The text is a Latin allocution of John XXIII to the superiors and members of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) during their General Chapter in Bologna in 1961, in which he praises their historical fidelity to Rome, their poverty, preaching, studies, missions, publishing, and exhorts them to harmonize “new” initiatives with “ancient” heritage in service to the universal Church under the Apostolic See. It is precisely in this apparently pious, traditional vocabulary that one perceives the programmatic mutation: the instrumentalization of an illustrious order for the conciliar revolution, under the guise of “renewal,” “adaptation,” and “new ways” to diffuse the Gospel.
Instrumentalizing the Dominicans for Conciliar Subversion
Personalist Cult of the Usurper as Foundation of the Message
From the first sentences, the allocution is constructed around the central figure of John XXIII as benevolent patriarch:
“We gladly greet you; and in each one of you we seem to behold your Founder; … who used to approach the houses of the Roman Pontiffs almost as his own home. You also, members of the Dominican family, are at home in the house of the common Father of the Church…”
The rhetorical move is transparent:
– The holiness and filial loyalty of St. Dominic toward the true Roman Pontiffs are subtly transferred to John XXIII, whose “house” is presumed to be identically that of the Church.
– The allocution thereby presupposes, without demonstration, the legitimacy of the one speaking and of the post-1958 structure he represents.
– The Dominican charism is reduced to a pledge of affective adhesion to the person and program of this “Father.”
From an integral Catholic perspective, this is the essential falsification. The authentic obedience of religious orders is owed to the Roman Pontiff as custodian and defender of the *depositum fidei*, not to a man inaugurating a program of aggiornamento, collegialist democratization, ecumenism, and doctrinal fluidity.
By 1961, John XXIII had already:
– Announced the so-called Second Vatican Council (1959), framed explicitly as “updating” the Church.
– Initiated a policy of “opening” to the world and to false religions, prefiguring Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate.
The allocution becomes one piece in this program: to secure the symbolic capital of a doctrinal order and bend it towards modernist objectives.
Subtle Dogmatic Relativization Behind Traditional Language
Central to this text is the motif of harmonizing “old” and “new”:
“New offices and counsels are inserted among the old, and suitably correspond. How beautiful is such a coherence of things! And how faithfully it accommodates the words of the Divine Redeemer, who said: ‘Every scribe instructed… is like a householder who brings forth out of his treasure new things and old’ (Mt 13:52).”
And further:
“You also bring forth new things from your treasury and join them with the old; and thus you obey that perennial precept… ‘Be reformed in the newness of your mind…’ (Rom 12:2).”
Note the operations:
1. The “new” is not defined doctrinally as a deeper exposition of the same truths (*eodem sensu eademque sententia* — in the same sense and the same judgment, as defined by Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, and by St. Pius X against Modernism), but functionally and pastorally.
2. The scriptural citations are wrenched into a justification for structural and mental “renewal” that will, in the conciliar praxis, mean re-reading dogma through historical consciousness, human experience, and worldly expectations.
3. The crucial anti-modernist criterion is conspicuously absent: no reminder that any authentic “new” application must exclude every change of sense in doctrine, must reject condemned propositions of Indifferentism, Liberalism, Modernism, condemned in the Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX), Lamentabili and Pascendi (St. Pius X), and must affirm the exclusive rights of Christ the King over states (Quas Primas, Pius XI).
The silence here is doctrinally deafening and morally accusatory.
– Pius IX, in the Syllabus, condemns the idea that “truth changes with man” and that the Church must reconcile herself with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” as understood in naturalistic terms.
– St. Pius X, in Lamentabili and Pascendi, identifies as modernist the thesis that dogmas evolve, that ecclesiastical structures and formulas must adapt to consciousness and history, that the Magisterium is subordinate to the “experience” of the faithful.
Yet the allocution uses almost identical keywords — “new offices,” “new tasks,” adaptation to “today’s apostolate” — with no doctrinal safeguards. The vocabulary functions as code: prepare the Dominicans to accept the conciliar reinterpretation of preaching, theology, and mission in a sense irreconcilable with the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Naturalization of Apostolate and Eclipse of the Supernatural Combat
The text enumerates the fields entrusted to the Order:
“Whether it be the movement of studies, by which you propose Christian doctrine to men of our age… or the efficiency of missionary forces… or the instruction of youth… or the care of publishing all kinds of books, so that truth may be known and defended by all from snares.”
On the surface: orthodox themes — doctrine, missions, youth, publishing. But examine the underlying orientation:
– There is no mention of the necessity of the state of grace, of frequent confession, of penance, of mortification, of Our Lord’s reign over societies as a juridical obligation.
– There is no warning against the principal errors condemned by the pre-conciliar popes: religious liberty, ecumenism with heretics and infidels, separation of Church and State (Syllabus, Quanta Cura, Immortale Dei).
– There is no denunciation of Modernism, despite Pius X’s solemn condemnation and the explicit note that these errors are “the synthesis of all heresies” and remain perennially relevant.
– Instead, the allocution optimistically presupposes “today’s needs” and the “postulates” of modern people as legitimate criteria to which preaching must respond.
This is an inversion of Catholic order. According to the integral doctrine:
– The preacher’s task is primarily to call men to conversion, to repudiate error, to submit intellect and will to revealed truth, and to restore the social kingship of Christ.
– The primary “needs” are supernatural: escape from sin, fidelity to dogma, salvation from eternal damnation.
– The modern appetite for autonomy, pluralism, and “dialogue” is to be contradicted, not indulged.
Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that peace and order are impossible when individuals and states reject Christ’s kingship, and he explicitly condemns laicism, religious relativism, and the banishment of God from public life. The allocution, composed in this historical context, carefully avoids this supernatural and political rigor, opting for a conciliatory tone that will lead to acceptance of religious liberty and ecumenism at Vatican II.
This omission is culpable: *silentium de supremis* — silence about ultimate things — becomes a powerful witness against the spirit of the text.
From Militant Preaching to Docile Auxiliary of the Conciliar Sect
The allocution recalls the classic Dominican identity:
“This is your praise, your crown… to remain in the constancy of these resolutions… The Order of Preachers is known from the beginning to have been instituted especially for preaching and the salvation of souls…”
However, observe how the exhortation is framed:
– The preaching of truth is explicitly subordinated to service of the “Apostolic See,” now occupied by an innovator.
– The emphasis falls on “modest and composed” execution of preaching (“etsi modeste et composite exsequimini”), a tone alien to the burning anti-heresy zeal of St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Peter Martyr — whose preaching was sharp, condemnatory of error, uncompromising against heresy and public sin.
– The true object of “defending against snares” is left deliberately vague, while in the same years the greatest snares — modernist theology, liturgical subversion, religious liberty, ecumenical relativism, masonic infiltration — were metastasizing inside the very “structures occupying the Vatican.”
Contrast this with the pre-1958 magisterial pattern:
– Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII constantly called religious and theologians to wage doctrinal war against liberalism, socialism, rationalism, and masonic sects. The Syllabus explicitly identifies these forces as mortal enemies of the Church, and successive pontiffs expose Freemasonry as the “synagogue of Satan” plotting to destroy the Church from within.
– St. Pius X, renewing Lamentabili and Pascendi with excommunication, demands a militant vigilance against modernist deviations precisely in seminaries, universities, and religious orders.
The allocution radically undercuts this battle line. It transforms Dominican militancy into a sentimental “familiarity” with the “common Father,” into an administrative collaboration with a conciliar program. This mutation is theologically lethal: the Order is invited to become an engine of aggiornamento, not a bulwark against it.
Linguistic Symptoms of the Modernist Program
The language of the allocution, while cloaked in classical Latin, betrays its orientation through key expressions and calculated absences.
1. Recurrent emphasis on:
– “nova officia et consilia”
– “hodierni apostolatus provinciae”
– “hodierni temporis incepta”
– “aptiores diffundendi Evangelii rationes et vias”
– “nostrae huius aetatis homines” and their “postulata”
This lexicon of adaptation foregrounds the historical moment and its demands as a decisive reference. This is the modernist principle of immanent development, which St. Pius X condemned: dogma and pastoral methods reshaped by the religious sense and needs of contemporary consciousness.
2. Strategic silence on:
– Modernism by name;
– the Syllabus and anti-liberal doctrine;
– the kingship of Christ over states (even though Quas Primas had been issued by a relatively recent predecessor);
– the Church’s duty to reject religious pluralism and false “freedom of cult.”
The suppression of these elements is not accidental. It indicates a deliberate discursive shift: from the Church militantly judging and correcting the world to a “Church of the New Advent” dialoguing and adapting to the world.
3. Softening of the notion of combat:
– The exhortation to “verba salutis diffidentiae verbis opponere” is phrased without any identification of real enemies. “God’s enemies” are mentioned once, abstractly, without naming their concrete doctrines (liberalism, socialism, modernism, masonic naturalism) that the pre-1958 magisterium constantly specified.
– This evasiveness is itself modernist: heresy is treated as an anonymous “difficulty,” not a defined doctrinal contradiction to be anathematized.
Thus the tone is “traditionalist” in form, modernist in intention: a classic tactic of the conciliar revolution — *verbis catholicis, sensu novatore* (with Catholic words, but a novel meaning).
Systemic Function: Co-opting an Order for the Conciliar Revolution
Seen within the historical and ecclesial context, this allocution is symptomatic.
1. Historical conjunction:
– Delivered in 1961, on the eve of the Second Vatican Council.
– Addressed to the General Chapter of the Dominicans, an order central to doctrine, education, and preaching.
2. Functional objective:
– To secure the order’s goodwill for “new offices and counsels” which will, in practice, include:
– acceptance of religious liberty against the teaching of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XII;
– participation in “ecumenical dialogue” contradicting extra Ecclesiam nulla salus;
– theological experimentation in biblical studies and dogma along lines previously condemned in Lamentabili and Pascendi;
– collaboration in liturgical reform dismantling the Most Holy Sacrifice and replacing it with a protestantized assembly meal.
3. Mechanism:
– Praise of fidelity to the Apostolic See, now usurped by John XXIII, so that obedience becomes a tool for self-destruction.
– Invocation of St. Dominic and the primitive constitutions to lend a traditional aura to the very concepts (“new ways,” “adaptation”) that modernism uses to erode tradition.
– Substituting genuine anti-heresy zeal with bureaucratic, academic, and pastoral “initiatives” harmonized with the spirit of the time.
The allocution thus illustrates what could be called *instrumentalized tradition*: the gestures, names, and formulas of Catholic continuity are carefully deployed to draw an order of pre-eminent doctrinal authority into complicity with a project diametrically opposed to the integral faith of the Church before 1958.
Contradiction with the Pre-Conciliar Magisterium
Measured by the immutable doctrine expressed, among others, in The Syllabus of Errors, Quas Primas, and Lamentabili, the allocution’s underlying tendencies stand in grave tension.
1. Against the Syllabus of Errors:
– The text’s orientation toward adapting to “modern requirements” aligns with propositions condemned by Pius IX, especially the flattering of modern civilization, liberalism, and the separation of Church and State. While not affirming them explicitly, it prepares the mental climate that will accept them at Vatican II. The refusal to reaffirm the Syllabus and anti-liberal teaching before an intellectual order is an eloquent contradiction.
2. Against Quas Primas:
– Pius XI declares that the root of contemporary disorder is the exclusion of Christ’s social kingship, and he institutes the feast of Christ the King precisely as a public denial of laicism and naturalism. Yet the allocution says nothing of the public reign of Christ, nothing of the duty of rulers and nations, nothing of combating religious pluralism. Instead, it frames apostolate primarily as dialogue with “men of our age” on their terms. It thus abandons the royal and juridical note of the faith in favour of a merely cultural or humanitarian service.
3. Against Lamentabili and Pascendi:
– St. Pius X unambiguously condemns the idea that dogma must evolve according to contemporary consciousness, that pastoral practice can undermine doctrinal immutability, and that the Magisterium merely ratifies the experiences of the faithful. The allocution’s praise of “new offices and counsels” and “new ways” of evangelization, without the anti-modernist boundaries, grants modernists inside the Order a pretext to reinterpret their charism in a sense precisely condemned by Pius X.
In short, while the literal sentences of the allocution may avoid direct, formal heresy, its spirit, omissions, and direction are incompatible with the integral Catholic mind. It is an act of governance from within the conciliar sect: co-opting a great order as an instrument for a program that prior popes would have judged as infected with the very modernism they solemnly anathematized.
The Tragedy of Obedience Without Truth
The allocution incessantly commends the Dominicans for fidelity to the “Apostolic See” and urges them to continue in this obedience. But true obedience in the Church is intrinsically ordered to truth; it cannot be separated from adherence to the immemorial magisterium.
When a structure, under the name “Apostolic See,” begins to:
– mute condemned doctrines of liberty, indifferentism, and false ecumenism;
– encourage an ambiguous marriage of “old” and “new” that leads to dogmatic dilutions;
– prepare a council that will enshrine teachings incompatible with Quanta Cura, Syllabus, Mortalium Animos, Quas Primas, and the anti-modernist condemnation;
then demanding religious orders to collaborate uncritically is no longer a summons to Catholic obedience, but an attempt to conscript them into the apparatus of apostasy.
The Dominican charism, rightly understood, would have obligated its members to:
– measure every exhortation, even from a claimed pontiff, against the prior, irreformable teaching of the Church;
– resist any program tending to relativize dogma, dilute preaching, desacralize worship, or reconcile with condemned errors;
– defend, at whatever cost, the integrity of Thomistic doctrine and the militant proclamation of Christ’s exclusive kingship and of the one true Church.
Instead, this allocution leverages their vow of obedience to neutralize their doctrinal vigilance. The result, historically visible, is that large portions of that Order later became propagators of biblical relativism, moral dissolution, political radicalism, and liturgical experimentation — precisely what earlier popes foresaw as the fruit of modernist infiltration.
Conclusion: A Polished Mask for the Conciliar Betrayal
This 1961 allocution is not an innocent edifying speech. It is a crafted instrument in the conciliar strategy:
– It borrows the names of St. Dominic and the early constitutions.
– It speaks of preaching, poverty, missions, studies.
– It cites Scripture to adorn its exhortations.
Yet, simultaneously, it:
– omits the burning anti-modernist, anti-liberal, anti-masonic teaching of the 19th–early 20th century Magisterium;
– reorients Dominican fidelity towards service of a revolution then being prepared under the name of a council;
– softens the language of combat into bureaucratic “initiatives” and psychological adaptation to the modern world;
– invites the Order to bring forth “new things” without reaffirming that their content must remain identical to what was always taught.
Thus, the address exemplifies the sophisticated method by which the conciliar sect co-opted venerable institutions: not by frontal rejection of their founders, but by coating a program of aggiornamento with selective quotations and sentimental praise. The real rupture hides behind a facade of continuity.
Measured by the immutable doctrine of the Church before 1958, the allocution stands exposed as a polished mask covering a will to transform the Order of Preachers from a bastion of dogmatic clarity into a compliant organ of the post-conciliar revolution — a revolution the prior popes had warned against with supernatural lucidity and apostolic courage.
Source:
Moderatoribus atque Sodalibus Ordis Fratrum Praedicatorum, qui Generali Coetui Religiosae suae Communitatis interfuerunt (die 25 m. Septembris, A. D. MCMLXI) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025