The text is a short Latin congratulatory letter in which John XXIII extols Aloisio Traglia on the 25th anniversary of his episcopal consecration, praising his services in the Roman Curia, as Vicar in Rome, and as president of bodies overseeing “Catholic Action” and the lay apostolate in Italy. John XXIII lauds Traglia’s diligence, affability, eloquence, and merits “for the Church,” invokes divine assistance so that he may continue his work, especially in fostering the “ancient Christian piety” of Rome, and imparts his “Apostolic Blessing.”
Sterile Panegyric as Symptom of the Conciliar Usurpation
From Flattering Epistle to Manifesto of a New Religion
Already the apparent harmlessness of this epistolary note is deceptive. The text is not a neutral curial courtesy; it is an x-ray of the new orientation imposed by John XXIII and the conciliar sect even before Vatican II formally exploded. It reveals:
– a self-referential cult of office and of human qualities in place of supernatural criteria;
– the functional exaltation of structures (Roman Curia, diocesan vicariate, “Catholic Action,” lay apostolate) progressively instrumentalized to dissolve the pre-1958 ecclesial order;
– the complete silence about *veritas catholica*, the integral deposit of faith, the danger of heresy, the salvation of souls, the reign of Christ the King over societies, and the war against *modernismus* explicitly condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi and Lamentabili sane exitu;
– the implicit legitimacy conferred upon the apparatus which would soon orchestrate the conciliar revolution.
What is presented as a benevolent paternal greeting is, in fact, a piece of the propaganda machine of the emerging *neo-ecclesia*: the usurper praising a key functionary of the system that will supervise the mutation of Catholic Action and the lay apostolate into vehicles of democratic, anthropocentric “Christianity.”
Factual Level: Whom and What Does John XXIII Praise?
John XXIII addresses Aloisio Traglia as:
“vice sacra in Urbe Antistes, nunc autem Noster in Urbe Cardinalis Provicarius ac Praeses Episcopalis Consilii Actioni Catholicae et laicorum apostolatui in Italia temperandis”,
praising his:
“doctrina, diligentia, sedulitate… religionis studio… suavitate animi, morum comitate, diserti oris placida gratia”.
Stripped of the ornamental Latin, the facts are:
– Traglia held high administrative roles in Rome, culminating as Vicar (Provicar) of the Roman diocese and supervisor of “Catholic Action” and the lay apostolate.
– John XXIII publicly confirms and extols those functions as exemplary for the “Church.”
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine (pre-1958):
1. Catholic Action, under Pius XI and Pius XII, was defined as a collaboration of the laity in the hierarchical apostolate, strictly subordinated to the bishops, ordered to the extension of the social reign of Christ and defense against liberalism, socialism, and Masonic secularism (cf. Pius XI, e.g. non-ambiguous teaching in Quas Primas and other encyclicals). It was not a laboratory of ecclesial democratization.
2. The responsibility for such structures in Rome, heart of Christendom, is grave: they must defend *integram fidem* (the integral faith) and oppose condemned errors summarized in the Syllabus Errorum of Pius IX and in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi of Pius X.
Yet this letter contains:
– not a single reference to the defense of dogma;
– not a single word about combating modernism, rationalism, indifferentism, laicism, condemned explicitly in the attached magisterial sources (Pius IX’s Syllabus, Pius X’s anti-modernist decrees);
– not one reminder that the purpose of hierarchy is the salvation of souls (salus animarum suprema lex – “the salvation of souls is the supreme law”), not the maintenance of harmonious “structures” and pleasant personalities.
John XXIII’s “praise” is therefore the praise of a functionary for efficient administration and human charm within a system already being bent towards conciliar aggiornamento. The measuring rod is horizontal: organizational usefulness and affability, not doctrinal intransigence, not zeal against heresy, not defense of the social kingship of Christ.
Linguistic Level: The Cult of Personality and Bureaucratic Humanism
The rhetoric is revealing. The letter is essentially one extended compliment:
– “egregiam existimationem, qua apud Nos fl ores…” – “the distinguished esteem you enjoy with Us”;
– “optimo cuique carus” – “dear to every good person”;
– emphasis on “suavitas animi,” “morum comitas,” “diserti oris placida gratia.”
This lexicon betrays a naturalistic and sentimental criterion:
– The pre-1958 magisterium, when praising prelates, habitually highlights orthodoxy, zeal for souls, defense of the faith against errors, promotion of the Most Holy Sacrifice, and obedience to the perennial magisterium.
– Here, the stress falls on sociability, elegance, mildness—precisely the psychological profile suited to implementing a soft revolution: a courteous manager of transformation, not a confessor of the faith.
Such language exemplifies the mentality condemned by St. Pius X when he denounced those who under the pretext of “charity” and “broadness” effectively neutralize dogmatic clarity. It is the idiom of ecclesiastical diplomacy, not of the Church Militant. The absence of any militant or doctrinal note is itself an accusation.
Theological Level: Silence on Dogma, Apostasy in Subtext
Measured against pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, the text is theologically vacuous—and this vacuity in an “official” letter from John XXIII is not accidental. Consider what is missing:
1. No reference to the obligation to uphold the *Syllabus of Errors* (Pius IX), which explicitly condemns:
– the separation of Church and State (proposition 55),
– religious indifferentism (15-18),
– subordination of the Church to civil authority (19-21, 41-44),
– liberal notions of “progress” and “modern civilization” as autonomous from Christ (77-80).
2. No echo of Quas Primas, where Pius XI proclaims that peace and order in society depend on the recognition of the kingship of Christ and explicitly denounces laicism as a plague. Instead of arming a key Roman prelate to promote the public reign of Christ over Italy, John XXIII confines himself to courteous well-wishes and vague mention of “ancient Christian piety” in Rome—an aesthetic memory, not a program of social restoration.
3. No affirmation of the anti-modernist syllabus Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi, which bind all Catholic teachers to reject precisely the evolutionary, historicist, and democratizing tendencies that Vatican II, prepared and blessed by this same John XXIII, would later enshrine.
According to the integral doctrine crystallized by the Fathers and popes, such systematic silence is not neutral. It is:
– a refusal to exercise the essential munus of Supreme Pastor: to confirm brethren in the faith by guarding them from errors;
– an implicit acceptance, by omission, of the modernist milieu which was already invading “Catholic Action” and the lay apostolate.
The lauded office—“Praeses Episcopalis Consilii Actioni Catholicae et laicorum apostolatui in Italia temperandis”—is precisely the lever by which the conciliar sect redefined the laity: from subordinated cooperators in a hierarchical apostolate to co-legislators, co-decision-makers, “People of God” in the democratic sense, undermining the divine constitution of the Church condemned in Lamentabili 52-56 and in the Syllabus.
By praising its head without a single doctrinal safeguard, John XXIII lends his authority to this mutation. This is not pastoral charity; it is complicity in the subversion of the Church’s constitution.
Symptomatic Level: Fruit and Logic of the Conciliar Revolution
This letter must be read as a node in a larger network:
– John XXIII had already announced aggiornamento and convoked the council that would attack, in practice:
– the confessional State and public rights of Christ the King;
– the exclusive claim of the Catholic Church as the one true Church;
– the doctrinal and disciplinary clarity against modernist exegesis, religious liberty errors, and ecumenical indifferentism.
– Figures like Traglia in Roman governance and in control of Catholic Action formed the infrastructure for these changes:
– reorienting lay movements away from militant Catholic confession towards “dialogue,” “social engagement,” and a pseudo-apostolate detached from the integral faith;
– diluting the anti-liberal, anti-Masonic, anti-modernist line of Pius IX–XII into a conciliatory, worldly, politically acceptable religiosity.
In this light, every phrase of this epistle acquires symptomatic significance:
– When John XXIII rejoices that Traglia is “dear to every good person” because of his pleasant character, he is, in effect, blessing the type of prelate who will never scandalize the world by openly condemning its errors.
– When he mentions the increase of “ancient Christian piety” in Rome, he reduces the Church’s mission to heritage-preservation and sentimental piety, devoid of doctrinal bite and of the imperative to subject nations and laws to Christ.
This is directly opposed to Pius XI in Quas Primas, who teaches that:
– peace and prosperity depend on public recognition of Christ’s kingship;
– secularist laws that exclude Christ are unjust and destructive;
– the Church must assert her rights and condemn public apostasy.
John XXIII’s letter, by contrast, is an exercise in non-judgmental benevolence. It never reminds a Roman prelate that he must resist liberal legislation, Masonic infiltration, or doctrinal novelties. Such reticence is not an oversight; it is the method of the new religion: *tacendo dogmata, tradunt mundum* (by keeping silent about dogmas, they hand over the world).
The Perverted Role of “Catholic Action” and the Lay Apostolate
The epistle highlights Traglia as president of the episcopal council regulating Catholic Action and the lay apostolate. This is crucial.
Before 1958, true Catholic teaching on the laity is:
– The laity are called to sanctify temporal realities under the guidance of the hierarchy, subordinated to dogma, moral law, and the objective rights of God and His Church.
– Lay apostolate is a participation in the apostolate of the hierarchy, not an autonomous, democratic power center.
– Initiatives that dilute doctrine or place naturalistic “human rights,” social activism, or interreligious conviviality over the primacy of the true faith were condemned, especially where they mirrored liberal, socialist, or Masonic programs.
Under the conciliar sect:
– “Catholic Action” and the lay apostolate were transformed into instruments of:
– “dialogue” with error,
– acceptance of religious liberty as an alleged right,
– social activism devoid of supernatural finality,
– internal pressure for democratizing church governance and doctrine.
John XXIII’s letter, pretending to be spiritual, is actually political. By solemnly applauding the man placed over these levers, with total silence on doctrinal boundaries, he effectively authorizes their use in favor of the conciliar agenda.
Measured by pre-1958 magisterium:
– This is a betrayal of Pius IX’s condemnation of religious indifferentism and liberal freedoms that corrupt morals (Syllabus, 15-18, 77-80).
– It contradicts Pius XI, who explicitly insists that all social action must be subordinate to Christ’s kingship and the unique rights of the true Church (Quas Primas).
– It mocks Pius X, who imposed the anti-modernist oath precisely to prevent such an infiltration: that oath required clergy and teachers to reject the evolution of dogma, the relativizing of dogmatic formulae, and the subordination of ecclesiastical authority to the judgment of the “community.”
This epistle is thus not innocent. It canonizes—not in the strict sense, but morally—the profile of the functionary of the conciliar sect: smiling, organizationally adept, absolutely reliable in implementing aggiornamento, safely silent about error, and praised by the usurper for those very qualities.
The “Apostolic Blessing” of a Different Gospel
The letter ends with the so-called “Apostolic Blessing.” Under Catholic theology, a blessing from a true Roman Pontiff confirms, encourages, and arms the recipient in continuity with the apostolic faith.
Here, instead, we observe:
– A “blessing” attached to purely human merits (administrative work, pleasant character, efficiency in new structures) and to an agenda that history proves to have furthered the demolition of the pre-conciliar order.
– No condition tied to perseverance in orthodox doctrine.
– No exhortation to defend the faithful against the rampant errors condemned by Pius IX and X.
By blessing without truth, John XXIII manifests precisely the modernist inversion warned against by St. Pius X: a religion of feelings, ceremonies, and kind words, severed from the objective content of faith. There is here a *benedictio iniqua*—a blessing perverted in its object, a pseudo-apostolic seal affixed to the machinery of the future neo-church.
Ecclesiological Inversion: From Church Militant to Courteous Club
This text is one small tessera in the mosaic of the conciliar usurpation:
– The Church is no longer presented as *Societas perfecta* (a perfect, divinely constituted society with its own rights and laws above the State), as Pius IX and Leo XIII taught, but implicitly as an institution smoothly cooperating with modern society, delighted by amiable administrators.
– The hierarchy’s role is rhetorically shifted:
– from guardians of dogma and judges of error
– to benevolent facilitators of lay engagement and cultivators of “piety” compatible with the world.
This is in direct contradiction with:
– The condemnation in the Syllabus of the thesis that the State is the origin of rights and that the Church must submit to civil norms (39-44).
– The insistence of Pius XI in Quas Primas that the kingship of Christ demands public obedience and that secularism is a grave crime.
– The anti-modernist imposition that doctrinal authority does not derive from the “people of God” or historical evolution, but from Christ’s institution.
The epistle’s total refusal even to hint at these truths, in a solemn communication about the shepherding of the diocese of Rome and national lay apostolate, shows an ecclesiology already turned upside down. It is the courtesy of an alternate religion, where the first dogma is not the divinity of Christ and the unicity of His Church, but the untouchability of the conciliar process and its operatives.
Conclusion: A Minor Document Revealing a Major Apostasy
This short letter, read superficially, seems trivial. Read in the light of unchanging Catholic doctrine, it is a symptom and instrument of a deeper disorder:
– It glorifies a hierarchy measured by bureaucratic success and human likability, not by fidelity to dogma.
– It silently legitimizes the structures that would transmit modernism under the name of lay apostolate and “Catholic Action.”
– It omits every essential element of the Church’s supernatural mission: the defense of the faith, condemnation of error, salvation of souls, and subjugation of public life to Christ the King.
– It exemplifies the conciliar sect’s method: bland, decorous words masking revolutionary reorientation; “blessings” poured out without reference to truth, thereby weaponized against the very Faith they counterfeit.
Where the pre-1958 popes spoke with clarity, condemned named errors, and armed the faithful for battle against liberalism, indifferentism, and Masonic secularism, John XXIII here dispenses flattery, approves the emerging new machinery, and remains eloquently silent about everything essential. This eloquent silence, illuminated by subsequent events, is not benign—it is part of the *operatio mysterii iniquitatis*, the working of the mystery of iniquity, by which the usurped structures of Rome were turned into an instrument of apostasy.
Source:
Quintam et vicesimam – Ad Aloisium tit. S. Andreae Apostoli de Valle S. R. E. Card. Traglia, in Urbe Provicarium et Episcopalis Consilii Actioni Catholicae ac laicorum apostolatui in Italia temperandi… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025