On 25 September 1959, in the Anselmianum monastery on the Aventine Hill, John XXIII delivered a Latin allocution to assembled Benedictine abbots, superiors, and monks from around the world. He:
– Praises the historical merits of the Benedictine Order in evangelizing and civilizing Europe.
– Emphasizes the motto “ora et labora”, highlighting liturgical prayer (Divine Office, psalmody, nocturnal prayer) as the heart of monastic life.
– Commends Benedictine contributions in sacred learning, youth formation, parish ministry, and missions, including among those separated from the Apostolic See.
– Exhorts to unity, fidelity to the Holy Rule, and, crucially, openness to “new technical inventions,” contemporary experiences, and “new apostolic undertakings” adapted to modern circumstances.
– Confers his “apostolic blessing” upon their persons, works, and structures.
Behind this apparently devout exhortation stands the programmatic subordination of Benedictine contemplative life and Catholic tradition to the aggiornamento project that would soon explode at Vatican II, dissolving monastic, liturgical, and doctrinal stability into experimental modernist activism.
John XXIII and the Instrumentalization of Benedictine Monasticism for Conciliar Revolution
Historical Flattery as a Screen for Future Subversion
At the outset, John XXIII envelops the Benedictines in praise for their past role after the fall of the Roman Empire, when monks, armed with cross and plough, evangelized barbarian peoples and restored Christian civilization. This recollection, taken materially, is true: the Benedictine Order, faithful to *Regula Sancti Benedicti*, was a pillar of integral Catholic culture.
However, this allocution exploits that venerable memory for a diametrically opposed agenda. The speech:
– Appeals to their glorious past in order to legitimize future adaptation to modernity.
– Omits any explicit, doctrinal reaffirmation of the immutable dogmatic foundation which made that past fruitful: the exclusive truth of the Catholic Church, the necessity of the Faith for salvation, the kingship of Christ over nations, the objective obligation of states to submit to Christ and His Church.
By contrast, the pre-conciliar Magisterium speaks with crystalline clarity. Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that peace and order are impossible until individuals and states submit to the reign of Christ the King; there is no hint of neutral “coexistence” of the Church with pluralistic unbelief, but a call to restore public recognition of Christ’s dominion. Pius IX in the *Syllabus* condemns the separation of Church and State, religious indifferentism, and exaltation of liberal “rights” against divine law.
Against this background, the allocution’s silence is thunderous. The Benedictines, historically instruments of the social kingship of Christ, are not reminded of their duty to oppose liberal, laicist, masonic states that wage war on the Church (Pius IX explicitly identified such forces as *synagoga Satanae*), but are gently praised and encouraged to pastoral and cultural presence within the same revolutionary environment.
This is not a neutral omission. *Qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent seems to consent). The absence of doctrinal militancy in the face of modern apostasy is already an implicit betrayal of the Benedictine vocation and of prior papal teaching.
Linguistic Sedation: Pious Vocabulary, Absent Combat
The rhetoric is smooth, paternal, affective: “dilectissimi filii,” “amantissimae voluntatis Nostrae affectus,” etc. Yet under this caressing tone one discerns the method typical of conciliar subversion: tranquilization instead of mobilization.
Key elements:
– Constant emphasis on “charity,” “fraternal concord,” “suave vinculum caritatis,” “animorum unitas” detached from the doctrinal rigor and dogmatic clarity that always defined true ecclesial unity. Unity of hearts is praised, but unity in the confession of integral doctrine is not forthrightly reasserted.
– The Benedictine vocation is described almost exclusively in terms of:
– Aesthetic liturgical witness.
– Moral and cultural edification.
– Educative and missionary openness.
without the sharp insistence that:
– Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation (*extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*).
– Heresy and schism are mortal perils to be refuted, not simply contexts for “presence.”
– The monk is, above all, a soldier of Christ in a cosmic battle, not a decorous accompanier of secular modernity.
– The article text shows him lauding their prayer as a service even for those who visit churches only as “monuments of the liberal arts.” This phrasing—“liberalium artium monumenta”—betrays precisely the modernist attitude: sacred temples seen under the aspect of culture, aesthetics, “heritage,” their supernatural identity only indirectly asserted.
The linguistic pattern: profuse liturgical and spiritual vocabulary, carefully severed from its dogmatic edge; abundant affirmation, absence of anathema. In pre-1958 papal teaching, especially Pius X’s *Pascendi* and the Holy Office’s decree *Lamentabili sane exitu*, the condemnation of Modernism is precise, juridical, and doctrinal. Here we find instead a sentimental, non-combative discourse: a preparatory dissolvent, softening monastic resistance to upcoming novelties.
Theological Emptiness Behind the Praise of “Ora et Labora”
John XXIII invokes the Benedictine motto “ora et labora”. He rightly extols:
– The Divine Office as “Opus Dei.”
– Night vigils.
– The concord of voice and mind in liturgical psalmody, recalling St Benedict’s own injunction that nothing be preferred to the Work of God.
But the theological framing is incomplete and subtly distorted:
1. No explicit mention is made of:
– The propitiatory and satisfactory character of the Church’s prayer for sins.
– The wrath of God against apostasy and public sin.
– The necessity of penance, reparation, and mortification.
– The reality of hell, judgment, and the urgency of conversion.
2. Instead, the effect of monastic prayer is presented chiefly as:
– A general spiritual benefit for those distracted by worldly affairs.
– A gentle witness for those who see churches as cultural monuments.
The omission is not accidental. Integral Catholic doctrine always links liturgy, sacrifice, and asceticism with:
– Satisfaction for sin.
– Defense of the Faith.
– Triumph of the Church over her enemies.
Pius X, in confirming *Lamentabili*, condemns the modernist reduction of dogma and sacramental life to “religious experience,” detached from objective revealed truth. Here, prayer is exalted in experiential, inspirational terms, yet its dogmatic and militant dimension against error is left unsaid.
Thus, a Benedictine liturgy emptied (or at least muted) of its doctrinal militancy becomes an ideal vehicle for later liturgical revolution: the neo-church would keep chant, incense, and architecture where useful, but subtly repurpose them to celebrate human dignity, dialogue, and “journeying together” instead of proclaiming the reign of Christ and the condemnation of error.
Programmatic Openness: The Poisoned Clause of Adaptation
The crucial passage—the hinge on which the entire allocution turns—is John XXIII’s exhortation that, while remaining faithful to St Benedict’s Rule, the monks should:
“aperto tamen animo amplecti ne dubitetis quidquid boni suadent sive nova technica inventa, sive quod experiundo nostris temporibus utile noscitur, sive denique quod nova apostolatus incepta, recto ordine inita, postulant”
(“do not hesitate with open mind to embrace whatever good is suggested either by new technical inventions, or by what experience in our times shows to be useful, or finally by new undertakings of apostolate, instituted in proper order”).
This is the ideological detonator.
Measured against the pre-1958 Magisterium:
– The Church indeed distinguishes legitimate use of new means from doctrinal adaptation. But here the phrase is deliberately vague:
– “quidquid boni” tied not only to neutral means, but to what “experience in our times” and “new apostolic undertakings” propose.
– No safeguards are mentioned: no warning against condemned errors of Liberalism, Modernism, false ecumenism, liturgical experimentation, democratization of religious life.
– Pius X teaches that Modernists subject dogma and ecclesial life to “vital evolution” according to the needs of the age, under the slogan of adaptation. *Lamentabili* explicitly condemns the proposition that dogmas are “interpretations of religious facts” developed by human consciousness, or that the Church must transform into a broad, liberal Protestantism.
The allocution’s key formula is congruent with that condemned mentality:
– It invites religious to interpret their vocation according to contemporary “experiences” and new pastoral enterprises, rather than judging those enterprises according to immutable doctrine.
– It sows the principle that the Rule and monastic tradition must open themselves, not only to neutral tools, but to historical praxis as a theological criterion.
This is precisely how the conciliar sect later justified:
– The devastation of the Divine Office in religious houses.
– Abandonment of enclosure and monastic discipline.
– Replacement of contemplation with activism, “social involvement,” psychological workshops, interreligious encounters, and ecumenical hospitality.
– Dilution of Benedictine identity into generic humanitarianism and cultural tourism.
In seed form, the allocution demands the interior assent of Benedictines to the future aggiornamento. It is a rhetorical soft-launch of the revolution.
Silence on Modernism, Masonry, and the Enemies Within
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine, the gravest accusation against this allocution is its strategic silence.
By 1959:
– The errors condemned by Pius IX in the *Syllabus* (religious liberty, separation of Church and State, exaltation of human reason, masonic infiltration) were entrenched in public life.
– Pius X, through *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*, had unmasked Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.”
– The assaults of secret societies and liberal governments against the Church were abundantly documented by prior pontiffs, explicitly attributing much of the persecution to masonic and anti-Christian plots.
Yet John XXIII, addressing an Order historically raised up to defend and rebuild Christian civilization:
– Says nothing about Modernism.
– Says nothing about condemned liberal principles.
– Says nothing about the masonic and naturalistic forces ravaging Church and society.
– Gives no warning against the doctrinal corruption and liturgical experiments already being promoted by progressive theologians and bishops.
– Offers no call to doctrinal vigilance, no reminder of the duty to submit to prior dogmatic condemnations without dilution.
Instead, he:
– Encourages “fraternal association” even with those in “populi ab hac Apostolica Sede seiuncti” (peoples separated from this Apostolic See) in language that anticipates ecumenical relativism, without reiterating their objective duty to return to Catholic unity.
– Frames mission in a way compatible with the future ecumenical project: presence, dialogue, shared works, rather than the uncompromising call to conversion.
This silence and this shift of emphasis are incompatible with the prior papal practice, which relentlessly:
– Named errors.
– Warned against seduction by the “spirit of the age.”
– Armed religious orders as militias of orthodoxy, not instruments of accommodation.
From Liturgical Witness to Liturgical Deconstruction
The allocution heavily underscores the Divine Office, nocturnal vigils, psalmody “ut mens nostra concordet voci nostrae” (that our mind agree with our voice). In isolation, these exhortations are orthodox and beautiful, echoing St Benedict himself.
Yet within the broader historical trajectory:
– Within a few years, under the same regime and its successor usurpers, the Divine Office in religious communities would be:
– Truncated.
– Replaced with banal vernacular paraphrases.
– Stripped of imprecatory psalms and doctrinally “difficult” texts.
– Re-engineered according to a horizontal, anthropocentric liturgical theology.
– Benedictine monasteries, under pressure of the conciliar sect, would:
– Redefine their liturgy in the spirit of “participation” and modernization.
– Abandon Latin and Gregorian chant in many places.
– Host ecumenical and interreligious events within monastic precincts.
The allocution thus functions as a bridge:
– It publicly glorifies traditional monastic prayer.
– It simultaneously implants the principle of openness to “new undertakings” and contemporary “experiences.”
– Once that principle is accepted, liturgical reform can be imposed under the guise of organic continuity and obedience to the same authority that praised tradition.
This is the classic modernist tactic documented by Pius X:
subtiliter, leniter, occulte—subtle, gentle, hidden—never frontal at first, always preparing acceptance of future ruptures while speaking in pious terms.
Conciliar Humanism versus the Kingship of Christ
Note what is missing when judged by *Quas Primas* and the *Syllabus*:
– No affirmation that Christ must reign socially and publicly through Catholic confessional states.
– No denunciation of the liberal doctrine that the state is the source of rights (condemned in the *Syllabus*, prop. 39).
– No insistence that rulers must recognize and honour Christ the King in their laws, education, and institutions, as Pius XI solemnly teaches.
– No reminder that religious orders, including Benedictines, have the duty to be leaven of that integral Christian order, not chaplains of secular democracy.
Instead, we see an implicit compatibility with religious pluralism and secular regimes, where Benedictines contribute culturally, spiritually, educationally—without questioning the legitimacy of the apostate order.
This omission aligns with the conciliar sect’s subsequent exaltation of “religious freedom” and “human rights” detached from the primacy of God’s law, directly contradicting the perennial Magisterium. The Benedictine monk, once an agent of Christ’s sovereign reign over nations, is rhetorically reduced to:
– A singer of psalms in a neutral world.
– A spiritual presence within structures no longer demanded to convert.
– A collaborator in new “apostolates” defined by the same hierarchy that would soon embrace ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and laicist humanism.
The Symptom of Systemic Apostasy: Muted Supernaturalism and Obedience to Revolution
Analyzed on the symptomatic level, this allocution exhibits the core pathology that would crystallize in the conciliar revolution:
1. Selective supernatural language.
– Prayer, liturgy, grace are mentioned.
– But central supernatural truths most offensive to the modern mind—exclusive salvation in the Catholic Church, necessity of conversion, condemnation of heresy, hell, divine justice—are prudently avoided.
– Result: a safe, “edifying,” but disarmed supernaturalism, compatible with liberal sensibilities.
2. Absolutized obedience severed from doctrinal continuity.
– Benedictines are exhorted to unity, docility, charity.
– But are not reminded that obedience is bound by fidelity to tradition; that no one may command what contradicts the Faith.
– Thus, the stage is set for them to accept, as “obedience to the pope,” the very reforms that would devastate their Rule, liturgy, and identity.
3. Opening to “novelty” without doctrinal criteria.
– The encouragement to embrace what “our times” find useful omits the strict criteria laid down by prior popes.
– Pius X anathematized those who demand that Catholic doctrine be reinterpreted to accommodate modern philosophy and science.
– Here, the doors are nudged open, under a cloak of prudence and discernment, but without a word about the very errors most needing rejection.
4. Internalization of naturalistic perspectives.
– Reference to churches as “monuments of the liberal arts.”
– Praise of works, study, culture, methods, without the sharp reminder that all such things are subordinate to the supernatural end and must be judged by revealed truth, not by worldly success.
Such patterns are not innocent. They manifest the *mens* of a structure already turning from the integral Catholic order to the religion of man, in which monasticism is reinterpreted as a contemplative ornament on the façade of pluralist, anti-Christian civilization.
Conclusion: From Benedictine Citadel to Experimental Laboratory
Under a thin layer of devout exhortation, this 1959 allocution:
– Reconfigures Benedictine identity from bastion of unchanging Catholic tradition into a flexible instrument for aggiornamento.
– Replaces the clear militancy of pre-conciliar papal teaching with a sentimental, non-condemnatory rhetoric.
– Embeds the crucial principle of “open-minded” reception of modern experiences and new apostolic ventures, without reaffirming the immutable doctrinal boundaries that forbid such adaptation when it conflicts with Tradition.
– Silently accepts the liberal-masonic order condemned by Pius IX and his successors, assigning to monks the role of spiritual cultural workers within it rather than agents of Christ’s total kingship.
By the standard of the unchanging Faith prior to 1958, this text is not a harmless paternal discourse; it is an early programmatic instrument of the conciliar sect’s effort to neutralize one of the strongest fortresses of Catholic tradition and harness it for the construction of the Church of the New Advent.
Source:
n Anselmiano Coenobio habita, in monte Aventino, adstantibus Abbate Primate ceterisque Abbatibus, Moderatoribus ac sodalibus quam plurimis Benedictini Ordinis, (die 25 m. Septembris, A. D. MCMLIX) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025