The document entitled Expedit sane, issued by John XXIII on 12 February 1960, designates St. John Bosco as the “principal heavenly Patron” of the Diocese of Rivadavia, invoking his missionary zeal and historical links with the region as a spiritual support for the growth of the local “Church.” In a few solemn juridical formulas, it pretends to exercise apostolic authority, to bind the faithful, and to shower “liturgical privileges” on the diocese in virtue of a plenitude of power claimed by the author.
Expedit sane: A Vacant Formula of Authority in the Conciliar Revolution
Usurped Jurisdiction and the Illusion of Apostolic Potestas
Already the opening lines expose the core problem: John XXIII writes as if he were the Roman Pontiff, invoking ad perpetuam rei memoriam and claiming to act certa scientia ac matura deliberatione… deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine (“with sure knowledge and mature deliberation… and by the fullness of Apostolic power”). This is no innocent formula; it is the self-assertion of universal jurisdiction.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine (i.e. that of the pre-1958 Magisterium), such a claim must be measured against the objective criteria taught by the Church herself:
– *Cum ex Apostolatus Officio* of Paul IV solemnly declares that if one who has deviated from the Catholic faith or fallen into heresy is elected to the papacy, “his promotion or elevation… shall be null, void, and without effect,” regardless of any subsequent acceptance or exercise of power.
– Pre-conciliar theologians, following St. Robert Bellarmine and the common doctrine, affirm 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 cannot be the head who is not a member).
– The 1917 Code, can. 188.4, stipulates that public defection from the faith vacates ecclesiastical office automatically, *ipso facto*, without any further declaration.
John XXIII, architect and inaugurator of the conciliar revolution, publicly introduced and fostered precisely those modernist principles condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi and in the decree Lamentabili sane exitu: the exaltation of historical relativism, the softening and practical overturning of the anti-liberal stance defined by Pius IX’s Syllabus, the preparation of “aggiornamento” which would enthrone religious liberty, collegiality, and ecumenism—all systematically condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Therefore, when this text says, in the name of John XXIII:
“Nos… deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine… Sanctum Ioannem Bosco… praecipuum apud Deum Patronum confirmamus seu constituimus ac declaramus”
(“We… by the fullness of Apostolic power… confirm or constitute and declare St John Bosco the principal Patron before God…”),
it is not an act of the Vicar of Christ, but the juridical simulation of authority by the first in the line of conciliar usurpers. All subsequent clauses—“we decree,” “we command,” “we declare null and void whatever is attempted to the contrary”—rest on an authority which, measured against prior Catholic doctrine, is non-existent.
Quod nullum est, nullum producit effectum (what is null produces no effect). The entire construction is a canonical façade masking the deeper reality: the same man who opens the floodgates to Vatican II’s revolution here cloaks himself in the solemn forms of Tradition to give his regime a Catholic odor.
Instrumentalizing a Saint: Pious Language in the Service of a Neo-Church
The text appeals to St. John Bosco as an intercessor so that the local community might be protected from “serpentibus malis” (spreading evils) and strengthened in pursuing “higher things.” The rhetoric seems orthodox; saints as patrons are entirely traditional. The problem lies in the subtext and instrumentalization.
Key elements:
– The new diocese (Rivadavia, erected 1957) is described as needing protection and growth. But growth toward what?
– The document praises Don Bosco’s apostolic zeal and his sending of missionaries bearing the Gospel and “true freedom of the children of God” to that region.
– It then assigns him liturgical patronage using standard pre-conciliar legal formulae, thereby wrapping a nascent conciliar structure in venerable garments.
On the factual surface, nothing appears heterodox: a holy patron for a diocese is legitimate in itself. Yet, in 1960, under the same usurped authority, preparations are already well advanced for the council that will deny in practice the integral implications of the social kingship of Christ, dilute the condemnation of liberalism, relativize the unique necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation, and enthrone the cult of “dialogue.”
Thus, the invocation of Don Bosco here functions as a spiritual camouflage. A saint of the 19th century—zealous for youth, uncompromising in morals, defender of the papacy and of clear doctrine—is pressed into service as a kind of “brand ambassador” for a structure that will soon:
– abandon the anti-liberal intransigence of Pius IX’s Syllabus errorum,
– silence the anti-modernist edge of Pius X’s Pascendi and Lamentabili,
– and repudiate in practice the doctrine of Pius XI’s Quas Primas, which teaches that peace and order are only possible under the public reign of Christ the King.
This is the characteristic tactic of the conciliar sect: preserve the names, alter the substance; canonize the image of saints while nullifying the doctrines for which they fought; adorn the new edifice with relics from the old while rebuilding the foundations on liberal-humanist sand.
Sanitized Piety and the Omission of the Kingship of Christ
One must pay close attention to what the document does not say.
A diocesan patronage decree, issued according to genuine Catholic spirit—especially in the mid-20th century, after Pius XI’s Quas Primas—ought naturally to orient the faithful:
– to the explicit confession of Christ’s sovereign dominion over civil and social life,
– to fidelity to the integral Catholic faith against liberalism, socialism, and secularism,
– to the defense of youth from corrupt education and immorality by embedding them in sacramental life, catechism, and Catholic discipline.
Instead, Expedit sane offers only generalized, affective language: protection from “evils,” encouragement to “higher things,” trust that “Catholic affairs” will flourish. There is no clear affirmation that:
– civil society in that territory is bound to recognize Christ the King,
– rulers must submit law and education to the natural and divine law,
– the faithful must reject pan-religious indifferentism and masonic liberalism condemned infallibly by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
Pius XI in Quas Primas sharply condemned the secular apostasy and demanded the public recognition of the Kingship of Christ as the only remedy. Here, in 1960, while the world descends further into laicism, freemasonry, and communist and liberal anti-Christian regimes, the supposed “supreme pastor” issues a document of glossy devotionalism that is strikingly non-combative. The saints are invoked, but the battle lines drawn by his predecessors are carefully blurred.
Silence becomes complicity. The omission of explicit doctrinal militancy in such acts is not accidental; it reflects the emerging conciliar program: transform the Church from Ecclesia militans into a friendly NGO of “spiritual accompaniment,” dissolving the clarity of prior condemnations into vague pastoralism.
Language as Mask: Traditional Juridical Forms in Service of Subversion
Linguistically, the letter is couched in classical curial Latin. This is precisely why it must be unmasked.
Patterns to note:
1. The heavy use of solemn legal formulae:
– “certa scientia ac matura deliberatione”
– “deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine”
– “praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere”
– “irritumque ex nunc et inane fieri, si quidquam secus…”
In genuine papal acts of the pre-1958 era, such formulas are the juridical expression of real divine authority. Here, they are deployed by one who is architect of a council and of a new ecclesiology which will relativize that very authority, subject it to collegial manipulation, and subordinate immutable doctrine to mutable “pastoral needs.”
2. The rhetoric of benevolence detached from dogmatic combat:
– References to “greater growth,” “higher things,” “spreading evils” remain generic.
– No identification of modernism, laicism, socialism, liberalism, or masonic influence as specific “evils,” despite the contemporaneous onslaught identified repeatedly by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
3. The function of such language:
– To reassure the faithful that nothing has changed (“we still write in Latin, we still honor saints, we still issue bulls, we still talk about heavenly patrons”),
– while in reality disarming resistance, preparing minds for the “pastoral council” that will reinterpret everything in the key of religious liberty, ecumenism, and anthropocentrism.
This is the essence of the conciliar strategy: revolution in continuity of gestures; subversion hidden beneath impeccably traditional syntax. The more exact and solemn the formulas, the more grave the fraud when the claimed authority is doctrinally compromised.
Theological Inversion: From Militant Patronage to Pastoral Neutrality
A true diocesan patronage, understood according to integrally Catholic theology, is not sentimental decor. It signifies:
– a concrete heavenly protector enlisted in a concrete battle: against heresy, impurity, anti-clericalism, and the world’s hatred of Christ;
– a public proclamation that this territory, its clergy and faithful, are under the patronage of a saint precisely insofar as they adhere to the one true faith, the only Church, the only Sacrifice, the only saving doctrine.
This is anchored in principles such as:
– Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church no salvation), taught unanimously by the Fathers and defined by the Magisterium;
– the obligation of states to recognize the true religion (as reaffirmed implicitly and explicitly from the Syllabus through Quas Primas);
– the condemnation of indifferentist “human rights” ideology that severs freedom from truth and authority from God.
Expedit sane, in contrast, is theologically neutralized. It does not recall the faithful and rulers of Rivadavia to:
– submit social life to Christ the King,
– reject liberal and socialist ideologies,
– repair sacrileges, blasphemies, and apostasies of public life.
Instead, it confines itself to the “inner” spiritual protection of the faithful, precisely the privatization of religion denounced by Pius XI as the root of social disaster. Where Quas Primas thunders that the exclusion of Christ and His law from public life is the cause of modern miseries, John XXIII’s act murmurs about “growth” and “protection” without daring to reaffirm the concrete demands of Christ’s reign against the world’s rebellion.
This silence aligns with the upcoming conciliar betrayal: the abandonment of the thesis that Catholicism must be the only religion of the state and the effective embrace of “religious liberty” as a civil right—which Pius IX had condemned as a pernicious error.
Symptom of Systemic Apostasy: Saints in the Shop Window of the Neo-Church
From a symptomatic perspective, Expedit sane is a minor text, yet it perfectly exemplifies the conciliar sect’s method:
– Use pre-1958 devotional and canonical forms to legitimize post-1958 doctrinal inversion.
– Align genuinely holy figures—such as John Bosco, a staunch defender of the papacy and enemy of liberalism—with dioceses and structures destined to be reeducated under Vatican II’s humanistic and ecumenical program.
– Transform the saints from guardians of orthodoxy into ornamental mascots for a new “pastoral” religion.
This phenomenon recurs:
– Patronages, feast reforms, and “saint-making” are deployed to convey continuity, while the underlying theology of the Church, state, sacraments, and salvation is being systematically re-engineered according to modernist principles condemned by Lamentabili and Pascendi.
– The structures occupying the Vatican preserve symbols to lull consciences, while they evacuate the substance: *lex orandi* and *lex credendi* are torn from their traditional anchor and refitted to the conciliar agenda.
In this light, the decree’s most emphatic legal clause becomes a kind of ironic self-indictment:
“Irritumque ex nunc et inane fieri, si quidquam secus, super his, a quovis, auctoritate qualibet, scienter sive ignoranter attentari contigerit.”
(“And we declare null and void from now on anything whatsoever to the contrary that by anyone, of whatever authority, knowingly or unknowingly, may be attempted in regard to these matters.”)
Measured by prior dogma:
– The real nullity lies not in hypothetical opposition to this act, but in the act itself, to the extent it depends on an authority contradicted by the very Magisterium it claims to continue.
– A manifest architect of the conciliar revolution cannot invoke the inviolability of Catholic authority to shield his gestures of jurisdiction, while simultaneously preparing to subvert the doctrinal foundations from which that authority flows.
The conciliar sect, through such texts, demands submission to its simulated “plenitude of power,” yet that very power—under Catholic teaching—is forfeited when one publicly adheres to, promotes, or prepares condemned errors.
Return to the Pre-Conciliar Standard: Sanctity Without Usurpation
One must distinguish sharply:
– St. John Bosco: a genuine saint, canonized before the conciliar usurpation, defender of youth, loyalty to the pre-conciliar papacy, vigorous opponent of liberal and anti-clerical errors.
– The conciliar exploitation of his name: an attempt to adorn new diocesan and structural realities that will, in short order, be subjected to Vatican II’s doctrines of religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, and liturgical devastation.
From the standpoint of immutable Catholic doctrine:
– Patronages legitimately granted by true Roman Pontiffs before the conciliar rupture remain admirable and piously embraced.
– Acts issued under a regime that doctrinally deviates from the prior Magisterium, claiming an authority they have undermined, cannot bind consciences as acts of the true Universal Pastor.
Thus, the proper attitude is:
– veneration of Don Bosco as a holy intercessor according to pre-1958 doctrine and spirituality;
– rejection of the conciliar sect’s attempt to employ his patronage as cover for its apostasy;
– unwavering adherence to the doctrinal line from Trent and Vatican I through Pius XII, including the condemnations of modernism, liberalism, religious indifferentism, and secular “rights” ideologies.
Expedit sane, read under this light, is not a harmless administrative note. It is a small but precise illustration of the method by which the conciliar usurpers dress their revolution in the vestments of Tradition: a juridical ghost, invoking saints to ornament a new religion that their own pre-conciliar predecessors had definitively anathematized.
Source:
Expedit sane (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025