The presented Latin text is an act of John XXIII, issued as so‑called Apostolic Letters, which changes the name and redefines the territorial boundaries of the Apostolic Delegation in British East and West Africa. It suppresses the previous “Delegatio Apostolica Africae Orientalis et Occidentalis Britannicae,” establishes the title “Delegatio Apostolica Africae Orientalis,” and assigns to it a list of territories (Sudan, Kenya, Zanzibar, Uganda, Tanganyika, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, French Somaliland, Seychelles), invoking missionary needs and the promotion of the “name of Christ” under the control of the Roman dicastery de Propaganda Fide. It is clothed in traditional curial Latin, asserts canonical-juridical validity, and presents itself as a pastoral, missionary measure ordered to the conversion of pagans from superstition to the worship of the one true God.
Simulated Roman Authority in the Service of the Conciliar Revolution
The entire document is short, apparently technical, almost “innocent”: a bureaucratic adjustment of ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Yet precisely here the mask slips. The text is dated 3 May 1960, signed by John XXIII and Cardinal Tardini, and stands historically and doctrinally inside the same continuum that will soon explode in the “Second Vatican Council,” religious liberty, ecumenism, and the dismantling of the very missionary mandate it pretends to serve. What appears as a neutral administrative measure is in fact a symptom and instrument of a deeper subversion: the usurpation of Catholic missionary structures by a paramasonic neo-church preparing to replace the reign of Christ with the cult of man.
Jurisdictional Engineering without the Faith: A Hollow Missiology
On the factual level, the text claims as its purpose (English first, then Latin):
“Intending that peoples, rejecting the darkness of ethnic superstition, may be led to the knowledge and worship of the one true God and be aggregated to the Church, the guardian of the Faith and saving Mother…”
«Eo intendentes, ut populi, reiectis superstitionis ethnicae tenebris, ad unius veri Dei notitiam cultumque traducantur et Ecclesiae, Fidei custodi ac salutiferae Matri, aggregentur…»
At first hearing, the formula echoes classical Catholic language. But here it is already emptied by context and subsequent praxis:
– In 1960, John XXIII was openly preparing an aggiornamento which would:
– Replace the absolute claim of the Catholic Church with the thesis that non-Catholic “churches and ecclesial communities” are means of salvation.
– Dismantle the traditional doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation in its defined sense (cf. the Council of Florence’s decree for the Jacobites; Pius IX’s Syllabus, propositions 15–18 condemned).
– Exalt the “dignity of the human person” and “religious freedom” against the perennial teaching that states must acknowledge the Kingship of Christ (cf. Pius XI, Quas Primas: peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ the King; Pius IX, Syllabus, 77–80).
– The same apparatus of Propaganda Fide, invoked as guarantor, will be turned within a few years into an instrument of “dialogue,” inculturation, and practical indifferentism, so that “mission” ceases to mean the conversion of infidels and becomes “encounter,” “mutual enrichment,” and acceptance of false religions as willed by God’s permissive plan.
Thus the act is a juridical relocation of missionary lines under an authority already internally corrupted. The language about leading peoples from superstition to the one true God, in the mouth of John XXIII, does not express the uncompromising mandate of Christ: it is a temporary conservative varnish masking the transition from true mission to globalist ecumenical management.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine before 1958 this creates a fundamental contradiction:
– A structure that soon officially denies in practice (and by later magisterial simulacra) that the Catholic Church is the only ark of salvation is here arrogating jurisdiction over missions precisely “to lead” souls into that Church.
– The words are Catholic; the intended trajectory is anti-Catholic. This is the classic mark of Modernism already unmasked by St. Pius X in Pascendi and Lamentabili: outward conservation of formulas, inward mutation of meaning.
Rhetorical Piety as Veil: The Linguistic Mask of Modernist Administration
The linguistic texture is deliberately “traditional”:
– Use of solemn formulae: “motu proprio, certa scientia ac matura deliberatione nostra, deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine…”
– Invocation of the Church as “Fidei custodi ac salutiferae Matri” (guardian of the Faith and saving Mother).
– Strong juridical clauses: the act is to be “firm, valid, effective,” all contrary attempts declared null.
This language historically belonged to true pontifical legislation—expressing real *plenitudo potestatis* (fullness of power) of the Roman Pontiff defined at Vatican I. But in 1960 it is already being instrumentally used by one who:
– Intends to convoke a council that will exalt religious liberty and collegiality against the Syllabus and against the monarchic constitution of the Church.
– Praises the “modern world” and opens the doors to precisely those errors condemned by his predecessors as masonic and naturalistic.
Hence the very rhetoric of sovereign Catholic authority is weaponized to consolidate a structure that will shortly contradict the integral Faith. This is not a merely personal moral inconsistency; it is the operational method of Modernism: *“corruptio optimi pessima”* (the corruption of the best is the worst). They do not destroy forms; they inhabit them parasitically until they serve new ends.
The cautious, bureaucratic tone—sterile legalism without doctrinal exposition—betrays an underlying mentality:
– No reaffirmation of the necessity of baptism for salvation.
– No reminder that false religions and pagan rites are objectively idolatrous and damn souls.
– No insistence on subjection of peoples and rulers to Christ the King, even though it concerns political territories in the age of decolonisation, when the duty to shape new constitutions according to the law of Christ was gravely urgent.
Silence here is not neutral. In a missionary decree, failure to mention the sacraments, the true Faith as exclusive way of salvation, and the Kingship of Christ is already a confession of the new religion of humanistic management.
Doctrinal Vacuum: Where Is the Kingship of Christ and the Necessity of the Church?
Measured against pre-1958 magisterium:
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that civil societies must publicly recognize and submit to Christ the King; that laws and institutions are bound to His sovereignty; that peace cannot exist where He does not reign socially.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus condemns as grave errors:
– The idea that every man is free to embrace any religion (15).
– That salvation can be found in any religion (16).
– That the Church cannot demand to be the only true religion of the State (77).
A genuine Catholic missionary decree reordering Delegations in newly configured territories (Kenya, Tanganyika, etc.) at a moment of political transition should:
– Explicitly affirm the obligation of these emerging nations to profess the Catholic Faith publicly.
– Direct the Delegation to work for the establishment of Catholic constitutions and laws.
– Reiterate that paganism, Islam, Protestantism and sects are poisonous errors to be extirpated by preaching, catechesis, and sacramental life.
– Bind missionaries to doctrinal integrity against Modernism and liberalism, recalling the condemnations of Lamentabili and Pascendi.
Instead, John XXIII’s act is purely structural. It speaks of “peoples” leaving “ethnic superstition” but says nothing of the antisuperstition demanded toward the coming conciliar naturalism. It assigns names, territories, and subordination to Propaganda Fide—but without any doctrinal safeguards, as if organization were sufficient irrespective of what faith is actually preached. This abstraction of jurisdiction from doctrine is itself a modernist perversion. *Potestas* (authority) in the Church is intrinsically ordered to preserving and handing on the very content of Revelation. Severed from this orientation, such jurisdictional acts become the formal shell of power wielded by usurpers.
From Mission to Management: Symptomatic Fruits of the Conciliar Sect
This document is symptomatic in four principal ways.
1. Administrative Continuity Concealing Doctrinal Rupture
By 1960, the same institutions that carried the heroic missions of the 19th and early 20th century were being quietly turned. The Delegation reconfiguration:
– Preserves the outward image of a Church expanding in Africa.
– In reality prepares the infrastructure through which, after Vatican II, missionaries will be forced to:
– Abandon the claim that non-Catholic religions must be rejected.
– Engage in “dialogue,” protect animist practices under cultural pretexts, and refuse to preach the hard truths of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, final judgement, hell, and the obligation of conversion.
– Promote inculturation rites approaching syncretism and implicitly deny the unique mediation of Christ.
The anticipated pastoral “opening” is thus inscribed retroactively into this 1960 act: a Delegation that appears Catholic in law but will be operated by agents of the conciliar sect. The bark of Peter is replaced by an occupied hull: same silhouette, different captain, different destination.
2. The Silence about Sacraments and State of Grace
Even in a brief juridical act, the integral Catholic mind is visible: what one chooses to name or to omit. Here we find no reference to:
– Baptism as the necessary door to salvation.
– The Most Holy Sacrifice as the heart of evangelization.
– The sacrament of Orders as divinely instituted, not subject to later conciliar tampering.
– The necessity to bring souls into the state of grace, away from mortal sin, through confession and authentic moral preaching.
This omission is all the more grave when one recalls that a few years later the same neo-church will impose a new rite of “Mass,” new rites of Orders, and a new catechesis—corrupting or invalidating precisely those sacramental channels which were to sanctify the peoples mentioned. A decree extending missionary jurisdiction without ensuring Catholic sacraments and doctrine is not zeal; it is logistical preparation for the spread of sacramental simulacra.
3. The Ambiguous “Superstitio Ethnica” and the Coming Cult of Man
The text condemns “ethnic superstition,” yet in the subsequent decades, the conciliar sect will:
– Enter temples of pagan deities, remove shoes, and behave as if false gods deserve reverence.
– Promote syncretistic liturgies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where pagan symbols and rituals infiltrate the worship that should be exclusively directed to the Blessed Trinity.
– Celebrate “traditional religions” and “ancestral wisdom” instead of calling them to repentance and baptism.
Thus, the condemnation of “superstitio ethnica” in 1960 functions as a cheap orthodoxy token, while the practical orientation is heading toward rehabilitation of precisely those superstitions in religious dress. This duplicity is a mark of the paramasonic strategy already described and condemned by pre-1958 Popes who unmasked Freemasonry and liberalism as seeking to erode the exclusivity of the Church gradually.
4. Absolute Juridical Clauses for a Relative, Humanistic Program
The document abounds in categorical phrases:
– “praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere”
– Attempts against it are declared “irritum… et inane” (null and void).
Such formulae are proper to the exercise of true papal authority defined as infallible in certain conditions (Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus). Here they are used to grant weight to a merely administrative act within a program that will, as history proves, be deployed in favour of doctrinal novelties and the dilution of Catholic mission. The contradiction is total:
– The usurping authority claims full papal style and severity in legal minutiae.
– The same authority refuses the same severity where God’s rights, Christ’s Kingship, and the integrity of Faith are at stake.
This inversion reveals the internal law of post-1958 structures: merciless in enforcing human programs, lax or treacherous in defending divine truth. *Lex suprema* is no longer *salus animarum* (the salvation of souls), but the advancement of the conciliar agenda.
Contrast with Pre-Conciliar Missionary Mind: What Is Missing Speaks Loudest
To expose the bankruptcy of this act, one need only recall how true Popes spoke of missions.
– Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos and Pius IX in the Syllabus denounced indifferentism and the idea that all religions are paths to God, insisting on the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church.
– Leo XIII repeatedly affirmed that rulers and nations are bound to profess the true Faith publicly; he and his predecessors blessed missionaries whose explicit goal was the conversion of pagans, Jews, schismatics and heretics to the one fold.
– Pius XI in Quas Primas and Rerum Ecclesiae presented missionary work as the extension of the kingdom of Christ the King and emphasized the necessity of doctrinal clarity.
A Catholic reorganization of Delegations in Africa, issued in continuity with this magisterium, would be steeped in:
– Zeal for conversion.
– Clear warnings against Islam, Protestant sects, animism, and secret societies.
– Exhortations to catechesis, sacramental life, Marian devotion understood within Tradition (not freemasonic fabrications), and fidelity to Roman doctrine.
John XXIII’s act, instead, is antiseptic, managerial, and doctrinally mute. It thereby stands as an early administrative cell in the organism that will soon manifest itself as the Conciliar sect. The very fact that such an act is treated as “Apostolic Letters” while serving an anti-apostolic future proves how external forms are being misappropriated.
Instrumentalization of Propaganda Fide: From Guardian of the Faith to Vector of Apostasy
The document places the redefined Delegation under the dicastery “Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide”, nominally “for the propagation of the faith.” Historically:
– This Congregation directed the heroic evangelization of vast territories, demanding doctrinal and moral integrity from missionaries, condemning syncretism.
– Under the conciliar reorientation, the same organism (renamed and reprogrammed) became a vehicle of:
– Ecumenical convergence with false religions.
– Religious liberty ideology.
– Inculturation policies that blur the distinction between Catholic worship and local cults.
Thus the 1960 act is not harmless. It is an early step in subordinating African missions to an emerging anti-doctrine. The peoples listed—Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, etc.—are thereby delivered, under the guise of Roman solicitude, to pastors who will be instructed not to preach the exclusive necessity of Christ and His Church, but to integrate into a pluralist world order.
From an integral Catholic viewpoint this is spiritual betrayal: instead of guardianship of souls, a managed transition into confusion. The structures are retained; the Faith within them is progressively evacuated.
Nullity of Modernist Measures against the Higher Law of Christ
The text itself, ironically, proclaims that any contrary attempt against its provisions is “irritum et inane” (null and void). Yet by Catholic principles preceding 1958:
– Any exercise of ecclesiastical authority that effectively contradicts divine law, the deposit of Faith, or the prior, infallible magisterium is itself without binding force.
– Jurisdiction exists for the Faith; against the Faith it has no legitimacy. *Contra legem divinam non est potestas* (there is no power against divine law).
To the extent that this 1960 act is one piece of a wider program which:
– Leads to suppression of the true Roman Rite in mission territories,
– Promotes religious liberty and ecumenism condemned by prior Popes,
– Dilutes missionary preaching into naturalistic development work,
it cannot claim the obedience of those who hold fast to the unchangeable doctrine of the pre-Conciliar Church. The primacy belongs to Christ the King and to the perennial magisterium that proclaimed Him as such, not to a paramasonic structure occupying the forms of the Church while subverting her substance.
Conclusion: A Cold Bureaucratic Step Toward the Eclipse of Mission
This brief “EO INTENDENTES” text, while externally modest, manifests in nuce the logic of the conciliar revolution:
– Catholic-sounding phrases masking a trajectory of doctrinal surrender.
– Juridical solemnity detached from the service of immutable truth.
– Missiological language devoid of clear mention of sacraments, final judgement, hell, and the exclusive necessity of the Catholic Church.
– A restructured missionary apparatus soon to be used for spreading ecumenism, religious freedom, and anthropocentric humanitarianism instead of conversion.
Where the true pre-1958 magisterium orders all nations under the sweet and absolute yoke of Christ the King, this act participates in the quiet transfer of the nations into the hands of a neo-church that will refuse to command that obedience. The theological and spiritual bankruptcy lies precisely here: the machinery of the apostolate is meticulously adjusted while the apostolic Faith is being prepared for demolition. Such a system, however “canonical” it sounds, stands condemned in advance by the very teachings of those Roman Pontiffs whom it dares to mimic in style while betraying in substance.
Source:
Eo intendentes (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025