This Latin letter of John XXIII to Joseph Pizzardo, marking twenty-five years of his presence in the “College of Cardinals” and praising his curial and seminary-related labours, is a brief panegyric that congratulates a loyal functionary of the emerging conciliar regime and seals his role as an instrument of its designs — and thus already reveals the spiritual emptiness and institutional corruption of the nascent neo-church it serves.
Panegyric to a System: How a Short Letter Unmasks the Conciliar Revolution
Celebrating an Architect of Formation Ruin
Factual level first.
The text (AAS 55 [1963], 32–33) is extremely short. John XXIII:
– Commends Pizzardo’s service in “extraordinary affairs” of the Church.
– Praises his work in the field of Catholic Action.
– Extols his diligence in the Roman Curia.
– Highlights his role as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities and as bishop of the suburbicarian see of Albano.
– Imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” as a pledge of favour.
Key excerpt, first in English, then Latin:
“To you, celebrating five lustra since you were adorned with the sacred Roman purple, we render this remembrance of so happy an event more pleasant and more joyful with good wishes and omens, which we pour forth from a sincere feeling of our heart.”
Quinque celebranti lustra, ex quo sacra Romana purpura decoratus es, tam felicis eventus memoriam votis ominibusque, quae sincero animi affectu promimus, tibi gratiorem et laetiorem facimus.
The human content is banal: an institutional congratulation note. Yet precisely in this banality lies its importance. It is the self-congratulation of a system which, under the appearance of continuity, was already dismantling the foundations of Catholic formation and of the *regnum Christi* (kingdom of Christ) in public and ecclesial life.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this document is not harmless protocol; it is the smile of a revolution congratulating one of its chief engineers.
Linguistic Incense as Mask for Apostasy
The language is formulaic: *felicis eventus*, *fructuosam operam*, *praeclaras merita*, *magno corde et animo volenti*. This idiom once belonged to an authentically Catholic Roman Curia. Here it serves different gods.
Several symptomatic elements:
– The constant exaltation of bureaucratic function:
– “multiplici industria et laboris patienti diligentia praegravibus perfunctus es muneribus”:
“you have fulfilled very weighty offices with manifold zeal and patient diligence.”
– The pride of organizational expansion:
– The Congregation for Seminaries and Universities is called a “great province of affairs” (*magnae rerum provinciae*), as if spiritual formation were primarily an administrative empire.
– The praise of Catholic Action:
– Catholic Action in the 20th century, as used by many pre-conciliar infiltrators, becomes the laboratory of lay-clerical democratization, displacing the hierarchy of grace with the machinery of “engagement.”
This rhetoric:
– Does not mention *the Most Holy Sacrifice*.
– Does not mention true doctrine, integral faith, anti-modernist vigilance.
– Does not appeal to *Quas Primas*, the Syllabus, *Pascendi*, or *Lamentabili* as the non-negotiable framework of formation.
– Instead, it glorifies administrative service to a structure that, at that very moment (December 1962, during the first session of Vatican II), was giving birth to the conciliar revolution.
The silence is thunderous. In a letter honoring the man responsible for seminaries and Catholic universities, there is no:
– Call to defend seminarians from Modernism condemned by St. Pius X.
– Mention of guarding against the “synthesis of all heresies” (*Pascendi Dominici Gregis*).
– Reminder that the Church must be militantly opposed to liberalism, rationalism, religious indifferentism as condemned by Pius IX in the *Syllabus*.
Instead, the modernist apparatus congratulates itself. This is not innocuous; it is programmatic.
Theological Collapse Behind Courteous Phrases
Now, theological level.
1. Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches: peace and order are only possible where individuals and states publicly recognize and obey Christ the King; secularism and the dethronement of Christ provoke social ruin. In this 1962 letter:
– No trace of the demand for the social kingship of Christ.
– No insistence that universities and seminaries conform public law and science to Revelation.
– No warning against laicism, which *Quas Primas* names as a “plague.”
2. Pius IX in the *Syllabus* condemns:
– The submission of ecclesiastical formation to secular criteria.
– The neutralist and liberal concept of education that divorces knowledge from the Church’s Magisterium.
– The idea that civil society and schools should be detached from Catholic faith (especially propositions 45–48, 55).
Given that Pizzardo’s dicastery governed seminaries and Catholic universities at the threshold of Vatican II, fidelity to pre-1958 doctrine would require:
– Militant protection of curricula from modernist exegesis and theology.
– Explicit subordination of academic life to the anti-liberal, anti-modernist teaching of the papal Magisterium.
– Vigilance against democratic and relativist infiltrations.
The letter praises him without one word on safeguarding orthodoxy. The criterion of evaluation is bureaucratic “fruitfulness,” not doctrinal integrity.
3. St. Pius X’s *Lamentabili sane* and *Pascendi*:
– Condemn as heretical the evolutionary, historicist, and relativist treatment of dogma, Scripture, and sacraments.
– Impose strict obedience to Roman congregational decisions, prior censorship, and the primacy of the authentic Magisterium over “scientific exegesis.”
In 1962, modernist exegesis and theology were already flooding seminaries and universities. Pizzardo’s position made him, in justice, responsible to apply the anti-modernist oath and the condemnations vigorously.
The letter:
– Does not recall his duty to crush these errors.
– Does not exhort him to apply *Pascendi*, *Lamentabili*, or the anti-modernist oath.
– Instead, canonizes (in purely human terms) his “fruitful work,” when that very structure was permissive toward the very tendencies condemned in 1907.
This disjunction between pre-1958 doctrine and 1962 rhetoric is not accidental; it is the signature of the conciliar reorientation: from guarding Revelation to managing an institution in dialogue with the world.
From Guardianship of Doctrine to Guardianship of a Machine
The symptomatic level must be read in light of what the conciliar sect became.
By 1962:
– The same ruling circles were preparing texts and policies which would:
– Redefine religious liberty in rupture with the *Syllabus*.
– Pave the way for false ecumenism that denies the exclusivity of the Catholic Church as the one ark of salvation.
– Shift the Church’s self-understanding from a perfect society with juridical clarity to a vague “People of God” open to doctrinal evolution.
The letter’s emphases are revealing:
1. Exaltation of Catholic Action:
– Historically, Catholic Action—misused—served as a vehicle for lay-clerical horizontalism that undermined hierarchical authority grounded in sacramental and doctrinal reality.
– Rather than calling Pizzardo to purify this movement from liberal and naturalist tendencies, the letter flatters his role in it.
2. Emphasis on “extraordinary affairs” and curial efficiency:
– It recognizes his function in managing “extraordinary affairs of the Church.”
– Those “extraordinary affairs” in the mid-20th century largely meant strategic adaptation to secular regimes, international organizations, and the “human rights” narrative — the same naturalistic framework condemned by earlier popes when it usurps the rights of Christ the King.
3. The “great province” of seminaries and universities:
– Treated primarily as an administrative field, not as the fortress of orthodoxy.
– No mention that their first end is to form priests who offer the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary* and preach immutable doctrine; no mention that universities must submit philosophy and science to Revelation, against rationalism and laicism.
Thus, the letter reveals a fatal shift:
– From *custodes fidei* (guardians of faith) to managers of an ecclesiastical bureaucracy in symbiosis with the world.
– From applying the anti-modernist syllabus to cultivating the personnel who would neutralize it.
Language of Blessing Without the Substance of Benediction
Consider the closing formula:
“We beseech God with humble prayer, that He may protect you, keep you safe, enrich you with heavenly gifts, and as a token of these, ‘with a great heart and willing spirit’ we impart the Apostolic Blessing, which may be for you a new testimony and pledge of Our charity towards you.”
Deum supplici prece poscimus, ut te protegat, sospitet, donis caelestibus ditet, atque horum auspicem, Apostolicam Benedictionem « magno corde et animo volenti » impertimus, quae caritatis in te Nostrae novum tibi sit testimonium et pignus.
This blessing:
– Is extended to a man whose governance of seminaries and universities coincides historically with the incubation of professors, formators, and clerics who would:
– Attack the inerrancy of Scripture.
– Reduce sacraments to symbols.
– Undermine the propitiatory character of the Sacrifice.
– Promote religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegiality in defiance of prior definitions.
Under integral Catholic doctrine:
– *Benedicere* (to bless) is not a cosmetic gesture; it presupposes objective alignment with the law of God and the faith of the Church.
– To confer such effusive praise, without a single admonition concerning the gravest doctrinal crisis since the Reformation, manifests indifference to truth and signals complicity.
The absence of any reference to:
– The anti-modernist oath (mandatory for clergy and teachers pre-Vatican II),
– The obligation to suppress condemned propositions (*Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*),
– The duty of seminaries to form priests in Thomistic doctrine as required by Leo XIII and St. Pius X,
is not an oversight but a declaration: the system has changed masters.
Conciliar Fruits Prefigured: Systemic Apostasy in Miniature
Seen in hindsight — but verifiably, not speculatively — the patterns are evident:
– The men and dicasteries lauded here presided over:
– The doctrinal dilution of seminary curricula.
– The toleration and promotion of biblical criticism and dogmatic relativism previously condemned.
– The grooming of a generation of clergy who would embrace the “new theology,” liturgical subversion, and ecumenical relativism.
This letter:
– Does not call Pizzardo to be a second St. Pius X, scourge of Modernism.
– Canonizes his role as faithful executor of the conciliar agenda.
Thus, even a “harmless” congratulatory note becomes, under scrutiny, a microcosm of the conciliar sect’s operating principle:
– Reward and decorate those who manage the transition from the anti-modernist Church to the *abominatio desolationis* (abomination of desolation) that enthrones man and relegates Christ the King.
Silences That Condemn: What Is Not Said About Seminaries and Universities
What is omitted is the most damning.
In a letter to the Prefect in charge of Catholic formation, one should expect, if the sender held the Catholic faith integrally, at least:
– An exhortation that seminaries:
– Uphold the teaching of Trent on the Sacrifice of the Mass and the priesthood.
– Form clergy in the condemnation of Protestant and liberal errors.
– Guard celibacy, asceticism, Eucharistic devotion, Marian piety (according to Tradition, not pseudo-apparitional cults).
– Enforce Thomistic philosophy and theology as the normative framework, as repeatedly mandated.
– An insistence that universities:
– Reject rationalism and subject sciences to the authority of Revelation and the Magisterium.
– Resist laicist and Masonic principles that detach law and morality from God, condemned explicitly in the *Syllabus* and subsequent papal documents.
– Combat the myth of “neutral” education.
None of this appears.
Instead:
– We see courtly language to an official whose practical legacy was presiding over the transition to precisely those trends the pre-1958 Magisterium anathematized.
In light of Pius IX’s explicit identification of Masonic and liberal sects as the engine of the war against the Church, and given the post-1958 convergence of the neo-church with Masonic slogans (human dignity absolutized, religious liberty, equality of cults, “fraternity”), such studied silence is not neutral. It is complicity.
From Quas Primas to Conciliar Humanism: A Direct Betrayal
Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, established the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat laicism, indifferentism, and the exclusion of Christ from public life. He taught:
– True peace and order require public submission to the reign of Christ.
– States and rulers are obligated to recognize Him and conform laws to His commandments.
– The Church must never renounce her rights or accept being reduced to a private, spiritual club among others.
Compare this with the milieu and ethos encapsulated in this letter:
– No insistence that the Congregation for Seminaries and Universities form champions of the social kingship of Christ.
– No denunciation of the secularizing states and ideologies infiltrating academic life.
– No warning that philosophical and theological faculties must be bastions against progressivist ideology.
Instead:
– It flatters a prelate of the paramasonic structure that will shortly ratify Vatican II’s documents on religious liberty and ecumenism — practical denials of *Quas Primas* and the *Syllabus*.
The dissonance is irreconcilable. One cannot uphold the absolute public rights of Christ the King and simultaneously congratulate, without doctrinal condition, the administrators of a process culminating in their repudiation.
Conclusion: A Courteous Seal on the Machinery of Ruin
This 1962 letter is not important for its length, but for what it reveals:
– It is a polished, impeccably courteous, and apparently pious endorsement of a man and a dicastery that played central roles in the formation crisis.
– It is devoid of explicit heresy, yet saturated with omissions that, in context, testify to a new criterion: institutional loyalty over doctrinal militancy.
– It functions as a ceremonial “nihil obstat” on the transformation of seminaries and universities into instruments of the conciliar sect, no longer fortresses of the integral Catholic faith.
Under the immutable standards affirmed by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI:
– Such self-congratulatory complacency, in the face of advancing Modernism, does not deserve the name of apostolic fatherhood.
– It unmasks a new pseudo-magisterium that blesses its own administrators while neglecting the first duty of any true shepherd: to guard the deposit of faith, root out error, and submit all teaching and formation to the reign of Christ the King.
In sum, this brief epistolary incense shows a system already no longer Roman Catholic in spirit, but conciliar in essence: a paramasonic structure praising its functionaries while leading souls toward doctrinal relativism, liturgical profanation, and the eclipse of the true Church.
Source:
Quinque celebranti – Ad Iosephum S. R. E. Cardinalem Pizzardo, Episcopum Albanensem et Praefectum S. Congregationis Seminariis Studiorumque Universitatibus praepositae, quinque implentem lustra, ex qu… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025