The letter “Gratulamur” of 20 March 1962, issued by John XXIII to Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon, praises Lyon as host of the first worldwide missionary congress, extols its ancient martyrs and the figure of Pauline Jaricot, and encourages renewed commitment to the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith and to “missionary” activity adapted to “changed times,” coordinated, centralized and explicitly detached from political conditions, in the name of a universal, supra-national ecclesial action.
Beneath its polished Latin and historical allusions, this text is a programmatic manifesto of the conciliar sect’s horizontalized, naturalistic, centralized, and modernist reconfiguration of “mission,” already severed from the integral doctrine of Christ the King and preparing the demolition of true Catholic evangelization.
Programmatic Humanitarianism Disguised as Missionary Zeal
John XXIII’s letter must be read not as an innocuous note of encouragement, but as one of the early drafting notes of the neo-church’s global strategy. It sets a tone and an orientation that will be codified in the upcoming Vatican II documents and the entire post-1958 revolution.
Factual core of the document:
– He rejoices that Lyon was chosen for the first “Missionalis ex universis nationibus Conventus.”
– He praises Lyon’s missionary tradition, notably its martyrs and saints.
– He highlights Pauline Jaricot, founder of the Propagation of the Faith, and connects her charism to the modern Pontifical Mission Societies.
– He defines the purpose of the congress: to find “new ways” and “new methods” for missionary apostolate in “changed times,” strengthening the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith and integrating diocesan and national structures.
– He insists that missions must exercise more present efficacy, allegedly independent of political and earthly interests, in the name of a universal Church as “mother of all redeemed by Christ.”
– He presents centralized, pontifical missionary structures in Rome as the natural and supernatural summit of coordination.
– He blesses and encourages all participants.
At no point does this letter:
– Confess explicitly the obligation of non-Catholic peoples and states to submit publicly to the reign of Christ the King as taught authoritatively by Pius XI in Quas primas.
– Denounce false religions, paganism, Islam, schism, and heresy as intrinsically damnable paths, rejected unmistakably in the pre-conciliar Magisterium (e.g. Pius IX, Syllabus, propositions 15–18).
– Affirm clearly that the ultimate end of mission is conversion to the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation in the proper, dogmatic sense.
– Warn of modernism, rationalism, laicism, Freemasonry – condemned repeatedly by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X – as the principal enemies of the faith and missions.
– Explicitly connect mission with the preaching of repentance, judgment, Hell, the necessity of sacramental grace, the state of grace, and the Social Kingship of Christ over nations.
This silence is not accidental; it is programmatic. It manifests the conciliar sect’s shift from supernatural, dogmatic evangelization to a vague, “supernaturalized” humanitarianism.
Substitution of Supernatural Evangelization with Institutional Activism
On the factual level, the letter presents missionary work almost entirely through:
– organizational congresses;
– centralization of funds;
– “new methods” for “changed times”;
– the logistical importance of Pontifical Mission Societies.
John XXIII states that the purpose of the congress is:
“ut missionali apostolatui, cum mutata sint tempora, novae rationes novaeque viae patescant, ut Pontificium Opus a Propagatione Fidei et cetera supparis generis redintegratis viribus reflorescant”
English: “that for the missionary apostolate, since times have changed, new methods and new ways may be opened, that the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith and others of a similar kind may, with renewed strength, flourish again.”
The decisive, integral Catholic questions are:
– New methods in service of what immutable end? The explicit conversion of pagans, heretics, and schismatics to the one visible Catholic Church?
– Or “new ways” that silently relativize the duty of conversion and accommodate religious pluralism?
Pre-1958 doctrine is unambiguous:
– The Church is a perfect, exclusive society, possessing from Christ rights that no civil power may define or limit (Pius IX, Syllabus, 19, 21).
– It is condemned to say that man can find the way of eternal salvation in any religion whatsoever (Pius IX, Syllabus, 16).
– It is condemned to regard Protestantism as another form of true Christianity pleasing to God (ibid., 18).
– Mission is ordered to bring all peoples under the sweet but objective and juridical yoke of the reign of Christ, including in the public order (Pius XI, Quas primas).
John XXIII’s text carefully avoids this strong doctrinal language. Instead, he:
– speaks of “changed times,” requiring “new methods”;
– speaks of the Church abstractly as “mother of all redeemed by Christ’s Blood,” without distinguishing between those actually incorporated in the Church and those only redeemed in potency;
– divorces missions from “political conditions,” in a way easily read as accepting the liberal separation of Church and state condemned in Syllabus 55.
This is a quintessential modernist maneuver: retain some pious vocabulary while systematically omitting the dogmatic precision that would contradict the direction of the revolution.
Linguistic Symptoms of Doctrinal Dilution and Controlled Piety
The rhetoric of the letter is outwardly Catholic:
– references to martyrs of Lyon;
– praise of saints (Pothinus, Irenaeus, Eucherius);
– exhortations to prayer, offerings, cooperation.
Yet several linguistic and conceptual features betray its conciliar spirit:
1. “Mutata sint tempora” / “new methods, new ways”
The invocation of “changed times” as a motive for new orientations is exactly the matrix of condemned modernism:
– St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi condemns the thesis that dogmas, structures, sacraments, and evangelization must evolve according to historical circumstances and the “needs of the age.”
– Proposition 58 of Lamentabili rejects the idea that “truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him.”
Here, the letter lays groundwork for that evolutionism by making historical change the justification for new strategies, without safeguarding, in clear dogmatic language, that the end – conversion to the one true Church and subjection to Christ the King – is immutably the same and non-negotiable.
2. Systematic Centralization Around the Conciliar Apparatus
The letter emphasizes the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith as:
– centralized in Rome;
– the “principal” instrument for missionary support.
He recalls that Pius XI made it “Pontifical” and locates its “sedem principem” at the See of Peter.
In itself, a pontifical work is legitimate. But, under an antipope launching a council that will redefine the Church’s relation to false religions, this centralization becomes an instrument to:
– channel missionary money and personnel into the conciliar agenda;
– silence authentically Catholic, pre-conciliar missionary zeal.
The vocabulary of “united efforts,” “not separated plans,” “supernatural spirit” becomes a pious wrapping for managerial control. The emphasis on structures rather than on dogma and conversion is telling.
3. Ambiguous Universalism
He writes of the Church as:
“Sanctae Ecclesiae, quae omnium Sanguine Christi redemptorum mater est”
“Holy Church, which is the mother of all who have been redeemed by the Blood of Christ.”
This language, without qualification, anticipates the conciliar and post-conciliar abuse whereby:
– all men, by the mere fact of redemption offered, are treated as virtually belonging to the Church;
– missionary urgency is reduced, since “everyone is already somehow within” or under the maternal care of the Church;
– the distinction between those actually in the Church and those outside is blurred.
Pre-1958 theology distinguishes sharply:
– Christ died for all men sufficiently, but only the baptized in the true faith are members of the Church.
– The Church is not mother in the same way of infidels and of her faithful children; she desires to be their mother, but they must be born in her by faith and baptism.
The letter never articulates this; instead, its universalist phrasing fits the developing conciliar relativism.
Theological Evasion: Silence More Damning Than Speech
The gravest indictment of this document is theological omission, not explicit, open heresy. In the integral Catholic view, such silence in an official document at a critical historical juncture is itself a betrayal.
What should a truly Catholic letter on a worldwide missionary congress in 1962 have proclaimed?
– That the primary goal of missions is the salvation of souls by:
– preaching the Catholic faith whole and entire;
– condemning idols and false creeds;
– calling to conversion, baptism, and incorporation into the Catholic Church;
– instructing nations to acknowledge public kingship of Christ.
– That modern errors – atheistic communism, liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry, indifferentism, modernism – are mortal enemies of Christ’s reign, already solemnly condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII.
– That missionary work must not dissolve into social or economic activism, nor into a vague testimony of “Christian values,” but must remain supernatural, sacramental, dogmatic.
Instead, what do we see?
1. No mention of Hell, judgment, mortal sin, state of grace.
– Missions are discussed in terms of “help,” “support,” “cooperation,” “presence,” not as warfare for souls snatched from eternal perdition.
2. No clear condemnation of false religions.
– Not once does the letter state that pagan cults, Islam, Buddhism, or Protestant and schismatic communities lead souls away from salvation.
– The language is irenic and procedural, not militant and dogmatic.
3. No reaffirmation of the obligation of civil societies to recognize Christ the King.
– Pius XI taught in Quas primas that peace and order depend on public obedience of states to Christ.
– John XXIII speaks of detaching missions from “political conditions,” reflecting the liberal thesis, condemned in the Syllabus, that Church and state should be perfectly separated.
4. No warning concerning modernism in theology and missionary practice.
– Only four years earlier, Pius XII had died; St. Pius X’s condemnation of modernism had not expired.
– Yet the letter completely avoids the question, as if modernism had vanished, just as it is about to be enthroned in the council hall.
These silences are incompatible with the vigilance of the pre-1958 Magisterium. They are the tactical silences of a project that aims to neutralize dogmatic clarity to enable doctrinal subversion.
Exaltation and Instrumentalization of Pauline Jaricot
The letter devotes considerable space to Pauline Jaricot:
– praising her charity,
– praising her founding of the Propagation of the Faith,
– presenting her as a model for modern missionary apostolate.
On the surface, honoring a laywoman who supported missions is perfectly legitimate. Yet here her figure is used ironically:
– The authentic work she initiated – simple, sacrificial support for true Catholic missionaries – is being absorbed into a paramasonic conciliar system that will:
– fund naturalistic projects,
– promote inculturation devoid of dogmatic demand,
– weaken, relativize, or even deny the necessity of conversion.
John XXIII claims:
“universalis christifidelium missionalis apostolatus, inaestimabilis bonorum fons, a nisu studioque ipsius duxit principium”
“the universal missionary apostolate of the faithful, an invaluable source of goods, drew its beginning from her effort and zeal.”
This is historically and theologically stylized:
– He inflates her role into a prototype of the conciliar “participation” model, where laity’s activism becomes an axis of a new democratized church-consciousness.
– The legitimate lay cooperation is rhetorically morphed into an ideological pedestal for the future cult of “people of God,” “co-responsibility,” and dilution of hierarchical distinctiveness condemned precociously in modernist tendencies.
Moreover, this text prepares the ground for later post-conciliar aesthetic:
– sentimental exaltation of selected figures (mostly laity, women, activists),
– used to sentimentalize and legitimize institutional transformations fundamentally at odds with prior doctrine.
From Ecclesia Militans to NGO: The Symptomatic Modernist Trajectory
From the symptomatic standpoint, “Gratulamur” is an early crystallization of the conciliar sect’s core tendencies:
1. Ecclesia militans eclipsed by ecclesia dialogans
The letter speaks of:
– collaboration,
– congresses,
– coordination of funds,
– “actuosa praesentia” of helpers,
rather than of combat against error and the devil.
The Church of Pius IX and St. Pius X:
– speaks as Ecclesia militans,
– denounces secret societies, laicism, false religions as works of the “synagogue of Satan” (Pius IX’s language),
– commands kings and peoples to submit to Christ.
The tone here is irenic, bureaucratic, a manager addressing a network – exactly the tone that will blossom into the neo-church’s humanitarian bureaucracy, an NGO with liturgy.
2. Detachment from the Social Kingship of Christ
By insisting missions should not be tied to “political conditions” or “terrestrial utility,” John XXIII subtly:
– distances missions from the legitimate Catholic demand that societies, not only individuals, must acknowledge Christ and the true Church;
– echoes the liberal separation of Gospel from the juridical and political order, condemned in the Syllabus and in Quas primas.
Integral teaching:
– Christ is King of individuals, families, and states.
– States sin gravely if they reject the true religion or put it on level with false ones.
This letter’s language allows – and encourages – a non-political, purely “spiritualized” Christianity compatible with pluralist states, thus aligning with the program later formalized in the conciliar declaration on religious liberty. That alignment is no coincidence.
3. Centralized control as instrument of doctrinal subversion
The insistence that Pontifical Mission Societies:
– coordinate funds,
– avoid “divided plans,”
– act under centralized Roman direction,
is dangerous precisely because:
– those occupying Rome are preparing a doctrinal revolution.
– Concentrating missionary resources under their control ensures:
– that truly Catholic missionaries are marginalized,
– that docile agents of post-conciliar aggiornamento are empowered.
The pre-1958 Magisterium defends Roman primacy as guarantor of orthodoxy. Under an antipope initiating apostasy, the same structures become vehicles of poisoning. The language of unity and obedience is hijacked to enforce submission not to Tradition but to its demolition.
Integral Catholic Doctrine as the Measure: Radical Incompatibility
Measured by the unchangeable doctrine taught before 1958:
– Dei verbum non est alligatum tempore (the word of God is not bound by time).
– Dogma does not evolve in substance; mission does not relativize the necessity of conversion.
– The Church cannot embrace religious liberty, indifferentism, syncretistic “dialogue,” or any ideology that subjects divine law to human “rights.”
This letter, while not an extended treatise, displays:
– the strategic omission of precise doctrine,
– the insertion of historically conditioned and modernist-tinged formulas (“changed times,” detached from prior condemnations),
– the early shaping of mission as humanistic collaboration rather than militant proclamation of exclusive salvific truth.
Such a text is not neutral. It is a symptom and tool of the great post-1958 subversion that:
– replaces the regnum Christi with a cult of man,
– replaces evangelization with “encounter,”
– replaces the Cross with congresses.
Under the lens of integral Catholic faith:
– this letter stands condemned as an expression of the conciliar ideology that Pius IX and St. Pius X had doctrinally destroyed before it was practically enthroned.
– its soft, smiling prose only underscores the perfidy: poisoning the missionary ideal with a sweetened vocabulary while draining it of its supernatural, dogmatic substance.
Conclusion: Mission Without Conversion is Betrayal
Authentic Catholic missionary spirit:
– flows from the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– proclaims the full faith,
– calls all men and nations into explicit submission to Christ and His one Church,
– rejects modernism, rationalism, socialism, Freemasonry, indifferentism as works of darkness.
“Gratulamur” offers:
– organizational enthusiasm without dogmatic clarity,
– universalist language without precise distinctions,
– pious references masking a shift toward religious pluralism and state-neutral Christianity,
– centralization of missionary structures under a regime already preparing Vatican II’s doctrinal capitulation.
Therefore, from the standpoint of the unchanging pre-1958 Magisterium, this letter is not an edifying encouragement to missions, but a carefully perfumed step in the decomposition of Catholic evangelization: from the Church Militant conquering the nations for Christ the King to the Church of the New Advent managing projects in a religiously indifferent world.
Source:
Gratulamur – Epistula ad Petrum Tit. SS.mae Trinitatis in Monte Pincio S. R. E. Presb. Cardinalem Gerlier, Archiepiscopum Lugdunensem, ob primum Missionalem ex omnibus nationibus Conventum, Lugduni ce… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025