In this address of 14 November 1960 in St Peter’s Basilica, Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII) convenes and exhorts the preparatory commissions for what would become Vatican II. He praises previous ecumenical councils, outlines procedural hopes and methods for the new council, appeals to history, unity, and human collaboration, and explicitly frames the coming assembly not primarily as a defense of dogma against errors, but as a positive aggiornamento of Christian life, discipline, and thought in response to the modern world. The text’s pious veneer conceals and inaugurates a radical shift: from defending the immutable deposit of faith to adapting the Church to the spirit of the age, laying a programmatic foundation for the conciliar revolution and systemic apostasy.
Conciliar Enthronement of the Age: Roncalli’s Program Against the Catholic Order
Direct Revolt Against the Consistent Aim of True Ecumenical Councils
Roncalli begins by placing his gathering in apparent continuity with the great councils, invoking Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Trent, and Vatican I. He rehearses, broadly correctly, that ecumenical councils were called chiefly:
– to safeguard the integrity of the Catholic faith,
– to condemn heresies,
– to clarify doctrine on Christ, the sacraments, the Church, and papal primacy.
But then he executes the decisive inversion. Whereas previous councils were convoked when “haereticae pravitatis lues” or grave doctrinal errors demanded condemnation, Roncalli asserts that in “our times” it is no longer so much a matter of investigating and defining dogmatic questions transmitted from God and Christ, but rather of giving “nova vis et claritas” (new vigor and clarity) to Christian life and thought in relation to the modern world.
This is the hinge:
– Previously: Councils = dogmatic guardianship, anathemas against error, defense of the supernatural order.
– Now (according to Roncalli): Council = pastoral aggiornamento, encouragement, accommodation, new style, new approach.
From the perspective of the integral Catholic faith:
– This is not a benign change of emphasis; it is a direct contradiction of the Church’s perennial understanding of councils.
– The Council of Trent anathematized errors on justification, sacraments, Scripture and Tradition; Vatican I defined papal infallibility and reaffirmed the knowability of God and the immutability of dogma precisely against rationalism and liberalism. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors solemnly rejected the illusion that “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” could be reconciled on their own terms with the Church (Syllabus, prop. 80).
– Roncalli’s rhetoric—substituting “pastoral” optimism and “new vigor” for explicit doctrinal warfare—is an implicit repudiation of that pre-1958 line. It inaugurates the very Modernist principle condemned by St Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi: that doctrine should be “developed” according to the needs of the age and the evolving “consciousness” of believers.
Instead of recognizing, with Pius X, that Modernism is “the synthesis of all heresies” and must be extirpated, this allocution proposes a council that studiously avoids such condemnation and focuses on presentation, style, and dialogue. That is not continuity; it is betrayal.
Linguistic Mask: Piety as a Vehicle for Capitulation
The tone is superficially devout, filled with invocations of God, the Holy Ghost, unity, charity. Yet language and emphases expose a different substance.
Key features:
1. Sweet ambiguity:
– Roncalli multiplies phrases about “laetissimum hoc auspicio,” “mirabile divinæ redemptionis opus,” “una, sancta, catholica et apostolica,” but empties them of their doctrinal edge by refusing to name and condemn the real doctrinal enemies then ravaging the Church: Modernism, naturalism, liberalism, communism in its ideological form, false ecumenism.
– He speaks of past councils as responses to clear heresy, yet for his own time he denies the need for such a response. This is objectively false: the twentieth century, especially before 1960, was marked by precisely the errors condemned by Pius IX and Pius X—errors that had in fact penetrated the clergy and seminaries.
2. Programmatic optimism:
– He warns against “amplifying” the evils of the age as if to think God no longer watches over us. This line sounds pious, yet functions to delegitimize the sober assessments of previous true popes, who unambiguously exposed the ferocity of Masonic, socialist, modernist conspiracies against the Church (see Syllabus; many allocutions of Pius IX; Quas Primas of Pius XI).
– Where Quas Primas explicitly denounces laicism, religious indifferentism, and the expulsion of Christ from public life as the root of social ruin, Roncalli talks instead of not overemphasizing darkness, and shifts to conciliatory language toward the world.
3. Subtle relativization of dogmatic combat:
– The allocution suggests that the Council’s main task is to make the faith “shine” more clearly for modern man, not to defend it against certain defined enemies.
– This matches the modernist tactic condemned by Pius X: to leave dogmas on paper while emptying them of practical consequence, replacing the imperative of conversion and condemnation of error with dialogical co-existence.
Thus, the rhetoric of gentle piety functions as an anesthetic. It lulls the hearer into accepting an abdication of the Church’s divine mandate “docere, regere, sanctificare” according to immutable doctrine. Roncalli’s vocabulary is the polite beginning of institutional apostasy.
Systematic Omission of the Supernatural Stakes
From an integral Catholic standpoint, the gravest accusation is silence about what is most essential: grace, sin, judgment, the absolute necessity of the true faith and sacraments for salvation.
This allocution, preparing for a universal council, notably fails to:
– Affirm clearly that extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation) in its traditional sense.
– Insist that all separated communities and false religions must convert to the Catholic Church to be saved.
– Warn of eternal damnation, of the necessity of the state of grace, of the horror of mortal sin.
– Call for the condemnation of specific, identifiable doctrinal errors that were visibly destroying catechesis, liturgy, and priestly formation.
Instead, Roncalli:
– Speaks positively of non-Catholic “Christian” communities as desiring a “return to the Apostolic foundation,” using language of partial praise and sentimental convergence rather than affirming their objective status as separated from the unica Christi Ecclesia.
– Hints that even those not fully Catholic are to be listened to, answered respectfully, and considered sincere seekers.
– Sets up a special body to “respond to questions” of those “separated brethren” wishing to know about the Council.
This pastoral posture, devoid of the call to abjure errors and enter the one true Church, is already the seed of the later conciliar ecumenism condemned by prior magisterium. It stands in stark contrast to Pius IX’s explicit rejection of the proposition 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” (Syllabus, prop. 17).
The omission is not accidental; it is structural. Roncalli frames the Council as a peaceful, optimistic updating, not as a militant defense of truth. This silence discloses the new religion’s anthropology: man-centered, allergic to damnation, resolutely horizontal.
Recasting the Church as a Sociological “Family” Among Others
Roncalli’s description of belonging to the Catholic Church emphasizes “familia,” fraternity, and a corporate identity in very earthly terms. While some elements reflect authentic Pauline ecclesiology, the stress and direction align with the coming cult of man:
– He highlights that belonging to the Church is not a mere individual distinction, but membership in a community; true, but weaponized against the hierarchical, supernatural character of the Church.
– He speaks at length about social order, earthly peace, civil, economic, and political structures, all to be “enlightened” by the Gospel.
What is missing is decisive:
– The insistence, so clear in Quas Primas, that states and rulers are bound to publicly recognize the reign of Christ the King and legally submit to the law of the Gospel.
– The condemnation, so firm in the Syllabus, of “the separation of Church and State” (prop. 55), of indifferentism, of the notion that the State can be agnostic or neutral.
Roncalli instead gestures vaguely toward harmonious collaboration, without asserting the doctrinal obligation that all nations, as nations, must honor and obey Christ and His Church. This is anticipatory legitimation of the religious liberty agenda that would be formally enshrined by the conciliar sect.
By muting the kingship of Christ and the rights of the Church over societies, he gives practical victory to the liberal thesis solemnly rejected by his predecessors. Pius XI explicitly declared that peace would not come until states recognized Christ’s reign; Roncalli quietly abandons this supernatural political doctrine in favor of irenic cooperation with regimes and systems that deny Christ.
Theological Subversion: From Condemnation of Modernism to Its Institutionalization
St Pius X, in Lamentabili and Pascendi, condemned:
– The evolutionist conception of dogma;
– The reduction of faith to religious experience;
– The adaptation of doctrine to modern philosophy and sentiment;
– The submission of the Church to historical relativism.
Roncalli’s allocution embodies precisely that modernist spirit on several points:
1. Pastoral, non-condemnatory council:
– He explicitly discourages a council modeled on past doctrinal battles, preferring a “positive” approach. Pius X had already unmasked this as the modernist strategy: to demand the cessation of condemnations under the pretext of charity and pastoral sensitivity, while errors quietly triumph.
2. Reading “the signs of the times” in a naturalistic key:
– He presents the age as not so dark as “pessimists” think, cautions against focusing on evil, and instead times the council to a supposed “new religious interest.”
– This misreads the epoch which had already witnessed two world wars, militant atheistic communism, moral dissolution, and deep doctrinal decay within clergy. To deny the need for hard condemnations is to align with the “false striving for novelty” singled out in Lamentabili.
3. Apparent continuity masking rupture:
– He lists the councils, praises their achievements, but uses them as a rhetorical ladder to climb away from their very principles.
– This foreshadows the deceitful “hermeneutic of continuity”: a neo-church citing Tradition as ornament while inverting its content.
In substance, the allocution is the manifesto of the conciliar sect: a Church that will no longer anathematize, no longer demand conversion, no longer insist on public recognition of Christ the King, but will sit as “partner” in a Masonic, religiously pluralist order. The preceding documents given in the framework (Quas Primas, Syllabus, Lamentabili) expose how incompatible this program is with the authentic Magisterium.
Symptom of the Coming Parasecret Society: Structures Occupying the Vatican
Several symptomatic elements reveal that we are not dealing merely with an imprudent speech, but with a coordinated reorientation:
– Institutional machinery: Roncalli glories in the creation of numerous preparatory commissions and a special body to relate to non-Catholics. The bureaucratic expansion serves to entrench an agenda: filtering episcopal input, marginalizing integral doctrine, orchestrating pre-cooked “pastoral” schemas.
– Flattery of experts: He calls for respect, mutual esteem, measured speech, silence, and self-limitation to one’s “proper competence.” This rhetoric, dressed as humility and order, provides cover for the expertocracy of modernist periti to dominate, while silencing defenders of Tradition under procedural pretexts.
– Ecumenical signaling: He rejoices that news of the coming council has aroused interest among those “separated,” and establishes an organ to answer their queries. Not one word about their obligation to submit to the Roman Pontiff and profess the Catholic faith.
– Political quietism: He laments the sufferings of Catholics under persecution, but carefully avoids naming the ideological enemies of Christ with the clarity of Pius IX or Pius XI. Instead of renewing the anti-Masonic, anti-liberal, anti-Communist condemnations, he offers vague sympathy.
This is how a *paramasonic structure* operates within ecclesiastical walls: replacing doctrinal clarity with diplomatic communiqués, replacing supernatural militancy with sentimental humanism, replacing the voice of Peter with the jargon of international organizations.
Direct Conflict with the Magisterial Condemnations of Liberalism and Religious Freedom
When measured by the pre-1958 Magisterium (the only legitimate doctrinal criterion), the allocution’s fundamental orientation stands condemned in advance:
– Syllabus, prop. 77–80 reject the idea that Catholicism should cease to be the only state religion, that all forms of worship equally claim civil liberty, and that the Roman Pontiff should reconcile with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” in their Masonic sense.
– Quas Primas insists that civil authority must publicly recognize Christ’s rights; to deny or omit this is to undermine the foundation of law and social order.
– Lamentabili and Pascendi anathematize the reduction of dogma to historical expression and the primacy of “pastoral” adaptation over objective truth.
Yet Roncalli’s project, as launched here:
– Refuses to raise the banner of Christ the King over nations;
– Prepares instead the rhetoric that will culminate in “religious liberty” for all cults, directly against prior teaching;
– Recasts the Council’s aim from defending the deposit to re-translating it for modern sensibilities, which is precisely the modernist evolutionism in practice.
Therefore, judged by binding pre-conciliar doctrine, this allocution does not simply err in prudential assessment; it manifests the spirit of apostasy and prefigures the “abomination of desolation” of the neo-church.
Roncalli’s Self-Exposure: The Council as “City on a Hill” Without Anathemas
One striking passage portrays the future council as a “civitas in monte posita” (city set on a hill), whose mission is principally internal to the “Catholic Church as she is today,” yet carefully open to observation and inquiry from outsiders. The imagery is misused:
– Our Lord’s “city on a hill” refers to the Church’s visible holiness and doctrinal clarity drawing souls to conversion.
– Roncalli empties it of its missionary imperative to convert and instead loads it with a transparent, dialogical, almost parliamentary function, in which the Church “explains herself” to a pluralist world.
He further emphasizes:
– Mutual respect among participants;
– Restraint in speaking only on what is “theirs”;
– An atmosphere of study, proposals, conclusions, without conflict.
What is glaringly absent is any mention of:
– Anathema sit;
– Formal condemnations of specific contemporary heresies;
– Binding doctrinal clarifications to protect the faithful.
He virtually programs, from the outset, a council without teeth, without condemnations, without the exercise of the Church’s divinely given authority to judge doctrine—this, in an age overflowing with heresy. This is a conscious reversal of the role of authentic ecumenical councils.
St Pius X had foreseen and condemned precisely such a project: a Church that will “reconcile itself with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” by muting its dogmatic voice and embracing evolutionist pastoral forms. Roncalli, in this allocution, presents himself as architect of that program.
Conclusion: The Allocution as Founding Charter of the Neo-Church
Measured exclusively by the immutable Catholic theology before 1958, this allocution cannot be received as a legitimate exercise of papal magisterium, but as a manifesto of the conciliar sect’s self-creation:
– It displaces doctrinal defense with pastoral adaptation.
– It exchanges condemnations of error for dialogue with error.
– It silences the rights of Christ the King over states in favor of liberal coexistence.
– It abandons the Church’s exclusive salvific claim in practice, if not yet in explicit formula.
– It wraps this betrayal in pious biblical phrases and references to past councils, thereby weaponizing Tradition as rhetoric against Tradition as reality.
The text is thus the inaugural liturgy of a paramasonic “Church of the New Advent,” preparing the institutional structures that would soon enthrone religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, and anthropocentrism in place of the Catholic order defended by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
A truly Catholic response to this allocution, grounded in Quas Primas, the Syllabus, and Lamentabili, must be unambiguous:
– The mission of a council is to reaffirm and defend the deposit of faith, to condemn contemporary heresies by name, and to recall rulers and peoples to the public reign of Christ.
– Any assembly convened precisely to avoid these duties, to dissolve anathemas into “pastoral orientations,” and to affirm the pluralist world on its own terms, is not an organ of the Church founded by Christ, but of a counterfeit structure occupying her visible institutions.
– The faithful must measure such texts not by emotive rhetoric, but by the perennial rule: *eodem sensu eademque sententia* (with the same sense and the same meaning). Wherever that rule is abandoned—even under a halo of devout language—there the voice is not that of the Bride of Christ, but of another.
Source:
Allocutio ad concilia coetusque Concilio Vaticano II apparando (d. 14 m. Novembris, A.D. MCMLX) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025