In this Latin letter of 22 August 1961, antipope John XXIII addresses Rufino Santos and the hierarchy of the Philippine islands, congratulating them on the external flourishing of seminaries, the increase of vocations, the construction of suitable houses of formation, and the establishment of the Pontifical Filipino College in Rome. He exhorts them to select suitable candidates, appoint morally exemplary formators, cultivate discipline, piety, obedience, asceticism, Latin studies, and to protect seminarians from worldly novelties, ending with paternal assurances that such efforts will strengthen the Church and the “Kingdom of God” in the Philippines and neighbouring peoples. Behind this apparently benign praise stands the calculated preparation of a compliant, modernist clergy to serve the conciliar revolution soon to be unleashed at Vatican II, a project which this letter serenely clothes in pious phraseology.
Pious Cosmetics for a Programmed Rupture: Seminarians as Instruments of the Conciliar Revolution
Laudatory Rhetoric Masking the True Project: Fabricating the Clergy of the Neo-Church
From the standpoint of integra fides catholica (integral Catholic faith) fixed by the pre-1958 Magisterium, this text is not an innocuous pastoral word, but an ideological piece: the architect of the coming council shaping the seminaries that would provide troops for the Ecclesia adulterina (adulterous church) later manifested in the “Church of the New Advent.”
Key factual elements:
– An “Apostolic visitation” of Philippine seminaries is praised as having shown “prosperous increase” and post-war recovery.
– John XXIII commends:
– new, spacious, healthy seminary buildings;
– the growth of vocations;
– the care taken in choosing rectors and spiritual directors;
– emphasis on discipline, piety, asceticism, Latin, and unity of studies;
– promotion of works for ecclesiastical vocations in every parish;
– the creation and pontifical elevation of the Collegio Filippino in Rome.
He repeatedly speaks of seminary formation as the place where “the hope and flower of the Church” matures, apparently in continuity with Pius XI and Pius XII.
This is the façade. The reality, judged by subsequent history and the immutable doctrine of the Church prior to 1958, is that this program served to centralize and standardize formation precisely under the man who would convoke a pastoral, ambiguous, modernist-dominated assembly and inaugurate the chain of usurpers. What is framed as zeal for vocations and holiness in fact ensures that an entire generation of clergy will receive its intellectual, disciplinary, and spiritual imprint from the emerging conciliar mentality, not from the anti-modernist discipline of St. Pius X and his predecessors.
Selective Continuity: Invoking Pre-1958 Popes While Neutralizing Their Anti-Modernist Mandate
One of the most revealing elements is the appropriation of Pius XI and Pius XII.
John XXIII recalls Pius XI’s concern for the Philippines and cites Pius XII’s exhortation Menti nostrae on the intellectual formation of clergy. This creates an illusion of continuity—what later propagandists would call “hermeneutics of continuity”—while the entire orientation of his pontificate contradicts the anti-modernist line solemnly defined by:
– Pius IX: Syllabus Errorum (1864), condemning religious indifferentism, separation of Church and State, and liberalism.
– Leo XIII: encyclicals such as Immortale Dei, Libertas, affirming the social kingship of Christ and rejecting liberal naturalism.
– St. Pius X: Lamentabili sane and Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), condemning Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” and demanding integral, supervised formation, strict censorship, and doctrinal intransigence.
– Pius XI: Quas primas (1925), proclaiming the necessity of the public reign of Christ the King and warning that secularism and laicism are mortal plagues.
– Pius XII: authentic teachings on the priesthood, moral order, and objective truth.
In this letter, Pius XI and Pius XII are reduced to harmless “pastoral” authorities, instrumentalized to legitimize the policy of John XXIII, while their concrete doctrinal weapons against Modernism, liberalism, and false ecumenism are entirely silenced. This silence is damning.
– There is no reminder of the anti-modernist oath imposed by St. Pius X (in force at the time and systematically subverted under John XXIII).
– There is no reference to Lamentabili sane or Pascendi, which specifically target exactly those “novelties” in exegesis, philosophy, ecclesiology, and sacramental theology that would soon be propagated in seminaries under conciliar auspices.
– There is no recall of the Syllabus of Errors and its rejection of “progress,” “freedom of cult,” and the exaltation of human autonomy.
Instead, the text gently warns against “novelties” and a world “turned to pleasures,” using vague pious language, while in practice John XXIII was already surrounding himself with theologians and periti who embodied those very condemned novelties and would shape the council.
Qui tacet consentire videtur (he who is silent seems to consent): by omitting the anti-modernist framework and keeping only safe, generic exhortations, he empties the pre-1958 Magisterium of its cutting edge. This is the preparatory rhetoric of revolution: the appearance of continuity, the substance of rupture.
Linguistic Cosmetics: Soft Paternalism Instead of Doctrinal Militancy
The linguistic texture of the letter is significant and symptomatic.
1. Tone of sentimental paternalism:
– Frequent recourse to “singular delight,” “sincere joy,” “sweet consolation,” “gratitude,” “caritas.”
– Almost total absence of militant terms like “error,” “heresy,” “modernism,” “masonic sects,” “synagogue of Satan,” which Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X used with precision and justice.
2. Euphemistic reference to dangers:
– A single, mild allusion to “seductions of novelties” and a world “turned to pleasures.”
– No detailed doctrinal identification of those novelties (evolution of dogma, historicism, false ecumenism, religious liberty, democratization of authority) that had already been unmasked by the Magisterium.
3. Bureaucratic-optimistic vocabulary:
– Praise of “organization,” “prosperous increase,” “adapted houses,” “unified study programs,” “postseminaries,” “institutes.”
– The emphasis on structures, programs, and efficiency betrays a technocratic mentality often characteristic of modernist infiltration: transforming the formation of priests into an administrative project rather than a supernatural war against error and sin.
The rhetorical choice is not neutral. When the Church stands amid the greatest modernist infiltration in history, the one occupying the Roman See chooses not the language of St. Pius X (“ruthless war” against Modernism), but that of benevolent administration.
This is precisely what St. Pius X condemned: the reduction of revealed religion to pastoral management and historical evolution. His condemnation in Lamentabili sane of those who deny the immutable authority of the Magisterium applies to the atmosphere prepared by such letters: by refusing to wield the sword of precise condemnation, the leader tacitly invites doctrinal relativism.
Theological Subversion Through Omission: No Mention of the Social Kingship of Christ
Measured against Pius XI’s Quas primas, the deficiencies of this text are stark.
Pius XI taught with crystalline firmness that:
– Peace and order in nations are impossible unless they publicly recognize Christ’s royal rights.
– Secularism and laicism are “crime” and “plague” which must be openly opposed.
– The Church possesses rights above the State and cannot submit to modern liberal ideology.
Here, in a letter to bishops in a nation deeply entangled with American liberal influence, revolutionary nationalism, and creeping protestantization, John XXIII:
– Says nothing of the duty of the Philippine State to recognize Christ the King.
– Says nothing about condemning religious indifferentism, protestant sects, masonry, or communism as such.
– Speaks only of seminary buildings, numbers of vocations, program unification, and generic virtues.
The omission is not accidental. Seminarians are exhorted to piety and interior discipline, but there is no formation into the militant doctrine that:
– There is only one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation understood in the sense consistently taught before the distortions of the 20th century.
– The State must be subject to the law of Christ and His Church (as defined and defended by Pius IX and Leo XIII, and reaffirmed by Pius XI).
In practice, these seminarians, formed under this soft, depoliticized piety, were perfectly prepared to applaud the later conciliar betrayal on religious liberty and ecumenism at Vatican II—textually opposed to the Syllabus and Quas primas. The letter thus operates as remote preparation for accepting precisely those errors earlier condemned.
Instrumentalizing Ascetic Vocabulary While Hollowing the Anti-Modernist Measures
The letter appears, at first glance, to be demanding:
– It calls for rectors and teachers “outstanding in character,” spiritual fathers “expert in the ways of the Lord,” severe and prudent selection, solid virtues, obedience, mortification, “science of the Cross,” frequent contact with God.
– It insists that only those of proven vocation and virtue be advanced to sacred orders.
However:
1. No structural guarantees:
– No reminder of the binding anti-modernist oath (imposed by St. Pius X).
– No insistence on strict doctrinal vetting of professors according to Pascendi and Lamentabili.
– No mention that seminarians must be taught to reject and denounce Modernism, liberalism, false ecumenism, historical relativism, progressivist exegesis.
– No recalling of canonical norms like 1917 CIC canons that automatically deprive manifest heretics of office (e.g. Canon 188.4).
2. Asceticism without doctrinal militancy:
– Mortification and obedience are praised, but obedience to whom, and toward what doctrine?
– In a context where the supreme authority himself is steering towards a “pastoral council” opening the door to condemned errors, invoking obedience without specifying objective doctrinal limits is a trap.
– This is the psychology of the conciliar sect: form consciences to docile submission to “the hierarchy,” so that when the hierarchy betrays, the clergy follow into apostasy under the pretext of obedience.
Oboedientia is a virtue only within the bounds of the faith. The pre-1958 Magisterium repeatedly taught: no one may obey in matters opposed to divine and ecclesiastical tradition. By failing to articulate this, the letter transforms obedience into a tool of manipulation.
Seminary Centralization as Mechanism of Control by the Conciliar Sect
The emphasis on harmonized study programs, the creation of Postseminaries, and especially the Roman-based Collegio Filippino reveals a strategic pattern:
– Centralized formation in institutions directly under the influence of John XXIII’s entourage ensures:
– uniform acceptance of the theological tendencies he favours;
– elimination or marginalization of local bastions of integral doctrine;
– formation of an episcopal and presbyteral class psychologically dependent on the emerging conciliar paradigm.
This corresponds in practice to the classic modernist and paramasonic method (exposed repeatedly by pre-conciliar popes):
– infiltrate seminaries;
– form the future hierarchy in a softened, historicist, liberal milieu;
– then use their “obedience” and uniformity to push doctrinal evolution.
The letter’s praise of the Collegio Filippino, immediately honored with pontifical status, must be read in this light. Such colleges, after the council, would become channels for spreading the ideology of the “abomination of desolation” in the liturgy, ecumenism, religious liberty, false collegiality, and all the hallmarks of post-conciliarism.
Pius IX warned against State subversion of seminaries. Here we see another, more subtle subversion: not by hostile States, but by a pseudo-pontifical authority bending formation to conciliar ends.
Silence About Sacramental Validity and the Coming Liturgical Devastation
An integral Catholic perspective must confront another ominous silence: there is no anticipation of the defense of the Most Holy Sacrifice against tampering.
In 1961:
– The true Roman Rite, canonically codified after Trent and solemnly protected by St. Pius V in Quo primum, was still universally normative.
– The liturgical movement was already infected by innovators who would soon produce the new rite: a protestantized, ecumenical worship-table of assembly.
Yet the letter:
– does not call seminarians to cherish, defend, and eternally preserve the immemorial Roman Rite as an untouchable treasure;
– does not warn bishops against innovators who would attack the propitiatory and sacrificial character of the Mass, the Real Presence, the sacredness of Latin, the orientation of worship.
Instead, we see anodyne encouragements about studies, Latin, and discipline—terms vague enough to be reinterpreted by those who would, within a decade, participate in constructing rites and doctrines incompatible with the theology of Trent.
If the one claiming to be pontiff truly intended to guard the faith, he would have spoken with the apodictic clarity of Trent and St. Pius V: no one may dare to alter the rite of the Holy Mass in its substance; no one may corrupt the seminarians with ecumenical, historicist, or anthropocentric theology. He did not.
This omission, combined with the subsequent historical fact of the Novus Ordo and sacramental experimentation, reveals the function of texts like this: to cultivate docile subjects who will accept as legitimate whatever revolution is imposed from above. Lex orandi, lex credendi: deform the worship by means of a compliant clergy, and the faith of the people follows into ruin.
No War on Modernism: A Letter That Could Have Been Written by Those Condemned in Lamentabili
Compare the spirit of this letter with the explicit condemnations in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi:
– St. Pius X authoritatively declared that:
– the Magisterium can and must determine the proper sense of Scripture;
– dogma does not evolve according to historical consciousness;
– the Church must condemn novelty that corrodes doctrine;
– pastoral practice cannot be divorced from dogmatic integrity.
The 1961 letter:
– avoids any such doctrinal clarity;
– uses pastoral vocabulary that can coexist with precisely those tendencies condemned:
– speaking of “progress in studies” without criteria;
– omitting denunciation of rationalism, immanentism, historico-critical subversion of Scripture;
– eliminating the note of combat.
The effect is exactly what Modernists desired according to St. Pius X’s analysis: to appear obedient, use Catholic language, but empty it of its strict, objective, anti-liberal content.
Thus, even when the letter warns spiritual directors to shield youth from “novelties,” it refuses to name those novelties as heresies with juridical consequences. This is not paternal prudence; it is policy-level dissimulation.
Philippine Context: Preparing an Obedient Periphery for the Global Neo-Church
From the perspective of historical consequences (which can be factually verified):
– Many clergy formed in the Philippines under the influence of the post-1961 atmosphere embraced:
– the new rite of “Mass”;
– ecumenical abuses;
– charismatic and pentecostal influences;
– political liberation theologies and social activism replacing doctrinal preaching;
– liturgical profanations and catechetical collapse.
The seeds were organizational and psychological: centralized seminaries, Roman colleges, unconditional obedience to the conciliar hierarchy, sentimental spirituality.
The letter praises precisely the mechanisms that would later facilitate:
– near-total suppression of the authentic Roman Rite;
– acceptance of Vatican II errors (religious freedom, ecumenism, collegiality);
– penetration of liberal democracies’ ideology into Church practice.
Not one line warns the Philippine bishops that their first duty is to guard their flocks from Rome itself in the event Rome promotes doctrines contrary to the constant Magisterium. Yet that is exactly what earlier popes had implied in teaching that a manifest heretic cannot be pope and that no authority may command sin or error.
Conclusion: A Programmatic Text of the Conciliar Sect Disguised as Pastoral Encouragement
Evaluated by the sole legitimate criterion—the unchanging doctrine of the Church prior to 1958—this letter must be recognized as:
– theologically anemic;
– strategically crafted;
– ideologically aligned with the subsequent conciliar apostasy.
Its principal defects and betrayals are:
– Silence about Modernism, condemned propositions, and the specific doctrinal enemies of the Church, despite addressing the very heart of clerical formation.
– Absence of any robust affirmation of the Social Kingship of Christ and the duty of nations such as the Philippines to submit publicly to His law, in direct contrast with Pius XI’s mandate in Quas primas.
– Subtle reduction of the pre-1958 Magisterium to neutral “inspiration,” without reproducing its precise doctrinal content or disciplinary severity.
– Exaltation of obedience and institutional centralization without explicit insistence on the inviolability of Tradition as the norm that binds and limits authority.
– Promotion of structures (Collegio Filippino, unified curriculum, vocational organizations) that, in the context of the soon-to-be-convoked council, objectively serve the spread of the conciliar ideology across the peripheries.
Under pious phrases about the “hope and flower of the Church,” the letter forms part of a system that would produce generations of clergy serving the “paramsasonic structure” of post-conciliarism, not the Bride of Christ as defined, guarded, and armed by the pre-1958 pontiffs.
The true Catholic response, grounded in the constant teaching reaffirmed in Lamentabili sane, Pascendi, Quas primas, and the Syllabus of Errors, must be:
– to reject the authority-claims of those who twist or neutralize the anti-modernist Magisterium;
– to recognize such texts as instruments of a programmed apostasy;
– to restore seminary formation ordered entirely to the immutable doctrine, the authentic Most Holy Sacrifice, the public reign of Christ the King, and an unqualified war against Modernism, liberalism, and all the idols of the conciliar sect.
Source:
Pater misericordiarum – Ad Rufinum tit. S. Mariae ad Montes S. R. E. Presbyterum Cardinalem Santos, Archiepiscopum Manilensem, ceterosque Ordinarios Insularum Philippinarum, quibus gratulatur de impen… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025