Venerable Eugenio Tisserant is congratulated by John XXIII for the fiftieth anniversary of his elevation to the cardinalate, praised for his erudition, his work in the Apostolic Library, his services regarding the Eastern Churches, and for the prestigious recognition of membership in the Académie française; the letter concludes with benevolent wishes for further virtues and an “apostolic blessing.” This apparently innocuous panegyric is in fact a concentrated manifestation of the anthropocentric, naturalistic and proto-ecumenical mentality that paved the way for the conciliar revolution and the systematic erosion of the Catholic notion of authority, sanctity, and the reign of Christ the King.
Liturgical Flattery as a Manifesto of a New Religion
The document is short; its corruption is not.
From the first lines, the usurper John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli) assumes without proof what is theologically in dispute: his own authority. He addresses Tisserant as Venerable Brother, as if both shared the same episcopal and Roman Catholic identity in continuity with the perennial Magisterium. In reality, we are dealing with an internal communiqué of the nascent conciliar sect, already detached in spirit from the integral Catholic faith and using the external forms and Latin style of the true Church to conceal a radically altered substance.
Three essential points emerge:
1. The entire focus is on human honor, academic prestige, and worldly recognition.
2. There is a studied silence regarding the supernatural end of the Church: salvation of souls, combat against error, necessity of grace, and the absolute sovereignty of Christ the King.
3. The text fits seamlessly into the modernist pattern condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X and Pius XI: the fusion of ecclesiastical dignity with liberal culture, the cult of human excellence, and ecumenical openness toward the East divorced from the imperative of conversion.
This letter is thus not a trivial courtesy; it is a symptom and a signal: the language, priorities, and worldview of the occupiers of the Vatican have shifted from the rights of God to the honors of men.
Exaltation of Human Prestige Instead of the Glory of Christ
The text heaps praise on Tisserant for:
– his learned elegance and scholarship,
– his work as Prefect of the Apostolic Library,
– his activities concerning the Eastern Churches,
– and especially his election to the Académie française, described as a rare pinnacle of honor.
Roncalli writes (translation first):
We rejoice to hear that in these recent circumstances you have been admitted into the number of members of the French Academy, a summit of honor which is granted rarely to those who have attained outstanding reputation and esteem.
This is not incidental rhetoric. It reveals a hierarchy of values diametrically opposed to the traditional Catholic ethos.
Before 1958, the Magisterium repeatedly insisted that the true greatness of the shepherds of the Church consists in:
– guarding the deposit of faith without stain (cf. Vatican I, *Pastor aeternus*),
– defending the Church from liberalism, indifferentism, secret societies (cf. Pius IX, *Syllabus Errorum*; Leo XIII against Freemasonry),
– leading souls to penance, the Most Holy Sacrifice, the sacraments, and the social reign of Christ (cf. Pius XI, *Quas primas*).
Here, none of this appears. The center is replaced:
– Papal praise is directed chiefly to an earthly academy, a secular, religiously indifferent institution bewitched by humanism and laicized literature.
– The honor of the Sacra Porpora is implicitly validated by its harmonization with the approval of the world: the Académie française becomes a quasi-sacramental confirmation of ecclesiastical dignity.
This inversion of order directly contradicts the spirit of Pius XI in *Quas primas*, who declared that true peace and order come from public recognition of Christ’s kingship, not from submission to secular cultural elites. To make a cardinal’s secular academic distinction a focal reason for papal rejoicing is to perform a subtle act of doctrinal treason: replacing *regnum Christi* with the cult of cultural respectability.
Linguistic Cosmetics: Pious Latin Covering Anthropocentric Content
The letter uses an elegant Latin, traditional formulas, references to virtue, faith, wisdom. However, language here functions as camouflage.
Key observations:
– Repeated emphasis on merits, learning, diligence, honor, all framed in terms of human recognition.
– The only “theological” elements are generic: wishes to grow in virtue, wisdom, usefulness, internal adornment of the soul. No mention of:
– state of grace,
– necessity of supernatural faith over mere erudition,
– vigilance against errors condemned in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi dominici gregis*,
– the Four Last Things (death, judgment, heaven, hell),
– the horror of modern apostasy and the masonic onslaught (unambiguously denounced by pre-1958 popes).
Such deliberate omissions in a document emerging from the uppermost layers of the hierarchy are not neutral style choices. They are a methodological erasure of the supernatural perspective, typical of Modernism.
St. Pius X explicitly condemned the method that reduces Church documents to “benevolent encouragement” devoid of doctrinal militancy, while adapting to the world’s mentality. The absence of militant supernatural language, especially when praising a figure immersed in cultural and ecumenical projects, is itself symptomatic of a new religion.
The vocabulary reveals:
– a courtly, diplomatic tone;
– no polemics against the enemies of the Church;
– no clear confession of the exclusive truth of the Catholic faith;
– no insistence that every honor, even cultural or academic, must be subordinated to the confession of Christ and rejection of liberal errors.
This is exactly the soft bureaucratic and worldly style which Pius IX and St. Pius X rejected as incompatible with the office of those bound to guard the flock against rationalism, indifferentism, and laicism.
Theological Emptiness: A “Blessing” Without the Cross or the Deposit of Faith
At the theological level, the most damning element is what is not said.
The letter:
– does not mention the unique salvific mission of the Church;
– does not mention the obligation to convert the separated Easterners to the one true fold;
– does not recall the anathemas of ecumenical councils against schismatics and heretics;
– does not denounce the liberal and masonic forces ravaging Christendom;
– does not call to deeper union with the Most Holy Sacrifice or devotion to the Sacred Heart or Christ the King;
– reduces the “Apostolic Blessing” to a decorative conclusion appended to a humanistic encomium.
Compare with the pre-1958 papal mindset:
– Pius IX in the *Syllabus* rejects the idea that the Church should reconcile itself with liberalism and religious indifferentism.
– St. Pius X, in *Pascendi* and the confirmation of *Lamentabili*, condemns precisely the type of religious language which replaces dogmatic clarity with vague spirituality and cultural accommodation.
– Pius XI in *Quas primas* sees in secular exaltation and exclusion of Christ from public life the root of modern disasters and calls for militant proclamation of His royal rights.
Here, on the contrary:
– A prince of the Church is praised for integration into precisely that secular elite environment where Christ’s exclusive kingship is denied in practice.
– No warning is issued; instead, there is jubilation.
This “blessing” is the theological equivalent of incense offered to the world rather than to God. It signals the abandonment of *lex credendi* under the pretext of continuity of *lex orandi*.
Proto-Ecumenism and Eastern Policy Without Conversion
Central in the letter is the reference to Tisserant’s activity as secretary of the Eastern “Council” and as bishop of Ostia, Porto and Santa Rufina. Roncalli praises his diligence in matters of the Eastern Churches:
Especially as one placed over the secret affairs of the Sacred Council for the Eastern Church and as bishop of Ostia, Porto, and Santa Rufina, you have applied a full diligence.
Once again, the silence is revealing:
– No affirmation that the separated Eastern communities must return to the Catholic Church.
– No reiteration that there is no salvation nor legitimate hierarchy outside the one Church instituted by Christ.
– No reference to the dogmatic teaching of Florence or to the clear condemnations of schism.
Instead, there is a neutral, administrative tone suggesting that “Eastern affairs” are a technical, cultural, or diplomatic matter. This anticipates the ecumenical betrayal of the “Balamand mentality” and of Vatican II’s Oriental policy: dialogue without conversion, recognition without doctrinal submission, relativisation of the dogma *extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*.
The letter’s rhetoric aligns with the modernist shift:
– from missionary zeal to religious diplomacy,
– from doctrinal clarity to irenic formulas,
– from objective conversion to “mutual esteem.”
Such orientation stands in direct conflict with the integral pre-1958 Magisterium, which sees Eastern schism and heresy as wounds requiring healing through submission to the Roman Pontiff and full doctrinal unity.
Alignment with Condemned Liberal and Naturalistic Errors
Measured against Pius IX’s *Syllabus* and St. Pius X’s anti-modernist decrees, the spiritual atmosphere of this letter resonates with several condemned propositions:
– The practical glorification of a secular academy, as if its recognition crowns ecclesiastical dignity, echoes the condemned illusion that civil-cultural authority can define or certify the worth of the Church’s ministers.
– The omission of any confrontation with modern errors fits the liberal thesis that the Church should no longer strongly condemn but silently coexist and adapt.
– The implicit reconciliation with modern “culture” as neutral or honorable contradicts the teaching that such milieus, when divorced from the reign of Christ, are instruments for the spread of rationalism and indifferentism.
While the letter does not state explicit doctrinal heresies in a few sentences, its ethos is that of a hierarchy already mentally surrendered to the principles denounced as pernicious:
– the cult of progress and human recognition,
– the silencing of anti-masonic and anti-liberal testimony,
– the replacement of supernatural militancy with urbane compliments.
This is precisely the “practical modernism” St. Pius X warned about: even where explicit formulas are not yet denied, the spirit, priorities, and omissions betray their abandonment.
Systemic Apostasy: A Small Stone in the Foundation of the Conciliar Sect
This letter must not be read in isolation. It is a micro-manifestation of the transformation then underway:
– John XXIII would soon convoke the so-called council which demolished, in praxis and language, the doctrinal ramparts erected by his predecessors against liberalism and modernism.
– Tisserant himself became a key figure in that revolution, shaping ecumenical and liturgical directions aligned with the new humanistic agenda.
– The whole paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican gradually turned such “inoffensive” documents into the normal style: praising human cultures, avoiding doctrinal condemnations, and placing grace and faith behind diplomacy and dialogue.
The letter’s character:
– No defense of the Church’s rights over states and societies, condemned by Pius IX’s enemies and defended by Pius XI in *Quas primas*.
– No assertion that all learning, including oriental or secular scholarship, must be subjected to the yoke of Christ and His infallible Magisterium.
– An “Apostolic Blessing” used as liturgical varnish on an essentially naturalistic encomium.
This is how apostasy operates historically: the language of the true Church is retained externally, but emptied of its content and re-ordered towards the world. The faithful are lulled into accepting a new orientation because it comes clothed in Latin and traditional forms.
Silence About the Enemy: The Gravest Omission
Most significant is the total absence of any awareness of the true crisis of the 20th century:
– modernist infiltration;
– masonic, socialist, and laicist aggression;
– doctrinal relativism;
– liturgical disintegration already in preparation.
Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI spoke constantly of these threats; they condemned, unmasked, and armed the faithful. In contrast, this letter—and innumerable similar texts of the conciliar usurpers—substitutes vigilance with compliments.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, such blindness in the supreme leadership cannot be accidental. It is symptomatic of a false shepherd who, instead of warning against wolves, congratulates one of his chief collaborators for being honored in the very circles where Christ’s kingship is denied.
Conclusion: An Edifying Void as Evidence of a New Cult
Taken line by line, this letter might appear “harmless.” But evaluated under the immutable Catholic doctrine before 1958, it reveals:
– a displacement of supernatural criteria by worldly ones;
– a proto-ecumenical, diplomatic mentality;
– a modernist style masking itself in traditional Latin;
– a studied silence regarding the rights of God, the necessity of conversion, and the war against error.
In classical theology, *qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent is seen to consent) applies above all to pastors who, in face of doctrinal confusion and public apostasy, refrain from affirming the uncompromising claims of Christ the King and His Church.
This letter is not simply a courtesy note. It is a small but pure specimen of the mentality that gave birth to the conciliar sect: a mentality which kneels before cultural prestige instead of leading all nations, academies included, to the feet of the Crucified King in whose Kingdom alone—Pius XI teaches—there is true peace, order, and truth.
Source:
Hoc mense – Epistula ad Eugenium S. R. E. Cardinalem Tisserant, Episcopum Ostiensem, Portuensem et S. Rufinae, quinque lustra implentem ex quo Sacra Romana honestatus est Purpura, d. 15 m. Iunii a. 19… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025