The document attributed to John XXIII under the title “Plantaria novella” (1959.05.21) designates St Isidore the Farmer as the principal heavenly patron of the Diocese of San Isidro in Argentina, established by Pius XII in 1957. It cloaks this act in pious language about young dioceses as “newly planted shoots” needing special celestial protection, and, invoking alleged apostolic authority, it decrees St Isidore’s patronage with the usual legal formulae declaring the act perpetual, binding, and nullifying any contrary attempts.
This seemingly innocuous text, issued in the first year of the pontificate of the initiator of the conciliar revolution, already manifests the juridical imposture and theological emptiness of a nascent neo-church which dares to speak with the voice of Peter while preparing to betray the Kingship of Christ and the integral faith.
A Pious Shell Around an Illegitimate Authority
The text states in Latin that newly erected dioceses are like “plantaria novella” needing special heavenly patronage so that they may grow and bear abundant fruit; it recounts that Bishop Antonio M. Aguirre of San Isidro requested St Isidore as patron, notes that the diocese bears his name, and, “confident” that under this patronage “res catholica ea in regione vigescat” (the Catholic cause will flourish in that region), solemnly “eligimus, facimus, renuntiamus” (choose, make, and proclaim) St Isidore as principal patron with all liturgical honors of such patrons, “contrariis quibusvis nihil obstantibus,” and declares all contrary acts null.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine prior to 1958 and the principles summarized in the provided sources (Quas primas; the Syllabus; anti-modernist condemnations), this raises four interlinked problems:
1. The factual and juridical problem of a public modernist (John XXIII) presenting himself as Pope and legislator.
2. The reduction of ecclesial life to external cultic adjustments while the foundations of doctrine are being prepared for demolition.
3. The instrumentalization of the saints—authentically Catholic figures like St Isidore—to decorate an emerging counterfeit religious structure.
4. The ominous silence regarding the true marks of the Church, the necessity of the social reign of Christ, and the battle against modernism and Freemasonry—precisely in a context where these forces were openly assailing the Church.
Factual and Juridical Vacuity: The Signature of a Usurper
On the surface, “Plantaria novella” is a minor ceremonial act. But Catholic theology does not treat the subject of the Roman Pontiff as a sentimental question. The entire force of this document depends upon the one phrase: “Pontificatus Nostri primo.”
– Pre-conciliar doctrine, reiterated by St Robert Bellarmine and classical theologians, affirms that a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church because he is not even a member of the Church (*non potest esse caput qui non est membrum* — he who is not a member cannot be the head). This principle is underlined in the supplied Defense of Sedevacantism file.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus, Leo XIII, St Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*, and Pius XI in *Quas primas*, all delineate a coherent anti-liberal, anti-modernist, anti-masonic line. John XXIII’s program—convoking a pastoral council, praising “aggiornamento,” cultivating détente with Freemasonry and communism—is historically, textually, and doctrinally in radical tension with that line.
Therefore, the act recorded in this letter is not neutral:
– It is the pretended exercise of apostolic authority by one who, by embracing and enabling condemned principles (liberalism, religious liberty, collegial democratization, false ecumenism), shows himself morally and doctrinally aligned with what the pre-1958 Magisterium brands as enemies of the Church.
– The legal form—“certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostra deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine”—becomes self-accusation: it solemnizes a usurped jurisdiction. If the root is poisoned, the blossoms of such jurisdiction are canonically and theologically dubious. A supposed concession from an anti-pontiff is not an act of the Roman Church; it is an administrative gesture of the conciliar sect in gestation.
The gravest point is not that St Isidore is unworthy—he is a legitimately canonized pre-1958 saint—but that his venerable name is co-opted to lend Catholic aroma to an authority that, two years later, will inaugurate the very Council that dethrones in practice the doctrine of *Quas primas* and contradicts the Syllabus.
Linguistic Cosmetics: High Latin for a Hollow Ecclesiology
The vocabulary of the text imitates the classic style of genuine Apostolic Letters:
– “Ad perpetuam rei memoriam… plantaria novella… peculiari obtegi praesidio superno… laetioribus augescant incrementis.”
– The rhetoric of growth, fruitfulness, and heavenly protection is, in itself, traditional and legitimate.
Yet the very elegance of language conceals a fundamental dissonance:
1. There is no mention of:
– Defense against heresy or modernism.
– The necessity of integral Catholic doctrine.
– The absolute Kingship of Christ over society, as taught in *Quas primas* (“Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ”).
– The Syllabus’ condemnation of liberal errors that were, in 1959, triumphantly advancing in the secular and ecclesiastical spheres.
2. Instead, we find bureaucratic, not evangelical, concern: the focus is to “cover” a new diocese with patronal status, as if ecclesial vigor flowed primarily from administrative decorum rather than from fidelity to the deposit of faith and the Most Holy Sacrifice.
This contrast between sacral stylization and substantive silence is typical of the first phase of the conciliar revolution:
– Maintain familiar formulas (*ad perpetuam rei memoriam; plena potestas; contrariis quibusvis*) to soothe consciences.
– Avoid any polemical reaffirmation against liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry, or doctrinal novelties; suppress the militant language of Pius IX and St Pius X.
– Present the Church primarily as a pastoral, affective, adaptable organism rather than as the militant, dogmatically armed *Societas perfecta*.
The language here is not yet explicitly heretical; its crime is more insidious: *tactical omission* and the use of antique forms to shield an emergent modernist project.
Theological Incoherence: Saintly Patronage Without the Reign of Christ
The choice of St Isidore the Farmer is not problematic in itself. On the contrary:
– St Isidore is a model of Catholic piety, Eucharistic devotion, sanctification of work, and humble fidelity—canonized long before 1958, rooted in integral spirituality.
– A rural laborer-saint highlights the universal call to holiness lived in traditional Catholic order, without egalitarian ideology or cult of man.
Yet the theology implicit in “Plantaria novella” is truncated.
1. There is no clear articulation that:
– The diocese of San Isidro, as a *particular Church*, participates in the mission to subject souls and society to Christ’s law.
– Civil society in Argentina is bound to recognize and honor Christ and His Church publicly, as *Quas primas* demands and as the Syllabus defends against laicism (see Syllabus 55: the separation of Church and State is condemned).
– Patronage must support not merely “growth” but militant defense of the flock against heresy, error, and moral corruption.
2. Instead, the text treats patronage as a devotional ornament that will, almost automatically, yield “laetiora incrementa” and “fructuum copiam”—more consoling but vague fruits—without specifying:
– Conversion from sin.
– Restoration of Catholic morals.
– Confession of the Kingship of Christ in public life.
– Rejection of socialism, naturalism, and all-modernist infiltration.
This silence is not neutral. In the precise historical context of 1959:
– Modernism, condemned in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* as “the synthesis of all heresies,” had not vanished; it had moved underground, into biblical institutes, seminaries, and episcopal psychology.
– Secret societies, denounced by Pius IX as instruments of the “synagogue of Satan,” were consolidating influence in politics and in ecclesiastical networks.
– The coming Vatican II was already being prepared to enthrone religious liberty and ecumenism, in frontal tension with the Syllabus and *Quas primas*.
Given this, a truly Catholic Apostolic Letter of 1959, continuing the line of Pius IX–XI, would:
– Invoke St Isidore as a model of humble fidelity to the Church and as an intercessor against modern errors.
– Exhort clergy and faithful to resist laicism, socialism, Freemasonry, and doctrinal novelties.
– Explicitly bind the new diocese to the integral teaching of the previous Magisterium, warning against “development of dogma” in the modernist sense condemned by St Pius X.
– Reaffirm the duty of civil authorities in that region to respect and uphold the rights of the Church and of Christ the King.
“Plantaria novella” does none of this. That absence is theologically symptomatic.
Symptom of the Conciliar Revolution: Harmless Devotions as Smoke Screen
This brief letter prefigures the conciliar strategy:
– Deploy orthodox-sounding acts (saintly patronages, Marian devotions, traditional liturgical phrases).
– Use them as a facade while shifting the Church’s orientation at the doctrinal and pastoral levels.
Several symptomatic elements:
1. Continuity of Form, Mutation of Substance
The legal and devotional framework is copied from authentic Catholic tradition, but:
– There is no vigorous defense of the immutable faith.
– There is no reference to the anti-modernist Oath, the condemnations of *Lamentabili*, or the necessity of doctrinal vigilance in a new diocese.
– The “Catholic cause” is invoked vaguely, while in practice the leadership is preparing to accommodate precisely those teachings condemned by the Syllabus: religious liberty, interconfessional relativism, exalting “human rights” against the rights of God.
This is the embryonic “hermeneutic of continuity”—a modernist method condemned already in principle by St Pius X: preserve words, pervert meanings.
2. Use of Authentic Saints to Legitimize a Counterfeit Ecclesial Project
St Isidore is real. His patronage of farmers, of humble lay fidelity, is real.
But:
– When a manifestly liberalizing and modernist regime places such a saint as an emblem over a new diocesan structure oriented toward conciliar aggiornamento, his image is weaponized to anesthetize resistance.
– The faithful are led to think: “How could there be danger? We have St Isidore as patron; Rome has spoken in solemn Latin.” Few suspect that the same authority will soon promulgate texts undermining Catholic social doctrine and dogmatic clarity.
This is analogous to later post-conciliar strategies: surrounding doctrinal novelties with references to Eucharistic devotion, Marian language, and selected saints, to make poison taste like piety.
3. Pastoral Paternalism without Doctrinal Fatherhood
The tone is paternal, gentle, reassuring. Yet true Catholic paternity includes:
– Guarding against wolves.
– Naming heresies.
– Defending the rights of Christ and His Church against the world’s errors.
Here we see only administrative benevolence, completely inoffensive to liberal regimes and masonic powers in Latin America. The Church of Pius IX or St Pius X would not have missed the opportunity to remind rulers and faithful of their obligations to Christ the King and the true faith.
Silence as Betrayal: What This Letter Does Not Say
The gravest accusation against “Plantaria novella” is not what it affirms, but what it obstinately omits.
Measured against Quas primas (1925):
– Pius XI insists that “the plague” of laicism and the exclusion of Christ from public life is the fundamental social evil, and that only the explicit, public recognition of Christ’s Kingship by individuals and states can restore order and peace.
– He orders the feast of Christ the King precisely to condemn the public apostasy of nations, not as a purely spiritual or private devotion.
In this light, “Plantaria novella” is chillingly mute:
– No word about Christ’s social Kingship over Argentina and its institutions.
– No exhortation that the new diocese be a bastion defending Catholic order against liberal and socialist legislation.
– No echo of the Syllabus’ condemnation of the separation of Church and State, of indifferentism, of the exaltation of “civil liberty of every form of worship.”
Measured against Lamentabili and Pascendi:
– No admonition to the new diocesan clergy to reject modernist exegesis, doctrinal evolutionism, or relativistic pastoral theories.
– No reinforcement of the duty to adhere to the anti-modernist oath (then still in force).
– No trace of awareness that the greatest threat to the Church is not lack of a patron saint, but infection of seminaries, universities, and chanceries with modernism—the very evil St Pius X called “the synthesis of all heresies.”
This silence reveals the mindset that would explode at Vatican II:
– A pseudo-pastoralism that refuses to condemn modern errors.
– A naturalistic optimism about “growth” and “fruitfulness” detached from doctrinal militancy.
– The replacement of supernatural vigilance with sentimental administration.
Contra Humanistic Illusions: Divine Law Above Ecclesiastical Cosmetics
From the integral Catholic standpoint, ecclesiastical acts—no matter how solemn in style—must be judged by their conformity to perennial doctrine.
Key pre-1958 principles (recalled and sharpened by the provided documents):
– *Lex orandi, lex credendi*: liturgical and devotional acts must reflect unaltered dogma; to retain solemn formulas while undermining their doctrinal foundation is to weaponize this principle against the faithful.
– *Salus animarum suprema lex* (the salvation of souls is the supreme law): mere juridical rearrangements or patronage decrees that do not defend souls against reigning errors are, at best, distractions; at worst, they become instruments of deception.
– The Church is a *Societas perfecta*, with divine rights over states and individuals; every diocesan structure exists to assert these rights and lead souls to the Most Holy Sacrifice and true doctrine, not to blend quietly into laicized democracy.
Applied here:
– The letter invokes the “Catholic cause” in San Isidro, but does not remind civil rulers or ecclesiastical authorities that Christ the King’s law must shape legislation, education, and public morals.
– It emphasizes a saintly patron, but not the obligation to resist secularism, naturalism, or modernist theology.
– It formally nullifies any act contrary to its decree, yet is issued by the very figure whose broader program will nullify in practice the Syllabus’ condemnations and the spine of Quas primas.
Such acts exemplify how the conciliar sect clothes its apostasy in inherited robes:
– Pomp without principle.
– Saints without sanctity of doctrine.
– Authority without truth.
True Catholic Patronage versus Neo-Church Instrumentalization
A proper Catholic understanding of diocesan patronage, faithful to tradition, implies:
– The patron saint is invoked as intercessor for perseverance in the true faith, purity of morals, and resistance to error.
– His example is held up as a concrete embodiment of Catholic teaching: obedience, love of the Most Holy Sacrifice, fidelity to the Church’s magisterium as it had always been taught.
– The decree of patronage organically reaffirms the doctrinal and disciplinary line of previous popes.
Had this letter been truly Catholic in substance, we would expect statements to the effect that:
– St Isidore is given to the diocese so that clergy and faithful may remain immovably faithful to the teachings defined and condemned by the Church up to Pius XII, particularly against modernist innovations.
– The “fruits” expected are: increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the spirit of sacrifice; zeal for catechesis; attachment to the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary; restoration of social life under Christ’s law.
– Any infiltration of doctrines condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St Pius X is rejected as incompatible with the patron’s spirit and with the diocese’s Catholic identity.
Instead, we receive only juridical formulas, detached from these concrete doctrinal notes. This is why the act, while not in itself an explicit heresy, belongs structurally to the system that will soon produce the conciliar errors: it participates in the same method of apparently “neutral” pastoral acts used to normalize an illegitimate authority and prepare the faithful to accept, uncritically, whatever that authority will later promulgate.
Conclusion: An Edict of Continuity Serving an Agenda of Rupture
“Plantaria novella” must be unmasked for what it is:
– Not a heroic reaffirmation of the immutable faith, but an early administrative gesture of a regime already conceptually severed from the anti-liberal and anti-modernist line solemnly defended by its true predecessors.
– An example of how the conciliar sect wraps its nascent apostasy in pious Latin, valid saints, and familiar canonical formulas in order to create an illusion of continuity.
– A document whose very harmlessness is dangerous: by offering the faithful nothing to resist, and much that sounds classically Catholic, it trains them to accept the voice of a shepherd who will, in short order, hand them over to wolves.
The integral Catholic faithful, measuring all things by the doctrine unquestionably taught before 1958, are therefore bound to:
– Distinguish between the authentic cult of St Isidore and the instrumentalization of his patronage by illegitimate authorities.
– Recognize that no amount of devotional language can confer true apostolic authority on one who aligns with condemned errors.
– Adhere firmly to the teachings of Quas primas, the Syllabus, Lamentabili, Pascendi, and the constant Magisterium, and to reject the entire modernist project—conciliar and post-conciliar—with which such acts are historically and ideologically intertwined.
Where Christ the King is not explicitly confessed in His rights over nations and Church, and where modernism is not explicitly fought, “patronage” decrees, however solemn, are at best ornamental; within the conciliar system, they become a subtle component of the grand deceit by which the paramasonic neo-church drapes its apostasy in the garments of tradition.
Source:
Plantaria novella, Litterae Apostolicae S. Isidorus Agricola in Praecipuum Patronum Dioecesis Sancti Isidori in Argentina eligitur, 21 Maii a. 1959, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025