John XXIII’s Latin letter “Quamvis nullum” (20 January 1963) congratulates Tatsuho Doi on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his episcopal consecration as Archbishop of Tokyo, praises his pastoral zeal and the growth of Catholicism in Japan, extols his elevation as the first Japanese “cardinal,” invokes biblical language about grace and divine assistance, encourages the construction of a new principal church, and grants a plenary indulgence linked to his jubilee celebration. Beneath its pious phrasing, this text is a calculated piece of conciliar propaganda, employing traditional formulas to legitimize an illegitimate hierarchy and a naturalistic, statist vision of the “Church” utterly severed from the integral reign of Christ the King and the pre-1958 Magisterium.
The Conciliar Self-Celebration Masked as Piety
Factual Inversion: A Non-Catholic Structure Applauding Its Own Expansion
Already on the factual level, this letter presupposes as unquestionable what integral Catholic theology (ante 1958) identifies as impossible: that a public architect of the conciliar revolution, John XXIII, acting as “Pope,” can validly appoint bishops, create “cardinals,” bestow indulgences, and thereby guarantee the supernatural flourishing of the Church in Japan.
Key factual elements and their real meaning:
– John XXIII congratulates Doi for “five lustra” of episcopal office and his role as the first Japanese member of the “Sacred College”:
We have rejoiced to honor you with the Sacred Roman Purple as the first from that most flourishing nation…
In reality, this “purple” is the insignia of an emerging conciliar oligarchy, not of the historical Sacrum Collegium which faithfully guarded the deposit of faith. Its function here is geopolitical and propagandistic: to signal that the Church of the New Advent has successfully planted its administrative branch office in post-war Japan.
– He asserts that the Catholic Church is “growing” in Japan and praises the “noble zeal” of the Japanese nation towards the Gospel.
This is a quantitative, sociological criterion of “success,” precisely the naturalistic language Pius XI denounced when he insisted that peace, order and true prosperity flow only from explicit public submission to the social Kingship of Christ (Quas primas). No mention is made of integral conversion from false religions, of the supernatural break with paganism, of the exclusive truth of the Catholic faith condemned any compromise in the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX.
– The construction of a “new principal church” is projected as the crowning monument of his episcopate.
The entire letter treats a temple primarily as a durable monument to a prelate and to national Catholic respectability, not as the throne of the Most Holy Sacrifice of Calvary and bastion of the one true religion against idolatry. This is architecture as ecclesio-political branding: the conciliar sect engraving its logo in concrete and stone.
– A plenary indulgence is promised on the antipope’s “authority”:
…that, on a day you shall choose, you may bless in Our Name and by Our authority the faithful present, with a plenary Indulgence proposed.
But indulgences presuppose real jurisdiction in the Church of Christ. If, as the pre-conciliar theologians state unanimously following Bellarmine, a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church because he is not even a member, then such “indulgences” are juridically null and spiritually deceptive. The letter calmly trades on categories it has already evacuated of their substance.
On the factual level, then, the entire document is a performance of legitimacy: it assumes what is in question—namely, that John XXIII is Pope and that his appointments, praises, and spiritual grants are acts of the Catholic Magisterium—while never once grounding itself in the doctrinal criteria laid down by the pre-1958 Church for orthodoxy, jurisdiction, and membership.
Linguistic Cosmetics: Pious Latin as the Veil of Apostasy
The rhetoric of “Quamvis nullum” is deliberately crafted to anesthetize discernment by cloaking rupture in the vocabulary of tradition.
1. Saccharine generalities:
– The letter opens with generic truisms about continual thanksgiving to God and the duty to remember divine benefits, ornamented by a Psalm verse. This is doctrinally unobjectionable in isolation, but here it functions as anesthetic. The text never specifies which graces are at stake: fidelity to defined dogma, rejection of error, preservation from syncretism, defense of the flock against heresy. The “benefits” are left entirely abstract—perfectly compatible with the new religion of human progress, dialogue, and institutional growth.
2. Human-centered emphasis:
– Doi is lauded for “religious zeal, maturity of counsel, diligence of work” and as a “distinguished ecclesiastical man.” The accent falls on bureaucratic and diplomatic qualities—virtues of a manager in a paramasonic structure—not on the supernatural heroism of a bishop who would rather suffer persecution than tolerate indifferentism or false cults.
– The letter exults that his elevation “professes” that the “Catholic Church” is growing and recognizes the “noble zeal” of his nation for the Gospel. This is the language of public relations, not of apostolic judgment. No call to abandon pagan rites, no denunciation of false worship, no insistence on the Church as the unica arca salutis (only ark of salvation).
3. Theological vagueness:
– The text briefly cites Colossians:
…that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will… walking worthy of God, pleasing Him in all things…
But this exhortation is carefully detached from any concrete doctrinal or disciplinary content. Where Pius X, in “Lamentabili” and “Pascendi,” names and condemns specific modernist theses, John XXIII confines himself to colourless spiritual uplift, perfectly compatible with the entire catalogue of condemned propositions so long as they are couched in “pastoral” tones.
4. Evasive silence:
– The letter is utterly silent on:
– the obligation of public recognition of Christ’s Kingship over Japan;
– the incompatibility of idol worship, Shinto, Buddhism, and all false religions with salvation;
– the necessity of submission to the pre-existing, defined Magisterium—especially against liberalism, religious indifferentism, and modernism as denounced in the Syllabus and “Lamentabili.”
This silence is not accidental. In such a brief panegyric, every line counts. The omission of the central supernatural stakes reveals the author’s true priority: not the reign of Christ, but the consolidation of the conciliar apparatus in the Far East.
The language is a textbook example of what Pius X unmasked: *verba pia, mens haeretica* (pious words, heretical mind). The diction mimics Catholic piety while the conceptual void is filled by the ethos of the new humanistic religion.
Theological Subversion: From the Kingdom of Christ to the Cult of the Conciliar Hierarchy
Measured by the immutable doctrine taught consistently until 1958, this letter is theologically bankrupt in its premises, emphases, and omissions.
1. Denial in practice of the Social Kingship of Christ
Pius XI, in *Quas primas*, solemnly taught that:
– Christ must reign not only over individuals but over families and states;
– lasting peace is impossible until nations recognize His rights;
– secularism and religious indifferentism are a “plague” to be condemned, not accommodated.
In this letter to the Archbishop of Tokyo, representing a nation dominated by pagan and secular ideologies:
– There is no call for the Japanese state to recognize the true religion.
– No condemnation of false worship which offends God and enslaves souls.
– No reiteration that there is “no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” except Jesus Christ in His one Church.
Instead, John XXIII’s praise of the “noble zeal” of the Japanese nation serves as a pseudo-baptism of religious pluralism. The very criterion that the Syllabus brands as erroneous—esteem for a religiously neutral or multi-religious civil order—is here insinuated as compatible with “Catholic growth.”
2. Replacement of supernatural mission with institutional expansion
The letter attributes “joy” to the fact that Doi was made “cardinal” as a sign that the Church “grows” in Japan. This is an inversion of the Catholic order:
– For the pre-1958 Magisterium, episcopal and cardinalitial dignity is ordered to the defense of the faith, the condemnation of error, the preservation of the Most Holy Sacrifice, and the care of souls in view of eternal judgment.
– Here, Doi’s red hat is a symbol of the success of John XXIII’s policy: an image of a globally integrated, ethnically diversified conciliar structure. It is not about guarding the deposit of faith; it is about legitimizing a new regime.
This is what Pius X condemned when he denounced the modernist transformation of the Church into a purely human, evolving religious organism, where sacraments, hierarchy, and dogma become “stages” in consciousness rather than fixed realities. “Quamvis nullum” is a micro-specimen of that pathology: sacred titles emptied of their Catholic content and refilled with the ideology of progress.
3. Abuse of indulgences and the notion of authority
By granting a plenary indulgence hinged on his own person and “authority,” John XXIII presupposes:
– that he holds the keys of Peter;
– that his decrees bind heaven and earth;
– that Doi is a lawful bishop in communion with the Vicar of Christ.
However, pre-conciliar doctrine (Bellarmine, Cajetan, Wernz-Vidal, Billot, etc.) affirms:
– A manifest heretic cannot be Pope, since he is outside the Church and cannot be her head.
– Public defection from the faith results in the automatic loss of office (1917 CIC, can. 188.4).
– Heretical prelates have no jurisdiction to grant spiritual favors.
John XXIII’s entire pontificate is marked by public acts and teachings which objectively align with those errors solemnly condemned by the Syllabus and “Lamentabili”: religious liberty in principle, esteem for condemned sects, refusal to condemn communism at the Council, promotion of ecumenism that relativizes the unique truth of the Catholic Church. Thus:
– The letter’s indulgence is not an act of the Church but the simulation of it by a usurping structure.
– What is presented as an outpouring of mercy is in fact a trap for souls, nurturing the illusion that grace flows through channels which no longer have Catholic content or intention.
This is not a minor canonical technicality; it strikes at the heart of the document. Its central “gift” is based on an authority that, according to perennial doctrine, such a man cannot possess.
4. Instrumentalization of Scripture
The brief biblical citations (Ps 68:31; Col 1:9–10) are orthodox in themselves. However:
– They are employed to bless a project that systematically undermines the very order Scripture sustains: the one flock under one visible, orthodox shepherd, the rejection of idols, the obedience of nations to Christ.
– This technique—selectively invoking Scripture detached from the integral doctrinal and disciplinary context—is precisely the hallmark of the modernist method condemned in “Lamentabili” and “Pascendi.”
In other words, the letter uses Scripture not to bind itself to unchanging dogma, but to consecrate the conciliar project, treating divine words as generic spiritual garnish.
Symptomatic Revelation: A Micro-Icon of the Conciliar Sect’s Strategy
Seen in its historical and doctrinal context, “Quamvis nullum” is not an innocuous congratulatory note; it is a distilled expression of the conciliar sect’s self-understanding and tactics.
1. Self-legitimization through continuity of form
– The document maintains the Latin language, classical curial style, scriptural references, blessings, indulgence formulas.
– All the external apparatus of the Papacy and Roman magisterium is carefully retained.
Yet:
– None of the great pre-1958 battles of the Papacy are even alluded to: against masonry, socialism, liberalism, state interference, indifferentism, modernist exegesis.
– The entire spiritual world of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII is quietly suppressed in favour of a neutral, smiley, diplomatic Catholicism.
This is how the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican proceeds: *simulacrum without substance*. It weaponizes the appearance of continuity to smuggle in discontinuity.
2. Ethno-political symbolism instead of doctrinal clarity
– Doi is praised as the first Japanese holder of the “Sacred Roman Purple,” which is treated as proof of the “growth” of the Church and of Japan’s esteem for the Gospel.
– This replaces the Catholic question—“Does he profess, defend, and impose the full pre-conciliar faith?”—with an ethnic and national representation question—“Is Japan visibly included in our global episcopal club?”
This is the same logic later used by the neo-church when parading its diversity, its ecological and social activism, its interreligious spectacles: the barometer is inclusion and visibility, not doctrinal fidelity.
3. Naturalistic optimism and erasure of eschatological urgency
– The tone is serenely optimistic: the “field of the Lord” in Japan is already flowering; greater fruits are expected; grace assists harmonious human efforts; the cathedral will stand as a monument.
– Nothing about judgment, hell, errors, necessity of conversion from false religions, dangers of syncretism, duty of public confession of Catholic truth.
This silence is theologically devastating. As Pius IX and St. Pius X insisted, it is precisely such naturalistic optimism and refusal to condemn that prepares the triumph of the “synagogue of Satan” and of the masonic project. The omission of last things, of sin, of error, is not a neutral stylistic choice; it is complicity.
4. The letter as a node in the system of apostasy
Within the wider conciliar revolution:
– John XXIII opens Vatican II and intentionally frames it as a “pastoral” council, disarming doctrinal vigilance.
– The same regime promotes religious freedom and ecumenism contrary to the Syllabus, dilutes the dogma “outside the Church no salvation,” and replaces the Most Holy Sacrifice with a horizontal meal-rite.
– In Asia, this manifests concretely in dialogue with false religions, tolerance and even admiration for their cults, and the effective denial that pagans must renounce their errors to be saved.
“Quamvis nullum” lubricates this process by:
– Confirming Doi as a loyal articulator of conciliar policy in Japan.
– Giving him symbolic capital (red hat, indulgence granted in the usurper’s name, encouragement for a monumental church) to anchor the local flock to Rome—Rome now understood as the center of post-conciliarism, not as the rock of orthodoxy.
The letter’s theological “kindness” is the velvet glove on the iron fist of apostasy: it binds souls to shepherds who will not warn them, to structures that no longer transmit the integral Catholic faith, to sacraments that are increasingly simulated and emptied of propitiatory meaning.
Against the Modernist Mirage: Reasserting the Pre-1958 Catholic Criterion
When judged by the only valid standard—the unchanging doctrine of the Church before 1958—the underlying assumptions of this letter must be rejected:
– The true Church is a *societas perfecta* (perfect society) with divine rights over doctrine, worship, and morals (Pius IX, Syllabus, prop. 19 condemned). She cannot contradict herself, adopt a new religious liberty incompatible with her prior condemnations, or recognize as legitimate public cults contrary to Christ the King.
– A manifest heretic or promoter of condemned errors cannot be head of the Church; *non potest esse caput qui non est membrum* (he cannot be head who is not a member). The entire conciliar line from John XXIII onward rests under this unaltered axiom.
– Hierarchical dignity and architectural splendour separated from integral doctrine and sacrificial worship are not signs of grace but monuments of a counterfeit religion.
– “Dialogue,” human promotion, and polite congratulations cannot substitute the burning zeal for the salvation of souls, which includes the duty to denounce false religions, forbid idolatry, and demand public recognition of Christ’s sovereignty.
In this light, “Quamvis nullum” stands exposed as:
– the courteous voice of a usurping regime;
– the consecration of a non-Catholic hierarchy;
– a subtle hymn to institutional self-satisfaction where there should be militant proclamation of the Kingship of Christ and the condemnation of error.
Its theological and spiritual content, once stripped of ornamental Latin, is a vacuum—and that vacuum has been filled, in Japan and worldwide, by religious indifferentism and modernist dissolution. Those who desire to remain Catholic must therefore take from this letter not comfort, but warning: that pious forms can be harnessed to anti-Catholic ends, and that fidelity today requires unmasking such texts as manifestations of the conciliar sect, not of the Bride of Christ.
Source:
Quamvis, cum nullum – Ad Petrum tit. S. Antonii Patavini de Urbe S. R. E. Presb. Cardinalem Tatsuo Doi, Archiepiscopum Tokiensem, a suscepta episcopali dignitate quinque impleta lustra celebraturum (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025