Pious Facade, Conciliar Revolution: John XXIII’s German Letter as Programmatic Betrayal
This Latin letter of 23 December 1958, issued by John XXIII to Cardinal Frings, Cardinal Wendel, Cardinal Döpfner, and the German episcopate, formally responds to their collective letter to Pius XII. It praises German Catholic virtues, recalls concordats, expresses paternal concern for Catholics under communist domination and for refugees, extols obedience to the “Roman Pontiff,” and exhorts bishops to fidelity amidst trials while invoking Christmas peace and Christ’s Nativity.
Beneath the devotional varnish, the text already displays the essential program of the conciliar sect: sentimental humanism, diplomatic irenicism, and the quiet neutralization of the Church’s militant, dogmatic mission in favour of a political and psychological management of religion.
Factual Recasting of a Transition into a Break with Tradition
At the factual level, this letter appears harmless: a new pontiff acknowledging a previous episcopal message, lauding the German hierarchy, lamenting sufferings in the East, reaffirming concordats, and encouraging perseverance.
Key elements:
– John XXIII reads the German bishops’ letter to Pius XII and assures continuity of esteem for Germany.
– He extols supposed German virtues: discipline, obedience, social sense, cultural achievements, and their contribution to “Christian civilisation.”
– He singles out:
– Catholics in eastern German territories under communist regimes.
– Refugees and exiles uprooted by war or oppression.
– The poor, sick, and suffering.
– He reaffirms respect for solemn agreements between the Holy See and Germany (the concordats), stressing mutual fidelity.
– He encourages bishops to be steadfast pilots of their diocesan “ships” amidst modern storms, citing Ignatius of Antioch.
– He closes with pious Christmas invocations of Christ as Prince of Peace and wishes of inner and social peace.
All this is historically verifiable. But precisely in what he chooses to highlight—and what he systematically omits—the rupture with integral Catholic doctrine becomes visible. The letter speaks the language of devotion while silently evacuating the substance: no denunciation of communism as intrinsically satanic conspiracy; no warning against modernist errors; no clear insistence on the exclusive rights of Christ the King over the German state; no reminder of the Syllabus’ condemnation of liberalism and indifferentism; no call to resist anti-Christian laws with martyrial courage; no doctrinal precision about the Church’s divine constitution. A document dated 1958 already wears the mask of the coming revolution.
Soft Humanism and Diplomatic Optimism as Symptoms of Doctrinal Decay
The rhetoric is carefully crafted to sound edifying while neutralizing the note of supernatural militancy.
1. Sweetened portrayal of the German hierarchy:
– John XXIII showers the bishops with flattery about their “firm constancy” and achievements. The tone is managerial and self-congratulatory, not penitential or combative.
– There is total silence about the widespread earlier compromises of many German prelates with National Socialism and later with democratic-liberal structures hostile to Christ’s social Kingship. No call to public expiation, no reminder of their strict duty to oppose both totalitarian and liberal apostasy in the name of divine law.
2. Sentimental compassion without doctrinal clarity:
– When he turns to Catholics in eastern Germany and to refugees, he expresses emotional solidarity but avoids naming communism as a system of militant atheism, condemned by pre-1958 magisterium (e.g. Pius XI, Pius XII) as intrinsically anti-Christian.
– Instead of reminding them of their duty to resist unjust laws that trample the rights of God and the Church, he confines himself to generic exhortations to fidelity, hope, and charity “even towards those who oppose the Church,” stripped of the necessary clarifications about error and its condemnation.
– This language paves the way for the later conciliar and post-conciliar cult of “dialogue” with regimes and ideologies condemned by the true Magisterium.
3. Concordats reframed as instruments of coexistence, not of Christ’s reign:
– John XXIII praises the solemn conventions between the Apostolic See and Germany, insisting that all parties faithfully observe them and suggesting they further both “sacred” and “civil” progress.
– Nowhere is it reiterated that, as Pius IX’s Syllabus teaches, the State has no authority to define Church rights (cf. condemned proposition 19) and that separation of Church and State is condemned (prop. 55). Instead, the concordat is quietly presented as a pragmatic framework of mutual benefit, not as a juridical recognition of the exclusive truth of Catholicism and of the Church’s sovereign rights.
– This subtle shift from supernatural right to bilateral contract is already an implicit acceptance of the liberal paradigm.
4. Christmas “peace” rhetoric without the doctrine of Christ the King:
– John XXIII speaks of the “Prince of Peace,” of inner peace, of humility, of not being shaken by misfortune.
– But in stark contrast with Pius XI’s Quas Primas, there is no insistence that peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ, that rulers sin gravely if they do not publicly honour Christ and submit laws to His Gospel, and that secularism is a “plague” that must be condemned and reversed.
– The omission is not accidental; it is programmatic. The Christ of this letter is primarily a consoling figure for private piety, not the sovereign Legislator whose rights are to be enforced in public life.
In sum, the linguistic register reveals a transition: from the virile clarity of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI and Pius XII, to the pastoralist sentimentalism and diplomatic ambiguity that will become the trademark of post-1958 post-conciliarism.
Theological Evisceration Behind the Pious Phrases
Measured by the immutable Catholic theology prior to 1958, the deficiencies of this letter are not peripheral; they are structural.
1. Silence about Modernism and its Condemnations
This letter is dated mere months after the death of Pius XII, in a world infested by Modernism—the “synthesis of all heresies” condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis and concretely anathematized in Lamentabili sane exitu.
– Yet John XXIII does not:
– Recall the binding force of those condemnations.
– Warn the German bishops—among whom were already influential progressives—against modernist exegesis, liturgical subversion, and denial of dogma.
– Demand unwavering adherence to anti-modernist teaching, despite the fact that many German theological circles were incubators of exactly those errors censured by the Holy Office.
This studied omission amounts to a practical repudiation of St. Pius X’s order that those errors be combated vigorously. It anticipates the conciliar sect’s tactic: not formally abrogating earlier condemnations, but suffocating them by silence and contrary praxis.
2. Reduction of the Papacy to Sentimental Continuity
The letter insists that devotion to the “Successor of Peter” remains untouched despite the death of Pius XII, because what lives is the power of binding and loosing in the See of Peter. That sentence is correct in itself; but here it is weaponized for a fraudulent continuity:
– John XXIII uses orthodox-sounding language about the Petrine office while simultaneously hollowing it of its essential function: guarding the deposit of faith without novelty and condemning error.
– Instead of reaffirming the duty of bishops to obey the Roman Pontiff when he teaches in full continuity with past dogma, he cultivates affective allegiance to his own person and to the abstract “Petrine seat,” preparing the faithful psychologically to follow him even when he will convene a council that overturns the previous doctrinal line in practice.
Lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief): when the supreme authority stops speaking as guardian of dogma and begins speaking as sentimental father and geopolitical moderator, the content of faith is already under systemic erosion.
3. Neutralized Teaching on Persecuting States
When referring to regimes that oppress Catholics, John XXIII merely prays that rulers’ minds be enlightened, that they cease to hate what they should love, and that they allow Catholics to live “quiet and tranquil lives” with freedom to obey religious laws.
Missing elements that pre-1958 doctrine obliges:
– Clear affirmation that the moral law and the rights of the Church are not concessions of the State but divine obligations upon rulers.
– Explicit denunciation that any State which denies Christ’s reign and persecutes the Church is in objective rebellion against God.
– Recall of the duty of Catholics to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29) when the State commands what is contrary to the faith.
Instead, the letter reflects the nascent ideology of coexistence, which will soon flower into Vatican II’s Dignitatis humanae-style “religious freedom” errors condemned in advance by Pius IX’s Syllabus (e.g., 15, 16, 77–80).
4. Misplaced and Dangerous Praise of German Obedience
John XXIII exalts German discipline, obedience, and communal sense. Without qualification, such praise is spiritually reckless:
– Many of these same qualities, detached from objective Catholic truth, had facilitated complicity with prior totalitarian and later liberal-anticlerical regimes.
– Genuine Catholic obedience is obsequium fidei—submission to divine and ecclesiastical authority when it teaches what Christ commanded, not servile compliance with any authority that happens to occupy ecclesiastical posts.
By canonizing the mere habit of obedience without directing it strictly to immutable doctrine, the letter primes the German episcopate and faithful to follow him and his successors into the conciliar revolution, into liturgical devastation, false ecumenism, and doctrinal relativism.
5. Naive or Perfidious Treatment of Concordats
John XXIII asserts that “given faith must be kept” in solemn agreements and expresses confidence that German civil authorities will protect these pacts sincerely and entirely.
From the standpoint of Pius IX and Leo XIII:
– Concordats are legitimate only insofar as they recognize the pre-existing rights of the Church and do not compromise the integrity of doctrine or discipline.
– The Syllabus explicitly condemns the doctrine that civil power may define Church rights or subject bishops to its permission (19, 20, 28, 36, etc.).
This letter, however, glosses over past and present violations, speaks of concordats mainly as mutually useful instruments, and fails to remind Catholic rulers of their duty to make the Catholic religion the religion of the State and to subordinate civil law to divine law. The Church is rhetorically lowered to one “partner” among others.
Linguistic Signals of the Conciliar Mentality in Embryo
The vocabulary betrays the mindset:
– Endless terms of human affection: “dearest sons,” “venerable brothers,” “beloved German people,” “merciful thought,” “paternal charity.” In themselves innocent, they become problematic when unaccompanied by the traditional language of warfare: sin, heresy, Satan, error, judgment, hell, penance.
– Institutional flattery: bishops depicted as faithful, vigilant pilots, without any allusion to failures, scandals, doctrinal deviations, or the need to discipline unfaithful clergy and theologians. The shepherds are comforted; they are not summoned to account.
– Spiritualised suffering separated from doctrinal combat:
– Persecuted Catholics are encouraged in patience and love; yet there is no reminder that their suffering is part of the battle between the Kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan, in which communism, liberalism, and Freemasonry are named adversaries by pre-1958 popes.
– Christ reduced rhetorically:
– Christ appears mainly as “Prince of Peace,” the Infant, the one who gives inner serenity and sweetness.
– Absent is His title as “King of kings and Lord of lords” demanding the submission of nations, as Quas primas solemnly underlined; absent His rights over legislation, education, social order.
The semantic shift is unmistakable: from a theology of objective divine rights to a pastoralism of subjective consolation; from condemnation of errors to tolerance and “understanding” of those immersed in them; from ecclesial authority as guardian of dogma to ecclesial authority as sponsor of social harmony.
Structural Apostasy: This Letter as Seed of the Conciliar Sect
The symptomatic reading, in continuity with the doctrinal data, reveals this text as a small but decisive step towards systemic apostasy.
1. The Strategy of Omission
The worst heresies often enter not through explicit denial but through strategic silence. Here we see:
– Silence about:
– Modernism, despite its formal condemnation (Lamentabili, Pascendi) and its especially strong presence in German universities and seminaries.
– Freemasonry and its role in undermining Christian society, exposed by Pius IX and Leo XIII.
– The Syllabus and its binding rejection of liberal “civilisation” and religious pluralism.
– The Kingship of Christ as public norm for nations, as defined by Quas primas.
– Each omission is objectively verifiable by comparing the letter with prior papal documents:
– Where Pius IX names “sects” and “synagogue of Satan,” this letter names nothing.
– Where Pius XI brands laicism a “plague,” this letter offers cooperative optimism.
– Where Pius X demands merciless war against modernist doctrines, this letter envelops their strongholds in compliments and benevolent vagueness.
2. Psychological Preparation for Vatican II
Addressed to leading German prelates—Frings, Wendel, Döpfner—who would become major actors of the future council, the letter:
– Confirms them in their self-image as exemplary pastors.
– Emphasizes their importance and virtues without any corrective.
– Expresses trust in their judgment and pastoral initiatives.
Given that many among them were already inclined toward theological innovations later canonized by the conciliar sect (collegiality, ecumenism, liturgical reforms, doctrinal evolution), such unconditional endorsement is not neutral. It legitimizes precisely those tendencies which the pre-1958 Magisterium had battled.
3. Replacement of the Militant Church with the “Peaceful” Church
The text constructs an ideal of the Church focused on:
– Comforting the suffering.
– Maintaining diplomatic agreements.
– Cultivating inner peace and humility.
– Avoiding harsh confrontations with anti-Christian powers.
This stands in palpable tension with:
– The constant teaching that the Church is Militans—militant—fighting against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
– The testimony of saints who resisted unjust authority and paid with blood rather than betray doctrine.
– The solemn condemnations of indifferentism, socialism, liberalism, and rationalism.
The letter thus foreshadows the “Church of the New Advent”: horizontal, reconciliatory with the world, allergic to condemnation, ready to reinterpret or shelve previous dogmatic stances to achieve a sentimental, naturalistic “peace.”
Exposing the Bankruptcy: God’s Rights Traded for Human Respectability
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the bankruptcy of this text can be summarized in several non-negotiable points.
1. Dereliction of the Duty to Condemn Error
Popes and bishops are divinely obliged to guard the deposit of faith by positive teaching and negative condemnation. The pre-1958 Magisterium, culminating in the anti-modernist measures, fulfils this mandate with clarity.
In this letter:
– No contemporary doctrinal danger is named.
– No false system (communism, liberal democracy divorced from God, Freemasonry, modernism) is identified and denounced.
– The only “enemy” implicitly mentioned is generic “difficulty.”
This is not a pastoral option; it is a betrayal of office.
2. Subordination of the Supernatural to the Political
The letter’s strongest concrete assurances are about concordats and confidence in state authorities’ goodwill. Christ’s Kingship is not appealed to as superior norm for the State; instead, the Church’s freedoms are effectively presented as expectations within an agreed juridical framework.
This inverts the Catholic order:
– Lex Dei (the Law of God) stands above all human arrangements.
– The Church’s rights are not the result of diplomacy but of divine institution.
– Any pact that contradicts Catholic doctrine is null, as Pius IX stated regarding laws contrary to the divine constitution of the Church.
By not reaffirming this—and by clothing concordats in a rhetoric of “mutual progress”—the letter habituates both Churchmen and laity to a purely horizontal, positivist vision.
3. Misuse of Charity to Muzzle Truth
The appeals to love even persecutors are orthodox in themselves; the Gospel commands love of enemies. But charity divorced from truth becomes complicity.
Here:
– Love toward oppressors is stressed without parallel insistence that their systems and acts are objectively unjust and hateful to God.
– The faithful are urged to patience and hope, but not explicitly to public confession of Christ against anti-Christian laws, not to heroic resistance even at the price of martyrdom.
True charity would strengthen them for doctrinally lucid, sacrificial opposition. This letter anesthetizes.
4. Preparation of the “Conciliar Sect” via Pious Ambiguity
The conciliar and post-conciliar structures occupying the Vatican will later:
– Embrace religious liberty as a civil right indifferent to truth.
– Engage in worship and “prayer” with false religions.
– Reduce the Most Holy Sacrifice to a communal meal.
– Exalt “human dignity” and “human rights” above the sovereign rights of Christ the King.
– Refuse to condemn modern errors vigorously.
This letter of 1958 does not yet articulate these positions, but it already:
– Replaces doctrinal precision with soft rhetoric.
– Replaces militant defence of God’s rights with hopes for political goodwill.
– Replaces anathema with sentimental “understanding.”
Historically and theologically, such texts are the germinal stage of the later open revolt. Corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst). When the highest office begins to speak this way, the stage is set for the “abomination of desolation” in the holy place.
Conclusion: A Masked Manifesto of Capitulation
Taken in isolation and read superficially, John XXIII’s letter to the German bishops may appear as a benign, even edifying Christmas message. Examined under the light of the unchanging Magisterium prior to 1958, it reveals itself as a calculated step:
– away from explicit condemnation of errors toward diplomatic vagueness,
– away from the public reign of Christ the King toward peaceful coexistence with apostate states,
– away from guarding the deposit toward flattering those already preparing its revision,
– away from the Church Militant toward a humanitarian agency of consolation.
The theological and spiritual bankruptcy lies precisely in this: under a veil of pious words and biblical citations, the letter downgrades the supernatural, brackets the infallible anti-modernist doctrine, and begins to habituate shepherds and flock to a religion whose first commandment is no longer “Hallowed be Thy Name” and “Thy Kingdom come,” but “Let us be appreciated, let us be safe, let us be at peace with the world.”
Against this betrayal, one must hold fast to what the true Church has always taught: that Christ is King not only of hearts but of societies; that the State must publicly recognize the true religion; that modernism, liberalism, socialism, and religious indifferentism are condemned; that ecclesiastical officeholders who persist in manifest heresy or systemic betrayal forfeit their authority; and that the faithful must obey God rather than men when confronted with a pseudo-magisterium that speaks another gospel.
Non possumus (we cannot) accept the soothing rhetoric of this letter as legitimate Catholic orientation. It is, in nuce, the manifesto of the coming conciliar surrender before the world that hates Christ.
Source:
In primordio – Ad Iosephum S. R. E. Card. Frings, Archiepiscopum Coloniensem; Iosephum S. R. E. Card. Wendel, Archiepiscopum Monacensem et Frisingensem; Iulium S. R. E. Card. Doepfner, Episcopum Berol… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025