In this Italian-language letter dated 28 October 1962, the usurper Giovanni Battista Roncalli (John XXIII) writes from the Apostolic Palace to Giovanni Battista Montini, then “Cardinal” and “Archbishop” of Milan, on the occasion of inaugurating a bronze statue of Roncalli in the Marian sanctuary Madonna del Bosco. Roncalli recalls with nostalgia his childhood attachment to the shrine, his previous visits, the coronation of the image in 1954, and his last visit in August 1958 before assuming universal governance. He interprets the erection of his own statue as a “devout homage” to the Apostolic See and “the Pope,” praises the faith of the Lombard populations, and urges increased prayers for the “Holy Church” and for the conciliar assembly gathered in St. Peter’s, concluding with his “blessing.”
Idolatrous Self-Exaltation at Madonna del Bosco as Prelude to Conciliar Ruin
Personal Cult in Sacred Space Against the Kingship of Christ
At the factual level, this brief letter revolves around one central act: the celebration of a bronze statue of Roncalli erected within a Marian sanctuary, framed as a sign of love for the “Pope” and the Apostolic See.
Roncalli writes of the monument as:
“un ricordo in bronzo colà eretto all’umile Nostra persona… che rende più viva e sensibile la Nostra spirituale presenza in codesto luogo benedetto”
(“a bronze memorial erected there to Our humble person… which makes Our spiritual presence in that blessed place more vivid and tangible”).
This is not a mere polite acknowledgment; it is an explicit theological framing of his own quasi-sacramental “presence” through a statue in a sanctuary. In *Quas Primas*, Pius XI teaches that true peace and order come from recognizing the *regnum Christi* in public and private life; all cult, honor, and social veneration are to be subordinated to the universal Kingship of Christ. Here, however, we see:
– The sanctuary dedicated to the Mother of God being used to enthrone the image of a living (in reality: future) architect of the conciliar revolution.
– A shift from Marian and Christocentric worship to a personality cult around the head of the emerging conciliar sect.
– A subtle usurpation of space and symbolism: what should be an icon of the *regnum Christi* becomes a stage for the self-exaltation of the man who will convoke the council that enthrones laicism, religious liberty, and false ecumenism condemned by Pius IX in the *Syllabus Errorum* and by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane* and *Pascendi*.
Integral Catholic doctrine knows only one legitimate center of visible veneration in the Church: Christ the King present in the Most Holy Sacrifice, with His Mother and His saints honored solely because they lead to Him. The replacement of that supernatural hierarchy with the bronze image of a reigning innovator is a symbolic inversion. It is already the cult of the conciliar man, of the “new orientation,” not of Christ crucified and reigning.
Linguistic Sugar-Coating: Sentimentality as a Vehicle of Subversion
The language of this letter is revealing. The entire text is soaked in emotionalism, self-referential memories, and aesthetic sentiment, virtually devoid of precise supernatural doctrine.
Key features:
– Recurrent emphasis on “soave pensiero” (gentle thought), “ineffabile sorriso di cielo” (ineffable smile of heaven), “particolare incanto” (particular enchantment), “amabile atto” (amiable act). This syrupy tone is a hallmark of modernist rhetoric: sentiment displaces dogmatic clarity, emotion masks doctrinal rupture.
– Self-styling as “umile Nostra persona” while accepting a bronze statue in his honor inside a sanctuary. This is not humility; it is calculated self-mystification. Authentic Catholic humility flees such honors or tolerates them reluctantly and silently; it does not glorify them as making one’s “spiritual presence” more vivid.
– The gathering of “Milanesi, Bergamaschi e Comaschi” is described in terms of communal joy and “ben vivere e ben fare” (“to live well and do good”), a moralistic naturalism without mention of *state of grace*, *repentance*, *the necessity of the true Faith*, or *the Four Last Things*.
Notice above all the most damning silence: not one explicit word about sin, Hell, the need for conversion to the one true Church as defined against heresy and schism, the necessity of the Most Holy Sacrifice, or the absolute Kingship of Christ over nations. Instead, we find a vague exhortation to “multiply prayer” for the “Holy Church” and for the conciliar assembly—disconnected from any doctrinal content. This silence is not accidental; it is programmatic.
As St. Pius X exposed, the modernist speaks in pious tones while dissolving dogma in practice. The language of this letter is exemplary of that method: sweet, non-threatening, imprecise, horizontally oriented. It reveals a mentality shaped by the very laicism, sentimental humanitarianism, and liberalism solemnly condemned by Pius IX in the *Syllabus* (especially propositions 15–18, 55, 77–80).
Theological Bankruptcy: Marian Sanctuary Turned into a Stage for a Counter-Church
Measured by pre-1958 magisterial doctrine, the theological content and omissions of this text are grave.
1. Usurpation of ecclesial symbolism:
– Roncalli praises the erection of his statue as a “devout homage to the Apostolic See and to the Pope.” Yet true homage to the Apostolic See consists in adherence to its perennial teaching, not in cultic flattery of an individual who is already preparing to contradict his predecessors on religious liberty, ecumenism, and the relation of Church and State.
– Pius IX reaffirmed that the Roman Pontiff cannot “reconcile himself… with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Syllabus, prop. 80 condemned). Roncalli will in fact do precisely that through his conciliar project. The bronze statue therefore functions as a monument to the coming betrayal, disguised as loyalty.
2. Naturalization of devotion:
– The letter reduces the fruits of Marian devotion to “ben vivere e ben fare… prosperità e pace” (“to live well and do good… prosperity and peace”), without tying these goods explicitly and exclusively to submission to Christ the King and to the one true Faith. This is the naturalistic contamination repeatedly condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* insists that public peace and prosperity flow from acknowledging Christ’s royal rights and ordering laws, education, and civil life to His rule. Here, no such demand is articulated. Instead, the sanctuary celebration merges with regional pride and communal sentiment.
3. Silence on error and Modernism:
– In 1962, the very errors condemned by St. Pius X—*evolution of dogma, relativization of Scripture, democratization of doctrine*—were already deeply at work among theologians and bishops, including Montini. Roncalli chooses this moment not to warn, judge, or anathematize, but to congratulate and to request prayers for the very assembly where those errors will be politically enthroned.
– Where Pius X in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* uses precise dogmatic language and canonical sanctions (*anathema sit*, excommunication) against those who undermine Revelation, Roncalli uses poetic vagueness and emotional liturgical nationalism. This contrast is not stylistic; it is doctrinal.
4. Invocation of the Council as object of pious support:
– He exhorts the Lombard populations “a continuare e a moltiplicare la preghiera… particolarmente ora — per l’Assemblea Conciliare adunata in San Pietro” (“to continue and multiply prayer… particularly now—for the Conciliar Assembly gathered in St. Peter’s”). The faithful are thus mobilized not to defend defined doctrine, but to support an undefined “Assembly” that will attack the confessional State, promote religious liberty, and sow ecclesiological ambiguity—positions explicitly condemned by prior popes.
– This is the psychological inversion: authority is used not to guard the deposit of faith (*depositum fidei*), but to gather devotional capital around a political-theological project. The sanctuary becomes a propaganda space for the conciliar agenda.
This letter, though short, embodies what Pius X condemned as the modernist method: *corruptio optimi pessima* (the corruption of the best is the worst). Sacred language, Marian piety, and references to the Apostolic See are instrumentalized to introduce a new orientation incompatible with the immutable doctrine reiterated from Trent through Pius XII.
The Montini Factor: From Lombard Stagecraft to the Church of the New Advent
Addressed personally to Giovanni Battista Montini, the future usurper Paul VI, this text anticipates the tandem that will consummate the conciliar revolution. Several points are critical:
– Roncalli entrusts Montini with being his voice: “per la voce di Lei, Signor Cardinale” (“through your voice, Cardinal”). Symbolically, the sanctuary event merges Marian devotion, Roncalli’s personal cult, and Montini’s authority in Milan.
– Montini, already compromised by progressive and ecumenical tendencies, will become the key executor of the Council’s destructive program: the liturgical devastation, the cult of religious liberty, and the systematic neutralization of Catholic confessional identity.
– The letter’s benign tone masks an ecclesial strategy: to embed the conciliar project in popular piety, so that resistance appears as resistance not only to doctrinal novelty but also to “Marian” and “papal” devotion. This is manipulation of the sensus fidelium against the faith itself.
Measured against pre-1958 doctrine, this is a paradigmatic example of how the conciliar sect parasitically occupies Catholic symbols, shrines, and devotions to introduce its own antithetical agenda. The sanctuary of Madonna del Bosco becomes a laboratory of the Church of the New Advent, where smiles, statues, and bells drown out the voice of the true Magisterium.
Symptom of the Conciliar Sect: Personality, Emotion, and the Erasure of Judgment
Seen symptomatically, the elements of this letter map precisely onto the structural traits of post-conciliarism:
1. Personalist cult and papolatry
– The exaltation of Roncalli’s person as “spiritually present” via a statue in a holy place is a forerunner of the personality cult surrounding the later usurpers: images, slogans, sentimental devotions substituted for doctrinal obedience. This is not authentic *amor Papae* grounded in the Papacy’s divine constitution; it is psychological conditioning around individuals who overturn the teaching of their predecessors.
– Pre-1958 popes repeatedly insisted that the Pope is servant and guardian of a received deposit; here, the man who will alter everything accepts aesthetic glorification while leaving dogmatic clarity untouched.
2. Naturalistic and horizontal vocabulary
– Instead of calling Lombard faithful to defend the social Kingship of Christ against liberal, Masonic, and socialist assaults (vividly denounced by Pius IX and Leo XIII), Roncalli praises their “generosità della pratica cristiana” and asks them to pray for a Council without stating what doctrinal battles must be fought.
– The substitution of “prosperità e pace” for the supernatural horizon of salvation echoes the secularist “peace” projects condemned by Pius XI, who warned that peace without Christ the King is illusory and disordered.
3. Programmatic silence on Freemasonry and Modernism
– The FILE “The Syllabus of Errors” recalls the explicit identification of Masonic sects as the organized enemy of the Church, “the synagogue of Satan.” St. Pius X in *Pascendi* unmasks modernism as the synthesis of all heresies.
– Roncalli’s letter, at the opening of the very Council that will implement the demands of the world, contains no warning, no discernment, no doctrinal barrier. The omission is not neutral; it is complicity.
4. Reframing the Apostolic See
– The bronze statue is hailed as a homage “alla Sede Apostolica e al Papa.” In reality, honoring a man who will inaugurate rupture is not homage to the Apostolic See as divinely constituted but to the emerging paramasonic structure occupying it.
– By fusing loyalty to the See with admiration for its innovating occupant, the faithful are conditioned to accept any novelty as Catholic. This is the psychological key of the conciliar sect.
Contrast with the Immutable Magisterium: Why This Piety Is Spiritually Sterile
To expose fully the bankruptcy of the attitudes expressed, we must set them against pre-1958 magisterial principles:
– *Quas Primas* (Pius XI) teaches that Christ’s Kingship is rejected when states and societies refuse to recognize His rights publicly. Roncalli’s letter does not summon Italy or Lombardy to restore confessional order, nor to subject laws, schools, and customs to Christ’s law. Instead, it speaks of local identity, festivities, and a council that will later bless religious liberty and the separation of Church and State (Syllabus, prop. 55 condemned).
– Pius IX in the *Syllabus* condemns the notion that the Church must reconcile with liberalism and modern civilization, and that all religions should enjoy equal public rights. The council for which Roncalli requests prayer will in fact propagate these very principles. The silence of this letter about those dangers is a tacit betrayal of the *munus docendi* (teaching office).
– St. Pius X in *Lamentabili* condemns the idea that revelation and dogma are malleable historical expressions. Roncalli’s program, of which this text is a sentimental façade, will open the door to the evolutionary, historicist deformation of doctrine under the euphemism of “aggiornamento.”
Thus, what is presented as a harmless, even touching Marian and papal note is, when read in context, emblematic of the new religion taking shape: a religion of feelings, ceremonies, and personalities, emptied of the hard, saving truths of the Catholic Faith and weaponized to support an apostate council.
Conclusion: A Bronze Icon of the Abomination of Desolation
This letter is short, but spiritually transparent. In it we see:
– A Marian sanctuary subtly subordinated to the glorification of a man and his council.
– Emotional rhetoric used as camouflage for the absence of doctrinal precision and the refusal to confront condemned errors.
– The fusion of “devotion to the Pope” with support for an assembly destined to enshrine principles solemnly rejected by prior popes, thereby transforming obedience into a lever of apostasy.
– The emergence of the conciliar sect’s typical traits: personality cult, naturalism, sentimental pseudo-Marianism, silence on Modernism and Freemasonry, and the political instrumentalization of piety.
No amount of soft language or bells along the Brianza hills can sanctify this orientation. The true Church, as consistently taught until 1958, demands:
– Exclusive adherence to the integral Catholic Faith without evolution.
– Public submission of nations and laws to Christ the King.
– Rejection of liberalism, religious indifferentism, and all “dialogues” that relativize the unique salvific role of the Church.
– Guarding shrines and devotions from being annexed into projects that undermine dogma.
The bronze statue praised by Roncalli at Madonna del Bosco is therefore not a harmless ornament of piety. It is a cold, metallic symbol of the transfer of Catholic affection and trust from Christ and His unchanging doctrine to the human architects of the Church of the New Advent—a symbolic step in the installation of the abomination of desolation within what once appeared as the Holy Place.
Source:
Con soave – Lettera al Card. Montini, per l'inaugurazione nel Santuario della Madonna del Bosco di una statua del Santo Padre, di Giovanni XXIII, 28 ottobre 1962 (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025