This Latin text is an Apostolic Constitution of John XXIII from 16 July 1959, by which he elevates the diocese of Kaduna in northern Nigeria to a metropolitan archdiocese and erects a new ecclesiastical province (Kadunaensis) with Kaduna as metropolitan see and Jos and Otukpo as suffragan dioceses, juridically detaching them from Lagos and Onitsha and granting the new metropolitan the usual canonical rights, privileges, and obligations, to be executed through the papal delegation and recorded according to curial formalities.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, however, this seemingly neutral administrative act manifests the incipient legal consolidation of the conciliar revolution under the authority of a man whose entire program prepared the demolition of the visible structures of the Church and the replacement of the apostolic hierarchy by a paramasonic network of compliant administrators.
Colonial Cartography of a Coming Revolt: Kaduna as a Laboratory of the Neo-Church
Formal Orthodoxy as a Mask for a Subversive Authority
On the surface, the Constitution employs classical curial Latin and the pre-1958 canonical framework. It speaks of the *servus servorum Dei*, of *Nostra summa et apostolica potestas*, of the proper erection of a new metropolitan see and province. It invokes the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, mandates due execution, and threatens canonical penalties for disobedience.
This must be dissected in light of immutable doctrine and historical fact:
– The act is dated 1959, the first year of John XXIII’s reign, that is, of the man who:
– Announced the convocation of the so-called Second Vatican Council with an explicitly “pastoral,” aggiornamento agenda that would relativize dogma and dissolve the Church’s militancy.
– Set in motion changes that directly contradicted the magisterial condemnations of liberalism, indifferentism, and modernism solemnly taught by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– Integral doctrine holds: *Roma locuta est, causa finita est* (Rome has spoken, the matter is settled) only when Rome speaks in continuity with the perennial Magisterium. When an authority uses papal forms to inaugurate a program objectively contrary to the Syllabus of Errors, *Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*, *Quas Primas*, and the entire pre-1958 line, we are facing not an organic act of the one true Church, but the juridical scaffolding for an emerging counterfeit.
The text’s apparent orthodoxy of form is precisely what makes it the more dangerous. A pseudo-pontifical authority uses traditional canonical instruments to plant, in mission territories, structures that will later be the obedient organs of post-conciliar apostasy. The Constitution is not “neutral administration”; it is the territorial prefiguration of a sect that will enthrone religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man.
Exploiting Mission Territories: From Apostolic Zeal to Conciliar Experiment
The Constitution states, in substance:
“Because it seems there is great hope that in the territory of Northern Nigeria the Christian faith can grow greatly, we establish a new ecclesiastical province…”
On its face, missionary expansion is laudable. Yet from the vantage point of pre-1958 doctrine, several grave problems emerge.
1. The missionary criterion is purely quantitative and sociological.
– No mention of:
– The exclusive necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation.
– The duty to extirpate paganism, Islam, and Protestantism by preaching the one true Faith.
– The obligation to conform civil society to the reign of Christ the King, as Pius XI insists: *peace and order are impossible while individuals and states reject the rule of Christ* (Quas Primas).
– Instead, we find a bureaucratic tone that treats the Church’s expansion like administrative optimization of a multinational structure.
2. True missionary doctrine, before 1958, is unequivocal:
– The Syllabus of Errors condemns the notion that any religion suffices (propositions 15–18) and the separation of Church and State (55).
– Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, teaches that civil authority must recognize and submit to Christ’s social kingship; missions must aim at that supernatural and social submission, not at pluralistic coexistence.
– St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili* condemns all reduction of the Church’s mission to historical evolution and human betterment.
The Kaduna Constitution is silent about:
– The supernatural end of man.
– The state of grace, the necessity of the sacraments, the gravity of idolatry and Islam.
– The demand that rulers and peoples of Nigeria must belong to and publicly honour the Catholic Church.
Such silence, in a solemn act concerning a mission territory, is not accidental. It is the prelude to the later conciliar betrayal that would:
– Legitimize “religious freedom” as a civil right.
– Turn mission territories into laboratories of interreligious dialogue and liturgical experimentation.
– Replace the imperative “convert and baptize all nations” (Matt 28:19) with “accompany cultures,” validate false cults, and enthrone naturalism.
The Constitution thus functions as a structural seedbed: it rearranges ecclesiastical jurisdictions precisely where, within a decade, a neo-church will weaponize these jurisdictions to spread post-conciliar ideology.
Language of Power Without Confession of Truth
The Constitution is saturated with assertions of authority:
– *“de Nostra summa et apostolica potestate haec, quae sequuntur, sancimus et iubemus”* (“by Our supreme and apostolic authority we decree and command the following”).
– Threats of canonical penalties for those who “spurn or in any way reject” these decrees.
– Detailed instructions on the execution of the act, documentary formalities, and juridical validity.
What is missing?
– Any explicit profession of the dogmatic content that grounds apostolic authority:
– No confession of the exclusive truth of the Catholic Faith.
– No reminder that bishops exist to guard the flock from heresy (cf. St. Paul, Acts 20:28–30).
– No insistence that all jurisdiction is ordered to the guarding and handing on of what has been believed “always, everywhere, and by all” (*semper, ubique, ab omnibus*).
Instead, we see a pure positivism of power: *ipse dixit*—it is so because “John XXIII” orders it. This juridical voluntarism mirrors the mentality condemned by Pius IX, who rebuked the claim that the State or any human authority is “the origin and source of all rights” (Syllabus, 39–40). Here, the new pseudo-pontifical regime mimics the very secular absolutism the earlier popes opposed: authority detached from explicit adherence to tradition, relying on naked institutional force.
The contrast with pre-modern papal acts that restructure dioceses is stark:
– Earlier documents habitually recall:
– The salvation of souls as supreme law (*salus animarum suprema lex*).
– The combat against heresy and paganism.
– The clear doctrinal markers that bind the act into the stream of tradition.
– Here, canonical technique is preserved while evangelical substance is silently evacuated. *Forma sine anima*—form without soul.
Metropolitan Dignity as a Vehicle of Future Apostasy
The Constitution grants Kaduna metropolitan rank, with the archbishop empowered:
– To bear the cross before him within the province.
– To use the pallium after canonical bestowal.
– To preside over suffragan sees and exercise the rights of a metropolitan.
Under an authentic pontificate this would be an act strengthening the hierarchical fabric of the Mystical Body. But once the line of true popes is interrupted and replaced by a conciliar usurper line, such elevations acquire another meaning.
Consider the logic:
1. Ecclesiastical provinces are multipliers of the center’s spirit.
– If Rome is Catholic, provinces reinforce Catholicity.
– If Rome is modernist, provinces become instruments of heresy.
2. John XXIII’s program, made explicit in his subsequent actions, speeches, and the calling of Vatican II, was in objective rupture with:
– The Syllabus of Errors’ condemnation of liberalism, religious pluralism, and the reconciliation with “modern civilization.”
– St. Pius X’s dogmatic rejection of modernist evolution of dogma (*Pascendi*, *Lamentabili*).
– Pius XI’s and Pius XII’s affirmation of the social Kingship of Christ and the objective necessity of the Church.
3. By elevating mission dioceses at this precise moment, he:
– Ensures that, when the conciliar sect fully manifests itself (from the 1960s onward), there will already be a lattice of metropolitan sees—staffed by men formed in the new spirit—capable of disseminating the revolution into every corner of Africa.
Consequently:
– Kaduna, Jos, Otukpo become not bastions of Tradition, but nodal points of the “Church of the New Advent.”
– The pallium, once the symbol of communion with the See of Peter, is transformed into a badge of allegiance to the anti-doctrinal agenda of the conciliar usurpers.
– The seemingly pious assertion that whoever resists this structure faces canonical penalties becomes a pre-emptive intimidation against any attempt, especially in mission territories, to contest the coming apostasy.
Silence on Christ the King: Betrayal of Quas Primas and the Syllabus
It is particularly revealing that this act, concerning a key geo-political region, is absolutely mute on the public reign of Christ.
Integral Catholic doctrine teaches:
– Christ is not only King of individual hearts, but of societies and nations (Pius XI, *Quas Primas*).
– States have the grave obligation to recognize the true religion and to reject false cults (Syllabus, 55, 77–80).
– There is no morally legitimate religious indifferentism, and the equality of all cults before the law is condemned.
The Kaduna Constitution:
– Mentions no duty of Nigerian civil authority to recognize the Catholic Church.
– Offers no condemnation of Islam or pagan cults; no explicit mandate to uproot error.
– Reduces the entire matter to internal ecclesiastical administration, as if the Church were a mere NGO adjusting its districts.
This silence is the negative image of the conciliar dogma to come:
– The future “Dignitatis humanae” and interreligious gatherings are already anticipated by the refusal here to affirm what Pius XI declared unequivocally: that peace and order can only arise where Christ is acknowledged as King in public life.
– The Constitution’s omission is not pastoral prudence; it is ideological preparation. The new structure is erected without anchoring it in the non-negotiable truths most offensive to modern liberalism, thereby catechizing bishops and faithful into a practical agnosticism regarding Christ’s rights over society.
Administrative Maximalism, Supernatural Minimalism
A striking disproportion governs the text:
– Extensive care is devoted to:
– Juridical borders.
– Delegated powers.
– Documentary forms.
– Procedural clauses to ensure “efficacy” and immunity from contrary norms.
– Absolute neglect of:
– The Eucharistic Sacrifice as propitiation.
– The necessity of true sacraments for salvation.
– The reality of hell, judgment, and the peril of remaining in false religions.
– The charge laid upon bishops to guard against heresy and novelty.
Thus the Constitution becomes a paradigm of the modernist technocratic mentality:
– The Church is treated as a legal-institutional organism whose perfection lies in organizational charts.
– Supernatural realities are presumed yet unspoken, then, in the next steps of the revolution, are quietly redefined:
– The Most Holy Sacrifice replaced by an ecumenical meal.
– Jurisdiction used to impose false liturgies and doctrines.
– Episcopal authority inverted to suppress integral Catholic faith instead of defending it.
In such a context, this 1959 act is not a neutral piece of curial bureaucracy. It is an early brick in the edifice of the *abominatio desolationis* (abomination of desolation): an ecclesiastical framework that will soon be occupied by a conciliar sect preaching religious liberty, collegiality, false ecumenism, and “dialogue” instead of conversion.
From Propaganda Fide to Propaganda Concilii
The Constitution explicitly entrusts execution to the Apostolic Delegate and links the whole process to the Congregation of Propaganda Fide.
Before 1958:
– That dicastery had the grave duty of preserving the purity of the faith in mission lands, subjecting clergy and teaching to Roman orthodoxy.
– It was a strategic bulwark against Protestant missions, secret societies, and liberal errors.
By 1959 and especially after:
– The same machinery is commandeered to propagate the new theology:
– Dialogue with paganism and Islam.
– Liturgical experimentation under the excuse of “inculturation.”
– Promotion of clergy loyal above all to the conciliar usurpers and their anti-doctrinal program.
Hence, in this Constitution:
– The reference to Propaganda Fide is no guarantee of fidelity; it is the channel through which the infection will be injected.
– The threat of canonical penalties against any who disregard this act, once the usurpation becomes apparent, is tantamount to a threat against those who would cling to pre-1958 doctrine and jurisdiction.
True ecclesiastical authority is bound by *lex credendi* (law of belief). When the same institutional forms are bent toward the destruction of that law, Catholics must recognize:
– The external continuity of offices cannot sanctify internal rupture.
– A province erected to serve the conciliar program is not a legitimate extension of the Mystical Body’s jurisdiction, but a territorial cell of a parallel, pseudo-Catholic organism.
The African Faithful Delivered into the Hands of Future Wolves
One must finally consider the specific gravity of this act in view of Africa:
– The faithful of Nigeria, many recently converted, lacked the historical theological formation to recognize the creeping revolution.
– By clothing the 1959 restructuring in impeccably traditional Latin and ceremonial forms, the future conciliar sect ensured:
– That African Catholics would equate obedience to their metropolitan with obedience to the Church, even when those metropolitans would later preach religious pluralism, endorse neo-rituals, and collaborate with Masonic and globalist agendas.
– That resistance to modernism would be painted as “rebellion against Rome,” though Rome itself had become occupied by the conciliar usurpers.
From the standpoint of immutable Catholic theology:
– To establish jurisdictions without clearly binding them in word and deed to the condemnations of liberalism, modernism, and indifferentism is a betrayal.
– To arm future modernist administrators with all canonical prerogatives, while leaving the faithful uninstructed about the coming doctrinal war, is to “hand over the sheep to wolves in shepherds’ clothing.”
This Constitution, therefore, reveals its true character:
– An act of “pontifical” formalism that prepares the infrastructure of subversion.
– A juridically airtight, theologically hollow decree that secures obedience to offices that will soon be wielded against the Faith they were instituted to protect.
Conclusion: Legal Shells of a Vacated Authority
Measured exclusively by pre-1958, unchanging Catholic doctrine:
– The content of this Constitution is theologically anemic, supernaturally evasive, and pastorally irresponsible.
– Its linguistic and juridical solemnity masks the deeper reality: the transfer of canonical tools into the hands of a regime already orienting itself against the Syllabus, *Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*, and *Quas Primas*.
– Its silence on Christ the King, on the unique salvific necessity of the Catholic Church, and on the duty to combat all error, exposes an underlying mentality that will soon flower into the conciliar cult of religious liberty and human rights.
Thus this act stands not as a monument of apostolic zeal, but as an early, coldly technical step in the erection of a global network through which the conciliar sect would, after 1958, seek to suffocate integral Catholic faith and replace the Kingdom of Christ with the kingdom of man.
Source:
Lagosensis (Kadunaënsis) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025