This Latin letter of John XXIII to Antonio Caggiano and the Argentine hierarchy marks the centenary of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Argentina and the 25th anniversary of several ecclesiastical provinces created there. The text congratulates the civil authorities and hierarchy on institutional growth—new dioceses, parishes, churches, religious institutes, schools, hospitals, and Catholic Action—and urges further collaboration between state and hierarchy, presenting Argentine national prestige and “Christian humanism” as signs of God’s favor.
In reality, this apparently pious rhetoric already manifests the programmatic substitution of the supernatural Kingship of Christ with a diplomatic, naturalistic cult of nation, structures, and human concord under an antipope presiding over the nascent conciliar revolution.
Commemorating Diplomacy While Silencing the Kingship of Christ
The letter opens with a seemingly orthodox reminder that ingratitude toward divine benefits is sinful, then moves immediately to public “thanksgiving” for historical and diplomatic milestones between the Roman See and Argentina:
“It is fitting and proper that… public and more abundant acts of thanksgiving be offered where, according to the rule of anniversary remembrance, heavenly gifts of greater importance bestowed upon particular nations are recalled.”
English first: the “heavenly gifts” concretely cited are:
– the erection of new dioceses and parishes,
– the building of churches,
– an increase of clergy and religious,
– growth of Catholic Action,
– development of schools, colleges, hospitals,
– and the centenary of official relations between the Holy See and the Argentine state.
What is immediately and gravely symptomatic is that John XXIII does not once articulate the supernatural end of these realities: the salvation of souls through the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary*, the necessity of the true faith, the state of grace, repentance, final judgment, or the objective obligation of the Argentine state to profess the Catholic religion as the only true religion. Instead, “heavenly gifts” are implicitly equated with institutional expansion and diplomatic harmony.
This stands in stark contrast with the integral doctrine reaffirmed by Pius XI in *Quas Primas* (1925), where peace and social order are said to flow only from the public recognition of Christ’s Kingship and the submission of states to His law, not from mere “amicitia” and concord with secular powers. When the letter praises as “civil wisdom” the presence and favor of the Argentine “Supreme Moderators of the Republic” at these celebrations, it reveals a mentality already sliding into the condemned liberal thesis that the state’s favor constitutes a “noble sign” in religious matters (cf. Pius IX, *Syllabus*, 77–80). The hierarchy is flattered as partners in a national project, not summoned as guardians of an exclusive, supernatural Kingdom to which nations must submit or perish.
Naturalistic Exaltation of Structures Without Confession of the One True Faith
On the factual plane, John XXIII enumerates impressive developments since the reorganization of the hierarchy under Pius XI:
“Parishes have been established in great number; not a few churches have been built from the ground; the number of sacred ministers has considerably increased; religious families of men and women have multiplied; Catholic Action has been promoted; schools of every kind, colleges for boys and girls, hospitals, works of Christian charity have become more frequent.”
No one denies that such external growth can be authentic goods when ordered to their proper end. However, evaluated from the perspective of unchanging doctrine before 1958, several points emerge:
1. The entire enumeration treats the Church primarily as an administrative and social organism. There is no mention of:
– guarding purity of doctrine against liberalism, indifferentism, and nascent Modernism;
– combating Freemasonry and socialist infiltration that Pius IX and Leo XIII identified as the “synagogue of Satan” waging war on the Church;
– enforcing canon law reforms to defend sacramental discipline;
– defending the indissolubility of marriage, modesty, and Christian morality against the rapidly advancing paganization of public life.
2. The letter is completely silent about:
– the necessity of the Catholic faith as the only way of salvation (cf. *Syllabus*, 15–18; *Unam Sanctam*);
– the condemnation of the thesis that all religions are paths to God;
– the obligation of the state to recognize Catholicism as the state religion and to reject religious indifferentism (cf. *Syllabus*, 55; Leo XIII, *Immortale Dei*).
3. Instead of teaching that Christ’s Kingdom demands juridical and public submission—*Regnum Christi in societate visibili*—the letter reduces God’s favor to the measurable expansion of structures and cordial relations with a secular regime.
This is not a minor accent; it is the essence of the nascent conciliar program. Pius XI taught that secularism and laicism are the plague of the age and that the remedy is the explicit, public, exclusive Kingship of Christ over nations. Here, under John XXIII, the talk is of “amicitia” with the modern state and admiration that civil leaders honor the See of Peter—a See they themselves regard increasingly as one religious actor among many.
Such a displacement from supernatural to natural criteria corresponds exactly to those tendencies condemned by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*: the reduction of supernatural realities to historical, social, and psychological categories; the replacement of dogmatic clarity with vague religious humanism.
Soft Bureaucratic Latin as the Garment of Doctrinal Dilution
On the linguistic level, the rhetoric is polished, restrained, and fatally revealing.
Key traits:
– Vagueness: references to “heavenly gifts” and “divine favors” are never tied to concrete dogmas (e.g., the Holy Eucharist as propitiatory sacrifice, the necessity of the Roman Catholic Church for salvation, the condemnation of liberalism). The supernatural vocabulary is left floating above a very this-worldly content.
– Diplomatic flattery: the civil rulers are “Supremos Moderatores” whose participation is “laudandum,” a “noble sign of civil wisdom.” The state’s homage is treated almost as a sacrament of legitimacy, as though the Church receives dignity from the polite bow of temporal powers. This reverses the Catholic order, in which rulers receive moral legitimacy insofar as they submit to Christ and His Church.
– Harmonious clichés: insistence on “firm concord,” “fraternal bonds,” “Christian humanism,” “public friendship” displaces combat terms that the pre-1958 Magisterium habitually employed against the enemies of the faith—Modernists, Freemasons, naturalists, communists. The language of spiritual warfare, so clear in Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI, is replaced by a tranquil, horizontal lexicon. The omission is doctrinal.
– Absence of warnings: not a word about the grave errors flooding Latin America already in the 1950s: Marxist infiltration, secularization of education, liberal press, Masonic political networks, burgeoning moral corruption. Pius IX denounced those sects as the engines of apostasy. John XXIII praises state collaboration and leaves the faithful without a trumpet blast.
Thus the very style of the letter is symptomatic: a “pious” administrative communiqué that baptizes political normalization and institutional expansion, while the spirit of the world penetrates unhindered. It is the language of a *paramasonic structure* that seeks coexistence, not conversion.
Theological Emptiness: Grace Without Repentance, Church Without Militant Truth
From the theological perspective, the core defect of the letter is the systematic refusal to confess the integral Catholic position on three decisive points:
1. The exclusive Truth of the Catholic Church.
2. The social Kingship of Christ over states.
3. The militancy of the Church against modern errors.
Instead, we find a theology of “encouragement” toward generic “better things” and “loftier aims,” allegedly inspired by celebrating diplomatic jubilees. John XXIII writes that Argentina is called:
“to shine in a special way, on the South American continent, as a land of Christian human culture and, by the examples of evangelical wisdom and by good and strong works, to urge other peoples… to strive for those goals which love of country and the honor of religion demand.”
At first glance, this could sound orthodox. But notice:
– “Christian human culture” is placed in the foreground. The term is ambiguous: does it mean a society subjected in law and institutions to Christ the King, or a vague ethical inspiration compatible with pluralism? Given the rest of the text and John XXIII’s later programmatic acts, it manifests itself as the latter.
– The “honor of religion” appears as one value among others (“love of country and honor of religion”), which dangerously echoes the condemned proposition that public order and social utility are the norm for religious arrangements, rather than divine revelation holding absolute primacy.
– There is zero insistence that Argentine law, education, and public life must explicitly reject false cults, ban blasphemy, and uphold the Catholic faith as state religion—truths solemnly defended by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
Pius XI in *Quas Primas* rebukes precisely this neutralization: it is not enough that individuals are privately devout; nations must swear public fealty to Christ. Pius IX in the *Syllabus* explicitly condemns the separation of Church and State (55) and the idea that Catholicism need not be the only religion of the State (77). John XXIII, by praising as “civil wisdom” the attendance and favor of rulers without calling them to public confession of the Kingship of Christ, habituates pastors and faithful to an already condemned posture.
This is not accidental; it is the operationalization of the modernist thesis that the Church must “reconcile herself with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” (explicitly condemned in *Syllabus*, 80). Under this lens, the silence itself becomes a loud doctrinal statement.
Silence as Complicity: No Warning Against Modernism, Freemasonry, or Liberalism
The symptomatic dimension is decisive. The letter:
– says nothing of the condemnations of secret societies and Masonic powers that Pius IX, Leo XIII, and others repeatedly warned were orchestrating persecution and apostasy, including in the Americas;
– ignores the modernist crisis explicitly identified by St. Pius X, as if the decrees *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* had ceased to be urgent;
– offers no guidance against socialism, secularized education, or indifferentism spreading through Latin America.
Instead, it presents a serene tableau where more parishes plus more Catholic Action plus state smiles equal progress of the Kingdom of God. This is historical and theological blindness.
Given the integral teaching:
– *Modernism is “the synthesis of all heresies”* (Pius X).
– Freemasonry is identified as a principal architect of the war on the Church.
– The duty of pastors is to warn, to condemn, to separate the faithful from wolves and false doctrines (cf. Council of Trent, Vatican I).
To speak at length of jubilees and diplomatic friendship while omitting these pressing dangers is not pastoral prudence; it is dereliction. It prefigures the conciliar and post-conciliar method: never name the real enemy; never condemn contemporary heresies with authority; replace anathemas with smiles and anniversaries.
This letter, although short, is a precise specimen of that mutation:
– It treats the state as a partner, not as a subject of Christ the King.
– It treats ecclesiastical growth quantitatively, not qualitatively in terms of fidelity to dogma and sacramental integrity.
– It treats the Church not as the *Societas perfecta* possessing innate rights independent of the state (cf. *Syllabus*, 19), but as an institution grateful for recognition and favor—an inversion of roles.
From “Si ingratae mentis” to the Cult of Man: A Coherent Drift
One must read this document not in isolation but as a coherent step toward the later open manifestations of the conciliar revolution executed by John XXIII and his successors in the conciliar sect.
Key lines of continuity include:
– The refusal to maintain the posture of doctrinal militancy against liberalism and Modernism so characteristic of Pius IX through Pius XII.
– The translation of Catholic language (grace, gifts, mission) into a framework of human development, social works, and diplomatic respectability.
– The practical endorsement of a modus vivendi with secular regimes, even when they no longer acknowledge the exclusive rights of the Catholic Church.
Pius XI insisted that public apostasy—law and society structured as if Christ did not reign—is the source of modern calamities. Here, under John XXIII, that apostasy is no longer exposed but politely ignored. The hierarchy is encouraged to “new undertakings” using “new methods and ways,” but without any doctrinal specification. Such openness, devoid of clear norms, becomes the doorway through which Modernism, condemned in 1907, re-enters as the “spirit of aggiornamento.”
The logic is constant:
– once one stops reminding the state of its duty to profess the true religion;
– once one stops recalling that false religions are no paths to God;
– once one stops warning against Freemasonry, socialism, and liberal errors;
– once one measures ecclesial success by external statistics and government smiles,
the stage is set for religious liberty in the liberal sense, ecumenism, the “cult of man,” and the dissolution of the visible marks of the true Church into the *Church of the New Advent.*
This letter is not an isolated courtesy. It is an early exercise in the new paradigm: a paramasonic, naturalistic ecclesial diplomacy whose fruit will be the systematic dismantling of the classical Catholic order in doctrine, liturgy, and law.
A Pseudo-Pastoral Tone That Conceals the Abandonment of the Flock
Finally, from the pastoral angle, the text is an indictment.
A truly Catholic Roman Pontiff, writing on such an occasion to bishops of a key nation, would:
– Praise genuine growth but immediately bind it to fidelity to doctrine and discipline.
– Exhort bishops to preach against liberalism, secularism, Marxism, and Masonic infiltration.
– Recall that “human rights,” “progress,” and “dialogue” have no legitimacy when divorced from the rights of God and His Church.
– Demand that civil rulers publicly honor Christ the King by conforming laws and institutions to His commandments.
– Insist on catechesis about the last things, the necessity of the sacraments, and the reality of hell and judgment.
Instead, John XXIII offers:
– vague encouragement to “better, loftier, more important things;”
– admiration for civic attendance as a “pledge” of good relations;
– no doctrinal or moral commands, no disciplinary measures, no call to arms.
This is *pastoralis mollities*—a softness that abandons the flock to wolves under a veil of benevolent words. When interpreted in light of the firm condemnations in *Lamentabili sane exitu*—which anathematizes the idea that the Magisterium should refrain from binding doctrinal judgments and reduce itself to encouragement—this approach appears not as legitimate development but as betrayal.
Conclusion: Anodyne Gratitude as the Signature of the Conciliar Sect
Viewed with the criteria of integral Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, this letter exposes:
– a shift from supernatural, exclusive claims to naturalistic, diplomatic language;
– the practical relativization of the Church’s rights over nations;
– the silent burial of the anti-liberal, anti-Masonic Magisterium of the 19th and early 20th centuries;
– the habituation of bishops and faithful to think in terms of “Christian humanism,” state-church cooperation, and structural expansion, while the content of the faith is diluted.
The most damning element is precisely what is not said: no denunciation of the reigning errors; no assertion of the obligation of Argentina to be confessionally Catholic; no call to defend the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary* and the sacraments from profanation and modernist subversion; no reminder that outside the true Church there is no salvation.
Thus, “Si ingratae mentis” becomes an ironic title: the real ingratitude here is toward the solemn, blood-bought teaching of the pre-conciliar Popes, ignored and contradicted by an antipope who exchanges the Kingship of Christ for the applause of statesmen and the mirage of peaceful coexistence with a world already in revolt against God.
Source:
Si ingratae mentis – Ad Antonium Tit. S. Laurentii in Panisperna S. R. E. Card. Caggiano, Rosariensem Episcopum, et ad ceteros Argentinae Sacrorum Antistites, saeculo exeunte ab initis inter Petri Sed… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025