The text attributed to John XXIII, titled “Tot inter angustias,” proclaims that amidst worldly troubles the Blessed Virgin Mary, invoked as “Our Lady of Peace,” is confirmed as principal heavenly Patroness of the diocese of Trujillo in Venezuela. It rehearses Marian devotional language, notes the historic invocation “Regina Pacis” linked to the episcopal city and its main church, cites the request of Antonio Ignacio Camargo, and, invoking “Apostolic” authority, “confirms” and “again constitutes and declares” the Blessed Virgin Mary under this title as the diocese’s chief patron, granting all corresponding liturgical honors and privileges, with the usual sweeping canonical clauses of perpetual validity.
Beneath its pious surface, this act is one more juridical brick in the architecture of the conciliar revolution: a counterfeit “pontiff,” already preparing the demolition of the social Kingship of Christ, cloaks his usurpation in Marian language and pacifist rhetoric, evacuating true Catholic militancy and replacing it with sentimental irenicism and obedience to a neo-church which he and his successors would deform into an instrument of apostasy.
Pacifist Marian Irenicism as a Veil for Juridical Usurpation
The very first lens must be iuridicus: who speaks, with what authority, and in which ecclesial context?
Here the signer is John XXIII, first in the line of usurpers beginning in 1958, whose entire “pontificate” is historically and doctrinally marked by:
– Convocation of Vatican II and promotion of the condemned principles of liberalism and Modernism.
– Systematic softening of language against Communism and Freemasonry, in open tension with the pre-1958 Magisterium (cf. the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX; Lamentabili and Pascendi of Pius X; the anti-masonic teaching reiterated there).
– Programmatic displacement of the doctrine of the social Reign of Christ the King, defined and enforced by Pius XI in Quas primas, by a vague cult of “peace,” “dialogue,” and “human fraternity.”
Thus, from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this document is not a harmless devotional nota; it is an act of counterfeit jurisdiction: an antichurch structure, already ideologically oriented against the non-negotiable teachings listed and defended in the provided magisterial sources, presumes to legislate liturgically and doctrinally while severed from the indefectible line of true Catholic doctrine.
Factual Level: What This Text Does and What It Carefully Avoids
1. The text’s positive content is minimal:
– It recalls that the episcopal city was founded under the invocation of the Queen of Peace.
– It states that the diocesan patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary under this title existed de facto and is now “confirmed” and “again constituted.”
– It grants the usual liturgical honors of a principal diocesan patroness.
– It issues the standard legal clausula: perpetuity, nullity of contrary acts, etc.
2. What is striking is not what is said, but what is systematically excluded:
– No explicit confession of the universal, exclusive Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ over individuals, families, and states, as vigorously taught in Quas primas and demanded as the only solid foundation of true peace.
– No reference to the obligation of civil authority to submit to the law of Christ and His Church, condemned by Pius IX when denied (Syllabus, propositions 55, 77–80).
– No denunciation of the enemies of the Church: liberalism, socialism, communism, Freemasonry, laicism, indifferentism—precisely those forces identified by Pius IX as the “synagogue of Satan” waging war against the Church.
– No call to conversion, penance, return to sacramental life in the state of grace, or preparation for judgment—silence on the supernatural conditions of true peace.
We see a legal act that, while sounding devout, is suspended in a vacuum of doctrine. The Blessed Virgin is invoked as “Our Lady of Peace,” but peace is left undefined, detached from the pax Christi in Regno Christi (“the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ”) which Pius XI explicitly proclaimed as the only hope for nations.
This absence is not stylistic; it is dogmatic. The omission of Christ’s Kingship and of the Church’s rights is the gravest accusation against this text.
Linguistic Level: Sentimentality, Pacifism, and the Mask of Marian Devotion
Consider the rhetoric:
“Amid so many distresses and dangers for mortals the august Virgin, Queen of heaven and earth, shines forth, who calms tumults and pours true peace into souls.”
At first glance, thoroughly Catholic. But the text’s linguistic pattern betrays the emerging conciliar mentality:
– “Peace” is presented in generalized, affective terms: calming tumults, pouring peace into souls, without anchor in:
– the law of God;
– the necessity of public profession of the true Faith;
– the duty of rulers to subject civil law to Christ (cf. Quas primas: peace depends on Christ reigning in laws, institutions, schools, and customs).
– Marian devotion is instrumentalized as a unifying civic-religious symbol. The Blessed Virgin is invoked as emblem of local identity (“the episcopal city … was founded under the invocation of the Queen of Peace”), reducing her from terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata (“terrible as an army set in array”) to a coat-of-arms for regional pacifism.
– The style is bureaucratic-devotional: a sugary invocation wrapped around a sterile canonical formula. This is the new conciliar dialect: Marian and pious language deployed as a decorative curtain before a juridical act issued by a structure no longer intent on defending the full deposit of faith.
The absence of combat vocabulary—of sin, heresy, error, hell, judgment, militancy—signals an ideological rupture from the pre-1958 papal manner of speaking about Mary. Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII consistently acclaimed Mary as defender of the Faith, crusher of heresies, refuge for those who accept the rights of God against the Revolution. Here, that dimension vanishes, replaced by a domesticated “Our Lady of Peace” compatible with liberal-democratic pacifism.
Theological Level: Marian Patronage Subordinated to a Counterfeit Ecclesiology
Sub specie theologiae, several deeper problems emerge.
1. Substitution of the Social Reign of Christ with a vague Marian “Peace”
Pre-1958 doctrine (e.g. Quas primas) is categorical:
– True peace is inseparable from Christ’s Kingship.
– States must recognize the Catholic religion as the one true religion and publicly obey Christ’s law.
– Secularism, religious indifferentism, and liberal notions of “freedom” divorced from truth are condemned.
Pius XI explicitly links social peace only to the restoration of Christ’s rule:
– Paraphrasing: Peace will not shine upon nations until they recognize and obey the reign of the Savior; peace is only possible in the Kingdom of Christ.
This document:
– Proclaims Marian patronage under the title of peace but omits the doctrinal condition: pax is a fruit of ordo, and ordo is the submission of man and society to the rule of Christ and His Church.
– Offers no reminder that any “peace” built on religious pluralism, secular constitutions, or collaboration with condemned secret societies is a false peace.
Thus, the Marian title risks being absorbed into a naturalistic ideology:
“Our Lady of Peace” without “Christ the King” degenerates into an icon for Masonic “universal brotherhood” and conciliar “dialogue” rather than the banner under which the enemies of God are overthrown.
2. Juridical Formulae as Self-Legitimation of the Antichurch
The document’s legal language is very strong:
“Present Letters [are to] be firm, valid and efficacious… if anything to the contrary be attempted by anyone, of whatever authority, knowingly or unknowingly, it is from now on null and void.”
Here the usurping authority:
– Appropriates the tones and instruments of the true Roman Pontiffs.
– Uses Marian patronage—as something emotionally unassailable—to condition the faithful to accept its juridical acts as unquestionably binding.
– Effectively weaponizes canonical style to consolidate acceptance of a structure that, by doctrine and practice, is diverging from the immutable teaching defended, for instance, in Lamentabili and the Syllabus.
But Catholic theology—summarized by pre-1958 theologians and codified in the 1917 Code—affirms:
– A manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church nor hold jurisdiction; he falls ipso facto from office (cf. Bellarmine as cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file; Canon 188.4 of 1917 Code on public defection from the faith).
– No authority against the divine constitution and defined doctrine of the Church can claim obedience.
Once John XXIII inaugurated a program systematically favoring condemned errors (religious liberty, false ecumenism, collegiality, openness to Modernism), the use of such legal absolutes in minor devotional matters becomes part of a deeper fraud: using the Marian mantle to make souls docile to a counterfeit magisterium.
3. Eclipse of Militant Marian Theology
Traditional Catholic doctrine teaches that:
– Mary’s mediation, patronage, and titles are inseparable from her role in the economy of salvation as Mother of God and Destroyer of Heresies.
– Authentic Marian devotion leads to:
– adherence to dogma;
– hatred of error;
– penance and sacramental life;
– defense of the Church’s rights over and against the world, especially against the sects condemned by Pius IX.
By contrast, in this text:
– Mary is not invoked as defender of the one true Church against Protestantism, Masonry, communism, or liberalism.
– She is not appealed to for conversion of heretics or for the overthrow of impious laws.
– She is reduced to a patroness of “peace” in the abstract, which the conciliar sect will later interpret as interreligious harmony, disarmed coexistence with error, and silence about the necessity of entering the Catholic Church for salvation as taught always and everywhere before 1958.
Ab hoc silentio (from this silence) we see the doctrinal disease: Marian titles are emptied of their dogmatic and militant content and integrated into the new “cult of man” which the neo-church will promote.
Symptomatic Level: A Micro-Sign of the Conciliar Revolution
This apparently small Apostolic Letter must be read as a symptom of a systemic transformation. Several traits reveal this:
1. Devotionalism as Sedative for Apostasy
The conciliar sect learned to preserve certain devotions externally—especially Marian ones—not to defend tradition, but to narcotize Catholic instinct while introducing doctrinal novelties:
– Keep familiar invocations (Our Lady of Peace, Queen of Heaven).
– Retain canonical language.
– Avoid overtly heterodox phrases in minor documents.
– Meanwhile, at the macro-level:
– prepare Vatican II and the liturgical revolution;
– introduce religious liberty against the Syllabus;
– promote ecumenism against the dogma that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church exclusively;
– neutralize condemnation of Freemasonry and socialist liberal states.
This text fits perfectly. It sounds Catholic enough to bypass resistance, while conditioning the faithful to accept whatever comes “from Rome” as authentic—even as Rome is being occupied by the architects of the “Church of the New Advent.”
2. Replacement of the Church Militant with the Church of “Peace”
Pre-1958 Popes constantly spoke of:
– The Church Militant;
– Spiritual warfare;
– The clash with revolutionary ideologies;
– The rights of Christ against the usurpations of the state.
Here:
– “Peace” becomes the dominant note.
– No trace of conflict between the Kingdom of Christ and the world.
– No warning against the errors explicitly enumerated in the Syllabus—errors already proliferating in Latin America: laicization of law, state control over education, tolerance of false religions, and Masonic infiltration (all clearly condemned in the provided Syllabus text).
Thus:
What is offered is not the peace of the Cross, but a rhetorical peace compatible with liberalism.
The Blessed Virgin is made sponsor of this disarmed Catholicism.
3. Co-opting Marian Titles for Post-Conciliar Humanism
Within a few years, under the same line of usurpers:
– “Peace” will be invoked to justify interreligious meetings, relativism, and joint prayers with false religions.
– Marian and sacred language will be instrumentalized to soften the faithful toward acceptance of the Novus Ordo cult, interfaith syncretism, and political projects inspired more by Masonic humanitarianism than by the Kingship of Christ.
This Letter’s soft pacifist Marianism is an early modulation toward that trajectory.
God’s Law versus Humanistic “Peace”: The Missing Doctrinal Antithesis
Integral Catholic doctrine, as affirmed by the true Magisterium:
– Denies that any permanent concord is possible where the state rejects the one true Church (Syllabus, prop. 55 condemned).
– Rejects the notion that the Roman Pontiff can reconcile himself with liberalism and modern civilization understood as emancipation from Church and Revelation (Syllabus, prop. 80 condemned).
– Affirms that peace is a fruit of submission to divine law: public life, legislation, education must be conformed to the Gospel.
This Letter:
– Does not recall that any “peace” without subordination to Christ’s law is illusory.
– Does not warn Trujillo’s faithful against secularism, indifferentism, or the false “rights of man” ideology which subordinates God’s rights to individual whim.
– Does not summon rulers or people to acknowledge Christ’s social Kingship; instead, it simply bathes the diocesan identity in Marian “peace” imagery.
Therefore:
The text tacitly aligns Marian devotion with a secular conception of peace detached from the non-negotiable primacy of God’s rights, preparing the ground for the conciliar cult of human dignity above divine sovereignty.
Silence on Sacraments, Grace, and Judgment: Theological Emptiness Exposed
Perhaps the most devastating indictment: while formally Catholic in vocabulary, the Letter is spiritually hollow.
Absent entirely:
– Any mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice, from which all graces of peace flow;
– Any appeal to frequent Confession, Holy Communion (worthily received), or Marian consecration understood as total submission to Christ’s law;
– Any warning about sin, hell, or the necessity of conversion;
– Any doctrinal catechesis on Mary’s role as Mediatrix of all graces, intimately ordered to Christ and the Church.
This is symptomatic of the emergent conciliar style:
– Use religious language, avoid concrete supernatural demands.
– Elevate “peace,” “comfort,” “consolation,” and “pastoral sensitivity.”
– Conceal the Cross, the battle against error, and the juridical claims of the Church over temporal society.
In the integral Catholic perspective, such silence is not neutral. It is betrayal.
Against both Modernist “Clergy” and Lay Self-Styled Judges
This Letter also exemplifies a double perversion that must be exposed:
1. On one side, apostate “clergy” of the conciliar sect:
– Usurp titles and powers of the Church while undermining her doctrine.
– Exploit Marian patronage and liturgical acts to reinforce obedience to their anti-doctrinal agenda.
They are to be denounced as moral participants in the great apostasy, not as legitimate pastors: their sacramental and legislative acts within the neo-church structures are, at best, simulations and, at worst, elements of an idolatrous, syncretic cult.
2. On the other side, lay or {those pretending to be traditional Catholics} temptations:
– To treat every pre- or paraconciliar document with blind sentimentalism, refusing to distinguish where usurpers have invaded.
– Or to seize for themselves doctrinal judgment as if the Church were a democracy of opinions.
Against both errors the pre-1958 Magisterium speaks clearly:
– Teaching authority resides in the true hierarchy in communion with the perennial doctrine, not in populist “discernment,” and not in the neo-church mafia occupying the Vatican.
– Dogma cannot evolve to accommodate liberalism, ecumenism, or naturalistic “peace”; where such evolution is asserted or assumed, the one asserting manifests rupture with the Catholic Faith.
Thus:
Neither the conciliar sect’s fraudulent decrees nor lay subjectivist reactions have authority; only the unbroken doctrine and valid hierarchy of the integral Catholic Church command obedience.
Conclusion: “Our Lady of Peace” Must Not Be Claimed by the Conciliar Sect
A truly Catholic proclamation of Our Lady as Patroness under the title “of Peace” would:
– Explicitly link peace to the reign of Christ the King over Trujillo, Venezuela, and every nation.
– Exhort rulers and people alike to reject condemned errors: religious indifferentism, secularism, liberalism, socialism, Masonry, Modernism.
– Call the faithful to Confession, the Holy Rosary, the Unbloody Sacrifice, penance, and reparation for the sins that provoke divine wrath.
– Present Mary as victorious over heresies, guardian of orthodoxy, and refuge for those who keep the Faith entire and incorrupt.
Instead, this 1960 text:
– Offers a devotional gesture without doctrinal teeth.
– Embeds it in the juridical apparatus of an emerging antichurch.
– Contributes to the rebranding of Marian devotion as an innocuous, sentimental support for a pacifist, humanistic, post-conciliar ideology.
The integral Catholic response must therefore be twofold:
– To hold firmly to authentic Marian devotion, grounded in the timeless teaching reaffirmed by the pre-1958 Magisterium, in which she leads souls to the Cross, to the sacraments, to hatred of error, and to the full social reign of Christ.
– To refuse recognition of the conciliar sect’s exploitation of her name and titles as a cover for apostasy, including juridical acts such as this one, which presuppose an authority already bent toward the overthrow of the very doctrines that guarantee true peace.
Pax Christi sub sceptro Mariae (the peace of Christ under the sceptre of Mary) is inseparable from Regnum Christi in societate (the reign of Christ in society). Any “Our Lady of Peace” divorced from this truth is not the Queen of Heaven honored by the Catholic Church, but a mask placed upon her by those who would dethrone her Son and enthrone man in His place.
Source:
Tot inter angustias, Litterae Apostolicae Beata Maria Virgo, « Domina Nostra a Pace », praecipua caelestis Patrona dioecesis Truxillensis in Venezuela confirmatur, XVIII Maii MCMLX, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025