Quamvis religiosam: Celebrating the Machinery of Apostasy
The document “Quamvis religiosam” (10 July 1962) is a brief congratulatory letter of John XXIII to Eugène Tisserant on the 25th anniversary of his episcopal consecration, praising his pastoral zeal, administrative activity, and granting him, for that jubilee, the faculty to impart with “papal” authority a plenary indulgence to the faithful on a chosen day. Beneath this apparently pious courtesy text stands the cold, bureaucratic face of the conciliar revolution: the self-congratulating apparatus of a hierarchy already in rupture with the integral Catholic faith, canonizing itself while preparing the systematic demolition of the reign of Christ the King, the subordination of the Church to the world, and the replacement of true episcopal authority with a paramasonic managerial caste.
Formal Panegyric as Manifesto of a Counterfeit Hierarchy
At first sight, the letter seems harmless: an elegant Latin compliment, a spiritual bouquet, a faculty for indulgences. Yet once judged according to *immutabilis doctrina catholica* (unchanging Catholic doctrine) prior to 1958, the text exposes several fundamental pathologies:
– It presupposes John XXIII as Roman Pontiff, although by his words and deeds he had already aligned himself with principles condemned by the Magisterium, notably in the Syllabus of Errors and in the anti-modernist legislation of St. Pius X.
– It presents Tisserant not simply as a bishop, but as a model of pastoral government within the very structures that would soon impose the aggiornamento, ecumenism, and religious liberty that previous popes had repeatedly branded as destructive.
– It uses supernatural vocabulary to rubber-stamp a system that, in its concrete programme (opening of Vatican II, orientation to “dialogue,” rapprochement with error), contradicts the reign of Christ as doctrinally defined by Pius XI in Quas primas and the anti-liberal condemnations of Pius IX.
The letter is thus not an isolated pleasantry; it is a self-referential certificate of legitimacy for the emergent “Church of the New Advent,” a perfumed preface to institutional apostasy.
Factual Level: Celebration of an Engineered Transition
John XXIII’s text in translation and essence reads: he recalls the duty to thank God for heavenly benefits, congratulates Tisserant for five lustra (25 years) as bishop, extols his “example” in governing Ostia, Porto, and Santa Rufina, praises his prudence, zeal, and achievements, states that these works serve religion and manifest zeal for the faith, invokes abundant heavenly aid so that he may be an ever more faithful minister and steward of God’s mysteries, and grants him the faculty to impart, in his name and with his authority, a plenary indulgence on a chosen day.
Several key factual points must be deconstructed:
1. Episcopal career and Vatican apparatus:
– Eugène Tisserant was one of the central figures of the mid-20th century Roman apparatus, deeply involved in the preparation and direction of Vatican II and of ecumenical policies. His celebrated “pastoral” example is historically inseparable from the very orientation that unleashed doctrinal dilution, liturgical devastation, and ecumenical relativism.
– To present such an actor as paradigm of “christiana disciplina et vita” without any reference to the objective doctrinal battle of the age — Modernism, Communism, the revolt of the nations against Christ — signals that “virtue” is being redefined in terms of bureaucratic efficiency and institutional loyalty to a new line, not fidelity to the perennial Magisterium.
2. Silence on the real enemies:
– In 1962, the Church (in her visible structures) stands amidst raging forces: atheistic communism, organized Freemasonry, laicist states, and the infiltration of Modernist theology solemnly condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi.
– The letter contains not a single word about error, heresy, the defense of dogma, or resistance to liberal and modernist currents. Instead, it speaks in vague terms of “works” that are “very useful to religion” and bear witness to zeal, without defining that religion’s doctrinal content.
– This omission is not accidental. Pius X described Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” and imposed an anti-modernist oath; Pius IX identified the Masonic sects as the animating center of the war against the Church. John XXIII’s tone marks a turning away from this militant lucidity toward irenic self-congratulation.
3. Instrumentalisation of indulgences:
– The faculty to impart a plenary indulgence nomine Nostro Nostraque auctoritate is presented as a “salutary” enhancement of the jubilee.
– Traditionally, indulgences are weapons in the penitential and sacramental order, ordered to true conversion, confession of sins, and the restoration of the rights of God. Here, they are attached to the commemoration of an ecclesiastical career within a structure already preparing to upend doctrine and liturgy. This turns a spiritual instrument into a decorative seal legitimizing a compromised hierarchy.
The facts praised in this letter are precisely those that, in the light of pre-1958 teaching, must be interrogated: the consolidation of a governing elite that would shift from the anathemas of Pius IX and X to the humanistic verbosity of the council and its aftermath.
Linguistic Level: Pious Latin as Cosmetic for Revolution
The rhetoric of “Quamvis religiosam” is classical, courteous, apparently supernatural. But its linguistic choices betray a mentality:
1. Abstract piety without dogmatic content:
– Expressions about “heavenly benefits” and “thanks to God” are entirely generic. There is no concrete mention of:
– the Most Holy Sacrifice as propitiatory;
– the necessity of state of grace;
– the defense of dogma against modern errors;
– the kingship of Christ over public life;
– the danger of false religions.
– This emptiness matches exactly the tendencies condemned by Lamentabili: dogma reduced to vague “religious facts,” supernatural realities dissolved into moral uplift and benevolent sentiment.
2. Managerial and functional vocabulary:
– Tisserant is praised as in cogitando sagax, in perficiendo efficax, consilio prudens, navitate magnificus — “shrewd in thought, effective in execution, prudent in counsel, magnificent in activity.”
– These are the attributes of a high-ranking administrator, not the marks of a bishop crucified with Christ in hatred of error and love of truth. The emphasis is on competence, not on doctrinal confession, not on fearless opposition to the world, not on the guardianship of the deposit of faith.
– The Church of all ages judged bishops by their fidelity to dogma, to the sacraments, to moral discipline. Here, the vocabulary tacitly shifts the axis toward bureaucratic performance within a new programme.
3. Benign, depersonalized tone toward a time of grave crisis:
– No acknowledgment of the crisis of faith; no apocalyptic sobriety; no awareness of the ongoing onslaught of socialism, laicism, and Masonic designs explicitly denounced by Pius IX’s Syllabus and subsequent popes.
– The tone itself — calm, congratulatory, horizontal — signals capitulation to an immanentist vision, where the Church no longer speaks as magistra veritatis (teacher of truth) condemning errors, but as a polite corporation distributing honors and benefits.
The language is thus a cloak: it preserves the classical form while evacuating the combative, supernatural content, which is a defining symptom of Modernism’s infiltration.
Theological Level: Pious Compliments Masking Doctrinal Subversion
Measured against pre-1958 Magisterium, the theological implications of this letter are devastating.
1. The Counterfeit “Episcopate” as Instrument of Novelty
The letter presupposes Tisserant as a model bishop. But what kind of episcopate is being reinforced?
– The true bishop, according to Catholic teaching, is:
– Guardian and preacher of the integral faith;
– Judge of doctrine within his diocese under the Roman Pontiff;
– Defender of the flock against heresy, indifferentism, and secular tyranny;
– High priest of the *Unbloody Sacrifice* offered for propitiation of sins.
– By 1962, the Roman apparatus under John XXIII is already openly orienting toward:
– Ecumenical “opening” to heretics and infidels;
– Doctrinally ambiguous “renewal”;
– The abandonment of the language of condemnation explicitly rejected by later conciliar texts.
To crown Tisserant’s role in such an apparatus as a paradigmatic shepherd is to repudiate the Catholic understanding of the episcopal office. It is to substitute the bishop-as-guardian of the deposit with the bishop-as-functionary of a conciliar sect.
Pius IX in the Syllabus condemned the thesis that the Church is subject to the state, that dogma evolves with opinion, that all forms of worship should be equal before the law, and that the Roman pontiff should reconcile himself with liberalism. Pius X, in Pascendi, anathematized the idea that dogma arises from religious experience and evolves according to historical conditions. Yet John XXIII’s pontificate is historically bound to the very opening that will enshrine these errors in practice. To praise his collaborators without any doctrinal discriminant is to endorse the emerging betrayal.
2. Abuse of Supernatural Language to Sanction Naturalism
The letter states that Tisserant’s works “are of great use to religion” and “bear witness” to zeal for the faith. But what “religion” and what “faith” are concretely at stake?
– The Church teaches that fides is assent to revealed truths proposed by the Church’s Magisterium, which truths are immutable and exclusive. Pius IX and X insist that truth is not subject to evolution, nor can the Church place herself on the same level as false religions.
– Any “pastoral” work that prepares, disseminates, or tolerates doctrines contrary to that deposit — such as religious liberty in the condemned sense, ecumenism of parity, the reduction of the state’s duty toward the true religion — is not service to the faith but an attack on it.
By canonizing such an episcopal career without distinctions, the letter operates a theological inversion: *malum vocatur bonum* (evil is called good). The supernatural vocabulary becomes propaganda for a programme that, in content, aligns with errors previously condemned as incompatible with Catholicism.
3. The Indulgence Faculty as Parasitic Appropriation of Authority
The faculty granted — the power to give a plenary indulgence in the name and by the authority of John XXIII — presumes:
– That John XXIII truly holds the keys of Peter;
– That his jurisdiction is that of the Catholic Church, not of an emerging parallel organization;
– That the faithful who receive such indulgence are being attached more closely to the true faith rather than to a conciliar ideology.
But Catholic doctrine, as expounded by St. Robert Bellarmine and others cited in traditional theology, teaches that a manifest, public heretic cannot be head of the Church, for he ceases to be a member. When a supposed “pope” promotes principles condemned by his predecessors as destructive of the faith, the question arises whether his jurisdiction is real or only claimed. In that light, indulgences under such a name risk becoming an empty bureaucratic fiction — or worse, a spiritual counterfeit binding souls to a neo-church.
The theological inversion is clear: an authority already steering toward condemned positions uses genuine Catholic forms (Latin, blessings, indulgences) as a mask to entrench itself.
Symptomatic Level: The Letter as Microcosm of the Conciliar Sect
“Quamvis religiosam” is short, but emblematic. It reveals in miniature the systemic features of post-1958 post-conciliarism.
1. From Militant Church to Harmonious Administration
Pre-1958 popes:
– Named, exposed, and condemned errors;
– Warned against Masonry, liberalism, socialism, modernism;
– Asserted the rights of Christ the King and the Catholic Church against secular states;
– Demanded from bishops heroic fidelity in doctrine and discipline.
Here, by contrast:
– No mention of doctrinal combat;
– No reminder of the duty to defend the flock against modernist perversions;
– Only serene praise of governance and “works useful to religion.”
This is exactly the “new orientation” desired by the conciliar sect: a Church without anathemas, without sharp doctrinal lines, reduced to moral presence and interreligious courtesy. The letter is a brick in that edifice.
2. The Eclipse of the Kingship of Christ
Pius XI in Quas primas teaches that true peace and order are possible only where Christ reigns publicly, where states recognize His law, where the Church exercises her rights fully. He condemns laicism and the exclusion of Christ from public life as the root of modern calamities.
In 1962, as nations slide deeper into apostasy, as communism enslaves peoples, as secularism entrenches itself, this letter — emanating from the man who convoked Vatican II — says nothing about restoring Christ’s social kingship. Instead, it strengthens the prestige of a cardinal tied to policies that will lead precisely to the abandonment of that kingship in practice through religious liberty “as understood by the modern world” and ecumenical relativism.
The silence is accusation. Where Christ’s royal rights are not proclaimed, they are being implicitly surrendered.
3. The Cult of Internal Self-Legitimation
The conciliar sect’s method is visible:
– Mutual congratulations among high officials;
– Distribution of spiritual prerogatives (like indulgences) as tokens of belonging to the inner circle;
– Total lack of reference to the objective doctrinal tests given by previous popes.
This is ecclesiastical auto-celebration cut off from Tradition: a closed system where the only credential is acceptance of the new line. “Quamvis religiosam” demonstrates how the pseudo-hierarchy narrates its own sanctity while walking away from the doctrinal ramparts erected by its predecessors.
4. Detachment from the Anti-Modernist Magisterium
St. Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi condemned, under pain of excommunication, those who seek to reinterpret dogma historically, dissolve inspiration, treat Scripture as mere human text, reduce Christ to a figure of consciousness, and rebuild the Church along democratic and evolving lines.
By 1962, many of these very tendencies are seething in theological faculties and chancelleries. A faithful successor of Pius X would have used every occasion — especially a 25-year episcopal jubilee — to exhort a cardinal-bishop to suppress modernist currents, to enforce the anti-modernist oath, to defend the flock from seducing errors. John XXIII does none of this. The omission is not neutral; it is a tacit discharge of the anti-modernist fight, a practical abrogation of the line of Pius X, and thus a betrayal.
The letter thereby functions as a subtle manifesto: the old watchwords are retired; the new “pastoral” language reigns; the guardianship of doctrine is replaced by optimism about men and structures.
Conclusion: Beneath the Courtesies, the Signature of the Abomination
“Quamvis religiosam” is not a major doctrinal text. But from the perspective of unchanging Catholic theology before 1958, it is a telling piece of evidence:
– It confirms that John XXIII’s regime understood itself as a harmonious, self-congratulating body, dispensing spiritual privileges while heading toward a council that would enthrone principles previously anathematized.
– It reveals a hierarchy whose “episcopal” excellence is measured not by defense of dogma but by efficient collaboration in a programme of aggiornamento.
– It showcases the method of the conciliar sect: retain the forms (Latin, blessings, indulgences), empty the content (no mention of the war against Modernism, Masonry, liberalism), and use that hollowed-out form to legitimate the transition.
A text that should have been an occasion to exalt the episcopal duty to guard the flock from modern errors becomes instead a polished stone in the construction of a new edifice — an edifice foreign to Pius IX’s Syllabus, to Pius X’s anti-modernist intransigence, to Pius XI’s doctrine of Christ the King, and to the entire pre-1958 Magisterium understood in its unchanging sense.
Therefore this letter, though clothed in devout phrases, stands as a small but crystalline witness to the progressive substitution of the Catholic Church by a paramasonic neo-church: a structure that blesses its own administrators while preparing to sacrifice dogma, liturgy, and the public rights of Christ on the altar of modern man.
Source:
Quamvis religiosam – Ad Eugenium S. R. E. Cardinalem Tisserant, Episcopum Ostiensem, Portuensem et Sanctae Rufinae, quinque a suscepta episcopali dignitate lustra implentem (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025