Dated October 12, 1961, and signed by John XXIII, this Latin letter is addressed to Antonio María Barbieri on the 25th anniversary of his episcopal consecration. It offers praise for his loyalty to the Roman See, his pastoral governance, preaching, and care for the poor; it encourages him to grow in wisdom, imitate the “good shepherd” and Franciscan ideals, serve the “Church” with pure heart and constancy, and imparts to him and his flock the “apostolic blessing” together with the grant of a plenary indulgence on a chosen day for the faithful present at his benediction. Behind this apparently benign congratulatory form lies the naked program of the conciliar revolution: the sacrilegious use of sacred language and indulgences to confirm a false hierarchy and cement obedience to a new, man‑centred religion occupying Catholic structures.
Commemorating Apostasy: John XXIII’s Flattery as Instrument of Revolution
Public Praise for a System Already Condemned by the Pre‑Conciliar Magisterium
At the factual level, this text seems “harmless”: an anniversary letter, veiled in courteous Latin, devoid of dramatic innovations. Yet precisely in this apparent harmlessness lies its function: legitimation.
Key elements:
– John XXIII hails Barbieri as “Semper exspectatus et colendus”, a “long‑awaited and cherished” figure.
– He rejoices that five lustra have passed since Barbieri was “honoured” with the episcopal mitre and calls this an occasion of joy and thanksgiving.
– He praises Barbieri’s supposed merits: attachment to the Roman See, pastoral diligence, preaching of the word, care for the poor.
– He exhorts him to ascend “to higher things,” show an ever more evident form of virtue, and serve “God and the Church.”
– He grants, in his own name and by his supposed authority, the faculty to bestow a plenary indulgence upon the faithful on a designated day.
Stripped of the saccharine verbiage, the structure is explicit:
1. Recognize and crown a hierarchy that is, in reality, emerging as the operational arm of the coming council.
2. Equate fidelity to John XXIII and his program with fidelity to the See of Peter.
3. Use spiritual currency (indulgence) to bind clergy and laity emotionally and religiously to a usurped authority.
4. Provide a “pious” façade to conceal a radical rupture about to be codified at Vatican II.
Measured by integral Catholic doctrine before 1958, this letter functions as a juridico‑spiritual seal on an ecclesiastical network that is preparing to contradict the very magisterium it pretends to celebrate.
Bureaucratic Euphoria: The Language of Hollow Consolation
The linguistic register deserves close attention. It is intentionally bland, excessively laudatory, devoid of doctrinal precision, and symptomatic of a new mentality.
Note the traits:
– Vacuous exaltation of tenure:
– The focus is on “quinque lustra” (twenty‑five years of episcopate) as such, as if length of service were self‑evident proof of fidelity and orthodoxy.
– No mention of defending the faith against error, no insistence on doctrinal vigilance, no call to combat heresy, Freemasonry, or Modernism.
– Sentimental ecclesiology:
– Expressions about the “joy” of the flock and celebrations dominate, while the supernatural drama of salvation, sin, and damnation is absent.
– The suggested response is “festive thanksgiving,” not examination of whether the shepherd has guarded the deposit of faith.
– Instrumental invocation of Scripture and piety:
– A fleeting reference to dependence on divine help (“without which we can do nothing, with which we can do all things”) is used rhetorically to sanctify the person and the structure, without specifying the doctrinal content that this grace is supposed to defend.
– Reference to the “good shepherd” and Franciscan spirit is purely aesthetic: virtue as “amabile decus” (an “amiable adornment”), virtue as decoration, not as militant fidelity to revealed truth.
This language mirrors what St. Pius X condemned as Modernist style: religious vocabulary emptied of metaphysical content and repurposed to confirm human projects. The absence of sharp doctrinal formulations is not accidental; it is programmatic.
Silence on Truth, Sin, and Judgment: The Most Incriminating Omission
Integral Catholic teaching demands that a bishop’s office be judged above all by:
– His adherence to the defined dogmas.
– His defense of the flock against heresy and moral corruption.
– His fidelity to the Kingship of Christ over individuals and societies.
– His rejection of condemned errors: religious indifferentism, liberalism, rationalism, naturalism, and Modernism (cf. the Syllabus of Errors; Lamentabili; Pascendi).
In this letter:
– There is no mention of Christ the King’s rights over states and societies, so powerfully affirmed only decades earlier by Pius XI in Quas Primas, where peace is declared impossible without public recognition of Christ’s reign.
– There is no word about:
– The duty to resist secularization and anti‑Christian legislation.
– The danger of liberal “rights” erected against the rights of God and His Church.
– The masonic and naturalistic forces openly denounced by Pius IX and Leo XIII as the sworn enemies of the Church.
– There is no exhortation:
– To guard against Modernist exegesis and doctrine condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi.
– To preserve the sacred liturgy from profanation or alteration.
– To preach the necessity of the true faith for salvation and the reality of hell, judgment, and the need of living and dying in the state of grace.
This silence is not neutral. In a period when Modernist currents are about to be given institutional expression via the conciliar process, to praise a hierarch merely for governance and “attachment” to the Roman See of John XXIII, without one syllable about defending dogma, is to redefine the episcopal office along liberal‑pastoral lines.
Supernatural concerns are reduced to decorative language. This is the gravest accusation: the almost total absence of explicit concern for the salvation of souls, replaced by affirmation of structures and careers.
Perverting Authority: Indulgences as Currency of a Neo‑Church
The most theologically charged line is the grant:
“Quo autem salutarior quintus et vicesimus episcopatus tui natalis contingat, id tibi facultatis facimus, ut, quo volueris die, adstantibus christifidelibus nomine Nostro Nostraque auctoritate benedicas, plenaria Indulgentia proposito.”
Translation: He authorizes Barbieri, on any chosen day, to bless the faithful present, offering them a plenary indulgence in his (John XXIII’s) name and authority.
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine:
– A valid indulgence presupposes:
– A true pope, possessing the keys of Peter.
– Jurisdiction within the one true Church.
– Aimed at the remission of temporal punishment of sins for the faithful united to the true faith and sacraments.
But by 1961, John XXIII is already:
– Preparing the council that will:
– Affirm religious freedom in a sense previously condemned by the Church.
– Legitimize “dialogue” with false religions as partners rather than as errors to be converted.
– Introduce the hermeneutical principle of historical evolution and pastoral relativization of dogma.
– Surrounding himself with theologians imbued with precisely those propositions previously condemned as Modernist.
Thus, the indulgence here functions as:
– A juridical veneer to bind souls to an authority that, in doctrine and intent, is diverging from the perennial magisterium.
– A spiritual “reward” for fidelity to the emerging conciliar order: Barbieri’s decades of service are crowned, not because he has defended the Syllabus, Pascendi, and Quas Primas in their unaltered sense, but because he is “strongly attached” to this new Roman regime.
Abusus non tollit usum (abuse does not take away proper use), but here the abuse reveals a more radical reality: a claim to dispense the treasures of the Church while simultaneously preparing to undermine the very dogmas on which those treasures rest. This is not a mere pastoral misjudgment; it is systemic usurpation.
Exalting Obedience to Men, Silencing Obedience to the Deposit of Faith
The letter repeatedly underlines Barbieri’s connection to the Roman See:
“huic Petri Sedi arcte addictus” – “closely attached to this See of Peter.”
The phrase is weaponized:
– Fidelity is presented not primarily as adherence to defined dogma, but as personal and juridical attachment to John XXIII’s “See.”
– In pre‑1958 teaching, however:
– The Pope is bound to transmit unchanged what he has received (*tradidi quod et accepi*).
– The Church has condemned the notion that authority can redefine faith under the guise of pastoral concern or historical development (cf. Lamentabili 58–65).
– Pius IX rejects the idea that the Roman Pontiff “can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” understood as emancipation from revealed truth (Syllabus, prop. 80).
Here, no reminder appears that attachment to Rome is meaningful only so long as Rome professes the same faith as always. Instead, the text subtly identifies unity with John XXIII’s program as the measure of Catholicity.
This inversion prepares the faithful to follow men even when they lead away from the unchanging doctrine. It is an embryonic form of the post‑conciliar cult of obedience to “the Council” and to the “living magisterium,” even against the previous, infallible magisterium.
The Franciscan Mask: From Penance and Poverty to Pastoral Aestheticism
The letter invokes Barbieri’s Franciscan identity, urging him to show more brightly the form of virtue and “amabile decus” of a Franciscan.
Authentic Franciscan spirit (as defined by the Church before 1958) includes:
– Radical devotion to the crucified Christ.
– Zealous defense of the Catholic faith and the Roman Church in her authentic doctrine.
– Hatred of error, worldliness, and heresy; poverty and penance as a protest against the spirit of the world.
In this letter:
– “Franciscan” is reduced to a gentle, humanly attractive style:
– Sweetness, being “amiable,” pastoral warmth.
– Absent:
– No call to combat the new liberalism.
– No insistence on mortification and doctrinal courage as a response to a world abandoning Christ the King.
– No echo of Quas Primas’ insistence that secularism is the plague to be opposed by public proclamation of Christ’s reign.
Thus, the Franciscan habit is used as costume for a new ideology:
A Franciscanism emptied of penance and doctrinal militancy, weaponized as a symbol of “openness” and horizontal humanism, perfectly suited to the conciliar project.
Symptom of the Conciliar Sect: Careerist Sanctification of Office
This letter must be read as a symptom, not an isolated incident.
Characteristic marks of the conciliar sect already appear:
– Sacralization of longevity and office:
– The milestone is the number of years worn in a mitre, not the confession of faith unto persecution.
– Transformation of episcopal mission:
– From guarding the deposit against error to administering pastoral programs and receiving papal compliments.
– Shift from supernatural combat to sentimental reassurance:
– No battle lines, only blessings; no warnings, only congratulations.
This stands in implicit contradiction with the constant teaching:
– The Syllabus of Pius IX condemns the idea that Church authority is merely a spiritual ornament subordinate to the state or to modern civilization’s demands.
– St. Pius X in Pascendi identifies Modernists precisely by their:
– Adaptation of language.
– Replacement of dogmatic clarity with vague, devout verbiage.
– Desire to transform structures from within while retaining Catholic labels.
In this letter, John XXIII:
– Speaks the Modernist dialect: pious phrases, doctrinal vagueness, institutional self‑affirmation.
– Binds this dialect to the very form of episcopal encouragement and indulgential grants.
– Thus catechizes bishops and faithful into accepting that such language and such priorities are “Catholic.”
The result is a pseudo‑magisterium in which:
– Anything explicitly condemned before 1958 can be reintroduced provided it is wrapped in gentle rhetoric and accompanied by blessings.
No Mention of the Enemies: A Muted Reversal of the Anti‑Masonic and Anti‑Modernist Front
Pre‑1958 Popes exposed with unambiguous severity:
– The subversive work of Freemasonry and affiliated sects against the Church and Christian society.
– The incompatibility of liberal naturalism with the Kingship of Christ and the rights of the Church.
– The venom of Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies,” demanding absolute rejection (St. Pius X).
In a world where:
– States expel Christ from public law.
– “Human rights” ideologies relativize truth and enthrone man.
– Masonic influence and secularist governments wage war against the Church.
This letter, supposedly from the “Supreme Pastor” to a senior bishop in Latin America, says:
– Nothing about defending the Church against the lodge.
– Nothing about combating religious indifferentism, socialism, or laicism.
– Nothing about protecting Catholic schools, marriage, or liturgy from profanation.
This silence is both culpable and revealing:
Where authentic Popes blew the trumpet of battle, John XXIII sends greeting cards.
The omission discloses the ideological mutation: peaceful coexistence with the enemies earlier denounced as instruments of the “synagogue of Satan,” and substitution of supernatural vigilance with humanistic collegiality.
Hidden Pedagogy: Teaching Bishops to Desire Praise, Not Martyrdom
The letter operates pedagogically:
– It models what a bishop should “desire”:
– Papal praise for administrative service.
– Festivals of self‑congratulation.
– Indulgential privileges to distribute, strengthening his popularity.
– It omits what a bishop should truly desire:
– Fidelity unto contradiction, calumny, persecution.
– Readiness to lose everything rather than tolerate one iota of error.
Pre‑conciliar magisterium and the lives of canonized bishops show:
– Bishops praised by Popes for orthodoxy, firmness, and zeal in defending doctrine and discipline, often against the spirit of the age.
– An insistence that shepherds will answer before Christ the King for the blood of souls lost through negligence or false teaching.
Here, the bishop is confirmed in comfort, not summoned to combat. The “ideal” shepherd is a polished administrator of the conciliar consensus.
Lex orandi, lex credendi (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”): when letters, blessings, and indulgences flow abundantly without a word against the rising tide of apostasy, the faithful are silently taught that there is nothing essential to resist. Thus the letter contributes to the anesthesia without which the conciliar revolution could not have triumphed.
Conclusion: A Polite Seal on a New Religion
Under careful scrutiny, this short 1961 letter reveals:
– A new use of papal authority:
– To flatter, to consolidate personal loyalty, and to distribute spiritual favours in service of an emerging ideology, not of the immutable faith.
– A new episcopal ideal:
– Pastoral activism and institutional “merit” detached from explicit, militant guardianship of the deposit.
– A new rhetoric:
– Sentimental, bureaucratic, doctrinally thin; studiously silent on condemned modern errors.
– A new ecclesial consciousness:
– Unity around the figure and program of John XXIII, rather than strict adherence to the anti‑Modernist and anti‑liberal magisterium of his predecessors.
Thus, what appears as a benign congratulation letter is, in reality, an organic element of the conciliar project: the normalization of a hierarchy praised and confirmed precisely in proportion to its suitability as an instrument of the coming doctrinal and liturgical subversion.
Measured by the unwavering pre‑1958 standard, this document does not manifest the voice of the perennial Roman Pontiff confirming his brother in the same faith. It manifests the voice of a new regime blessing its functionaries and employing the language and privileges of the Church to secure allegiance to a path leading away from the reign of Christ the King toward the enthronement of man and the eclipse of the true Holy Mass and sacraments.
Source:
Semper exspectatus – Ad Antonium Mariam tit. S. Chrysogoni S. R. E. Presby- terum Cardinalem Barbieri, Archiepiscopum Montisvidei, quinque lustra implentem ex quo consecratus est Episcopus (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025