This Latin letter of John XXIII to Otmar Degryse, superior general of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM), marks the centenary of that missionary institute by praising its rapid expansion, extolling its labor in numerous countries (especially in China), honoring its sufferings and martyrs, and imparting an “Apostolic Blessing” with the hope of renewed access to the Chinese mission fields and greater diffusion of the Gospel under Mary’s patronage. Its sugary exaltation of a missionary institute serves as a pious veil for the emerging conciliar revolution, substituting sentimental rhetoric and geopolitical accommodation for the clear, unbending proclamation of the Kingship of Christ and the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church.
Celebrating an Illusory Continuity: John XXIII’s Missionary Panegyric as Prelude to Betrayal
Direct Antipontifical Premise: A Spurious “Successor of Peter” in 1962
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the very signature “IOANNES PP. XXIII” already demands judgment, not deference.
– John XXIII inaugurates the line of usurpers whose program dismantles the doctrinal edifice solemnly defended by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII. His pontificate is inseparable from the convocation and direction of the Second Vatican Council, the matrix of the *conciliar sect*.
– The letter is dated March 27, 1962: at the threshold of Vatican II, in the moment when the enemies of the faith are about to be enthroned within ecclesiastical structures rather than fought, as Pius IX and St. Pius X had demanded.
Thus, this seemingly minor text is not innocent devotional prose. It is an ideological fragment: a crafted piece of “normal” pre-conciliar style marshaled to legitimize the man who will launch the *abomination of desolation* in the sanctuary under the label of aggiornamento.
Already here we must say: *persona non stabit pro regula fidei* (the person cannot stand as the rule of faith). His authority is weighed against the perennial Magisterium; when found contrary, it is void.
Factual Level: Sentimental Triumph Versus Concrete Catastrophe
John XXIII composes an exuberant hymn of gratitude for the CICM:
– He praises the “unusual growth” of the institute founded by Theophile Verbist, presenting it as a flourishing tree casting salvific shade over “China, Congo, the Philippines, the United States, Indonesia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Guatemala, Formosa, Hong Kong, Malaya.”
– He exalts their missionaries as heralds whose “beautiful feet” announce peace and salvation (Is 52:7), and he invokes Heb 11:36 regarding sufferings, imprisonments, even martyrdom.
– He asserts that their blood is “dew” fecundating the evangelical field and a pledge of future successes.
– He ardently expresses the wish that they might return to the Chinese mission territories “from which sad events have driven you away,” so that “the word of God may run and be glorified” (2 Thess 3:1).
On the surface, all seems traditionally Catholic. But the omissions and distortions are lethal.
1. The letter ignores explicitly:
– The communist, atheistic, and intrinsically anti-Christian nature of the Chinese regime.
– The systematic persecution, imprisonment, torture, and killing of clergy and faithful by that regime.
– The doctrinal obligation of states and nations to recognize the reign of Christ the King.
2. The exile from China is described only as “tristes eventus” (“sad events”), a naturalistic euphemism that refuses to name communism as an instrument of anti-Christian revolution condemned repeatedly by Pius XI and Pius XII.
3. Absent is any reminder that:
– There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church as defined by the perennial Magisterium (cf. Florence, Trent, Pius IX’s Syllabus).
– Missions exist to bring souls from paganism, schism, heresy into explicit, obedient submission to the one Church of Christ.
– The martyrdom of missionaries is testimony against false religions and false states, not a sentimental capital to foster dialogue with tyrannies.
Instead, we are given an anodyne, depoliticized, deracinated narrative that can be seamlessly recycled into the later conciliar dialect of “dialogue,” “religious liberty,” and “mutual understanding” with regimes and sects that reject Christ.
This is not a harmless style; it is a deliberate softening of doctrinal clarity.
Language as Symptom: Saccharine Rhetoric Concealing Doctrinal Surrender
The vocabulary and tone are crucial evidence.
John XXIII’s letter is drenched in:
– “Gratiarum actio, caritatis canticum novum, exsultationis et laetitiae” – a “song of charity and joy.”
– Emotive laudations of “fortitude and generous character,” “maternal sweetness” of Mary, “Cor Mariae, cor Ecclesiae.”
– A smooth, courtly Roman style that simulates continuity with earlier papal letters.
Yet:
1. There is almost no militant or juridical Church language:
– No insistence on the exclusive truth of the Catholic Church against false religions.
– No explicit condemnation of communism (contrary to Pius XI’s firm language).
– No reminder that civil authorities must submit to Christ the King, as solemnly taught in Quas Primas.
2. Scripture is used selectively and sentimentalized:
– Is 52:7 is invoked, but without its implication of God’s victorious kingship over the nations and idols.
– The imagery of “dew” (blood and sweat) is romanticized, without the concomitant assertion that such martyrdom cries to Heaven for judgment on persecutors and for the conversion—not the flattery—of anti-Christian powers.
3. The language of suffering:
– Persecution is described in generic biblical terms: “alii vero ludibria et verbera experti”; this is orthodox in itself.
– But it is detached from concrete denunciation of the ideological system responsible. This is a modernist technique: keep the pious vocabulary, remove the accusatory content.
This rhetorical anesthesia is precisely what St. Pius X exposes in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi: the use of Catholic-sounding language to introduce a new consciousness in which dogma is quietly relativized, politics is divorced from the Kingship of Christ, and history is re-narrated in a conciliatory key.
The silence speaks louder than the words.
Theological Level I: Missions Without the Exclusive, Visible Church
Authentic Catholic doctrine (before 1958) on missions is unequivocal:
– The Church is a *perfect society* with the exclusive mandate to teach all nations, baptize them, and subject them to Christ’s law (cf. Mt 28:19-20; Vatican I; Pius IX’s Syllabus, propositions 15-18 condemned).
– Pagans, heretics, and schismatics are called, not to “dialogue,” but to conversion—entrance into the one Ark of Salvation.
In the letter:
– John XXIII praises the CICM as a great missionary force.
– Yet he carefully avoids restating the hard doctrinal claims that:
– False religions are condemned errors.
– States must not remain neutral toward the true religion.
– Missions are ordered to establish the social and public rights of Christ the King.
He writes of “veritatis lux” and “caelestis gratiae thesauri,” but:
– There is no reaffirmation that those outside the Church are in grave peril of damnation.
– There is no call for the nations mentioned (China, Japan, etc.) to submit as nations to Christ the King.
This selective omission subtly redefines the missionary ideal:
– From: converting nations and legislations to Christ and His Church.
– To: disseminating a generalized “Gospel presence” and humanitarian “service,” easily compatible with the liberal and Masonic idea that all religions and ideologies can coexist on the same level.
This stands in tension with Pius XI in Quas Primas, who declares that:
– Peace and order will not shine upon the nations until they recognize the reign of Christ and submit their laws to His commandments.
– The Church cannot accept a “neutral” state that places Catholicism on the same plane as false cults.
John XXIII’s silence here is not accidental; it conforms to the conciliar project that will soon enshrine “religious freedom” and demolish the Syllabus’ condemnation of indifferentism (propositions 15-18), and of the separation of Church and State (55), and of liberalism (77-80).
Theological Level II: Marian Language Instrumentalized for a Neo-Church
The letter exhorts the CICM:
“ut materno praedulci nomine honestati, id, quo appellamini, verius et plenius cotidie sitis, quodam modo Cor Mariae, cor Ecclesiae intra pectoris claustra gerentes”
“that, adorned with the most sweet maternal name, you may daily be more truly and fully what you are called: in a certain way bearing within your breast the Heart of Mary, the heart of the Church.”
At first glance, this is pious and orthodox-sounding. But again, note the shift:
1. Mary is invoked primarily affectively, as “maternal sweetness,” a consoling symbol.
2. There is no mention of:
– Mary as the destroyer of all heresies.
– Her active enmity against the serpent and all his works.
– Her queenship over nations under Christ the King.
Instead, Marian language is employed as a unifying emotional motif that can be easily co-opted into the coming conciliar cult of sentimental pseudo-Marianism, detached from doctrinal militancy. Marian devotion becomes decor for a neo-church that tolerates Modernism, ecumenism, and interreligious relativism.
Integral Catholic faith demands that Marian consecration mean unflinching fidelity to the whole dogmatic patrimony, including the unpopularity of condemning errors. John XXIII’s text uses Marian vocabulary while conspicuously refraining from doctrinal battle—a sign of instrumentalization.
Symptomatic Level: This Letter as Microcosm of the Conciliar Revolution
This short epistle reveals several structural traits that will define post-1958 apostasy:
1. Naturalistic understatement of anti-Christian persecution:
– Persecution in communist China is reduced to “sad events.”
– There is no reiteration of the grave doctrinal condemnation of atheistic communism as done by Pius XI and Pius XII.
– This prepares the ground for later shameful accords and compromises with communist regimes, where the *conciliar sect* sacrifices faithful Catholics to political accommodation.
2. Substitution of doctrinal clarity with emotive gratitude:
– The letter is a “caritatis canticum novum,” but charity severed from truth becomes flattery.
– It praises missionary heroism, but does not command the institute to resist Modernism, syncretism, or false ecumenism.
– Silence about Modernism is particularly grave on the eve of Vatican II, when St. Pius X’s condemnations in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi should have been reaffirmed with maximum vigor, not quietly shelved.
3. Illusory continuity:
– Stylistically, the letter mimics pre-conciliar Roman curial language to reassure the faithful that nothing essential is changing.
– Substantively, it omits precisely those elements—condemnations, exclusivity, Kingship of Christ, error of liberalism and indifferentism—that defined the pre-1958 Magisterium.
This is exactly how revolutions operate within institutions:
– retain forms,
– hollow out content,
– shift vocabulary from judicial to therapeutic,
– and use harmless occasions (like an anniversary letter) to normalize the revolutionary as legitimate shepherd.
Christ the King Silenced: Contradiction with Quas Primas and the Syllabus
Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925) solemnly teaches:
– That the misery of nations is due to having rejected the reign of Christ from laws, education, public life.
– That rulers and nations must publicly recognize and honor Christ the King.
– That the Church cannot accept the secularist, laicist, neutralist state.
Pius IX in the Syllabus (1864) condemns as errors:
– That every man is free to embrace whatever religion he deems true (15).
– That man can find eternal salvation in any religion (16).
– That Protestantism is another form of true Christian religion (18).
– That the Church must be separated from the State (55).
– That liberty of all forms of worship benefits society and morality (79).
– That the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization (80).
Measured against this:
– John XXIII’s letter to the CICM is a striking refusal to apply the principles of Quas Primas and the Syllabus to the concrete context of missionary territories and communist persecution.
– Instead of calling nations and regimes to submit to Christ and His Church, he opts for an irenic, ambiguous, and purely consolatory note.
This silence is not benign. It is an implicit contradiction of prior doctrine by omission and tone, training missionary religious to think in terms of emotions and neutral “service” rather than in the supernatural and political absoluteness of Christ’s Kingship.
Misuse of Martyrdom: Blood as Ornament for a Neo-Mission Ideology
The letter asserts that:
“sudor et sanguis fortium magni aestimandus ros est, qui glaebas fecundat, feliciorum eventuum haud fallacis spei pignus est”
“the sweat and blood of the brave is a dew which fertilizes the soil and is a sure pledge of happier outcomes.”
True in itself—but how is it employed?
– Authentic Catholic theology sees martyrdom as:
– An ultimate confession of the exclusive truth of Christ and His Church.
– A call to conversion and a judgment against persecutors and false beliefs.
– John XXIII uses the martyrdom language:
– Without explicitly connecting it to the condemnation of communist atheism.
– Without reinforcing the necessity of visible, integral Catholic faith as the condition for salvific fruit.
In effect, the martyrs’ blood is appropriated rhetorically to validate a policy that will, within a few years, mutate into conciliatory deals with enemies of the Church and accommodation to secular agendas. The martyrs, instead of being voices crying “Non licet!” to tyrants and heresiarchs, become anonymous ornaments for an optimistic narrative of “progress” and “new openings.”
This is a moral and theological inversion.
No Warning Against Modernism: Formal Continuity, Substantial Betrayal
It is 1962. The doctrinal background is stark:
– St. Pius X has condemned Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi, Lamentabili sane exitu), imposing anti-modernist measures on clergy and teaching institutions.
– Pius XI and Pius XII have repeatedly upheld these condemnations.
– Modernist infiltration into seminaries, universities, and religious orders is a known and growing plague.
In such a context, a genuinely Catholic occupant of the Roman See addressing a major missionary congregation on its centenary—on the eve of a council—would:
– Solemnly exhort them to absolute fidelity to anti-modernist doctrine and discipline.
– Warn against:
– Denial of biblical inerrancy.
– Evolution of dogma.
– False ecumenism.
– Dilution of missionary zeal into humanitarianism.
– Reaffirm that the Church’s mission is to convert, not merely “dialogue.”
John XXIII does none of this.
– Not a single admonition against Modernism appears.
– Not a single word warns against softening doctrine for “adaptation” to cultures, ideologies, or modern sensitivities.
– On the contrary, everything in his pontificate’s broader context (convocation of a council explicitly refusing condemnatory language, rehabilitations of previously suspect theologians, etc.) shows that the silence is strategic.
Thus this letter participates in a broader betrayal: the abandonment of vigilant, condemnatory, supernatural Catholicity in favor of a conciliatory, naturalistic, horizontal religion—what will soon manifest as the *Church of the New Advent*.
Conclusion: A Devotional Mask for the Systemic Apostasy to Come
Seen in isolation, the “Gratiarum actio” can be misread as a harmless, even edifying note of thanks to brave missionaries. Viewed in the light of pre-1958 doctrine and of the subsequent conciliar catastrophe, it is something else:
– A calculated exercise in apparent continuity, where:
– The vocabulary of sacrifice, Marian devotion, and missions is preserved.
– The hard edges of doctrine—exclusive salvation, condemnation of error, social Kingship of Christ, denunciation of communism and liberalism, anti-modernist rigor—are conspicuously absent.
– A rhetorical prototype of post-conciliar discourse:
– Sentimental, non-judgmental, adaptable to “dialogue” with regimes and religions that reject Christ.
– Instrumentalizing missionaries and martyrs as adornments of an aggiornamento that will:
– Replace the Most Holy Sacrifice with desacralized rites.
– Treat all religions as partners.
– Enshrine religious liberty and humanistic ideologies condemned by the Syllabus.
– Suppress the integral Catholic faith to erect a paramasonic neo-church.
Under the norms of the unchanging Magisterium, such an approach is indefensible. Where Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII speak with crystalline supernatural realism and juridical precision, John XXIII’s letter offers a gentle haze.
In that haze, error advances unopposed. This is why an apparently minor document deserves uncompromising exposure: it is one more piece of the mask behind which the conciliar usurpers concealed their war against the faith.
Source:
Gratiarum actio – Epistula ad Otmarum Degrijse, Congregationis Immaculati Cordis Mariae Moderatorem Generalem, primo saeculo volvente ex quo eadem Congregatio condita est, 27 Martii a. 1962, Ioannes P… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025