The document is a Latin letter of John XXIII to Joseph Urtasun, “archbishop” of Avignon, commemorating the 600th anniversary of the death of Innocent VI and the election of “Blessed” Urban V. John XXIII praises both Avignon pontiffs as models of ecclesiastical discipline, learning, peace-making, and attachment to the papal office, and uses their memory to exhort the faithful to venerate and adhere to the Roman Pontificate in view of the impending Second Vatican Council, presenting the “Holy See” as the unique center of unity and hope for a disoriented world. In reality, this polished panegyric is a programmatic apologia for the conciliar usurpation of authority, built on selective history, hollow rhetoric, and a deliberate instrumentalization of true papal titles in the mouth of one who was already dismantling the very papacy he invokes.
Avignon Echoes in the Age of Usurpation
The entire text must be read as a self-referential manifesto of the conciliar revolution. John XXIII, already engaged in convoking the neo-council that would inaugurate post-conciliarism, wraps himself in the mantle of two genuine medieval pontiffs in order to transfer to his own person and to his future council the traditional reverence due to the Roman Pontificate, while simultaneously emptying it of its doctrinal content.
From the perspective of *integral Catholic doctrine* (unchanged, ante-1958), the letter is not an innocent historical remembrance but a strategic construction serving four interlinked operations:
– The political sacralization of the coming Vatican II as a new universal hope.
– The subtle relativization of the historic Roman anchoring of the papacy under a pious gloss on Avignon.
– The exploitation of patristic authorities (Augustine, Bonaventure) in order to legitimate an authority already directing the Church toward condemned liberal, ecumenical, and modernist positions.
– The systematic omission of any clear confession of the *full* doctrinal prerogatives of the papacy as guardian of immutable truth, replacing them with generalized calls for “adhesion” and naturalistic expectations of societal benefit.
What appears as filial piety toward predecessors is, in substance, the self-legitimizing speech of a *maximus antistes* of the conciliar sect, who clothes his rupture with the past in the vocabulary of continuity.
Historical Exemplarity as a Tool for Self-Legitimation
John XXIII begins by rejoicing that Urtasun plans a dual commemoration of Innocent VI’s death and Urban V’s election, “who governed the Church in difficult and troubled times, when the Vicar of Christ… dwelt in Avignon.” He recalls with sentiment his own visits to Avignon and evokes the virtues of these popes: zeal for discipline, learning, promotion of peace, concern for the Roman return.
Two key moves occur here:
1. Innocent VI is praised for restoring ecclesiastical discipline and religious life, sending Cardinal Albornoz to order the Papal States and prepare the return to Rome.
2. Urban V is extolled for austerity, learning, support of letters, attachment to Rome, care for the Holy Places, and efforts for reunion with Eastern Christians; his cult as “Blessed” is ratified by Pius IX.
On the surface, none of this is problematic as historical recollection. But the intention is not mere history:
– By accenting their sanctity, discipline, and Roman consciousness, John XXIII weaves a parallel to his own role, implicitly suggesting that his pontificate and his council are in the same line: guardians of discipline, peacemakers, promoters of learning, servants of unity.
– He pointedly notes that the Avignon residence — a deviation from the “native” Roman seat — was nevertheless not without providential utility for peace among rulers. Here he inserts an interpretive key: even dislocations in papal residence are “not without utility,” are providential, and do not touch the essence of authority.
This rhetoric prepares the more insidious later move: to normalize his own revolutionary orientation and the displacement of Catholic life from the perennial Roman doctrinal axis to the new, planetary, ecumenical “center” of Vatican II. The memory of Avignon becomes a subtle precedent for structural irregularity presented as providential.
However:
– Innocent VI and Urban V, for all human limitations, did not relativize dogma, did not enthrone religious liberty, did not dilute the claims of the unica Ecclesia, did not attempt to reconcile “the Church” with condemned liberalism; they labored precisely within the framework later reaffirmed by Pius IX in the *Syllabus* and by Pius XI in *Quas Primas*.
– To invoke them as precursors of a council that would promote exactly those errors is a grave abuse of historical continuity. It violates the principle *non licet accommodare traditionem ad errores* (it is not permitted to bend tradition to errors).
Thus, from the factual level, the letter is already tendentious: it selects authentic exemplars in order to cloak an inauthentic agenda.
The Rhetoric of Reverence: High Words, Hollow Content
The linguistic tissue of the letter is pious, elegant, ostensibly traditional. John XXIII:
– Emphasizes the “Vicar of Christ,” the “Summus Pontifex.”
– Cites Augustine on God not abandoning His Church and using tempests to make her pray.
– Cites Bonaventure describing the pope as “primus et summus pater spiritualis… caput indivisum, Pontifex summus, Christi vicarius” (the first and highest spiritual father… undivided head, supreme Pontiff, vicar of Christ).
At first glance, this appears as a robust reaffirmation of papal monarchy. But precisely here lies the modernist method condemned by St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*: maintain the traditional formulas while secretly altering their referent and practical application.
Several linguistic symptoms expose this:
– The letter exalts the dignity and office “to which he who holds them is made” that father and head, but it says nothing about that office as divinely bound to guarding, defining, and defending immutable dogma against error. The Papacy is presented primarily as a unifying, fatherly, symbolic center.
– The quotes from Augustine and Bonaventure are deployed to confer sacral aura on the occupant, not to recall the doctrinal obligations that condition the legitimacy of his magisterium. There is no hint that a pope who would promote errors condemned by prior popes would thereby forfeit real authority.
This is linguistic mystification:
– The same mouth that here solemnly repeats “Christi vicarius” is the mouth that convened the council which would enshrine the very opinions anathematized by Pius IX in the *Syllabus* (e.g. propositions 15–18, 55, 77–80 on religious indifferentism, separation of Church and State, reconciliation with “modern civilization”).
– The same voice that lauds a pope for restoring discipline presides over the demolition of ecclesiastical discipline through liturgical experimentation and doctrinal loosening.
By retaining the high titles while detaching them from their doctrinal content, John XXIII exploits Catholic vocabulary to legitimize non-Catholic practice. This is a classic instance of *verba tenere, res negare* (holding the words, denying the reality).
Silencing the True Mission of the Papacy
The most damning element is what is not said.
Throughout the letter, the papal office is praised; but:
– No mention is made of the papal duty to condemn heresy explicitly and to safeguard the faithful from doctrinal corruption.
– No reference appears to the binding condemnations of the 19th–early 20th century Magisterium, especially concerning liberalism, religious freedom, false ecumenism, and secret societies — precisely the errors preparing the soil for Vatican II.
– There is absolute silence about the necessity of submission to defined dogma in order to be united to the Papacy. Instead, the text suggests that an affective “adhesion” to the See is almost self-sufficient.
He writes that from Rome:
“light goes out, which dispels darkness, and strength is supplied by which souls are invigorated, and many, even those not of the Catholic name, look up to this Roman See, recognizing the vanity of the aids of this world and the failure of human attempts to stabilize society while neglecting divine law.”
This passage is outwardly orthodox: acknowledgment that without divine law, human projects fail. Yet:
– There is no clear, exclusive assertion that this “light” is intrinsically bound to the integral doctrine previously taught, and that any deviation from that doctrine would cease to be light.
– Instead, this sets up the narrative that the world’s crises find solution in “turning eyes to Rome” — understood as the conciliar Rome about to open Vatican II. Thus the office is detached from doctrinal continuity and made into a sacramentalized center of dialogue and moral encouragement.
Pius XI in *Quas Primas* states unequivocally that peace and order cannot exist unless states and societies publicly recognize and submit to the social Kingship of Christ, and he explicitly condemns the secularist, laicist project that would banish Christ and His Church from public life. He does not offer vague consolations; he demands conversion of nations.
John XXIII, on the contrary:
– Offers Rome as a “chair of unity” and a source of strength while keeping silence on the necessity for nations to accept the full Catholic faith, reject errors, and submit their public law to Christ the King.
– Prepares the narrative by which Vatican II will “reconcile” the Church with what Pius IX condemned (Syllabus prop. 80: the claim that the Pope can and should reconcile himself with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization).
This suppression of the papal office as *organon veritatis* (instrument of truth) in favour of the papal office as sentimental center of humanity is not accidental; it is intrinsic to the conciliar project.
The Vatican II Prelude: A Council Against the Magisterium
Central in the letter is the orientation toward the imminent council:
“With particular interest they now turn to this Roman See in the present time, because here at the tomb of Blessed Peter a singular assembly will soon take place, namely the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council. Pray, we ask, in that Avignon celebration… that this may bring great fruits of vigor of spirit to the Church and indeed to the whole human community.”
Here the mask drops.
The entire construction — praise of Innocent VI and Urban V, affirmation of the papal office, citing Augustine and Bonaventure, talk of the world’s crises — converges to a single practical exhortation: intercede for the success of Vatican II as a boon not only for the Church but for “the whole human community.”
Several points must be made with doctrinal precision:
1. Before 1958, the Magisterium had repeatedly and forcefully condemned:
– Religious indifferentism and the idea that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Syllabus, 15–18).
– The separation of Church and State and the thesis that the State owes no public worship to the true God (Syllabus, 55; *Quas Primas*).
– The reconciliation of the Church with liberalism and “modern civilization” understood as neutral or hostile to revealed truth (Syllabus, 80).
– Modernist doctrines of the evolution of dogma, relativization of Scripture, and democratization of the Magisterium (Lamentabili, Pascendi).
2. Vatican II, as later expressed in documents such as:
– “Dignitatis humanae” (religious freedom),
– “Nostra aetate” (relations with non-Christian religions),
– “Unitatis redintegratio” (ecumenism),
systematically adopts positions irreconcilable with the previous condemnations, precisely on the issues Pius IX and St. Pius X had closed.
John XXIII’s letter is thus a prelude: he presents the council not as a defensive reaffirmation of the condemnations, but as an event expected to renew spiritual vigor and benefit “all mankind.” The phraseology is universalist, human-community oriented, without the sharp confessional lines that characterised all previous solemn pronouncements.
The shift is subtle but radical:
– Traditional councils are called to define and defend dogma, condemn errors, heal schisms through conversion, and strengthen discipline.
– Here the council is projected as a quasi-charismatic gathering whose fruits are evaluated in terms of broad “vigor” and usefulness for humanity at large, with no mention of the anathemas that safeguarded the flock.
This is a practical denial of the principles reiterated in *Lamentabili* (e.g. condemned propositions 57–65 on transforming doctrine into a dogmaless Christianity compatible with modern knowledge). By linking Vatican II to the venerable succession of Roman councils while evacuating its defensive function, John XXIII fosters the illusion of continuity while directing the Church into rupture.
Theological Inversion: Veneration Without Truth
The closing exhortation is revealing:
– The faithful of Avignon are to draw from the celebration of Innocent VI and Urban V an invitation to “rightly esteem the Supreme Pontificate and adhere to it with all their heart”; the dignity and office themselves are to be considered.
– The letter bestows an “Apostolic Blessing” as pledge of paternal will.
What is systematically omitted is decisive:
– No distinction is made between adherence to the office as divinely instituted and blind adhesion to any occupant regardless of doctrine.
– No recognition is given to the patristic and classical principle, recalled by theological authorities prior to 1958, that a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church because he is not even a member of the Church (*non potest esse caput Ecclesiae qui ne membrum quidem est*).
– No warning is given that fidelity to the papacy is fidelity to the perennial Magisterium, not to novelties contradicting it.
Instead, we witness an attempt to absolutize personal adhesion to the conciliar usurper under cover of reverence for the office. This is the operational heart of post-conciliarism: use the supernatural claims attached to the papacy to force acceptance of naturalistic, liberal, ecumenical, and modernist programs condemned by previous popes.
The effect is devastating:
– The papal monarchy, instituted to guard *depositum fidei* (the deposit of faith), is transformed into a psychological and political instrument to impose the dismantling of that very deposit.
– The faithful are disarmed: taught to conflate loyalty to the papacy with submission to a mutation of doctrine.
This inversion is precisely what Pius IX had foreseen when he condemned proposition 23 of the *Syllabus* (“Roman pontiffs… have even erred in defining matters of faith and morals”) by safeguarding papal infallibility — not as license for novelty, but as guarantee against it. John XXIII’s programmatic letter prepares an exploitation of infallibility’s aura while functionally sidelining its conditions and limits.
Avignon and the Conciliar Sect: A Perverse Parallelogram
On the symptomatic level, the letter’s fascination with Avignon residence deserves attention.
John XXIII notes that Innocent VI and Urban V, though far from “their proper and native See,” nonetheless bore fruit, particularly as peace-makers among temporal rulers. He then generalizes: such perturbations, including popes away from Rome, occur “not without salutary counsel of divine Providence.”
Two insinuations flow from this:
– Spatial irregularity (Avignon instead of Rome) did not destroy papal authority; therefore, structural irregularities of the post-1958 era (a papacy preaching a new orientation) should be seen as providential, not as signs of usurpation.
– The usefulness of Avignon popes in mediating peace with civil powers becomes a paradigm for a papacy engaged primarily in diplomacy, dialogue, and global humanitarian leadership — as would be showcased by the conciliar and post-conciliar antipopes.
But the analogy is false at its core:
– Innocent VI and Urban V, despite political pressures, governed within the same dogmatic framework as their predecessors and successors. They did not teach that non-Catholic religions are salvific paths, did not endorse religious liberty as a right rooted in human dignity, did not participate in interreligious ceremonies that blur the First Commandment.
– The outward displacement to Avignon was a contingent accident; the doctrinal identity of the Papacy remained intact.
– The conciliar sect, by contrast, maintains geographical Rome but exiles the Roman Faith. It is an *anti-Avignon*: the walls and titles are left in place, while the content is moved into the camp of those condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
John XXIII’s providential reading of previous “turbations” thus functions to anesthetize resistance: what is in fact a betrayal of the Papacy’s essence is represented as just another mysterious trial through which fidelity is to be shown by submission.
Yet the Fathers and pre-1958 theologians teach the opposite: fidelity in times of doctrinal deviation consists not in servile adherence to the deviant, but in adherence to what the Papacy has always taught. The letter reverses this.
Naturalistic Undertones and Humanitarian Drift
Finally, the consistent turn toward “the whole human community” is doctrinally symptomatic.
When John XXIII exhorts prayers that the upcoming council may bring “abundant fruits of spiritual vigor” to the Church and even to “the entire community of men,” he shifts from the supernatural end (salvation of souls through adherence to the true faith and sacraments) to a vague beneficence for humanity.
Compare this with the pre-conciliar clarity:
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that any hope of lasting peace and social order depends entirely on public recognition of Christ’s Kingship; the problem of the age is denial of Christ, secularization, and rejection of His Church’s rights. The remedy is explicit subjection of individuals and states to Christ.
– Pius IX’s *Syllabus* condemns the claim that civil liberty of all cults and full public expression of any opinion is a neutral or positive good (79). He identifies in Freemasonry and similar sects the organized enemy of the Church seeking to build society without God.
John XXIII mentions neither the social Kingship of Christ nor the Masonic project, though both are the obvious theological context for his age. Instead, he speaks in generic terms of the failure of purely human attempts that “neglect divine law,” and then proposes Rome (that is, his Rome, his council) as the place where “light” and “strength” originate.
This is a critical shift:
– The problem is framed as insufficiency of human projects, not as formal rebellion against the Kingship of Christ and the authority of the Catholic Church.
– The solution is framed as turning to the “See of Peter” in its conciliar form, imagined as compatible with “modern civilization,” rather than turning back to the rejected condemnations of liberalism and indifferentism.
Such language is a bridge to the post-conciliar cult of “human dignity,” “dialogue,” and “universal fraternity” devoid of the uncompromising affirmation of the one true Church and the necessity of conversion. It aligns precisely with the tendencies anathematized by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*: reducing dogma to an expression of religious sentiment compatible with the evolving consciousness of humanity.
Conclusion: Ornamented Words for an Empty Throne
Taken in isolation, the letter might appear as a gracious historical homage. Read in its true context — 1962, on the eve of Vatican II, issued by John XXIII — it is a crafted piece of ideological preparation:
– It decorates the notion of the Papacy with patristic and medieval gold leaf while preparing to subject it to a council programmed to dilute its doctrinal function.
– It instrumentalizes authentic pontiffs of Avignon as icons to legitimize a “pontificate” that would oversee the introduction of teachings and attitudes directly contrary to the pre-1958 Magisterium.
– It conditions the faithful to equate loyalty to the Papacy with support for a future council whose documents, in fact, clash with the *Syllabus*, *Quas Primas*, and the anti-modernist magisterium.
– It replaces the robust, juridical, dogmatic self-understanding of the Roman See with a soft-focus image of a humanitarian lighthouse for all humanity.
The theological and spiritual bankruptcy is thus not in the letter’s citations but in its subtext: a smooth rhetorical transfer of sacred predicates to an agenda that undermines the very truths these predicates were instituted to protect.
In the light of the perennial Catholic doctrine before 1958, such a text must be unmasked not as a filial memorial, but as a polite manifesto of usurpation: high-sounding praise of the Papacy in the mouth of one preparing to bend it into an instrument of the conciliar sect, where unity is purchased at the price of truth, and veneration of office is invoked to cloak the mutation of faith.
Source:
Duplicis anniversariae – Epistula ad Iosephum Urtasun, Archiepiscopum Avenionensem, sexto exacto saeculo a pio Innocentii Pp. VI obitu et B. Urbani Pp. V ad Petri Sedem electione, d. 11 m. Iulii a. 19… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025