IOANNES XXIII
Celebrating Human Vanity: The Vacuity of “Benevolentiae caritatis”
The text titled “Benevolentiae caritatis” (29 November 1959) is a short congratulatory letter in Latin by John XXIII addressed to Cardinal Jacopo (Iacobus Aloisius) Copello on the occasion of his 80th birthday. It praises Copello’s long life, recalls divine benefits allegedly shed upon him, commends his past governance of the Buenos Aires church, notes his elevation to the cardinalate by Pius XI, and compliments him for his current role as Chancellor of the Roman Church, concluding with wishes and an “apostolic blessing.”
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine before 1958, this piece is not an innocent formality, but a symptom of a corrupt, anthropocentric, and politically compromised structure that flatters compromised men instead of proclaiming Christ the King and the rights of God.
Factual Glorification of a System Already in Decomposition
On the factual level, the letter is outwardly simple: no dogmatic assertions, no explicit heresies, only stylized praise. Yet precisely here its poisonous character reveals itself: it normalizes and crowns a system of ecclesiastical careerism and diplomatic accommodation that had already prepared the ground for the conciliar revolution.
Key factual elements in the letter (translated sense-accurately):
– John XXIII states that affection (*benevolentiae caritas*) moves him not to allow the birthday to pass in silence.
– He notes Copello’s “long span” of life, as filled with divine benefits that should move him to gratitude.
– He evokes “pious memory” of works accomplished “for the glory of God, the salvation of souls, and the progress of Catholic affairs,” especially his long governance of the Buenos Aires church.
– He stresses that Pius XI recognized these merits by elevating him to the College of Cardinals.
– He praises Copello’s execution of the office of Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church with “accustomed diligence” and wishes him consolations.
– He imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” to Copello and those celebrating him.
Stripped of the saccharine Latin, three concrete points emerge for critical scrutiny:
1. The letter publicly validates Copello as an exemplary servant of the Church.
2. It links this validation to his role in Argentina and in the Curia, without the slightest hint of doctrinal or moral examination.
3. It reinforces the image of John XXIII as paternal benefactor distributing blessings and approvals.
Under integral Catholic standards, praise of persons in ecclesiastical positions is not evil per se. The Church has always expressed gratitude for faithful service. The problem here is the total absence of any supernatural, doctrinal, or ascetical backbone in the evaluation of that “service,” combined with the broader historical context of John XXIII’s pontificate as initiator of the conciliar subversion.
Where the pre-1958 Magisterium constantly armed the faithful against error—consider Pius IX’s *Syllabus Errorum*, Leo XIII’s encyclicals against naturalism and Freemasonry, St. Pius X’s *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi Dominici gregis*—this letter instead canonizes an institutional mentality in which:
– loyalty to the apparatus,
– diplomatic pliancy,
– and venerable age
constitute sufficient criteria for public exaltation, with no reference to the uncompromising defense of the faith against liberalism, modernism, and Masonic subversion so clearly denounced by Pius IX and St. Pius X.
In other words, this is a micro-document of an already secularized clerical caste, content to congratulate one another while the faith is being systematically undermined.
Linguistic Sugar-Coating as Theological Sedation
The language of “Benevolentiae caritatis” is not neutral. It is a crafted anesthetic. Its tone, vocabulary, and omissions manifest a mentality that places human honor and institutional serenity above the militant confession of Christ’s Kingship.
Notable features:
– Persistent rhetoric of sweetness and sentiment: *benevolentiae caritas*, *suavis animi commotio* (sweet emotion), *dulcia solatia* (sweet consolations), *faustitas*, *laeta*.
– Honorifics multiply: “Dilecte Fili Noster”, reminders of cardinalatial dignity, chancellorship, merits dignified by a predecessor.
– No reference whatsoever to combat for the truth, to resistance to error, to hatred of heresy, to the cross, to penance, or to judgment.
This sweetness is not the evangelical charity that calls sinners to conversion; it is bourgeois respectability, a celebration of bureaucratic longevity. It is precisely the kind of soft humanism that St. Pius X unmasked as the psychology of Modernism, where religion is transmuted into “religious sentiment” and benevolent admiration.
Contrast this spirit with the language of the authentic pre-1958 Magisterium:
– Pius IX firmly condemns the principles that exalt human autonomy against revelation and the rights of the Church (see *Syllabus*, especially propositions 15–18, 39–41, 55, 77–80, all rejected). There, the style is juridical, doctrinal, and warlike against error.
– St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi* names, dissects, and anathematizes the modernist attack on revelation, Scripture, Christ, sacraments, and Church authority. He calls Modernism “the synthesis of all heresies” and backs this with canonical penalties, not with scented compliments.
The letter of John XXIII to Copello belongs to the opposite semantic universe: a world in which hierarchy is praised for career and longevity, while the burning doctrinal and moral crises are hidden under polite silence. Such rhetoric, precisely because it is “inoffensive,” functions as a mask of apostasy: *verba mollia, fides dissoluta* (gentle words, dissolved faith).
Theological Emptiness: Absence of Christ the King, Absence of Combat
From a theological perspective rooted in immutable doctrine, the most damning accusation against this letter is not what it says, but what it refuses to say.
There is:
– No mention of the *Social Kingship of Christ* so solemnly taught by Pius XI in *Quas Primas* (“peace will not come until individuals and states recognize and practically obey the reign of Christ the King”).
– No exhortation to defend the rights of the Church against secular usurpation, as reiterated by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII.
– No word on the gravity of Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X, though by 1959 its infiltration had long been evident in seminaries, universities, and episcopates.
– No mention of the duty of pastors to preserve purity of doctrine, crush error, and guide souls through the sacraments and sound teaching toward eternal salvation.
– No reminder of death, judgment, hell, heaven; no call to perseverance in the state of grace; no admonition that many clerics will be judged more severely if unfaithful to their charge.
This silence is not accidental courtesy. It is characteristic of the emergent conciliar mentality: a pastoralism without dogma, affirmation without discernment, honor without holiness. It produces a pseudo-charity which contradicts the perennial axiom *caritas in veritate* (charity in truth).
In true Catholic theology:
– Honor given without reference to Catholic orthodoxy and to zeal for the glory of God is flattery, not virtue.
– To bless, endorse, and exalt without doctrinal criteria is to misuse apostolic authority.
– Shepherds are bound before God to guard the flock from wolves; to remain silent about wolves while praising fellow shepherds is itself betrayal.
The letter’s “theology” reduces grace to a decorative mention of “benefits” received and “heavenly gifts” invoked, emptied of doctrinal content. It does not exhort Copello to defend the faith against liberalism, socialism, religious indifferentism, condemned systematically in the 19th and early 20th century. It does not call him to stand against the global advance of sects and anti-Christian forces explicitly unmasked by Pius IX and Leo XIII, who identified Masonic conspiracies against the Church and the Christian social order. Instead, it affirms the smooth functioning of the Curial machine.
This is the essence of the new religion of the “Church of the New Advent”: a cult of institutional continuity without doctrinal continuity, a sentimental religiosity that refuses to speak like Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X about error, heresy, and the rights of God.
Symptom of the Conciliar Revolution: From Guardians of Dogma to Courtiers of Men
This letter must be read as a symptom of a broader pathology: the transformation of the visible hierarchy into a paramasonic structure that crowns human respect and worldly prestige, paving the way for the systematic demolition of Catholic dogma that will explode at and after Vatican II.
Several symptomatic points:
1. Substitution of Supernatural Militancy with Institutional Self-Celebration
Instead of echoing the warnings of Pius IX and St. Pius X against liberalism and modernism, John XXIII here further consolidates a network of prelates marked by diplomatic pliability and political alignment. The Buenos Aires ecclesiastical environment, like many others at mid-20th century, had already absorbed liberal tendencies. The letter not only fails to correct; it affirms and crowns.
An integral Catholic pastor, conscious of his duty, would remind an aging cardinal:
– to examine his conscience on fidelity to the full deposit of faith;
– to repair for any toleration of error;
– to use remaining years as public witness against modern trends denounced by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
This text does none of that. It operates as if the great battles of Pius IX and St. Pius X had never occurred, as if the dangers they denounced had dissolved. That practical denial of the gravity of Modernism is itself a betrayal of *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*, which warn precisely against such minimization and adaptation.
2. Language of “Kindness” as Precondition of Doctrinal Surrender
The tone of *benevolentiae caritas* fits precisely the psychological preparation for the council that John XXIII would convoke: a “pastoral” aggiornamento, a renunciation of condemnations, a turning from anathemas to applause. The sweet words used toward Copello mirror the entire program:
– cease speaking as judge of error,
– speak as sympathetic accomplice of every “good will.”
Such rhetoric stands in stark contrast with the dogmatic clarity required by previous popes. Pius IX explicitly condemns the notion that the Church should reconcile herself with “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” understood as emancipation from Christ’s Law (see Syllabus, prop. 80). John XXIII’s style and subsequent acts went in the opposite direction—preparing exactly that reconciliation.
This birthday letter is not yet a doctrinal manifesto; it is something more insidious: the habitual language of a hierarchy that has already interiorly abdicated its role as guardian of supernatural truth.
3. Abuse of Apostolic Blessing
The document ends by imparting an “Apostolic Blessing” to Copello and to all rejoicing around him. According to traditional theology, blessings from the Roman Pontiff presuppose his role as visible head of the true Church, defender of orthodoxy, and enemy of heresy.
Once a man promotes, shields, or inaugurates doctrinal novelties contrary to prior definitive teaching, and especially once he launches a council that will enthrone religious liberty, false ecumenism, and the secularist cult of man, his invocation of the apostolic blessing is emptied of its Catholic meaning and becomes a counterfeit sign, used to sanctify the very structures through which the conciliar sect will operate.
Every such letter, even when apparently innocuous, serves to consolidate obedience—not to the unchanging *depositum fidei*, but to a human institution already engaged in self-transformation.
4. Silence about the Enemy Within
The pre-1958 Magisterium, notably St. Pius X, insists that the most dangerous enemies are within the Church’s structures—modernists who seek to destroy from inside. The letter to Copello is emblematic of the inversion of that vigilance. It expresses absolute institutional satisfaction; no hint of awareness that many bishops and theologians under those same purple hats were disseminating condemned propositions: denial of inerrancy of Scripture, historicization of dogma, relativization of the Church’s exclusive truth, etc. (see *Lamentabili* propositions condemned; their spirit was already alive in many faculties).
Thus, the letter’s silence is complicity. When authority refuses to denounce, it protects. When it praises without discernment, it ratifies the infiltration Pius X fought. This process leads directly to the visible triumph of post-conciliarism, where:
– the “conciliar sect” co-opts Catholic language;
– the *abomination of desolation* sits where the Holy ought to be;
– sacraments, hierarchy, and doctrine are simulated to sustain a new cult centered on man, dialogue, and religious pluralism.
The Copello letter is a small brick in that edifice of simulation.
Primacy of God’s Rights versus the Cult of Human Longevity
A particularly revealing contrast: throughout the letter, Copello’s age and services are treated as self-sufficient grounds of honor. The rights of God and of Christ the King over nations, laws, and institutions are not once invoked.
Integral Catholic doctrine, reaffirmed powerfully in *Quas Primas*, teaches that:
– Christ, as true King, has absolute rights over individuals, families, and states.
– Civil and ecclesiastical authority must publicly recognize His law and order legislation accordingly.
– Secularism, laicism, naturalism are mortal plagues that must be resisted, not accommodated.
Yet here, in 1959, on the threshold of the greatest doctrinal and liturgical devastation in history, the head of the Roman structure issues a text perfectly aligned with secular decorum: celebrate a notable official; omit every polemical word; no challenge to the world, no proclamation of Christ’s non-negotiable dominion.
This naturalistic pattern is typical of the conciliar sect:
– “Human rights” exalted;
– “dialogue” idolized;
– “tolerance” absolutized;
– all while the truths that alone save—only true Church, necessity of the state of grace, danger of heresy, eternal judgment—are systematically silenced.
When the supreme teaching organ repeatedly chooses to speak in such a way, the result is a practical apostasy, even when no single sentence of a given letter states formal heresy. Poison also kills by dilution.
From Clerical Flattery to Structural Apostasy
One must also note the way the letter reinforces a hierarchical model detached from its true foundation.
– It upholds Copello’s authority solely in terms of office and institutional loyalty, not in terms of integral profession of the Catholic faith as defined against modern errors.
– It confirms the mentality that “being in the structure” equals being in the Church.
Pre-1958 theologians, including St. Robert Bellarmine, emphasize that manifest heresy severs a man from the Body of the Church; a public heretic cannot hold authority in the Church of Christ, because *non potest esse caput qui non est membrum* (he cannot be head who is not a member). Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code explicitly recognizes automatic loss of office by public defection from the faith.
While this letter predates the most manifest post-conciliar aberrations, it already exemplifies the inversion: orthodoxy is presumed without examination; authority is treated as self-authenticating. This mentality prepared the faithful to accept, without resistance, all subsequent novelties: a council contradicting prior teaching on religious liberty, false ecumenism, collegiality; a new “mass” undermining sacrificial theology; endless praise of interreligious fraternity.
Thus a short birthday letter, read in context, is part of the pedagogy of apostasy: teaching Catholics to trust benevolent tones more than dogmatic continuity.
Clericalism of the Neo-Church versus True Hierarchical Authority
This document also offers an occasion to reject two opposing errors:
– The modernist clericalism of the conciliar sect: here exemplified by John XXIII’s uncritical exaltation of a career prelate, reinforcing a closed caste that no longer measures itself by the faith of all ages.
– The anticlerical illusion that lay “self-judgment” can replace the divinely instituted hierarchy.
Integral Catholic teaching affirms that Christ established a visible, hierarchical Church with real authority. However, that authority is real only insofar as it remains bound to the unchanging deposit of faith. The conciliar sect occupying the Vatican since John XXIII has weaponized clerical form against Catholic substance.
The proper Catholic response is neither submission to apostate “authorities” nor democratic self-invention, but fidelity to the perennial Magisterium and to those clergy whose orders and doctrine remain in continuity with it. A letter such as “Benevolentiae caritatis” must therefore be unmasked:
– not as an act of true papal paternity,
– but as a gesture of a humanist, horizontally oriented regime,
– which has ceased to speak and act as guardian of supernatural truth.
Conclusion: A Small Document Revealing a Great Defection
Seen superficially, “Benevolentiae caritatis” is an insignificant note of courtesy. Seen in the light of pre-1958 doctrine, it is a revealing piece of the spiritual cartography of the conciliar deception:
– It speaks the language of sweetness while the wolves are inside.
– It glorifies institutional age and status while ignoring the burning battle for faith and morals.
– It omits Christ the King, the condemnations of liberalism and Modernism, the urgency of conversion and judgment.
– It contributes to habituating souls to a “church” that blesses men for their careers and never warns them of their responsibility before God’s eternal law.
In such gestures we see not the vigilance of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI, but the nascent ethos of the neo-church: convivial, self-congratulatory, doctrinally disarmed—ready to inaugurate the conciliar revolution that will enthrone man where only Christ the King has rights.
Against this counterfeit benevolence, the integral Catholic faith proclaims: *Christus regnat, Christus imperat, Christus ab omni malo nos defendat* (Christ reigns, Christ commands, Christ defend us from every evil)—and no flattery of dignitaries can substitute for that royal and uncompromising truth.
Source:
Benevolentiae Caritatis – Ad Iacobum Aloisium Tit. S. Hieronymi Illyricorum S. R. E. Presb. Cardinalem Copello, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae cancellarium, octogesimum natalem celebraturum (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025