Mirabilis ille as Manifesto of the Conciliar Revolution
The letter “Mirabilis ille” of 6 January 1963, issued by antipope John XXIII to all bishops and “Fathers” of Vatican II, recalls with sentimental pathos the first session of the council, outlines the continuation of its work between sessions, establishes a central commission of “cardinals” to coordinate it, exhorts bishops to maintain spiritual and practical union with Rome, mobilizes clergy and laity in prayer and collaboration for the council, and finally inflates Vatican II into a universal event allegedly directed to the whole human family, including non-Catholics, as an epiphanic sign of grace and unity. In reality, this text is a programmatic self-unmasking of the conciliar sect: a juridical, theological, and spiritual subversion of the Catholic concept of a council, of ecclesiastical authority, and of the unique salvific mission of the Church, employed to enthrone precisely that naturalistic, ecumenical, liberal order condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Fabricated Collegiality and the Eclipse of the Papal Monarchy
Already the basic ecclesiological premise of “Mirabilis ille” betrays the conciliar revolution. John XXIII depicts the council as a sort of permanent world-synod, extending beyond the sessions, in which all “bishops” together with the Roman pontiff form a continuous subject of governance and revision. He insists that the intervening months are “vera continuatio operis Concilii”—a “true continuation” of conciliar work—and structures a centralized commission of “cardinals” and bureaucratic secretariats to steer the entire process.
From the integral Catholic perspective of ecclesiology prior to 1958:
– The Pope is not the moderator of an assembly of co-legislators; he is the visible head of the Church, endowed with supreme, full, immediate jurisdiction over all the faithful and over each bishop (Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus). Any council is valid only as an instrument he freely uses, not as a quasi-permanent parliament.
– The attempt to turn a council into an extended process, managed by technocratic commissions, is already a deformation: the council ceases to be a solemn, defined act of the Magisterium and becomes an evolving “process” in which texts are negotiated, diluted, and calibrated to please the world.
“Mirabilis ille” outlines exactly this: a proceduralist ecclesiology in which doctrine and discipline are shaped through committees, consultations, questionnaires, and the sensitivities of global opinion.
This is not an accidental style; it is the operationalization of the very collegialist and democratizing tendencies condemned by the traditional Magisterium:
– Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors condemns the idea that councils or national churches can relativize or supplant Roman primacy (props. 35–37).
– He condemns the thesis that the Roman Pontiff is simply a prince whose prerogatives are historically contingent (prop. 34).
– Pius X in “Lamentabili sane” and “Pascendi” unmasks Modernism’s program of subjecting doctrine and structures to “the common consciousness” and historical evolution.
“Mirabilis ille” does precisely what these popes forbid: it embeds the teaching office in a fluid, consultative, sociological procedure, implicitly denying that the rule of faith is Traditio divina et apostolica, not the latest consensus of episcopal bureaucrats.
The Linguistic Fog of a New Religion
The text’s tone and vocabulary are not accidental embellishments; they are symptoms of doctrinal corruption.
Several features stand out:
– Sentimental inflation: endless references to “marvelous gathering,” “spiritual love,” “joy,” “great hope,” “laeta nuntia,” without the corresponding precision on dogma, sin, error, condemnation, or the supernatural demands of grace. This is the stylistic expression of the coming “cult of man.”
– Bureaucratic-sacral jargon: the council is described as “great work,” “opus,” “continuatio,” with commissions and secretariats as salvific organs. This profanes categories once reserved for the divine constitution of the Church and for the Most Holy Sacrifice; now the central mysteries are replaced by process-management.
– Systematic ambiguity: references to the “universal human family,” “peace,” “prosperity” and “salus generis humani” without repetition of the dogmatic principle: extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church no salvation). Texts of Scripture that affirm Christ’s universal salvific will are subtly detached from the dogmatic premise that this will is realized in the one Roman Catholic Church, to which all must submit under pain of damnation.
This language exemplifies what Pius X condemned as Modernist rhetoric: using Catholic formulas emptied of their fixed sense, letting them be re-interpreted in a liberal, universalist key. When John XXIII speaks of a council that must open “amplissima consilia” to all humanity, his silence concerning conversion to the Catholic Church is not an oversight; it is the programmatic denial of the absolute necessity of that conversion.
Doctrinal Subversion: Council as Service to the World, Not Judgment of Error
On the theological level, the bankruptcy of “Mirabilis ille” is concentrated in three interlocking inversions.
1. The purpose of a council.
Throughout the letter, Vatican II is presented not as:
– a defense of the faith against heresies,
– a clarification of dogma,
– or a re-affirmation of Christ’s kingship over states,
but as:
– an opening to the world,
– an answer to “expectations” of humanity,
– a sign of “peace” and shared aspirations.
There is no mention of:
– the condemnation of modern errors required by Pius IX’s Syllabus and by Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII;
– the war against Freemasonry and its program to subject the Church to liberal, Masonic, and naturalistic principles, which Pius IX explicitly denounced as the work of the “synagogue of Satan”;
– the safeguarding of the flock against heretical infiltrators inside the clergy, a central warning of Pius X in “Pascendi.”
Instead, John XXIII explicitly treats the positive reception of Vatican II by non-Catholics and by those with “diverse opinions” as a providential sign, even invoking the presence of non-Catholic observers as a motive of joy. Here the conciliar sect openly rejoices in precisely what the true Magisterium identified as the principal danger: the flattering and absorbing approbation of the world, the “spirit of the age,” and the enemies of Christ.
This contradicts:
– Pius XI, “Quas Primas”: peace is possible only under the public reign of Christ the King; the modern secularist error of religious equality and separation of Church and State is a plague, not a partner.
– Pius IX, Syllabus, props. 15–18, 77–80: the condemned propositions include religious indifferentism, equal rights of all cults, and reconciliation of the papacy with “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”
Yet “Mirabilis ille” anticipates precisely this reconciliation; it is a preparatory hymn for the later declarations on religious freedom and false ecumenism.
2. The treatment of “separated brethren.”
John XXIII lauds the sympathetic attitude of “separated brethren” toward the council and sees in their presence as observers a kind of fulfillment of Christ’s prayer “ut unum sint.” He presents their benevolent stance as a “sign” of divine grace and as a step toward future unity.
Integral Catholic doctrine, however, teaches:
– There is no true unity without submission to the Roman Pontiff (Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam; Florence, Decree for the Jacobites).
– Non-Catholics, precisely as such, are in objective rebellion against divinely instituted authority and are called to return by abjuring their errors, not by being courted as honored guests in the sanctuary.
– Pius IX condemns the idea that Protestantism is “another form of the same true Christian religion” (Syllabus, prop. 18).
“Mirabilis ille” never once demands conversion, abjuration, or acceptance of all defined dogma from these “brethren.” It replaces the missionary call with an ecumenical courtesy, preparing the way for the later betrayal in Assisi and the cultic participation of pagans and heretics in conciliar spaces. This silence is itself a doctrinal crime: tacere de necessariis est loqui contra veritatem (to be silent about what is necessary is to speak against the truth).
3. Anthropocentric expansiveness.
The climactic paragraphs invoke Scripture to claim that the council concerns “not our sins only, but those of the whole world” (cf. 1 John 2:2), that the “true light” enlightens every man, that all flesh shall see the salvation of God. These texts, in Catholic theology, ground the sufficiency of Christ’s redemption and the universal call to salvation in and through the Church. But “Mirabilis ille” does not reassert the exclusive mediation of the Roman Catholic Church; it bends these phrases to justify a council conceived as a service to “universal human expectations,” to earthly peace and prosperity.
By divorcing universal redemption from the concrete obligation to enter the one true fold, this letter preaches a softened, inclusive theology that Pius X branded as the core of Modernism: dogmas “explained” in a way that aligns with philosophical liberalism and religious pluralism. In other words, under cover of Scripture, it installs the principle that the Church should conform herself pastorally to the “modern world,” rather than convert and judge it.
Systemic Engine of Apostasy: The Conciliar Machine Described from Within
The structural provisions of “Mirabilis ille” are not neutral procedures; they embody a new ecclesial regime.
Key elements:
– A “Commissio Patrum Cardinalium” placed above and around the traditional organs, orchestrating all work in the “eight months” between sessions.
– A “Secretariatus Generalis” with subsecretaries and experts as operational core.
– Encouragement for each “bishop” to surround himself with “ecclesiastical men” and periti to collaborate on conciliar matters, under the seal of secrecy.
This design has three devastating consequences:
1. It shifts effective theological initiative from the episcopate as guardians of Tradition to a technocratic elite of academics, many of them already infected with Modernism, who draft schemas, negotiate formulations, and introduce ambiguities.
2. It perfects remote control: even when bishops return to their dioceses, they remain integrated into a network coordinated from the occupied Vatican, forming a global apparatus of alignment to the conciliar agenda.
3. It erodes the clarity of dogmatic teaching by transforming it into outcomes of “study,” “experience,” and “pastoral considerations,” exactly the evolutionist method condemned in “Lamentabili sane” (e.g., condemned thesis 57–65 on changing doctrine and dogma as products of historical development).
The letter itself praises this process as “opera paene abscondito et secreto, tamen re vera utilissimo.” Indeed it is hidden: the hidden workshop of doctrinal dilution; utilitarian: useful for installing the anti-doctrine; efficient: it prepared the texts that institutionalized religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegiality, contra the entire pre-1958 Magisterium.
Silence on Christ the King and the Social Kingship as Judicial Self-Condemnation
One omission screams louder than all the rhetorical flourishes: the almost total absence of the doctrine of the public kingship of Christ, solemnly defined and insisted upon by Pius XI in “Quas Primas” (1925).
“Mirabilis ille” speaks of:
– world attention,
– earthly peace,
– human prosperity,
– “felicitas et salus humani generis,”
yet nowhere calls upon states and societies to submit to Christ’s law and to recognize the Church’s rights. This is not an oversight; it is the direct betrayal of the anti-liberal, anti-laicist teaching that every Catholic bishop was bound to defend.
Compare:
– Pius XI: Peace will not come until individuals and states recognize the reign of Christ and submit their laws and institutions to His law. Religious indifferentism and separation of Church and State are condemned as a “plague.”
– Pius IX, Syllabus, props. 55, 77–80: the separation thesis and religious liberty regime are anathematized; reconciliation with “modern civilization” on such terms is rejected.
“Mirabilis ille,” by preparing a council that will embrace “religious liberty” and “ecumenical openness,” implicitly repudiates these magisterial teachings. The very fact that John XXIII measures the council’s success partly by approval from non-Catholics and secular powers proves that the criterion is no longer fidelity to Quas Primas and the Syllabus, but usefulness to the liberal order.
This silence is therefore not neutral: it is the practical abrogation of Christ’s social kingship and the enthronement of man’s rights and world opinion as the new norm.
The Perverted Mobilization of Clergy and Laity
At first glance, the exhortation to priests, religious, and lay faithful to pray for the council appears pious. But in context, it becomes sinister.
We are told:
– to avoid “new” private devotions or special forms of prayer, since the existing liturgy suffices;
– to trust in the official directions of local “bishops” regarding all spiritual initiatives tied to the council;
– to channel piety into support for the conciliar agenda.
This pious-seeming directive:
– isolates the faithful from spontaneous supernatural resistance;
– forbids the organic instincts of the sensus fidei that would recoil from doctrinal novelties;
– subordinates all spiritual life to the program of the conciliar sect.
Given that the same hierarchy is infected with Modernism, this call is in fact a demand for spiritual disarmament. Whereas Pius X armed the faithful against modernist clergy, commanding vigilance and denunciation, John XXIII commands unanimous docility to pastors who, in large measure, had already absorbed condemned errors.
Here the perversion is complete: prayer, sacraments, religious obedience—things holy in themselves—are conscripted into serving an anti-Catholic, anti-Traditional enterprise. Bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu (good from full integrity, evil from any defect): when all supernatural energies of the faithful are ordered toward approving a work that undermines dogma, those energies are objectively misdirected, no matter how subjectively sincere some souls may be.
From Hierosolymitan Council to Vatican II: Abuse of Apostolic Typology
“Mirabilis ille” appeals to Acts 15 and the Council of Jerusalem as a paradigm, suggesting that Vatican II stands in symmetrical continuity with the apostolic synod in its exercise of episcopal authority.
This analogy disintegrates under scrutiny:
– The Council of Jerusalem, guided visibly by the Apostles Peter and James, defined a precise doctrinal and disciplinary decision (against Judaizing impositions) and bound consciences, uttering the words: “Visum est enim Spiritui Sancto et nobis” (Acts 15:28). It did not dilute dogma to appease error; it repelled error and confirmed the brethren.
– Vatican II, by explicit intent of John XXIII and his successor, refused to condemn modern errors, avoided dogmatic definitions, and produced texts laden with ambiguities that have since been exploited to legitimize ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality contrary to previous teaching.
To invoke Acts 15 while orchestrating a council that systematically avoids clarity and anathema is blasphemous instrumentalization of Scripture. It is precisely what “Lamentabili sane” condemns: recasting the acts of the Magisterium as flexible responses to “needs of the time” instead of definitive norms.
Conciliar Universalism versus Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus
One of the most insidious aspects of “Mirabilis ille” is the subtle reconfiguration of Catholic universality.
John XXIII repeatedly insists that the council:
– concerns all humanity,
– must radiate hope to all,
– is a response to the needs of the “whole world.”
He cites:
– “Ipse est propitiatio pro peccatis… totius mundi” (1 Jn 2:2),
– “Lux vera quae illuminat omnem hominem” (Jn 1:9),
– “Videbit omnis caro salutare Dei” (Lk 3:6),
– “Apparuit gratia Dei omnibus hominibus” (Tit 2:11).
But he refuses to draw the dogmatic conclusion given by the perennial Magisterium: that this grace and propitiation are applied through the one Church, and that those who knowingly remain outside her are lost. Instead, he hints that the council’s outreach itself, its mildness and openness, is the way these texts are fulfilled.
This is the matrix of the later doctrinal deformation:
– The Church’s universality is mistaken for a universal recognition of all religions and states.
– The supernatural order is conflated with natural aspirations for peace and concord.
– The necessity of conversion is relativized into a vague journey toward unity.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus, explicitly condemns:
– the idea that “good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ” (prop. 17);
– the assertion that Protestantism and Catholicism are equally pleasing to God (prop. 18).
By rejoicing without distinction in the sympathetic attitude of heretics and in general goodwill toward the council, “Mirabilis ille” aligns itself with those very condemned propositions. The letter thus signals the emerging anti-church’s readiness to break with the axiom extra Ecclesiam nulla salus in practice, and soon in doctrine.
Summary Judgement: Mirabilis ille as Self-Exposure of the Neo-Church
Viewed in continuity with the integral Catholic Magisterium before 1958, “Mirabilis ille” stands condemned on multiple counts:
– It reconceives the council not as a solemn defense of truth but as a fluid, bureaucratic process oriented to worldly expectations.
– It elevates collegial, procedural structures and expert networks over the clear exercise of monarchic papal authority as defined by Vatican I.
– It instrumentalizes Scripture to justify a universalist, irenic, anthropocentric agenda, without reaffirming the exclusive necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation.
– It delights in the favor of non-Catholics and treats their positive disposition toward the council as a consoling sign, instead of calling them to repentance and submission to the one fold.
– It cultivates a humanitarian rhetoric of peace and shared concerns, while remaining silent on the main condemned errors of liberalism, indifferentism, religious liberty, and laicism, all clearly exposed by Pius IX and Pius XI.
– It harnesses the prayer and obedience of clergy and faithful, not to safeguard Tradition against Modernism, but to lubricate its systematic institutionalization.
This is not merely an unfortunate document among others; it is a programmatic charter of the conciliar sect’s method: sentimentalism instead of anathema, process instead of definition, consensus instead of confession, “world attention” instead of divine judgement, and a counterfeit “unity” that prescinds from the unchanging dogmatic foundation.
The very fact that this letter emanates from the same author who convoked the council that enthroned religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man, and that it is proudly preserved by the structures occupying the Vatican, confirms its nature: not as an act of the Catholic Magisterium, but as a milestone in the organized eclipse of the Church.
Against this stands intact the enduring doctrine articulated by the pre-1958 Popes, Fathers, and Councils: the Church as a perfect, divinely constituted society; the papacy as monarchic and non-negotiable; Christ as King of individuals and nations; dogma as immutable; Modernism and liberalism as condemned; salvation as found only in the one true Church. Any text or council that systematically veils or contradicts these principles exposes itself as standing outside that unbroken line—and as such must be rejected with the same firmness with which the Church has always rejected heresy.
Source:
Mirabilis Ille – Ad singulos Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopos ceterosque Patres Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, in Epiphania Domin (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025