to the person and program of John XXIII.
– The glorious memory of martyrs and confessors of the Custody—who shed blood to maintain Catholic worship and doctrine against infidels and schismatics—is subtly transformed into a mandate to continue their “works” under a leadership that would soon embrace the very errors their predecessors resisted: false ecumenism with Islam and Eastern schism, interreligious “dialogue,” and practical rejection of the Kingship of Christ.
Integral Catholic theology recognizes this as a classic strategy of subversion: *abusus honoris in fraudem veritatis* (the abuse of honour to the detriment of truth). The letter canonizes an image of Franciscan obedience which, if blindly continued, will drag their Order into complicity with the conciliar sect’s apostasy. The very virtues of the past (obedience, loyalty to Peter) are weaponized to demand submission to a non-Peter.
A truly Catholic exhortation, in continuity with Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, would have:
– Recalled explicitly the doctrinal mission of the Holy Places as bastions of the one true Church.
– Warned against indifferentism and Modernism in teaching and liturgy.
– Affirmed the duty of resistance to any civil or religious power that would corrupt the faith there, in the spirit of Pius IX declaring null and void state laws that violated the divine constitution of the Church (cf. the Syllabus passages and his protests against Prussian persecution).
Instead, we have polished words perfectly compatible with the coming ecumenical carnival: the Holy Land as a shared spiritual landscape, supervised by “dialoguing” Franciscans integrated into the neo-church.
Linguistic Symptoms of Modernist Diplomacy
The tone is revealing: ceremonious, smooth, without doctrinal edge. Some key symptoms:
1. Ambiguous communitarian rhetoric:
– The Holy Places are called “common patrimony of Christians” instead of “sacred inheritance of the Catholic Church.” This formula anticipates the ecumenical language later used to justify joint prayers and interconfessional claims over the loci sancti.
– Modernist linguistic tactic: replace confessional clarity with inclusive formulas that sound pious yet blur dogma.
2. Absence of dogmatic markers:
– No explicit confession that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation (*extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*).
– No affirmation that non-Catholic worship at or around the Holy Places is objectively false and offensive to God.
– Silence about Islam and Judaism as rejecting the true Messias; instead, the letter can easily be read alongside the later Nostra Aetate-style flattery. This silence is damning when measured against the pre-1958 Magisterium, which repeatedly unmasked false religions and secret societies as enemies of Christ and His Church (see Pius IX on Freemasonry in the Syllabus text provided).
3. Bureaucratic piety:
– Detailed reinforcement of norms about the annual collection, with language of method and regulation, while omitting any robust eschatological motive (judgment, Hell, necessity of penance).
– This technocratic sacralization of fundraising without doctrinal urgency betrays a naturalistic mentality: the primary anxiety is institutional maintenance, not salvation of souls.
4. Sanctifying “liberal generosity” while omitting crusading zeal:
– Historically, pre-conciliar popes praised armed and spiritual efforts to defend the Holy Places and to free them from infidel domination—not as colonialism, but as rightful defence of Christ’s rights. This letter domesticates that history into a neutral narrative of “charity” and “works,” acceptable to the liberal conscience of the mid-20th century.
The language thus manifests what St. Pius X condemned: *modernismus historicus*, which tolerates past militancy as a stage now surpassed by allegedly more “mature,” dialogical forms of piety—precisely the evolutionism anathematized in *Lamentabili sane exitu* (e.g., propositions 54–60).
Theological Deconstruction: The Holy Places Severed from Christ’s Kingship
Measured by the immutable doctrine set forth in Quas Primas and the Syllabus, the deepest defect of this letter is theological: it reduces the Holy Places to sacred symbols within a world-order whose principles (pluralism, religious liberty, secular sovereignty over the land of Christ) are left untouched.
Consider what is missing:
– No proclamation that the Holy Land, as the earthly homeland of the Incarnate Word, should be publicly and legally subject to His reign, with civil laws conformed to His law.
– No insistence that Catholic worship has an exclusive right in those Places as the only true worship pleasing to God.
– No condemnation of the liberal thesis that the State is source of rights (Syllabus 39), or that all forms of worship may flourish equally (Syllabus 77–79) — errors which are in fact practically presupposed by the post-war political configuration of Palestine and which this letter does not even hint at challenging.
Instead, the Holy Places are framed as an object of:
– “apostolate and charity works”;
– “liberal generosity” of the faithful;
– sentimental gratitude toward a “region … which was the homeland of the Incarnate Word.”
This is precisely the naturalistic reduction Pius XI warned against: he taught that all calamities arise because “very many have removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs, from private, family, and public life,” and that the only true peace is in “the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” (Quas Primas). In this light, a letter concerning the Holy Land which does not even once proclaim Christ’s juridical rights over that land is not neutral; it is a manifesto of capitulation.
Symptomatic Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
When read retrospectively in light of the conciliar and post-conciliar acts that followed, this letter reveals itself as a diagnostic specimen of the new religion:
1. Continuity of external devotions, rupture of doctrine:
– The conciliar sect carefully preserved selected popular devotions as emotional capital while subverting doctrine underneath. Here, venerating the Holy Places and admiring Franciscan sacrifices costs nothing to Modernism, while it offers the aura of continuity needed to lull the faithful.
2. Quiet acceptance of pluralism:
– No word calls the infidel and schismatic inhabitants of the Holy Land to conversion to the Catholic faith. The supernatural charity that demands preaching the Gospel to Jews and Muslims is absent. This aligns with the condemned proposition that “good hope” is to be had of all outside the Church as such (Syllabus 17) and the Modernist softening of missionary urgency.
3. Ecclesiology of the “patrimony of Christians”:
– By presenting the Holy Places as patrimony of “Christians” rather than strictly of the Catholic Church, the letter prefigures the ecumenical shift formalized later: the Church as one “branch” among others, cohabiting holy sites, seeking “unity” without conversion. This is the implicit denial of proposition 21 in the Syllabus (“The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion”), which the conciliar sect effectively revives.
4. Subtle desacralization via bureaucratization:
– Reducing ecclesial concern for the Holy Places chiefly to the proper organization of annual collections and material support, while bracketting doctrinal militancy, transforms the Church from the militant spouse of Christ into an NGO managing heritage—a classical effect of Modernist naturalism condemned by Pius X: the Church becomes a human association evolving with history, not the divinely constituted Ark of salvation.
5. Co-optation of religious Orders:
– The Franciscans, celebrated as heroes, are tacitly invited to re-enact their heroic obedience in service of a non-Catholic authority. This sowed the path for their large-scale integration into the post-conciliar ecumenical agenda: liturgical abuses, interreligious initiatives, doctrinal silence. The letter is an early mechanism of that capture.
The Grave Omission: No Warning against Modernist Sacrilege
Integral Catholic faith demands that any serious pastoral text touching pilgrimages, sacred places, and ecclesial works highlight the necessity of:
– confession of the true faith;
– reception of the sacraments worthily;
– rejection of heresy, Modernism, indifferentism.
In this letter, there is:
– No warning that approaching the sanctuaries while adhering to liberal, ecumenical, or Modernist ideas is itself an offence to the Lord whose Passion is commemorated there.
– No admonition that participation in the pseudo-sacraments of the conciliar sect—especially the profaned so-called “Mass” where the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary* is replaced by an anthropocentric assembly—is objectively sacrilege and, in many cases, idolatry.
– No distinction between the true Catholic priests (validly ordained before the imposition of mutilated rites) and the future army of invalidly ordained “presbyters” who would swarm these very places.
The silence here is lethal. The faithful are encouraged to be generous, devout, and attached to the Holy Places, but never taught that fidelity now requires discernment against the neo-church occupying those same Places. The Holy Land is thus transformed into a stage where an anti-church can theatrically reenact Gospel scenes while denying their doctrinal content—a sacrilegious parody.
Conclusion: A Pious Facade Hiding Systemic Apostasy
Judged solely by the perennial Magisterium up to Pius XII, this 1960 letter is not an innocent devotional circular but:
– an act of self-legitimation by a man whose subsequent deeds and doctrines prove him to be outside the Catholic faith;
– a calculated use of sacred sentiment to bind religious Orders and the faithful to a nascent conciliar ideology;
– a specimen of soft Modernism: maintaining holy vocabulary while omitting the hard edges of dogma—exclusive truth of the Church, Kingship of Christ over societies, necessity of conversion, condemnation of error.
The true Holy Places remain those where the integral Catholic faith and the *Most Holy Sacrifice* are preserved inviolate, under valid pastors who reject Modernism and all its works. Support for the shrines of the Incarnate Word is meritorious only when it is inseparable from uncompromising adherence to the doctrine defined and defended by the pre-1958 popes, from Pius IX’s denunciation of liberalism and secret societies to St. Pius X’s crushing of Modernism and Pius XI’s solemn proclamation of Christ the King. Any attempt—such as this letter—to harness those holy stones in service of an ecumenical, liberal, or anthropocentric program is not pastoral care but profanation.
Source:
Sacra Palaestinae – Epistula Ad Augustinum Sépinski, quarto exeunte saeculo, ex quo sodalium eiusdem ordinis sedes in Hierosolymitana urbe stabiliter est constituta, d. 17 m. Aprilis a. 1960, Ioannes … (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025