Pseudopontiff John XXIII’s brief Latin letter “Non excidit” (20 August 1959) appoints Ferdinand Antonelli (Cardinal Cento) as legate to the National Eucharistic Congress in Argentina (Cordoba in Tucumán), recalls with sentimental emphasis the 1934 International Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires presided over by Eugenio Pacelli, praises the organizational zeal of bishops and laity, and warmly commends the collaboration of the Argentine civil authorities, linking it to a century of diplomatic relations with the Holy See. It presents the Congress as a moment for promoting devotion to the Eucharist, peace, and harmony between Church and State. In reality, this smooth, pious-sounding text is a programmatic piece of conciliar diplomacy: a calculated substitution of supernatural Catholic faith and the reign of Christ the King with a saccharine cult of events, national sentiment, and political concord, preparatory to the full-blown conciliar revolution.
Eucharistic Congress as Showcase of the Coming Subversion
John XXIII’s letter is short, but densely symptomatic. It stands at the threshold of the conciliar upheaval; every line, if read in the light of pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, reveals the emerging agenda of the nascent conciliar sect.
Key elements of the text, in paraphrase and quotation:
– He recalls with emotion the 1934 Buenos Aires Eucharistic Congress: “it has not fallen from memory with what zeal and numbers of clergy and faithful… that Congress was celebrated… presided over by Eugenio Pacelli… later raised to the summit of Apostolic power”. The emphasis is on crowds, spectacle, and the personal trajectory of Pacelli, not on the unbloody Sacrifice and propitiation.
– He rejoices that, fifty years later, a national Eucharistic Congress is being prepared in Argentina so the faithful may be called to “more ardent worship and use” of the Sacrament and to commemorate the jubilee of that previous event.
– He praises the establishment of special commissions (clerical and lay) to organize the Congress and the supplications and preparations.
– He especially rejoices that the civil authorities of Argentina, “recognizing the eminent role of the Catholic Church,” have promised to assist these initiatives and to commemorate the centenary of diplomatic ties with the Apostolic See.
– He appoints Cardinal Cento as legate “a latere” to preside at the rites in his name and imparts an “apostolic blessing” on all participants.
At first glance: harmless, devoted, encouraging. Yet precisely in such texts, Modernism reveals itself: not by explicit dogmatic denials, but by systematic displacement of essentials with sentimentalism, political choreography, and humanistic slogans.
Political Piety and the Eclipse of the Kingship of Christ
The most striking feature is the way the letter links Eucharistic worship with national and diplomatic celebration. The Eucharistic Congress is framed as:
– a memorial of an earlier grand event,
– a patriotic-religious festival,
– an opportunity to highlight one hundred years of State–“Holy See” relations,
– a showcase of harmonious collaboration between hierarchy, laity, and civil power.
In other words: the supernatural mystery of the Augustissimum Sacramentum is harnessed to a political script.
Yet the integral Catholic doctrine, clearly articulated less than 35 years earlier by Pius XI in Quas Primas, demands something utterly different:
– Christ the King possesses a social, public, juridical kingship over nations.
– States are bound to submit their laws and institutions to His law.
– Peace is not a sentimental product of coexistence, but a fruit of the regnum Christi, inseparable from the profession of the true Faith and obedience to the Church.
Pius XI states plainly (paraphrased faithfully):
– Peace will not shine on nations until they recognize and obey the reign of Christ (Quas Primas).
– The civil power must publicly honour Christ and shape its legislation and education according to His commandments.
– Secularism and laicism are the great plague to be condemned; Catholic rulers must not be neutral but subject to Christ’s law.
Measured against this standard, John XXIII’s letter is chillingly evasive:
– No affirmation that Argentina, as a State, must submit to Christ the King.
– No insistence that civil laws, education, social life conform to Catholic doctrine (as taught, e.g., by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors – notably propositions 55, 77-80 are condemned).
– No mention of the unique necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation.
– Civil authorities are praised simply for cooperating with ecclesiastical festivities and for maintaining “friendship” with the Apostolic See—precisely the empty diplomatic formula rejected by integral papal teaching when it is not ordered to the publica professio of the true religion.
This is not accidental silence. It is the method of the approaching conciliar conspiracy: the objective dogma of Christ’s social kingship is transformed into vague “recognition” of the Church’s “eminent role,” compatible with pluralistic and Masonic regimes, preparing the way for the later cult of “religious freedom” and human rights, condemned explicitly by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
Factual and Historical Level: Congresses as Instruments of Mutation
From a factual perspective, the letter:
– Instrumentalizes the memory of Pacelli’s legation in 1934 as a sentimental prelude to John XXIII’s own project.
– Magnifies organizational structures (clerical and lay committees) and political participation.
– Reduces the Eucharistic mystery to a thematic centerpiece of a national celebration.
Contrasted with doctrinal sources:
– The pre-1958 popes (e.g., Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII) consistently used such occasions to reaffirm explicitly: the unique truth of the Catholic faith, the duty of States toward the Church, the gravity of error, the reality of mortal sin and need for sacramental confession, the danger of naturalism and liberalism.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus condemns the very principles of liberal indifferentism and State-Church separation which Argentina’s evolving political order embodied and which John XXIII carefully avoids confronting.
– St. Pius X in Pascendi and in the confirmation of Lamentabili sane exitu unmasks Modernists precisely for adapting language to liberal regimes, avoiding clear condemnations, and replacing the supernatural with “religious sentiment” and social activism.
John XXIII’s silence on all these points is therefore factual evidence of rupture. This is not a matter of style; it is an operational betrayal: tacere cum loqui oporteat est loqui (“to be silent when one should speak is itself speech”).
Linguistic Level: Sentimentalism, Eventism, and Diplomatic Optimism
The vocabulary of the letter is revealing.
1. Excessive pathos and nostalgia:
– “non excidit e memoria” – “it does not fall from memory”;
– emphasis on “great joy,” “festal array,” “great crowds.”
– This sentimental recall glorifies human success—numbers and ceremonies—rather than the sacrificial character of the Most Holy Sacrifice.
2. Naturalistic rhetoric of “peace”:
– The Congress’ aim is that the faithful, nourished with the heavenly food, may “enjoy the goods of peace.”
– No doctrinal clarification that true peace is the fruit of conversion from sin and adherence to the one true Church; absent the note that peace is impossible on a foundation of religious error (as Catholic teaching demands).
3. Diplomatic flattery:
– Civil leaders are praised for “recognizing the eminent mission of the Catholic Church” and for aiding initiatives.
– The centenary of diplomatic ties is treated as quasi-sacramental.
– This rhetorical caress of secular power starkly contrasts with Pius IX and Leo XIII, who consistently warned against Masonic and liberal infiltration and the usurpation of ecclesiastical rights—even as they negotiated politically.
4. Technocratic ecclesial language:
– Highlight of “special commissions” of clergy and laity to prepare the event.
– The Congress appears as a managed project, a religious exhibition, rather than as a call to penance, confession, amendment of life, and public expiation.
This modernist style is not neutral. As St. Pius X exposed, Modernism changes the lexicon to shift the faith from the supernatural order to experience, community, history, and “values.” Here, Eucharistic worship is couched in terms of national maturity, civic collaboration, and spiritualized pacifism: a rhetoric compatible with religious pluralism and secular democracy, utterly incompatible with the integral teaching of the Syllabus and Quas Primas.
Theological Level: Pious Phrases Masking Practical Indifferentism
The letter never denies any dogma explicitly; Modernism rarely does. Instead, it commits grave omissions and substitutions, theologically lethal.
1. Reduction of the Eucharist to devotion and “peace”
The Eucharist is invoked as:
– “heavenly food” strengthening souls,
– source of “the goods of peace.”
What is missing, and therefore indicted:
– No explicit affirmation of the Eucharist as Sacrum Sacrificium, the unbloody renewal of Calvary, intrinsically propitiatory for sins of the living and the dead (Council of Trent, Session XXII).
– No warning about worthy reception: state of grace, sacramental confession, the horror of sacrilege.
– No doctrinal insistence on the Real Presence against modern unbelief, no clear mention of transubstantiation.
– No call to public reparation for blasphemies, heresies, and apostasies in the nation.
Thus what is left is not the Eucharist in its Catholic fullness, but a vague “Sacrament of unity” and peace, perfectly suited to post-conciliar ecumenical distortion, where the Most Holy Sacrament becomes a sociological sign rather than the heart of the Sacrifice that demands conversion, submission, and repudiation of error.
2. Absence of the Kingship of Christ over the State
Given the explicit teaching of Pius XI:
– that rulers must subject legislation, education, and policy to Christ;
– that public apostasy of nations is a grave sin;
– that laicism is a “plague” that must be opposed;
the letter’s praise of Argentine authorities is theologically inverted. It suffices that they “assist” and recognize the Church’s “eminent mission.” There is no:
– demand for Catholic confessional status,
– repudiation of liberal errors,
– reminder that civil power has no authority over ecclesiastical matters (Syllabus, propositions 39–45 condemned).
This tacit acceptance of a liberal framework is already an implicit contradiction of the Syllabus and Quas Primas. It prepares the official betrayal that will later be codified in the conciliar sect’s cult of religious liberty and its abject surrender before Masonic regimes.
3. Exploitation of the Eucharistic Congress for conciliar ecclesiology
The insistence on:
– joint ecclesiastical–lay committees,
– emphasis on “the people” as protagonist,
– the legate “representing” the person of John XXIII in quasi-parliamentary spectacle,
prefigures the coming democratization of ecclesial structures: the “people of God” rhetoric, episcopal conferences, and consultative bodies that will replace the monarchic, juridically precise order of the true Church with a diffuse, horizontal, humanistic pseudo-church.
True ecclesiology, as taught by pre-1958 popes, asserts:
– the Church is a perfect society, divinely constituted, hierarchical, not subject to the State (Syllabus 19, 39-55),
– authority flows from Christ through the Roman Pontiff and bishops, not from populist assemblies or commissions.
In this letter, the Congress appears as a shared enterprise of hierarchy, laity, and State powers, celebrating broad “recognition” without doctrinal conditioning. This is the conciliar model in nuce.
Symptomatic Level: The Conciliar Sect in Embryo
Seen in continuity with other acts of John XXIII and his successors in the conciliar line (from John XXIII to the current usurper Leo XIV), this letter is a micro-manifesto of their program:
– Use traditional devotions (Eucharistic Congresses, Marian language, etc.) as a shell.
– Empty them silently of their uncompromising doctrinal content: sin, hell, exclusivity of the Church, condemnation of error, social reign of Christ.
– Replace them with:
– optimism about the world,
– diplomatic goodwill,
– national and international “dialogue,”
– bureaucratic pastoralism,
– celebration of “peace” detached from conversion and truth.
This is exactly the mechanism condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi and reaffirmed in Lamentabili sane exitu: the evolution of dogma under historical pressure, the primacy of religious experience and community sentiment over immutable doctrine. The letter’s tone and content match that modernist pattern: no frontal denials, but every strategic silence and every misplaced accent serves the revolution.
Silence on Apostasy and Modernism: The Loudest Confession
The gravest indictment is what the document does not say.
In a Latin American context already infected by liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry, and incipient progressivism, a truly Catholic Roman Pontiff would:
– Warn bishops and faithful against Modernism, condemned as “the synthesis of all heresies” by St. Pius X.
– Denounce secret societies and Masonic networks undermining Church and State (as Pius IX and Leo XIII repeatedly did).
– Call the nation to public penance and amendment of laws, including protection of Christian marriage, education, and the rights of the Church.
– Exhort to confession, reparation, and militant defense of the faith against Protestantism, secularism, and socialism.
– Reaffirm that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation in the strict sense, as always taught.
Instead, John XXIII confines himself to:
– praising structures,
– recalling memories,
– flattering politicians,
– promising blessings.
This is not pastoral prudence; it is betrayal. When wolves tear the flock, and the one occupying the Roman See offers only kind words about anniversaries and committees, he thereby reveals himself as part of the assault.
From Feigned Continuity to Open Rupture
Some defenders of the conciliar sect attempt a “hermeneutic of continuity” here: they claim that such letters simply apply traditional teaching in a charitable tone. This is untenable.
Step-by-step:
1. Traditional doctrine (Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII) explicitly:
– condemns liberalism, indifferentism, separation of Church and State, religious freedom as commonly understood;
– demands States publicly recognize the Catholic religion;
– warns against Masonic and modernist infiltration;
– insists on dogmatic clarity as an act of charity and justice.
2. John XXIII’s letter:
– omits every one of these non-negotiable elements;
– instead, praises secular authorities for mere cooperation and diplomatic ties;
– speaks of Eucharistic worship without sacrificial, penitential, or militant accents;
– helps normalize a Church comfortable within liberal regimes.
3. This pattern:
– is replicated and amplified at the false Council called Vatican II and in subsequent acts of the conciliar sect;
– results in the cult of “dialogue,” “human rights,” “religious liberty” condemned in pre-1958 magisterial documents.
Therefore:
– The text is not an innocent piece of devotional bureaucracy; it is an instrument of mutation.
– Its apparent continuity is precisely the mask by which rupture is smuggled in. Corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst).
Delegitimizing the Conciliar Authority Claimed in the Letter
Since this letter is issued by John XXIII as “IOANNES PP. XXIII” and the source is the official platform of the structures occupying the Vatican, it must also be read in light of the doctrine on heresy and papal office as articulated by classical theologians and codified legislation:
– A manifest, public heretic cannot be head of the Church because he ceases to be a member (St. Robert Bellarmine, accurately paraphrased: a manifest heretic, by that fact, loses jurisdiction).
– The 1917 Code, canon 188.4, recognizes tacit resignation by public defection from the faith.
– Paul IV’s bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (repeatedly referenced in canonical tradition) establishes the nullity of promotion of one who has deviated from the faith.
While the detailed application exceeds this single letter, the method visible here—systematic soft Modernism, effective rejection of the integral pre-1958 magisterial stance—belongs to the pattern by which the conciliar leaders demonstrate their separation from the Catholic Faith. This text, precisely by its omissions and worldly spirit, participates in that objective divergence.
Thus:
– Its “apostolic blessing” is not the voice of Peter, but of one already aligned with the project which Pius IX described as the “synagogue of Satan” working through Masonic and liberal sects against the Church.
– Its authority binds no Catholic conscience; its theological value is negative, as evidence of the emergence of the neo-church.
Conclusion: From Eucharistic Devotion to Conciliar Spectacle
This letter transforms:
– the Eucharist from the heart of the propitiatory Sacrifice and royal throne of Christ, demanding conversion and social submission,
– into a devotional banner under which:
– national pride,
– diplomatic anniversaries,
– liberal regimes,
– technocratic ecclesial committees
harmoniously parade.
Measured by the unchanging teaching of the Church up to 1958, this is theological bankruptcy disguised as piety. The text exemplifies the conciliar sect’s genius for corruption: retaining holy words, draining them of their dogmatic blood, and replacing the Most Holy Sacrifice with a pseudo-liturgical spectacle that affirms the world rather than judging it in the light of Christ the King.
Against this perversion, the integral Catholic faith answers with the clear voice of Pius IX, St. Pius X, and Pius XI: only in the full, exclusive, public reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in doctrine, sacraments, morality, and social order, is there peace; every attempt to reduce this to diplomatic cordiality and sentimental Eucharistic festivals is not pastoral care, but complicity with the revolution that seeks to erase the true Church from the earth.
Source:
– Ad Ferdinandum S. R. E. presbyterum Cardinalem Cento, qui legatus mittitur ad Conventum Eucharisticum Nationis Argentinae, Cordubae in Tucumania habendum (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025