The text is a Latin letter issued in January 1963 by John XXIII to Basil Heiser, General Minister of the Conventual Franciscans, on the 700th anniversary of the translation of the relics of St Anthony of Padua to the basilica bearing his name. It offers rhetorical praise of St Anthony’s sanctity, preaching, miracles, and charity, urges the Franciscan “Family” to imitate his prayer, doctrine and works of mercy, links the celebrations to the then-ongoing Second Vatican Council, and imparts an “apostolic blessing.” From the standpoint of integral Catholic doctrine, this apparently pious tribute functions as a subtle legitimation of the conciliar revolution through the instrumentalization of a true saint to adorn the authority of an usurping antipope and his neo-church.
Saint Anthony Co‑opted: A Spurious Blessing upon the Conciliar Sect
John XXIII as Antipontiff and the Abuse of Apostolic Language
From the start, the document presents itself with all the external marks of a papal letter: formal address, invocation of “Apostolic Benediction,” and the placement in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS 55 [1963], 159‑161). However, judged by the only legitimate criterion—*the perennial doctrine of the Church before 1958*—this letter is the act of an intruder, not of a successor of Peter.
1. John XXIII publicly inaugurated, protected, and advanced an ecclesial revolution:
– He convoked Vatican II with the explicit program of “aggiornamento,” systematically contradicting the constant condemnations of liberalism, religious indifferentism, and false “modern civilization” as summarized in the Syllabus Errorum of Pius IX (1864, especially propositions 15–18, 55, 77–80).
– He rehabilitated and surrounded himself with the very modernists and their heirs whom St Pius X had anathematized with Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi, texts that he never truly implemented, but de facto neutralized.
2. In this light, the pompous self-designation “Pontificatus Nostri” and the imparted “Apostolic Blessing” are not harmless formulas, but **appropriations of an authority he did not possess**. According to the integral ecclesiology consistently taught by theologians like St Robert Bellarmine, a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church because he ceases to be a member; *non potest esse caput qui non est membrum* (he cannot be the head who is not a member). When a man uses the language of Peter to advance a conciliar program opposed to the pre‑conciliar Magisterium, his acts do not bind the faithful before God.
Therefore, every subsequent line of the letter must be read as the propaganda of the conciliar sect, not as the voice of the Bride of Christ.
Selective Piety as a Cloak for Doctrinal Subversion
The text weaves moving references to:
– the incorrupt tongue of St Anthony,
– his powerful preaching,
– his charity and help of the afflicted,
– his alignment with the fruits of Lateran IV,
– the zeal expected of the Franciscan “Family.”
On the surface, nothing here seems heterodox. Yet this is precisely the danger: *praise of saints is mobilized to crown a project they would have condemned.*
Consider the core structure:
“Saint Anthony, an eminent light of the Order, powerful intercessor, Doctor of the Church… his incorrupt tongue, instrument of the Holy Spirit… follow his example; be leaven in the world; lift the eyes of peoples to God, Father of all, to be one community; let these Antonian celebrations coincide with Vatican II; may your prayers and sacrifices obtain many and joyful fruits from so great a Council.”
The crucial move is the linkage: authentic cult of a pre‑modern, anti‑heretical saint is subtly harnessed to legitimize and spiritually fortify an ecumenical assembly that would soon attack, dilute, or relativize those very truths defended by the saint.
This is not accidental ornamentation. It is a programmatic tactic:
– Wrap the conciliar revolution in the mantle of a thirteenth‑century miracle-worker.
– Present participation in Vatican II’s aims as the direct continuation of Lateran IV’s reforming spirit.
– Reduce supernatural militancy against heresy to a vague “community” and “universal leaven” ideology.
Thus the letter’s apparent devoutness conceals **a grave perversion of continuity**, a practical application of the modernist method condemned by St Pius X: *apparent reverence for the past used as raw material for doctrinal mutation*.
Linguistic Sugarcoating: The Soft Rhetoric of a New Religion
The document’s language is revealing; its vocabulary betrays the inner shift:
1. Vague collectivism:
– The Franciscan family is urged to be a “vivax actuosumque fermentum” (living, active leaven) so that peoples “coalescant in unam communitatem… Auctorem suum perpetuis adorantem obsequiis.”
– Sounds Scriptural, yet there is a studied evasion of the concrete, exclusive notes of the true Church: *una, sancta, catholica, apostolica*, outside of which there is no salvation.
2. Horizontalized charity:
– St Anthony is presented above all as aid of the “afflicted and suffering”; the text exhorts to “mutuum fraternumque auxilium,” social concord, dissolving adversities through charity.
– Authentic Catholic charity is always ordered to *salus animarum* (the salvation of souls). But here, charity is rhetorically detached from dogma, from conversion, from the need to reject error and enter the one Church.
– This flattening corresponds to the liberal, naturalistic humanitarianism condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas, where he teaches that peace and justice are impossible unless societies publicly recognize the reign of Christ and subject their laws to His law.
3. Sanitized silence about dogma and combat:
– Regarding St Anthony—famously a hammer of heretics—the letter omits his doctrinal intransigence and his role as defender of Catholic orthodoxy against Albigensians and other errors.
– Not a word on:
– the necessity of supernatural faith,
– the horror of heresy,
– the need to win back separated brethren to the one true fold,
– the danger of indifferentism.
– This silence is not innocent. In an epoch already saturated with condemned errors (Syllabus, prop. 15–18, 55), failing to reaffirm exclusivist Catholicism is itself **symptomatic of complicity** with liberalism.
The tone of the letter is bland, sentimental, irenic. It lacks the virile clarity of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St Pius X, or Pius XI, who name the enemies—liberalism, Freemasonry, Modernism, socialism, religious indifferentism—and arm the faithful with doctrinal weapons. Here, soothing language serves as anesthesia for a Church being led into a new religion.
Theological Emptiness: Saint Anthony Without His Sword
On the theological plane, the text commits its gravest errors by omission and instrumentalization.
1. No affirmation of the exclusive truth of the Catholic Church:
– St Anthony is invoked as “Doctor of the Church” and “intercessor,” but there is no explicit confession that:
– the Catholic Church alone is the true Church of Christ (condemnation of Syllabus prop. 21, 18),
– outside of this Church there is no salvation,
– all non‑Catholic religions contain grave objective errors leading souls to perdition.
– Instead, there is a new focus: humanity as **one community** lifting its eyes to a generic “God, Father of all.” This formula, in itself not false, is used as a platform for the future ecumenical-naturalistic agenda of Vatican II and its aftermath, which directly contradicts the integral doctrine before 1958.
2. Replacement of militancy with soft pastoralism:
– Anthony’s incorrupt tongue is praised, but not for the doctrinal sharpness with which he refuted heresies.
– The letter avoids any call to combat error, eradicate false worship, or convert infidels and heretics.
– This is starkly at odds with St Pius X’s insistence in Pascendi that pastors must unmask and expel modernists and guard the flock from their writings—an encyclical which this conciliar program ignores and overturns.
3. Subordination of a true saint to a false council:
– The letter explicitly fuses the Antonian celebration with Vatican II:
“Neque sine providentis Dei consilio evenire videtur, ut Antonianae hae sacrae celebrationes in tempus incidant, quo Concilium agitur Oecumenicum Vaticanum Secundum…”
– It treats the Council as an unquestionable *opus Dei*, asking the Franciscans to support it with prayers and sacrifices so that “plurimi atque laetissimi fructus” (many and joyful fruits) may arise.
– Yet the fruits of Vatican II are historically verifiable: unprecedented collapse of vocations, doctrinal confusion, liturgical devastation, syncretistic “dialogue,” practical denial of the social Kingship of Christ, and the enthronement of the cult of man. By Christ’s own criterion—*ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos* (by their fruits you shall know them)—the project endorsed here reveals its poison.
– To harness St Anthony’s cult to support such a council is not “piety”; it is **sacrilegious exploitation** of the saints against the faith they professed.
From Quas Primas to Conciliar Humanism: The Betrayal of Christ the King
Read against Pius XI’s Quas Primas (1925), the letter’s deficiencies become a doctrinal indictment.
Pius XI teaches:
– that the calamities of the world arise because “many have thrust Jesus Christ and His holy law out of their lives”;
– that no peace is possible until individuals and states recognize and submit to the reign of Christ;
– that the Church has the right and duty to demand public acknowledgment of Christ’s Kingship and to shape public law according to His commandments.
Contrariwise, this 1963 letter:
– speaks of peoples forming “one community” that adores “its Author,” without articulating:
– that this community is the Catholic Church alone, visible and juridically structured,
– that states have duties toward the true religion,
– that false religions are to be rejected, not placed side by side with the Spouse of Christ.
This silence prepares the way for the doctrinal novelties of Vatican II and post‑conciliarism: “religious liberty” in the condemned sense (cf. Syllabus 77–80), ecumenism, and the abdication of the public rights of Christ the King. The text thus participates in the **gradual erasure of the social Kingship of Christ**, replacing it with a vacuous spiritualized fraternity.
In light of Quas Primas, such omissions are not minor editorial choices; they are symptoms of apostasy.
Franciscan Identity Dismantled: From Poverty and Orthodoxy to Conciliar Agents
The letter exhorts Franciscans to:
– emulate Anthony’s prayer and benediction of the Lord,
– become active leaven in the world,
– practise charity, mutual aid, and peace-making,
– support Vatican II by prayers and endurance.
What is missing is precisely what defined the Franciscan vocation within the one true Church:
– fearless preaching against error,
– demonstrative fidelity to Rome as guardian of dogma (not as laboratory of novelty),
– radical detachment from the spirit of the world.
Instead, the “Franciscalis Familia” is gently conscripted as an instrument of the conciliar sect:
– encouraged to cooperate in forming a new, indistinct global “community”;
– redirected from dogmatic combat to humanitarian reconciliation;
– tasked with providing spiritual capital (prayers, sacrifices) for the success of a council that would undermine the dogmas guarded for centuries.
This is a classic modernist strategy: keep the vocabulary of devotion, empty it of its sharp doctrinal content, and bend venerable orders into **pastoral engines of the neo‑church**.
The Cult of Relics Employed to Legitimize an Illegitimate Authority
The letter richly evokes the 1263 recognition of St Anthony’s incorrupt tongue and cites the exclamation attributed to St Bonaventure:
“O blessed tongue, which always blessed the Lord, and caused others to bless Him…”
In traditional Catholicism, miracles and incorruptibility verify and confirm:
– the sanctity of the person,
– the divine approval of the doctrine he taught,
– the authority of the Church canonizing him.
Here, however, the incorrupt tongue is used in a different manner:
– not to reassert the eternal Catholic faith against modern errors,
– but to suggest continuity between:
– the medieval context of Lateran IV (a council of dogmatic clarity and anti‑heresy measures),
– and Vatican II (a council of deliberately ambiguous language, pastoral equivocations, and doctrinal dilution).
By implying that Providence harmoniously aligns Antonian jubilees with Vatican II, the text effectively claims: *the same God who preserved Anthony’s tongue now smiles upon and blesses this new conciliar orientation.*
This **instrumentalization of a genuine miracle to validate a heterodox project** is a perversion of the purpose of signs and wonders, which God grants to seal truth, not ambiguity.
Silence as Condemnation: What This Letter Does Not Dare to Say
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the most damning elements are those absent:
– No defence of the integrity, immutability, and objectivity of dogma against the already rampant thesis of “development” that mutates substance (explicitly condemned in Lamentabili 58–65).
– No reference to the gravity of heresy, the reality of hell, the danger of false worship—central in anthony’s preaching.
– No insistence on:
– the unique mediatorship of Christ,
– the necessity of belonging to the Catholic Church for salvation.
– No denunciation of Freemasonry and secular secret societies, despite Pius IX clearly identifying them in the Syllabus and subsequent documents as principal enemies of the Church and inspirers of anti‑Catholic legislation, and despite the mid‑20th century’s intensifying infiltration.
Such silences, in an official text from the center of power, cannot be dismissed as mere brevity. They are **strategic omissions** that serve the conciliar agenda: to present a non‑combative, de‑dogmatized, humanistic Catholicism compatible with liberal democracies and religious pluralism.
In Catholic tradition, a failure to confess Christ fully before men, especially by those in apparent authority, is already a form of denial. *Tacere veritatem cum proclari debeat est eam occidere* (to keep silence about the truth when it should be proclaimed is to kill it).
Conciliar Fruits Foretold: From Pious Phrases to Practical Apostasy
The letter concludes by urging the Franciscans to obtain “many and joyous fruits” from Vatican II and by bestowing an “Apostolic Blessing.”
History shows what those fruits were:
– liturgical dismantling, with the Most Holy Sacrifice replaced or obscured by an assembly meal,
– doctrinal relativism,
– erosion of religious vocations,
– scandalous ecumenical and interreligious gestures,
– practical enthronement of the rights of man over the rights of Christ the King.
By retroactively examining this text, one sees its true nature:
– not a neutral or edifying remembrance of St Anthony,
– but a node in the conciliar propaganda network: embedding the authority of saints, relics, and venerable orders into the ideological architecture of the “Church of the New Advent.”
Any structure which uses saints to sanctify a doctrinal revolution condemned by prior Popes reveals itself, by Catholic criteria, as a **paramasonic counter-church**, not the Mystical Body of Christ.
Conclusion: Choose Between St Anthony and the Conciliar Sect
In light of the unchanging Magisterium prior to 1958:
– The voice in this letter cannot be recognized as that of the Roman Pontiff, but of an antipontiff instrumentalizing genuine devotion for a heterodox purpose.
– The Franciscan “Family” is subtly invited to betray the integral heritage of its saints by serving as leaven of a new, man‑centred religious project.
– The apparent piety of references to prayer, charity, and relics conceals a deliberate refusal to proclaim the hard, exclusive claims of the Catholic faith.
Therefore, fidelity to St Anthony, to St Bonaventure, to Lateran IV, to Pius IX, St Pius X, Pius XI, and the entire pre‑conciliar Church demands:
– rejection of the conciliar orientation endorsed here,
– refusal to accept as “apostolic” blessings and directives issuing from manifestly modernist usurpers,
– unwavering adherence to the faith “semel tradita sanctis” (once delivered to the saints), whose content cannot be reshaped to fit the spirit of the age.
Saint Anthony’s incorrupt tongue blessed the true Lord, the true Church, the true doctrine. It did not—nor could it—bless the conciliar betrayal which this 1963 letter artfully promotes.
Source:
Franciscalis Familia, Epistula ad Basilium Heiser, Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Conventualium Ministrum Generalem, septimo volvente saeculo, ex quo sacrae S. Antonii exuviae in Basilicam Patavii eius honor… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025