Ioannes Roncalli, known as John XXIII, in this motu proprio “Appropinquante Concilio” of 6 August 1962, lays down the juridical and procedural norms for the forthcoming Second Vatican Council: he exults over the “admirable spectacle” of a worldwide episcopate gathering around him, invokes an undefined hope of “fruits” for the Church and the world, and then promulgates a meticulously bureaucratic “Ordo” regulating participants, commissions, observers, voting procedures, secrecy, languages, dress, and ceremonies. The entire text enthrones a humanly fabricated council-assembly around a modernist usurper as the operative center of doctrine, discipline, and “renewal,” while studiously omitting any clear affirmation of the immutable, exclusive sovereignty of Christ the King, the necessity of condemning errors, and the obligation to defend the faith against the very principles this council was convened to embrace; this is not preparation for a Catholic council, but the constitutional charter of a conciliar revolution.
The Constitutional Architecture of the Conciliar Revolution
From Apostolic Council to Parliamentary Spectacle
At the outset Roncalli presents the coming assembly as a grand “spectacle”:
“We already with great joy embrace in thought the approaching and truly admirable spectacle of the immense number of sacred pastors who will converge from all parts of the world to this beloved City, in order that near the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles they may discuss with Us the more serious affairs of the Church.”
What is asserted, and what is suppressed?
1. He speaks of “sacred pastors” converging “with Us” to “discuss” serious affairs. Missing is any robust confession that a true ecumenical council is first and foremost an organ of the divinely instituted Magisterium, bound strictly to *tradere non nova sed eadem* (to hand on not novelties but the same doctrine), as the Vatican I constitution “Dei Filius” and all prior councils presupposed.
2. He does not frame the council as a defensive bastion against the grave modern errors already solemnly condemned by the Church—errors rigorously enumerated by Pius IX in the *Syllabus Errorum*, by Leo XIII in his anti-liberal encyclicals, and by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*. Instead, he constructs an atmosphere of optimistic accommodation.
3. He speaks of “fructus sane uberrimos” (most abundant fruits) and a desire to bring “veritatis lumen” and “caritatis ardor” even to those “who are outside” the Church, but without a single mention that such fruit requires the unequivocal call to conversion to the one true Church of Christ, outside of which there is no salvation. Silence here is doctrinally eloquent.
This inversion is symptomatic. A Catholic council exists to:
– Confirm the brethren in the unchanged faith.
– Condemn novel errors.
– Strengthen ecclesiastical discipline.
– Defend the rights of Christ and His Church against the world.
Roncalli’s motu proprio instead frames the council as a global, almost parliamentary convocation aimed more at procedural harmony and inclusion, including of non-Catholic “observers,” than at dogmatic clarity and militant defense of the faith.
This is the first mark of the conciliar revolution: a shift from the supernatural and dogmatic to the naturalistic, dialogical, and organizational.
Linguistic Sanitization: Optimism Without Judgment
The tone of Roncalli’s text is itself a doctrinal signal.
– It is saturated with vague optimism, administrative precision, and absence of polemical clarity.
– It never names or anathematizes concrete modern errors: liberalism, socialism, laicism, indifferentism, religious freedom in the condemned sense, false ecumenism, naturalism, Modernism.
– Instead of *custodia depositi* (guarding the deposit), it speaks about “new developments of doctrines and arts” (“nova doctrinarum artiumque incrementa”) and claims that in them “some light of the Divine Wisdom shines” to spur men to moral progress.
This language contradicts the pre-1958 Magisterium’s lucid discernment:
– Pius IX, in the *Syllabus*, condemns the idea that the Church must reconcile herself with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (prop. 80).
– St. Pius X exposes Modernism as precisely the exaltation of such “developments” as privileged loci of revelation, and condemns the reduction of supernatural faith to religious feeling shaped by history and culture.
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that peace and order are impossible where the social kingship of Christ is not publicly recognized and legally enforced; he brands secularist autonomy as a plague.
Roncalli, in this motu proprio, uses none of the Catholic arsenal of clear negations. He overlays the world situation with an irenic sheen. By praising “new developments” in such an undifferentiated way, he suggests that modern progress is essentially compatible, even luminous, for the faith, so long as the council “pastorally” engages it.
This is not harmless rhetoric. *Verba movent, exempla trahunt*: words move, examples drag along. A juridical text preparing an ecumenical council that deliberately refuses to name the reigning apostasy, or to arm the bishops with the language of condemnation, clears the way for precisely what St. Pius X warned: the infiltration of Modernist principles into the veins of the hierarchy.
Substitution of Divine Authority with Procedural Sovereignty
The body of the motu proprio is the “Ordo Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II celebrandi” – a detailed procedural constitution.
At first glance, procedures appear neutral. They are not.
Key points:
1. Art. 1 defines that the Council is constituted “cum Summo Pontifice Episcopi et alii… qui omnes Patres Conciliares appellantur.” All authority is framed around Roncalli as central subject. But:
– There is no explicit subordination to the already infallibly defined doctrine of Vatican I on papal infallibility and the limits of Magisterium.
– There is no reaffirmation that the council has no mandate to innovate doctrine, only to defend and expound it in the same sense.
2. Art. 7 lists the central commissions: doctrine of faith and morals, bishops and diocesan governance, Eastern Churches, sacraments, clergy and laity discipline, religious, missions, liturgy, seminaries and education, apostolate of the faithful and media. Added:
– “Secretariat for the affairs outside the ordinary order”
– “Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity”
– Technical and economic bodies.
The inclusion and formalization of a “Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity” as a central organ of the council is a revolutionary structural choice. It institutionalizes:
– The ecumenical project condemned in substance by Pius XI in *Mortalium Animos*, where he declares that true unity is only the return of dissidents to the one Church, and that interconfessional associations that treat all confessions as equal are a grave error.
– The relativizing vocabulary of “separated brethren,” instead of clearly “heretics and schismatics” who must be called back to Catholic unity.
By making this Secretariat a structural pillar, Roncalli shifts the council’s axis from defending the exclusive truth of the Catholic Church to negotiating with heresy.
3. Art. 18 introduces “Observers” from communities “separated from the Apostolic See,” who:
– May attend public sessions and general congregations.
– May report to their communities.
– Are bound to secrecy toward others.
However:
– No doctrinal condition is set: they are not required to profess any Catholic dogma, nor to listen as penitents or seekers of truth.
– Their mere presence, ceremonially recognized, subtly legitimizes the idea that non-Catholic confessions stand as dialogue partners, not as errors to be converted.
This contradicts the integral Catholic doctrine, confirmed in the *Syllabus* (prop. 15–18), that it is false to affirm that any religion suffices for salvation, or that Protestantism is another form of true Christianity. It institutionalizes the ecumenist mentality later exploded by the conciliar sect.
Thus, the procedural order is not spiritually neutral. It is an *instrumentum regni* of a new orientation: from *Ecclesia docens* to democratic deliberation, from condemnations to consensual statements, from confessing the faith to choreographing dialogue.
Secrecy, Control, and the Engineered Consensus
The motu proprio is obsessed with secrecy and centralized control.
– Art. 26: The Fathers are bound to secrecy regarding discussions and votes.
– Art. 27: Procurators, periti, officials swear to keep secret all acts, discussions, votes.
– Art. 30–35, 37–39: All schemata, amendments, processes are filtered through a tightly controlled procedural ladder; commissions are partially appointed by Roncalli; majorities of two-thirds are required; texts are iteratively processed until aligned.
This secrecy, combined with centralized appointment of commission presidents and members by the usurper, ensures:
– Manufactured “consensus” directed by a modernist minority entrenched in key positions.
– Removal of the traditional role of open, doctrinally grounded disputation visible to and answerable before the entire Church.
True councils, though held with prudence, were not designed as technocratic black boxes. Their acts and anathemata were to enlighten the faithful and confound heresy. Here secrecy is weaponized not to shield truth from persecution, but to shield revolution from the light of Catholic judgment.
Such a structure fits precisely what St. Pius X condemned: Modernists hiding within ecclesiastical institutions, manipulating theological development from within. The conciliar procedural framework, as codified here, furnishes them with ideal tools.
Liturgical, Vestimentary, and Aesthetic Formalism: The Mask of Continuity
The “Ordo” devotes detailed attention to:
– Liturgical vestments (Arts. 21–23).
– Seating precedence (Art. 24).
– Roles of masters of ceremonies, readers, technicians.
– Latin as official language (Arts. 28–29).
– Ceremonial steps for promulgation (Arts. 44–51).
On the surface, this suggests continuity with tradition: Latin, choir dress, solemn rites. But this is a calculated appearance.
– Modernism, as St. Pius X notes, often cloaks itself in external forms, using “the most holy things” as a cover while subverting doctrine beneath.
– Latin rubrics and traditional vestments are left intact at this stage to neutralize resistance while the deeper shift is enacted: the redefinition of the Church’s relation to the world, to error, and to other religions.
This cosmetic traditionalism disarms those who watch only externals. The real break occurs in orientation:
– No requirement is expressed that the Most Holy Sacrifice be defended against Protestantizing tendencies.
– No concern is voiced about the infiltration of liturgical progressivism already at work; yet a “Commission on the Sacred Liturgy” is formally entrenched, which will become the matrix for the future liturgical devastation.
– By legalizing such a commission inside this new normative framework, Roncalli provides institutional legitimacy for the systematic dismantling later seen in the fabrication of the new rite of “Mass.”
Hence, the solemn aesthetic does not witness fidelity; it anesthetizes vigilance.
Contemptuous Silence about Modernism and Masonic Subversion
The most damning element is not what is said, but what is meticulously not said.
By 1962, the following were objective realities:
– The Church had already dogmatically condemned:
– Rationalism, liberalism, religious indifferentism, separation of Church and State, and the cult of progress (Pius IX, *Syllabus*).
– Social and political anti-Christian conspiracies, including Masonic sects (Leo XIII).
– Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies,” with detailed doctrinal censures (St. Pius X, *Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*).
– The popes before 1958 had repeatedly warned that the gravest enemies are within: false Catholics, liberal clergy, democratic subverters of the Church’s constitution.
Yet in this foundational motu proprio:
– There is no reaffirmation that all the solemn condemnations remain intact, non-negotiable, binding.
– There is no explicit warning that the Council must in no way relax or reinterpret these condemnations.
– There is no denunciation of the very principles—religious liberty, ecumenism, collegial democratization—that the conciliar sect will soon exalt.
This deliberate silence—*silentium culpabile*—betrays the intention: to create a juridical and psychological space where those very condemned ideas can enter under the guise of “pastoral” development.
Pius XI in *Quas Primas* declares that secularism and the dethronement of Christ the King are the root of modern calamities and that the Church must publicly assert His royal rights over nations. Roncalli’s text, while naming Christ piously, does not dare to assert the duty of states to submit to Him, nor to warn that the council must defend this doctrine against the liberal world. Instead, it prepares the methodological vat in which that doctrine will be dissolved and replaced by the later cult of “religious freedom” and “human dignity” detached from Christ.
Thus, the motu proprio functions as a juridical suicide note of the visible structures: renouncing defensive teeth; adopting an ethos of irenic collaboration with the world; masking all this under sacral protocol.
Ecclesiological Subversion: From Hierarchy to Managed Pluralism
The text’s structure foreshadows a new ecclesiology, later made explicit by the conciliar sect:
1. Commission composition (Art. 6):
– Twenty-four members; two thirds elected by the Fathers, one third appointed directly by Roncalli.
– Presidents always chosen by him.
– Periti (experts) appointed by him.
In practice, this enables a small coterie—handpicked by a modernist usurper—to steer the theological output regardless of the broader episcopate’s initial instincts. The bishops are corralled into a managed process.
2. The repeated language of common deliberation, voting, and procedural majorities shifts emphasis:
– From bishops as witnesses and guardians of a received, fixed deposit.
– To bishops as a quasi-parliament whose majority vote acquires theological significance.
But Catholic doctrine, reiterated by Vatican I, is clear: neither popes nor councils possess authority to fabricate new doctrine; they are bound to what has been “semel traditum” (once delivered). Majority processes are juridical tools, not doctrinal sources. In this text, however, the entire focus is on procedure; the binding force of prior doctrine is simply presupposed verbally at the beginning, then effectively bracketed.
This is exactly the Modernist method: preserve formulas, change their operative context and practical application so their meaning erodes.
The Observers and the Implicit Denial of “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus”
Art. 18 institutionalizes non-Catholic “observers.” They are given:
– A place within the conciliar aula:
– Not only as tolerated guests, but as formally recognized actors in the council’s life (with structured liaison via the Secretariat for promoting “unity”).
– The ability to inform their communities about the proceedings.
Missing is any assertion that:
– Their religions are objectively false or gravely deficient.
– Their presence has the purpose of their eventual conversion.
This silence implicitly normalizes the error condemned by Pius IX (Syllabus, prop. 16–18) and contradicts the constant magisterial teaching that peace and unity are only in submission to the Catholic Church.
By giving formal quasi-ecclesial recognition to observers from heretical and schismatic bodies, Roncalli’s text de facto inaugurates the conciliar sect’s ecumenical ecclesiology, according to which the Church of Christ “subsists in” but is not simply identical with the Catholic Church, and separated communities are treated as partial realizations of the same mystery. The motu proprio is the juridical prelude to this doctrinal betrayal.
The Oath and the Perjury of the Conciliar Machine
Art. 25–27 prescribe:
– Profession of faith by the president and Fathers.
– Oaths by procurators, periti, officials to fulfill their tasks and keep secrecy.
On paper, this seems orthodox. In reality:
– There is no explicit mention that the profession must include unconditional assent to prior anti-liberal, anti-modernist condemnations, nor to the anti-Modernist Oath of St. Pius X (already systematically undermined by Roncalli’s milieu).
– The same apparatus that swears fidelity is then engineered to produce texts and pastoral orientations diametrically opposed to those condemnations.
This is the gravest moral note: it formalizes an oath-bound structure which then, in its actual deployment, is used to install teachings and practices condemned by the very magisterium the oath implicitly references. *Per iuramentum ad iniustitiam* (through oath to injustice). Such abuse of solemn forms for subversive ends is a mark of the paramasonic style: external sacral paraphernalia; internal inversion of meaning.
Intrinsic Connection with the Post-Conciliar Devastation
Some may claim this motu proprio is “only procedural.” This is naive, or complicit.
Every structural element here prefigures and facilitates the later apostasy:
– The Secretariat for Promoting “Christian Unity” – seedbed of false ecumenism and ecclesiological relativism.
– The Commission on the Sacred Liturgy – instrument of the destruction of the Roman rite and the eclipse of the Most Holy Sacrifice by a protestantized rite.
– Strict secrecy – enabling experts infected with Modernism to re-write schemata away from the light of public Catholic judgment.
– Observers – institutional step toward legitimizing non-Catholic confessions.
– Emphasis on global “spectacle” and pastoral tone – psychological rupture from the combative, anti-error posture of the pre-1958 papacy.
– Oaths and Latin ceremonial – conservative facade, rendering resistance difficult by masking innovation under traditional forms.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine, the motu proprio is not an innocent legal instrument; it is the blueprint of the neo-church’s anti-council, providing the precise mechanisms needed to:
– Mute the immutable voice of the prior Magisterium.
– Manufacture an appearance of legitimate conciliar consensus.
– Introduce, under “pastoral” guise, those very notions—religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, anthropocentric humanism—condemned by the Church.
In light of Pius XI’s *Quas Primas*, which demands that all nations publicly submit to Christ the King and explicitly denounces secular neutrality and laicism, Roncalli’s text stands indicted for its culpable refusal to bind the council to this confession. Instead of summoning the bishops to defend the social kingship of Christ against the modern world, he stages an assembly structured to appease it.
Conclusion: A Motu Proprio as Matrix of Apostasy
Measured against the unchanging Catholic doctrine prior to 1958:
– The motu proprio “Appropinquante Concilio” is the juridical and ideological frame for an assembly designed not to condemn Modernism, but to enthrone its principles under sacred trappings.
– Its language, omissions, and structures serve to:
– Replace the militant defense of the deposit with dialogical management.
– Normalize the presence and partial legitimacy of heretical communities.
– Entrust doctrinal and liturgical direction to carefully selected experts, sheltered by secrecy.
– Wrap the entire enterprise in traditional Latin, vestments, and ceremonial in order to disarm suspicion.
What presents itself as ordered preparation for an ecumenical council is, in substance, the carefully coded constitution of the conciliar sect—an apparatus by which the occupying structures in Rome would, in the following years, systematically contradict the spirit and letter of the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Against such a project, the integral Catholic conscience must apply the perennial rule: *Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus* (that which has been believed always, everywhere, by all). When a new structure is meticulously calibrated to introduce that which the Church has always condemned, no amount of Latin or protocol can redeem it. It must be recognized as an instrument of rupture, not of continuity, and judged accordingly in light of the immutable reign of Christ the King and the binding condemnations of His true Church.
Source:
Appropinquante concilio (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025