Epistolary Incense for a Collaborator of the Conciliar Revolution
This brief Latin note of John XXIII, dated 25 February 1959 and addressed to Louis (Ludovicus) Shvoy, bishop of Székesfehérvár (Alba Regalis), offers congratulatory wishes for his eightieth birthday, praises his pastoral diligence and steadfastness in difficult circumstances, and imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” upon him, his clergy, and people.
Personal Flattery as a Vehicle of Ecclesiastical Subversion
On the surface, the text appears innocuous: courteous, concise, almost banal. Yet precisely this banality is symptomatic. In a moment historically charged—barely months after John XXIII’s usurpation and on the threshold of his convocation of the pseudo-council that would inaugurate the conciliar sect—this letter functions as a coded credentialing of the new regime’s episcopal collaborators.
John XXIII extols Shvoy’s alleged merits as:
“sollertis pastoris, qui adsiduos labores et diligentias ad Ecclesiae… emolumentum decusque tutandum iam diu impendis”
(“a diligent pastor, who for a long time has devoted continuous labours and efforts to protect the advantage and honour of the Church entrusted to your governance”).
In reality, this is **epistolary incense**: an attempt to sanctify a hierarchy that would, in the following years, bow to the conciliar program of doctrinal dilution, false ecumenism, and capitulation to secular and Masonic powers—exactly those condemned in the Syllabus Errorum of Pius IX and in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi of St. Pius X.
The letter’s silence about the integral Catholic faith, the Most Holy Sacrifice, the rights of Christ the King, the danger of modernism, and the war against the Church by the very forces later embraced by the conciliar structures is not merely accidental. It is **programmatic.**
Factual and Historical Level: Context Betrays the Text
1. The letter is dated February 1959:
– John XXIII had already announced his intention to convoke an ecumenical council (25 January 1959).
– This project would, within a few years, unleash precisely those errors repeatedly anathematized by the pre-1958 Magisterium: religious liberty as a public right of error, collegiality as practical democratization of the hierarchy, ecumenism as relativization of the one true Church, and a liturgical revolution that would eclipse the Unbloody Sacrifice with a horizontal assembly-ritual.
2. In this light the praise of Shvoy’s merits and endurance in “grave circumstances” is not neutral:
– It signals recognition of a bishop ready—or at least sufficiently compliant—to remain within and serve the emerging neo-ecclesial framework.
– Nowhere is he exhorted to defend the faith usque ad sanguinem (“even unto blood”), to resist communist persecution with uncompromising confessional clarity, or to refuse any compromise with anti-Christian regimes or modernist infiltrations. The language is consolatory, diplomatic, and void of doctrinal edge.
3. Contradiction with the pre-1958 line:
– Pius IX, in the Syllabus, exposes Masonic and liberal forces as the architects of a worldwide assault on the Church, naming their program: subjugate the Church to the state, secularise education, exalt indifferentism, deny Christ’s social Kingship, and separate Church and State.
– Pius X in Pascendi and Lamentabili unmasks Modernism as the *synthesis of all heresies*, condemning precisely that historicist, evolutionist, and naturalist mentality that would be normalized by the conciliar sect.
Against this background, John XXIII’s sugary epistle, devoid of any doctrinal warning, is an early specimen of the new regime’s method: reward “safe” bishops, anesthetize vigilance, and publicly clothe collaborators in a rhetoric of pastoral virtue while preparing, in practice, the demolition of the very doctrinal bastions his predecessors had fortified.
Linguistic Level: The Pious Vacuity of Modernist Diplomacy
The letter’s vocabulary is revealing:
– Emphasis on:
– personal merits,
– pastoral diligence,
– steadfastness,
– venerable age,
– wishes for joy,
– generic invocation of divine help.
– Total absence of:
– explicit affirmation of the integral Catholic faith as the unique path of salvation;
– mention of the Holy Sacrifice as the heart of the priesthood and episcopal office;
– reference to dogma, orthodoxy, or the duty to combat error;
– condemnation of communism, laicism, Freemasonry, or doctrinal subversion;
– insistence on the public rights of Christ as King over society, as magisterially set forth shortly before by Pius XI in Quas Primas.
This is not a mere congratulatory note “kept short.” The silence is **structural**. It is the spiritual profile of the coming conciliar sect: bureaucratic benevolence, human-centred compliments, a sentimental invocation of “Jesus” as a divine guarantor of subjective well-being, without the hard, objective, supernatural framework of *lex credendi* and *lex orandi*.
The rhetoric of John XXIII here exemplifies *naturalistic pastoralism*: the bishop is praised as an efficient functionary of institutional stability and decorum, not as a defender of the deposit of faith against the wolves of heresy and apostasy. The very notion of *episcopus* as successor of the Apostles, whose eminent duty is to guard, teach, and, when necessary, suffer for the unadulterated doctrine, is diluted into a soft-focus portrait suitable for a neutralized, state-compatible religious official.
Theological Level: Absence of the Supernatural as Condemnation
Measured against unchanging Catholic doctrine before 1958, the letter’s theological content—or rather its calculated lack thereof—is damning.
1. Silence on the Kingship of Christ:
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches unequivocally that true peace and order—also amidst political persecution—are only possible where Christ reigns publicly as King and where states, rulers, and peoples submit to His law.
– Here, John XXIII speaks as if the “advantage and honour of the Church” were merely an institutional good, untethered from the non-negotiable demands of the social reign of Christ and the condemnation of error.
– This omission is not indifferent: it prefigures the conciliar sect’s betrayal in promoting religious liberty and interreligious egalitarianism, directly contradicting the Syllabus and the prior Magisterium that had bound all consciences to confess the Catholic religion as the only true one, also in the public order.
2. Silence on Heresy and Modernism:
– St. Pius X anathematized the modernist attack on Scripture, dogma, sacraments, and Church structure as *pestis gravissima* (“a most grave plague”) and imposed an anti-modernist oath.
– John XXIII, within the same historical continuum of Masonic and modernist infiltration denounced repeatedly by his predecessors, offers no reminder that the bishop must vigilantly guard against false doctrines, liberal theology, and ecumenical dilution.
– This omission validates in practice what Lamentabili condemned: the false idea that ecclesiastical authority cannot or should not repress doctrinal deviations, or that it suffices to encourage “good will” and “pastoral sensitivity.”
3. Reduction of Grace to Sentimental Comfort:
– The request that God adorn Shvoy’s old age with “holy joys” and fulfil his consoling hope is, in itself, legitimate. Yet placed alone, unframed by the Cross, judgement, salvation, and the objective demands of sanctifying grace, it becomes a sentimental consolation without doctrinal backbone.
– Authentic pre-1958 documents consistently yoke consolation to conversion, joy to fidelity in combat, and blessing to perseverance in the exact faith defined by the Church. Here, the blessing is scattered broadly upon bishop, clergy, and people without any condition, admonition, or reminder of the obligation to remain in the one true faith and to reject errors. This is a practical indifferentism disguised as paternal kindness.
4. Implicit Legitimation of a Corrupt Hierarchy:
– By presenting Shvoy—without doctrinal criteria—as a model bishop, John XXIII implicitly teaches that episcopal merit is measured principally by institutional loyalty and patient administration under difficult political conditions, not by uncompromising confession of the Faith and resistance to secular and modernist pressure.
– This mirrors the later conciliar exaltation of bishops who collaborate with communist regimes, promote ecumenism and religious liberty, and accommodate secular ideologies, while marginalizing or persecuting those few who attempted to adhere to prior doctrine.
In short, the theological profile of the letter aligns not with Pius IX and Pius X, but with the very tendencies they had condemned.
Symptomatic Level: Prototype of the Conciliar Sect’s Ecclesiology
When read in continuity with subsequent acts of John XXIII and his successors in the conciliar sect, this short letter reveals several key traits of the post-1958 paramasonic structure:
1. Personality Cult over Dogmatic Clarity:
– The focus on the recipient’s person, virtues, and emotions typifies the anthropocentric turn: men, not dogma; celebration of careers, not confession of truth.
– The “Church of the New Advent” systematically replaces the sharp categories of orthodoxy/heresy, grace/sin, truth/error with a warm fog of appreciation, dialogue, and humanistic affirmation.
2. Diplomatic Tone as Mask of Doctrinal Retreat:
– The absence of any concrete doctrinal reference is not mere brevity; it is the method: keep formal language in Latin, maintain the aesthetic of continuity, while hollowing content.
– This technique prefigures the later conciliar documents’ ambivalent, elastic formulas, carefully crafted to admit heterodox interpretations while posturing as respectful of Tradition.
3. Normalization of Secular Hostility as a Mere “Difficulty”:
– The “grave circumstances” of Shvoy’s ministry—rooted in explicitly anti-Catholic, often Masonic-influenced state policies—are treated as a generic hardship to endure with human firmness, not as a battleground where the bishop must condemn, resist, and suffer in defence of the rights of the Church and of Christ the King.
– By avoiding any denunciation of such regimes and their ideologies, the letter habituates clergy and faithful to think in categories of coexistence and appeasement, setting the stage for conciliar Ostpolitik and collaboration with enemies of the Faith.
4. Institutional Blessing for a Transitioning Hierarchy:
– The supposed “Apostolic Blessing” on bishop, clergy and people, issued by one who—according to the perennial doctrine summarized by St. Robert Bellarmine and supported by the canonical tradition—manifests adherence to modernist and liberal tendencies, is a counterfeit seal placed upon a hierarchy being internally reprogrammed away from integral Catholicism.
– As the Syllabus warns, secular and liberal principles cannot be reconciled with the Church without destroying the Church’s divine constitution. John XXIII’s tone does not oppose these principles; it sidesteps them. That silence already signals complicity.
Contrasting with the Pre-Conciliar Magisterium: Doctrinal Weapons Expose the Void
If one applies the pre-1958 Magisterium as the sole norm:
– Pius IX in the Syllabus rejects the separation of Church and State, religious indifferentism, and the subordination of the Church to civil power (propositions 15–18, 55, 39–44). A bishop under persecution should be exhorted to defend the inalienable rights of the Church and the exclusive truth of the Catholic religion. John XXIII says nothing.
– Pius X in Pascendi and Lamentabili insists on the duty of the hierarchy to unmask and repress Modernism; he anathematizes attempts to historicize dogma, to subject Scripture and tradition to secular criticism, to subordinate Magisterium to so-called “experience” of the community. John XXIII neither reaffirms this line nor warns Shvoy against the already rampant modernist infiltration. He covers a burning battlefield with a lace handkerchief of compliments.
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that peace and order depend on the public recognition of the Kingship of Christ, and that states and rulers sin gravely when they exclude Him. A genuine successor of the pre-1958 Popes, writing to a bishop in hostile conditions, would recall that the true solution is not accommodation, but militant fidelity to the social reign of Christ. John XXIII retreats into private good wishes.
The result: measured by the authentic, immutable doctrine, this letter is theologically empty, spiritually anesthetizing, and ecclesiologically corrosive.
Consequences for Faithful Souls: From Benign Words to Systemic Apostasy
Though brief, this text exemplifies the mechanism by which the conciliar sect disarmed the faithful:
– By constantly praising bishops without doctrinal criteria, it trained Catholics to equate “good shepherd” with institutional loyalty and pleasant manners, not with strict guardianship of the deposit of faith.
– By abandoning the explicit language of condemnation of error—so characteristic of truly Catholic documents from Trent through Pius XII—it acclimatized consciences to accept coexistence with heresy, liberalism, and false religions.
– By enveloping everything in a saccharine language of blessings and good wishes, it made resistance to the upcoming revolution appear “disobedient,” “uncharitable,” or “rigid,” while the real betrayal—abandoning the faith of all ages—came dressed in smiles and brief Latin courtesies.
Lex orandi, lex credendi (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”): when even the curial epistolary style abandons the robust supernatural and doctrinal accents of the true Church, the belief of the people is quietly but effectively deformed.
Conclusion: A Polite Seal on the Inauguration of Ruin
Seen with clear Catholic eyes, this letter is not an edifying relic of paternal care, but a small tessera in the mosaic of the conciliar disaster. John XXIII, rather than fortifying a bishop to stand as an unbending defender of the integral faith against communism, liberalism, and Modernism, confines himself to gracious banalities and indiscriminate blessing. In doing so, he exemplifies that new style by which the structures occupying the Vatican would, step by step, neutralize doctrinal vigilance, legitimize compromised hierarchs, and usher in the reign not of Christ the King, but of humanist, naturalist, and ecumenical apostasy.
Against such emptiness, the constant, pre-1958 Magisterium stands as a tribunal: it condemns both the doctrines later propagated by the conciliar sect and the preparatory silences that made their triumph possible. Any Catholic who measures this text by that standard sees at once: beneath the scented phrases lies the stench of approaching desolation.
Source:
Octogesimum Natalem – Ad Ludovicum Shvoy, Episcopum Albae Regalensis, octogesimum natalem agentem (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025