The letter “Ex obsequii” is a brief Latin note in which John XXIII congratulates the University of Ferrara on inaugurating its new seat, delegates Giovanni Cicognani as his representative, extols the institution’s historical pedigree and scientific mission, invokes God with a generic biblical formula, and imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” to authorities, professors, and students. Beneath its courteous academic style, this text is a distilled manifesto of naturalistic, horizontal religion: it glorifies autonomous “science,” flatters secular institutions, and silences the Kingship of Christ, the necessity of the true Faith, and the exclusive rights of the Church, thereby betraying the perennial Magisterium in favour of the conciliar cult of man.
Academic Flattery as a Program of Apostasy
Historical and Factual Context: From Catholic University to Conciliar Showcase
John XXIII’s letter, dated 12 February 1963, celebrates the newly built premises of the University of Ferrara and traces its foundation to Boniface IX. He sends Hamlet Giovanni Cicognani as legate to manifest the “benevolence” of the Apostolic See towards this “domicilium disciplinarum et artium.”
Key elements:
– He praises the university’s history, fame, and promise.
– He invokes God as “Deus scientiarum Dominus, Pater luminum” and wishes that Ferrara be “a noble wrestling ground of minds, where learning, arts, refined humanity, and Christian wisdom shine and are bound together.”
– He grants his “Apostolic Benediction” as a pledge of fruitful effort and confidence.
At first glance, this appears harmless—a pious compliment addressed to a venerable academy. But read in light of Catholic doctrine prior to 1958 and the concurrent conciliar revolution it spearheaded, it is a paradigmatic piece of the new naturalistic religion: the Church of the New Advent attaching its prestige and pseudo-blessing to an institution structurally detached from the integral Faith, without any call to conversion, doctrinal clarity, or submission to the Kingship of Christ.
Factual issues and context, verifiable from contemporary sources:
– By 1963, publicly funded universities like Ferrara were governed on secular-liberal principles; they were not organs of the Church teaching office, nor bound to profess Catholic doctrine as true.
– The pre-1958 Magisterium, especially Pius IX (Syllabus of Errors, prop. 55), Pius XI (Quas Primas), and Pius X (Lamentabili, Pascendi), solemnly condemned:
– the separation of Church and State,
– the religiously neutral school,
– the exaltation of human science detached from Revelation,
– Modernist attempts to harmonize faith with liberalism and laicism.
– In this letter, there is not a single word:
– calling professors or students to the one true Catholic Faith,
– warning against errors condemned by the Syllabus or by Lamentabili,
– asserting the right and duty of the Church to govern doctrine in universities,
– or proclaiming the public social reign of Christ over the institution.
This silence is not accidental. It is the programmatic silence of a conciliar usurper who prepares, at the level of language and gesture, the demolition of the doctrinal edifice built by his predecessors.
Language of Emptiness: From Supernatural Mission to “Refined Humanity”
The rhetoric of the letter is soft, flattering, and horizontal. This is not merely style; it is ideology.
1. Naturalistic exaltation:
– The university is praised as a “nobilis ingeniorum palaestra” where “doctrinae et artes, politior humanitas et christiana sapientia” are united.
– The order is revealing: first “learning and arts,” then “refined humanity,” and only lastly “Christian wisdom,” all bound together in a “fertile bond.”
– This fusion levels the supernatural to an aesthetic ornament, a cultural flavour alongside “refined humanity.”
Pre-1958 doctrine, however, is clear:
– The Church is a perfect society with a divine mission and jurisdiction over teaching (Syllabus, n. 19, 33).
– Catholic universities exist precisely to submit all disciplines under the light of the Faith: no parity between Revelation and autonomous human reason is tolerated.
– Pius X condemned the notion that theology and Scripture can be treated like any other science independent of the Magisterium (Lamentabili, propositions 1–4, 14).
When John XXIII presents “Christian wisdom” as one coordinate in a “fertile alliance” with secular science and “polite” humanism, he articulates in nuce the Modernist thesis: *fides* and *ratio* as coequal, dialoguing partners, rather than Faith as the divinely revealed norm that judges and commands human sciences.
2. Theological minimalism:
– God is invoked generically as the giver of “every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17).
– There is no mention of:
– the Incarnate Word as King and Lawgiver,
– the Cross and Redemption,
– the necessity of grace and the sacraments,
– the Four Last Things.
The omission is doctrinally symptomatic. A Catholic pontiff writing to a university—especially one historically linked with the Church—should:
– remind it of its duty to profess Catholic truth,
– warn against philosophical and moral errors,
– insist on submission to Christ the King.
Instead, we get a generic theism compatible with religious indifferentism—precisely the mentality condemned by the Syllabus (prop. 15–18).
3. Subservient tone towards laic structures:
– The letter’s entire energy is spent in affirming the esteem and benevolence of the “Apostolic See” for a secular institution.
– No condition, no admonition, no doctrinal criterion is attached.
– The “Apostolic Blessing” is poured indiscriminately, as if the moral and doctrinal state of the university were irrelevant.
This is the inversion of the traditional order: instead of the university seeking conformity with the Church, we see the conciliar structure currying favour with the modern university, legitimizing its autonomy.
The language reveals the underlying creed: man, culture, science, and polite coexistence; Christianity as benevolent lubricant. This is the opposite of the Church’s perennial insistence that “there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12) and that the civil and academic orders are bound to recognize Christ’s authority (Quas Primas).
Theological Betrayal: Suppressing the Kingship of Christ for the Cult of Science
Measured against pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, the core errors and omissions of this letter become evident and grave.
1. Silencing the Social Kingship of Christ
Pius XI in Quas Primas taught that:
– Civil institutions and rulers are bound in justice to recognize and publicly honour Christ the King.
– The denial of His kingship leads directly to social disorder, apostasy, and war.
– Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ, not in religiously neutral structures.
In “Ex obsequii,” the usurper:
– does not so much as name Christ;
– does not exhort the university to submit its teaching to Catholic Revelation;
– does not call for juridical or moral recognition of the Church’s authority.
Instead, he blesses the institution as it is, implicitly ratifying the liberal thesis condemned in the Syllabus (prop. 55: separation of Church and State; prop. 48: approval of education separated from Catholic faith and ecclesiastical authority). The letter functions as a practical endorsement of that very secular autonomy repeatedly anathematized.
This is not an innocent oversight; it embodies the conciliar revolution’s key dogma: the acceptance of laic “neutrality” and the relegation of Christ’s Kingship to the private sphere.
2. Equating “Refined Humanity” and “Christian Wisdom”
The phrase about uniting “doctrines and arts, refined humanity and Christian wisdom” in a “fertile bond” presents:
– a horizontal synthesis of natural culture and supernatural faith;
– without hierarchic subordination of the former to the latter.
Pre-conciliar teaching insists:
– Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit (grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it), yet nature is darkened by sin and must be judged, purified, and subordinated to grace.
– Philosophical and scientific error is real and must be corrected by the Church’s doctrinal authority (Syllabus, Lamentabili; repeated Papal condemnations of liberal and masonic doctrines).
By treating “refined humanity” as a coequal partner in alliance with “Christian wisdom,” the letter presupposes that human culture, as such, is trustworthy and self-legitimizing; the Church’s task is not to rule it but to embellish it. This is the precise inversion condemned by Pius X as the Modernist “adaptation” of dogma to contemporary culture.
3. Abdication of Magisterial Responsibility over Teaching
The Syllabus (n. 33) condemns the idea that it does not belong exclusively to ecclesiastical jurisdiction to direct theological teaching. Lamentabili condemns the rejection of prior ecclesiastical censorship and the minimization of the Church’s interpretative authority.
Yet in this letter:
– there is no reminder that any teaching contrary to Catholic dogma is objectively invalid and poisonous;
– no insistence that Catholic professors must be faithful to the Church, nor any warning to non-Catholics;
– instead, a complacent hope that the university “respond to the expectations of the best people.”
This is a liberal-sociological criterion (“expectations of the best people”), not a Catholic criterion (conformity to revealed truth). It implicitly accepts the post-Enlightenment premise that universities are self-governing domains of “science,” where the Church no longer claims juridical oversight. That very premise was solemnly rejected by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI.
Thus the letter normalizes what Catholic doctrine brands illicit: universities teaching without submission to the Church.
4. Indiscriminate “Blessing” of Structures of Error
Bestowing an “Apostolic Benediction” upon a secular institution that promotes philosophies and sciences often at variance with Catholic faith:
– creates scandal by suggesting that such an institution, as such, is pleasing to God;
– obscures the objective gravity of teaching against Revelation;
– fosters indifferentism.
The integral Catholic perspective recognizes:
– A blessing is a sacramental invoking God’s favour. To attach it formally to an institution that is not pledged to uphold Catholic teaching is to lie about God, as if He favoured structures of error.
– Before 1958, popes frequently used such opportunities to admonish, set conditions, or explicitly recall condemned errors; here, nothing.
Silence where the Faith is threatened is complicity. In moral theology, *qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who keeps silence is seen to consent) applies with particular force when one charged with teaching fails to rebuke public error.
Symptom of the Conciliar Sect: Man-Centred Humanism Disguised in Latin
This letter must be read as part of a coherent pattern, not as an isolated politeness.
1. Continuity with Modernist Programmes Condemned by Pius X
– Lamentabili and Pascendi denounce:
– the reduction of Revelation to a “religious sentiment” harmonized with culture,
– the subjection of doctrine to historical development and human consciousness,
– the minimization of ecclesiastical authority over science and exegesis.
“Ex obsequii”:
– exalts “refined humanity” and scientific achievement;
– refrains from asserting doctrinal demands;
– assumes that God’s blessing rests upon a neutral, pluralistic academic order.
This is precisely the pastoral face of Modernism—no frontal definition, but a continuous pattern of language in which:
– error is never condemned,
– truth is never exclusive,
– Christ is never proclaimed as King of institutions,
– the Church’s authority is never juridically asserted.
Latin phrasing and a biblical citation do not redeem this. They function rather as incense masking the odour of naturalism.
2. Subservience to the Liberal-Masonic Order Condemned in the Syllabus
The Syllabus explicitly identifies masonic and liberal forces as enemies of the Church and condemns:
– the claim that the State is the source of all rights (n. 39),
– the neutral, secular school (n. 45–48),
– the separation of Church and State (n. 55).
The structures occupying the Vatican after 1958, however, systematically:
– seek favour with such secular institutions,
– appear at their ceremonies,
– bestow religious symbols and gestures without conditions.
In this letter:
– the conciliar authority sends a “cardinal of public affairs” as decorative participant;
– presents the “Apostolic See” as a benevolent cultural patron, not as the divinely instituted authority to which universities owe obedience.
This behaviour is consistent with a paramasonic structure that has accepted the principles of its former enemies and now serves as chaplain to the liberal order.
3. Silence About the Real War Against the Faith
While Pius IX and Pius X spoke with burning clarity about:
– the “synagogue of Satan” of masonic sects,
– their infiltration of education and law,
– the juridical conflict between the Church and liberal States,
“Ex obsequii”:
– ignores the massive spread of atheistic, relativistic, and anti-Christian ideologies in universities;
– offers no protection to students against doctrinal poison;
– reduces the Church’s role to polite applause for “progress.”
Omission here is theological: if one believes the Church must “reconcile with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Syllabus, prop. 80—condemned), then one behaves exactly as in this letter.
Exposure of the Spiritual Bankruptcy: When “Blessing” Masks Betrayal
The spiritual and doctrinal bankruptcy manifested in this document can be synthesized as follows:
1. Replacement of the supernatural end with cultural self-improvement.
– Instead of calling the university to serve the salvation of souls under the authority of the Church, the letter wishes it to fulfil “expectations” of cultured society.
– Salvation, sin, heresy, judgment—absent. The horizon is this-worldly flourishing.
2. Denial in practice of the Church’s exclusive authority over teaching faith and morals.
– No reminder that errors against the Faith are forbidden.
– No assertion that Catholic doctrine is the norm for all disciplines that touch on man, society, and God.
– The university is treated as autonomous, with the Church at its periphery, offering ceremonial favour.
3. Practical indifferentism.
– By bestowing religious language and a paternal tone upon a laic institution, the letter suggests that shared human values and generic theism are enough for the Church’s “benevolence.”
– This aligns with condemned propositions that man can find the way to eternal salvation in any religion and that the State/schools can be religiously neutral (Syllabus, 16, 55).
4. Instrumentalization of “Christian wisdom” as cultural varnish.
– Faith is not proclaimed as divinely revealed truth demanding submission; it is invoked as an element of “refined humanity.”
– This is the cult of man: Christianity exists to decorate human projects, not to convert and judge them.
5. Use of Latin and historic references as a conservative mask.
– Reference to Boniface IX and the university’s venerable origin gives an appearance of continuity.
– In reality, the juridical and doctrinal principles that Boniface IX and his successors defended are silently negated: the current text omits their insistence on the Church’s jurisdiction over teaching and their condemnations of liberal autonomy.
In short, this letter is not a trivial ceremonial: it is a microcosm of the conciliar sect’s posture—smiling, polite, thurifer for secular “science,” mute about the exclusive rights of Christ and His true Church. It demonstrates how apostasy can be enacted precisely through what is not said, through what is blessed without conditions, and through the consistent refusal to confront the world with the Cross and the integral Catholic Faith.
Source:
Ex obsequii – Ad clarissimum virum Ioannem Dell'Acqua, Universitatis Studiorum Ferrariensis Moderatorem, ob novam illius Athenaei sedem inaugurandam (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025