The Latin text published under the name of John XXIII, dated 10 December 1958, is a brief decree by which the conciliar usurper purports to elevate the parish church in Somasca, dedicated to St Bartholomew the Apostle and St Jerome Emiliani, to the title and privileges of a minor basilica. It rehearses historical ties between Venice and Bergamo, recalls the sanctity of Jerome Emiliani, notes the translation of his relics and the growth of pilgrimages, mentions the involvement of St Charles Borromeo and later prelates, and solemnly declares—“with certain knowledge and mature deliberation” and “by the fullness of Apostolic power”—the conferral of basilica status, annulling any contrary dispositions.
This seemingly modest act of cultic promotion is in reality a juridical and theological masquerade: an usurper, already the standard-bearer of the conciliar revolution, parasitically clothes his illegitimate authority in the language, saints, and devotions of the true Church in order to normalize an apostate regime.
The Counterfeit Pontificate Cloaked in Catholic Piety
Usurpation in the Form of Continuity: A Deadly Mimicry
At the factual level, the text performs a familiar maneuver of the conciliar sect: it embeds a radical rupture beneath a surface of continuity.
Key elements:
– Invocation of the traditional formula Ad perpetuam rei memoriam.
– Emphasis on:
– historical bonds between Venice and Bergamo,
– authentic saints (Jerome Emiliani, Bartholomew the Apostle),
– venerable churches and relics,
– the role of St Charles Borromeo,
– the decision of Pope Clement VIII,
– the consecration by Andrea Carlo Ferrari.
The document then asserts, in the classic style of pre-conciliar papal acts, that:
“ex consulto Sacrae Rituum Congregationis, certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostra deque Apostolicae Nostrae potestatis plenitudine…”
(“with the advice of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, with Our certain knowledge and mature deliberation and by the fullness of Our Apostolic power…”)
it confers the dignity of minor basilica upon the church of Somasca, with all associated honours and privileges, rendering void any act to the contrary.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the decisive issue is not the honorable mention of saints, nor the architectural or devotional merits of Somasca, but the subject who claims to act and the ecclesial body he embodies.
– If one who publicly inaugurates, promotes, and then presides over a program of doctrinal revolution is a manifest heretic, he cannot hold the Papacy nor exercise true Apostolic authority. This is summarized succinctly by the classical principle drawn from the Fathers and theologians such as Bellarmine: Qui manifeste haereticus est, non potest esse Papa (“A manifest heretic cannot be pope”). The provided doctrinal synthesis correctly recalls that a manifest heretic, as a non-member of the Church, cannot be its head.
– The line that begins historically with John XXIII is precisely the line which, in short order:
– called and steered Vatican II along modernist, ecumenist and religious liberty lines,
– enthroned the cult of man and the secularist spirit condemned by Pius IX and Pius XI,
– dissolved the confessional State ideal repudiated in the Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, especially propositions 55, 77-80),
– prepared the ground for the systematic destruction of the Most Holy Sacrifice by the manufactured “Novus Ordo”.
Thus the text is not an innocent “traditional” flourish, but a strategic deployment of antiquity to give a spurious aura of legitimacy to an authority which, in its doctrinal orientation and subsequent acts, reveals its incompatibility with the indefectible Catholic Magisterium.
That is the first and fundamental indictment: an antichristic project hides itself under the cassock of piety.
The Linguistic Mask: Tradition as Stage Dressing for Revolution
The rhetoric of the letter is deliberately and revealingly “high Catholic”:
– Frequent references to:
– *pervetusta ecclesia paroecialis* (a very ancient parish church),
– saints of unimpeachable orthodoxy,
– miracles at the shrine,
– solemn consecration, relics, and pilgrimages,
– continuity with venerable predecessors: Clement VIII, St Charles Borromeo, Andrea Carlo Ferrari.
– Use of juridical-latin formulae: certa scientia, matura deliberatio, plenitudo potestatis, contrariis quibuslibet minime obstantibus, etc.
This is not accidental. It is the rhetoric of “seamless continuity” in liturgical vesture—while preparing the slaughter of that very continuity. The linguistic strategy:
1. Creates the illusion that nothing essential has changed: “look, the same formulas, the same Congregation of Rites, the same relics and devotions.”
2. Wraps the revolutionary subject in a pre-revolutionary style—using saints and sacred places as borrowed capital for a counterfeit currency.
3. Operates as what can be called liturgical-legal camouflage: an illegitimate power speaks in the idiom of legitimacy to soften resistance.
This style, read in light of what follows historically from this same usurper line—the convocation and implementation of the conciliar revolution—functions as a lie-by-omission. The text:
– says nothing about doctrinal integrity,
– nothing about defending the faith against Modernism,
– nothing about the condemning of liberalism, indifferentism, religious liberty, or ecumenical syncretism,
– nothing about Christ’s social Kingship, so carefully and vigorously reaffirmed by Pius XI in Quas primas, which insists that “peace will not come until individuals and states submit to the reign of Christ the King.”
Instead, it offers a carefully curated fragment of Catholic memory, severed from its dogmatic backbone, to legitimize the claim of the one who is about to wield that “authority” precisely against the very principles of the saints he invokes.
The tone is syrupy, sentimental-archaic, but bloodless: it lacks the doctrinal edge and supernatural militancy omnipresent in pre-1958 papal teaching against the enemies of the Church—Freemasonry, naturalism, rationalism, false ecumenism, state persecution, and internal heresy—vividly displayed, for example, in the Syllabus of Errors, in the anti-modernist decrees, and in the condemnations of the sects described there as the “synagogue of Satan.”
This dissonance—classical dress, modernist silence—is itself symptomatic of the deeper counterfeit.
Theological Incoherence: Illegitimate Authority and the Abuse of Sacred Things
From a strictly theological standpoint governed by unchanging doctrine:
1. Auctoritas and jurisdiction exist for the preservation and defense of the deposit of faith.
2. An act of papal jurisdiction (e.g., granting the title Basilica Minor) is the act of the visible head of the Mystical Body exercising real power received from Christ.
Here, however, we confront:
– A person whose ecclesial program openly contradicts the anti-modernist Magisterium:
– by initiating the very council that would promote religious liberty and ecumenism in forms condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII;
– by favoring tendencies which the Holy Office under St Pius X had branded in Lamentabili sane and Pascendi dominici gregis as the “synthesis of all heresies”:
– evolution of dogma,
– reduction of dogma to “religious experience,”
– subordination of revelation to historical criticism,
– relativization of Catholic exclusivity.
– The structural reality that this line inaugurates leads swiftly to:
– the destruction of the traditional Holy Week,
– the introduction and imposition of a man-centered, protestantized rite,
– the cult of “dialogue” with heresy and infidelity,
– changes in sacramental rites calling into question validity itself.
If, as the consistent pre-conciliar theology re-affirmed in the supplied sedevacantist sources maintains, a manifest heretic cannot be pope and loses jurisdiction ipso facto, then:
– The “plenitude of Apostolic power” claimed here is null.
– The act is a juridical fiction: a pseudo-papal performative over which Providence may nonetheless watch in favour of the good faith of the faithful, but which possesses no binding force as an act of the Roman Pontiff.
This is not to deny:
– the objective holiness of Jerome Emiliani,
– the authenticity of graces obtained in Somasca in the days of the true Church,
– the honorable history of that church prior to the conciliar usurpation.
It is to insist that:
The same mouth which some days and months prattles about venerable parishes and saints is the mouth which, by launching the conciliar revolution, tramples underfoot the anti-modernist oaths, the Syllabus, the social Kingship of Christ, and the integral exclusivity of the Catholic Church.
Such an authority cannot be squared with the promises of Christ, for the true Papacy cannot be turned into an engine of apostasy.
The Silence that Condemns: No Defense Against Modernism, No Kingship of Christ
A crucial dimension of integral Catholic analysis is to weigh not only the explicit statements, but the silences—especially in an epoch already gravely infected by Modernism.
By 1958:
– Modernist errors had been condemned repeatedly (Lamentabili, Pascendi, the Anti-Modernist Oath).
– Freemasonic and liberal assaults on the Church and Christian order were blatant; Pius IX and Leo XIII had unmasked them by name.
– Pius XI, in Quas primas, had diagnosed laicism and the dethronement of Christ as the root causes of social ruin, calling for the open, political Kingship of Christ.
– The communist and secular revolutions, as well as the infiltration of rationalism and biblical modernism in seminaries and universities, were no secret.
In such a context, a valid successor of Peter—even when issuing a decree on a basilica—would ordinarily:
– breathe the same supernatural atmosphere,
– recall the absolute primacy of the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– arm and exhort the faithful against errors,
– subject local devotion to the universal dogmatic mission: the salvation of souls through the one true Church.
Instead, this text:
– Remains hermetically natural and devotional: a pious “local color” sketch.
– Avoids a single word about:
– the dangers of Modernism,
– the need to defend the traditional liturgy,
– the Social Reign of Christ the King over Bergamo, Venice, and Italy,
– the exclusive necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation, as reaffirmed against latitudinarianism and indifferentism in the Syllabus (errors 15-18).
– Reduces the Apostolic act to a cultural-architectural accolade: a title, privileges, signatures.
This silence is not neutral. Coming from the one who immediately proceeds to convoke and guide a council that systematically undermines those very doctrines, it is the silence of strategic omission.
Where the true Popes wielded the sword of doctrine, here we find only the smile of a curator of monuments.
Symptom of the Conciliar Disease: The Neo-Church’s Strategy of Appropriation
This letter illustrates a general pathology of the post-1958 conciliar sect:
1. Appropriation of Symbols:
– The usurpers seize churches, basilicas, saints, devotions, and juridical forms constituted in the time of the true Church.
– They then use these as symbolic capital to authenticate their revolution: “We honor Jerome Emiliani; therefore, accept our council, our liturgical devastation, our religious liberty, our ecumenism.”
2. Fragmentation of Memory:
– The saints invoked (Jerome Emiliani, Charles Borromeo, etc.) were champions of rigorous doctrine, sacramental reverence, and ecclesiastical discipline.
– Their integral theology is never fully recalled, only their philanthropy, tireless work, or local roots.
– The conciliar sect presents them as “humanitarian” or vague “pastoral” models compatible with modernist aggiornamento.
3. Parasite Ecclesiology:
– The conciliar neo-church has no life of its own; it survives by feeding on what it did not create:
– the Roman Canon it mutilates,
– the saints it rebrands,
– the basilicas it fills with profanations.
– This document is one more example: a parasite placing its insignia on a body formed entirely in the time of true pontiffs.
4. Incremental Conditioning:
– Early acts of John XXIII are framed as harmless and traditional, conditioning the faithful to accept him as a legitimate successor of Peter.
– Once confidence is secured, the same claimed authority is used to unleash the conciliar revolution.
Hence, even a “small” decree of a basilica, read within history, functions as a brick in the edifice of deceit. To treat it as the innocent act of a legitimate pope is to ignore the theological and historical totality which Catholic judgment must consider.
True Ecclesial Authority Versus the Conciliar Counterfeit
Against this background one must reaffirm, with the pre-1958 Magisterium:
– The Church is a *societas perfecta* (perfect society) with divine constitution, possessing by right its own authority, un-subordinated to worldly ideologies (Syllabus, nn. 19, 55).
– The Roman Pontiff is the guardian, not the author, of dogma; he may not contradict, relativize, or negate what has been definitively taught.
– Dogma does not evolve into its opposite; attempts to accommodate “modern civilization,” liberalism, and false ecumenism have been explicitly condemned (Syllabus, n. 80; anti-modernist teachings).
– The Social Kingship of Christ is not optional. As Pius XI articulated:
– Peace and order depend on recognizing Christ’s reign not only in private but in public life.
– States and rulers sin when they exclude or ignore Our Lord’s rights.
The conciliar sect, inaugurated and advanced by the line of usurpers starting with John XXIII and culminating (for now) in Leo XIV, systematically betrays all these principles:
– promoting religious liberty as a right for error,
– exalting “dialogue” with false religions,
– enthroning man in place of God in its rhetoric and liturgies,
– dissolving the confessional State ideal as if it were an outdated medieval remnant.
Thus the act examined here, while clothed in the venerable language of authentic papal letters, is the act of a regime whose broader trajectory stands condemned by the very Magisterium it feigns to continue.
Devotion Without Deception: Honoring Saints, Rejecting Usurpers
Integral Catholic fidelity requires a crucial distinction:
– We venerate Jerome Emiliani—canonized by a true Pope, exemplary in charity grounded in doctrine and in loyalty to the Church as then constituted.
– We honor legitimate local devotions, authentic miracles, and sacred architecture, insofar as they belong to and express the faith of the Church of all ages.
– We utterly reject the attempt of the conciliar neo-church to co-opt these realities in service of an apostate agenda.
Therefore:
– The faithful must not be seduced by appearances: the use of Latin, the mention of saints, the solemn formulas.
– They must measure every claimant to Peter’s throne and every structure calling itself “Catholic” by the immutable standard of pre-1958 doctrine:
– if it contradicts the Syllabus, Quas primas, Pascendi, and the defined dogmas on the Church’s uniqueness and on the immutable nature of Truth, it cannot be the same Church.
– They must understand that acts such as this “basilica” decree, while not heretical on their face, serve to veil and normalize the deeper usurpation.
It is precisely the polite, ornamental gestures—praising shrines, signing minor decrees in baroque Latin—that render the conciliar project so insidious: apostasy wearing the vestments of Tradition.
Conclusion: Unmasking the Pious Veneer of the Neo-Church
The letter “Bergomensem inter” is a small but telling piece of evidence in the indictment of the conciliar sect:
– It shows how the usurper’s regime:
– inhabits the juridical forms of the Papacy while preparing to contradict its substance;
– speaks in Catholic language while conspiring against Catholic dogma;
– exploits saints, relics, and minor basilicas as props in a theatre that leads, historically and doctrinally, to the abomination of desolation in the sanctuary.
The integral Catholic response is not antiquarian sentimentalism, but lucid discernment:
– Recognize the usurpers as such.
– Cling to the unchanging doctrine, worship, and discipline of the Church as it stood intact before the conciliar revolution.
– Refuse to confuse aesthetic continuity with theological legitimacy.
Non nova, sed eadem (“Not new things, but the same”) was the motto of true Catholic development. Here, underneath the recitation of old names and rites, we discern the opposite: nova sub specie eorundem—new, poisoned wine in the stolen chalice of Tradition.
Source:
Bergomensem inter, Litterae Apostolicae Basilicae Minoris Titulo Ac Dignitate Decoratur Ecclesia Paroecialis In Honorem Sanctorum Bartholomaei Apost. Et Hieronymi Aemiliani Conf., Somaschae, Intra Ber… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025