John XXIII’s Latin letter “Proximo mense” (5 July 1960) is a congratulatory address to Josef Frings on the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination, praising his personal qualities, humanitarian initiatives, loyalty to the Roman See, and various ecclesiastical achievements in Cologne, while granting him the faculty to impart a plenary indulgence on the occasion.
In reality, this text is a polished self-portrait of the nascent conciliar revolution: an early manifesto of humanitarian naturalism, episcopal flattery, and institutional self-promotion that silently evacuates the supernatural essence of the priesthood and the Church.
A Panegyric of Humanitarianism: John XXIII and the Programmatic Eclipse of the Supernatural
Human Virtues Exalted, Supernatural Priesthood Obscured
On the factual plane, the letter appears innocuous: a “pope” honoring a “cardinal” for fifty years of priestly service. Yet every line reveals a decisive shift in axis: from the *sacrum* to the horizontal, from the altar to social activism, from the Cross to philanthropy.
John XXIII extols Frings for his character, cultural tastes, love of the Alps, music, literature, and humanitarian concern. He applauds initiatives against hunger, aid to foreign lands, services to refugees, organizational leadership, and loyalty to “the See of Peter” demonstrated by donating technical equipment to Vatican Radio so that the papal voice may reach “the furthest coasts of Africa.”
What is structurally absent?
– No mention of the *Most Holy Sacrifice* as propitiation for sins.
– No emphasis on the priest as sacrificer and mediator, configured to Christ the High Priest.
– No call to preach conversion from error to the one true Catholic faith as the unique way of salvation.
– No warning about heresy, Modernism, Freemasonry, or the hatred of Christ’s social Kingship.
– No insistence on the necessity of sanctifying grace, repentance, or preparation for *iudicium extremum* (the final judgment).
A golden jubilee of priesthood, according to the perennial Magisterium, should first be a trembling thanksgiving for having offered thousands of times the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary*, for having absolved sinners, taught the integral faith, defended the flock against wolves. Instead, the letter reads as a secularized curriculum vitae. The priestly identity is horizontally diluted into a humanitarian functionary “set for men” interpreted as a social worker.
This is not accidental rhetoric; it is a manifesto of a new religion.
The Linguistic Mask: Bureaucratic Sanctification of Naturalism
The vocabulary is revealing. The text is carefully crafted to preserve a thin Catholic varnish while displacing its substance.
1. John XXIII praises that Frings’ motto is “Pro hominibus constitutus” (“set up for men”). Torn from its dogmatic context (Hebrews 5:1), this phrase is weaponized:
– In Catholic doctrine, the priest is *“ex hominibus assumptus, pro hominibus constituitur in his quae sunt ad Deum”* (taken from among men, appointed for men in the things that pertain to God): he offers sacrifice for sins. The letter amputates *in his quae sunt ad Deum*.
– The omission is decisive: the priest is rhetorically recast as an agent “for men,” not as mediator in *sacrificium propitiatorium*.
2. Humanitarian works and organizational successes are extolled with official solemnity:
– Aid to Japan, South Korea, South Africa, anti-hunger campaigns, refugee work, administration, and conferences are treated as crowning achievements.
– The letter calls the German Church’s charitable structures “singular” and worthy of being inscribed “in golden letters in its history.”
3. Vatican Radio equipment donation is specially exalted:
– The enhancement of broadcasting technology is placed almost as a quasi-sacred deed that magnifies the “voice” of John XXIII to the world.
– This signals the self-conscious project: a global sound system for the coming conciliar propaganda, under a pious pretext.
The style is episcopal-bureaucratic, saturated with compliments, void of doctrinal warning. This language is symptomatic of a paramasonic ethos: solemn praise of “values,” “service,” and “concern for humanity,” while avoiding clear, divisive Catholic dogma. It is the lexicon of an institution preparing to dissolve the claims of the true Church in the sentimental humanitarianism later codified in the Council.
The silence about the supernatural is the loudest sentence of this letter.
Theological Inversion: From Sacrifice and Truth to Social Utility
Measured exclusively against pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, this letter is theologically deformed.
1. The essence of the priesthood:
– Traditional doctrine (Council of Trent, Session 23; Leo XIII, Pius XI) teaches that the priest is primarily ordained to:
– Offer the *Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass*.
– Remit sins in the sacrament of Penance.
– Preach the integral, exclusive Catholic faith.
– Guard the flock from error and heresy.
– John XXIII’s letter:
– Reduces the jubilee to a celebration of benevolence, administration, and international activism.
– Mentions no defense against error, no battle for dogma, no war against Modernism — despite St. Pius X having exposed Modernism as *“omnium haeresum collectum”* (the synthesis of all heresies) and ordered its eradication.
– Flattens the priest into a “pro hominibus” agent without *ad Deum*.
2. The social reign of Christ the King:
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that there is no true peace, justice, or order unless states and societies publicly submit to Christ’s Kingship and His Church, and condemns laicism, indifferentism, and religious equality as mortal plagues.
– John XXIII:
– Praises Frings’ involvement in humanitarian projects and conferences without one word about restoring public recognition of Christ’s sovereignty over nations.
– Uses the formula “Ecclesia signum Dei inter gentes” (“The Church, sign of God among the nations”) as an anodyne slogan stripped of the note of exclusive, juridical, doctrinal authority and duty to convert the nations.
– This anticipates the conciliar slogan of the “Church as sacrament of salvation” ambiguously coexisting with false religions, rather than the militant *una et unica arca salutis* (sole ark of salvation).
3. The nature of the Church:
– True doctrine (Pius IX, *Syllabus*; Leo XIII; Pius X) affirms:
– The Church is a visible, perfect society, uniquely endowed with authority to teach, govern, sanctify.
– It must condemn errors, not flatter them.
– John XXIII’s letter:
– Presents the Church in practice as a benevolent NGO-network: feeding, organizing, dialoguing, broadcasting.
– Omits any mention that those outside the Church are in grave peril; no missionary urgency, only aid distribution.
– Neutralizes the Church’s divine intolerance of error condemned in the *Syllabus* (e.g. propositions 15–18, 55, 77–80) by elevating a praxis that effectively embodies those condemned notions.
4. Authority and its perversion:
– The text boasts of Frings’ loyalty to the “See of Peter,” highlighting his gift to Vatican Radio as proof of devotion.
– Under the perennial Magisterium, loyalty is primarily adherence to defined dogma, anti-modernist condemnation, defense of Tradition.
– Here “loyalty” is redefined as logistical, public-relations collaboration with a new regime that is already preparing to overturn the safeguards of St. Pius X (*Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*), and to enthrone the cult of “dialogue” and religious liberty — propositions explicitly condemned by Pius IX and his successors.
– Thus, the very concept of fidelity to Peter is subverted into fidelity to the conciliar project.
This letter is not a harmless compliment; it is catechesis in a different religion: one that claims continuity while functionally erasing the *ordo supernaturalis*.
What the Letter Does Not Say: The Silence That Condemns It
The gravest accusations arise from what is not stated. A fiftieth priestly anniversary is the perfect occasion, according to authentic Catholic sense, to recall:
– The horror of sin and the need for conversion.
– The unique salvific necessity of the Catholic Church.
– The danger of indifferentism, liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry — repeatedly denounced by pre-1958 Popes.
– The obligation of pastors to resist error even to blood.
– The call to holiness through penance, mortification, and fidelity to dogma.
– The looming judgment of God over shepherds who betray their mandate.
Instead, we read effusive praise of:
– Administrative works.
– Social projects.
– Technical donations.
– Conferences.
– Comfortable Augustinian sloganizing, reduced to a decorative aphorism severed from its doctrinal rigor.
The letter is utterly mute on:
– Modernist infiltration that St. Pius X unmasked.
– The perverse systems (including paramasonic networks) undermining the Church.
– The obligation to reject liberal “rights” that enthrone man against Christ the King.
– The supernatural stakes of priestly infidelity.
Such silence, in such a context, is not negligence. It is strategic: to prepare minds and episcopal attitudes for a Council which will canonize that very silence as “pastoral method.”
From Integral Faith to Conciliar Sentimentalism: A Symptom of Systemic Apostasy
This text is a classic symptom of the conciliar sect’s mentality that would soon dominate the world under the guise of “renewal.”
1. Replacement of dogma with sentiment:
– The letter is saturated with praise of kindness, generosity, gentleness, and “broad mercy,” while never teaching the dogmatic reasons why mercy presupposes justice, truth, and conversion.
– *Caritas in veritate* (charity in truth) is emptied into sheer humanitarian sympathy.
2. Replacement of supernatural mission with social action:
– Aid campaigns, hunger relief, refugee offices, conferences, broadcasting — all good in themselves when subordinated to the Church’s primary mission — become the principal badges of honor.
– This matches the condemned naturalism of the *Syllabus*: raising temporal welfare above the supernatural end.
3. Cult of institutional self-affirmation:
– Frings’ loyalty is measured not by his defense of Tradition, but by his service to the central apparatus preparing the council.
– The donation to Vatican Radio is lauded as if augmenting the reach of the new message were itself a holy work.
4. Proto-ecumenical ambiguity:
– The motto “Ecclesia signum Dei inter gentes” and the stress on the Church as “sign” among nations foreshadow the ecumenical, relativistic vocabulary that will treat the Church primarily as a symbol or sacrament of unity, not the exclusive society outside of which there is no salvation.
– This is the embryonic language of religious pluralism condemned by Pius IX and previous Popes, now reintroduced under a smiling mask.
In short, the letter is a polished act of *mutatio sensus* (change of meaning) without open contradiction: it keeps Catholic words while draining them of their integral content. This is the typical Modernist technique already anathematized by St. Pius X, now institutionalized.
The Abuse of Augustinian Authority: Sanctifying the New Program
John XXIII invokes Augustine: “Otium sanctum quaerit caritas veritatis, negotium iustum suscipit necessitas caritatis” (“Holy leisure is sought by the charity of truth, just business is undertaken by the necessity of charity”). This is weaponized rhetorically:
– Augustine’s maxim harmonizes contemplation of truth with active charity rooted in that truth.
– The letter, however, cites it at the end of a long list of naturalistic praises, suggesting that humanitarian “business” already is the concrete realization of charity of truth — without ever defining that truth as the hard, exclusive Catholic dogma which Augustine tirelessly defended against heretics.
– Thus, a Father of the Church is co-opted to sacralize a practical denial of the very intolerance of error he championed.
This is a paradigmatic Modernist abuse: using patristic phrases to bless the opposite of their original doctrinal intention.
Indulgence as Ornament: Spiritual Economy Subordinated to Image Management
The letter grants Frings faculty to impart a plenary indulgence in the Name of John XXIII on the occasion of his jubilee. In itself, in true Catholic discipline, such a grant is ordered to:
– Leading the faithful to repentance.
– Confession, Communion, detachment from sin.
– Deepening gratitude for the sacrificial priesthood.
Here, the indulgence is tacked on as ceremonial flourish at the end of a humanistic eulogy, with no mention of the conditions of conversion, the horror of sin, the rigor of supernatural justice.
This instrumentalization of indulgences as decor in a public-relations document is another indication of a new regime in which spiritual treasures are used to gild an agenda of naturalistic prestige. The economy of grace is rhetorically subordinated to the conciliar cult of personality.
Conclusion: A Harbinger of the Neo-Church’s Ideological Captivity
Under the light of unchanging pre-1958 doctrine, John XXIII’s “Proximo mense” is not a benign congratulation but:
– A paradigmatic specimen of ecclesiastical rhetoric aligned with condemned liberalism and naturalism.
– A public catechesis in the reduction of priesthood to “service to man,” of Church to NGO, of fidelity to Peter to collaboration with a paramasonic reorientation of Catholic structures.
– A text whose omissions — on sin, dogma, grace, conversion, Christ’s Kingship, Modernism — betray a deliberate strategy: to habituate bishops and faithful to a “kindly” religion without doctrinal edge, without anathema, without militancy; a religion in which humanitarian action and technological expansion are crowned, while the supernatural is politely suffocated.
Where Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI speak with crystalline clarity against liberalism, indifferentism, and Modernism, this letter speaks with smooth equivocation, emotionalism, and bureaucratic optimism — and that contrast itself is the judgment.
Lex orandi, lex credendi (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”): such letters are part of the new “prayer” of the conciliar sect; they reveal its belief. And that belief, measured by the constant Magisterium prior to 1958, is not Catholic.
Source:
Proximo mense – Ad Iosephum tit. S. Ioannis ante Portam Latinam presb. Cardinalem Frings, Archiepiscopum coloniensem, quinquagesimum ab inito sacerdotio impletum annum celebraturum (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025