This brief Latin allocution of John XXIII on 1 October 1961, addressed to Jesuits gathered in Rome, praises their global apostolate, exalts their special vow of obedience to the Roman See, and urges them to persevere in fidelity to the “Successor of Peter,” spreading piety, moral integrity, and truth among all social classes. It closes with an affectionate blessing, depicting the Society of Jesus as a consoling vanguard of ecclesial service under his authority. In reality, this address is a concentrated programmatic signal: the harnessing of the once-militant Ignatian order into obedient instruments of the conciliar revolution and the coming neo-church.
Jesuit Obsequium and the Architecture of Conciliar Subversion
Personal Cult of an Antipope in the Name of Ignatian Obedience
On the surface, the text appears pious, concise, almost harmless. John XXIII greets Jesuits from various provinces, commends their work for the “glory of God,” and especially extols their special vow to serve the Apostolic See with singular obedience. Key affirmations:
“We know that the members of the Ignatian family diligently labour to increase the glory of God and procure the advantage of souls; and in those territories to which the adorable will of God has led Us, we have found their industrious hands.”
“But we rejoice still more that the chief mark of your Order consists in fidelity to the Roman See of Peter. For by adding that fourth vow, your Lawgiver wished you to strive for religious virtue by this path also: that you might serve the Apostolic See with singular obedience.”
The allocution reduces the highest distinctive note of the Society of Jesus to visible loyalty to the person of John XXIII and his successors in the conciliar line. The underlying thesis is transparent: Ignatian identity is fulfilled precisely by unconditional submission to the occupant of the Roman See—who, in 1961, is already preparing the aggiornamento of Vatican II, i.e. the very revolution condemned in root and principle by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine, the entire discourse is mortally poisoned at its foundation:
– The “Apostolic See” here is not invoked as the infallible guardian of *traditio ab Apostolis tradita* (tradition handed down from the Apostles), but as the living source and criterion of any future change—preparing the Society to serve as docile executors of novelties.
– The personalist exaltation of John XXIII as “Successor of Peter” functions as an ideological lever to invert the Ignatian principle: instead of *obedientia in fide* (“obedience in the faith”), we see the demand for faith in whatever the new “magisterium” will promulgate, regardless of continuity.
Integral Catholic theology, however, has always maintained: a Pope is the servant and guardian of the deposit, not its author. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors rejects the notion that the Church or the Roman Pontiff may “adapt” dogma to liberal modernity or submit faith to autonomous reason. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi* anathematizes precisely the modernist conception of living, evolving doctrine that John XXIII’s pontificate would unleash. When the man publicly inaugurating this condemned program demands the explicit, structural allegiance of the Jesuits via their fourth vow, he weaponizes a venerable instrument of faith to enthrone apostasy.
Here lies the central perversion of this allocution: **Ignatian obedience is invoked not to defend the immutable Faith, but to guarantee the unhindered advance of its mutation.**
Factual Level: From Militant Order to Auxiliary Corps of Aggiornamento
The text itself is short, yet densely loaded with signals:
1. John XXIII reminds the Jesuits of their worldwide presence and praises their “operous hands” in those regions “to which the will of God has led Us.” This ties their apostolate directly to his geopolitical and ecclesial agenda.
2. He singles out:
– formation of youth,
– “sacred expeditions” and exercises,
as privileged fields of their work.
But what follows historically and theologically from this?
– In the very years surrounding this allocution, the Jesuit order in fact becomes one of the main vectors of theological modernism, liberationism, ecumenism, religious indifferentism, and the anthropocentric inversion of the supernatural end of man.
– The later devastation—catechetical collapse, dissolution of religious discipline, relativization of dogma—does not contradict the spirit of this address; it unfolds from its principles. John XXIII does not warn, does not delimit, does not recall them to the Tridentine, anti-liberal, anti-modernist vocation exemplified by pre-1958 Popes and by saints of the Order. Instead, he offers them broad, sentimental approval precisely as they are being prepared to support the coming Council.
Against the norm of perennial doctrine, several glaring omissions and distortions emerge:
– No reference to the solemn anti-modernist condemnations of St. Pius X (*Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*), which directly bind theologians, including Jesuits.
– No reaffirmation of the condemnations of liberalism, religious freedom, indifferentism, socialism, and secret societies as in Pius IX’s Syllabus; no reminder that these errors are mortal dangers.
– No clear assertion of the exclusive salvific necessity of the Catholic Church and of submission to Christ the King in public and private life, as taught in Pius XI’s *Quas Primas*, where peace is “only possible in the kingdom of Christ” and where states are obliged to recognize His social Kingship.
Instead, he speaks vaguely of:
“that great work which is the continuous desire and concern of our soul: that sincere piety may flourish anew in all classes of citizens, that incorrupt moral health may prevail, and that secure truth may shine forth.”
This naturalistic triad—“piety,” “morals,” “truth”—is left undefined. No doctrinal content, no explicit anti-error orientation, no insistence on the integral dogmatic faith as the sole source of true piety and morality. It is precisely the sort of abstract language that allows the substitution of modernist “religious feeling” and moralism for supernatural, dogmatic Catholicism.
Integral Catholic teaching does not recognize a contentless “piety” or a vague “moral health” as sufficient. The Church always bound salvation and virtue to:
– supernatural faith in all revealed truths,
– sacramental life in the state of grace,
– subjugation of intellect and will to defined dogma,
– public recognition of Christ’s Kingship and the rights of the Church.
The allocution’s silence on these non-negotiable points unmasks its function: to encourage maximal affective obedience to the person of John XXIII while methodically evacuating the doctrinal substance that would limit his planned innovations.
Linguistic Level: Sentimentalism as a Vehicle of Revolution
The rhetoric of the allocution is revealing:
– “Dilecti filii” (Beloved sons),
– “paternal discourse,”
– “sweetest consolation,”
– “we cannot but draw the sweetest solace,”
– “omens of love and exhortations.”
The language is dripping with affective paternalism, almost entirely lacking doctrinal density. This is not the virile, juridically precise, doctrinally armed voice of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, or Pius XI. It is a soft, enveloping tone that:
– flatters obedience without defining its object in terms of immutable dogma,
– praises zeal without specifying its direction against concrete errors,
– amplifies the image of the “Successor of Peter” as a benevolent father whose desires themselves are the horizon of Jesuit mission.
This style is not neutral. It is a strategy. *Modernismus larvatus prodit* (modernism advances masked). Condemned modernist methodology, as Pius X exposed, seeks to avoid sharp definitions and anathemas, preferring:
– elastic formulations,
– emphasis on “life,” “experience,” “love,”
– reduction of dogma to background.
Here, John XXIII:
– never mentions the binding anti-modernist oath (then in force),
– does not recall the Jesuits’ historic duty to defend the papacy precisely by resisting doctrinal novelties,
– transforms the fourth vow into an emotional oath of allegiance to his person and policies.
The repeated appeal to “peace,” “joy,” “piety,” “honour,” without doctrinal weaponry, is symptomatic of the humanistic cult later exploding in the conciliar sect: the Church of “dialogue,” “openness,” “mercy,” detached from the hard edges of dogma, anathema, and the Kingship of Christ over states.
This sentimental register, empty of anti-error precision, serves as a linguistic anesthesia. It disarms precisely that Ignatian discernment and militancy that should have risen up the moment the usurping project against Tradition emerged.
Theological Level: Obedience Severed from the Deposit of Faith
The theological center of this allocution is the exaltation of the Ignatian “fourth vow” of special obedience to the Roman Pontiff with respect to missions. John XXIII states that:
“By adding that fourth vow, your lawgiver wished you to strive for religious virtue also by this way: namely, that you might serve the Apostolic See with singular obedience, and dedicate to it your minds, strengths, and wills.”
Authentic doctrine: Obedience is a moral virtue ordered to God and bounded by divine and ecclesiastical law. It is never blind, arbitrary subjection to personal will when that will departs from the faith. The Fathers and classical theologians are clear:
– A superior cannot command sin or error; if he does, *non est obediendum* (he must not be obeyed).
– The Pope himself is bound to transmit what he has received; he is not a charismatic source of new religion.
St. Robert Bellarmine, invoked even in serious sedevacantist disputations, affirms that a manifest heretic cannot be Pope, since he is outside the Church and cannot be her head. The pre-1958 doctrinal tradition, including the 1917 Code (canon 188.4), affirms that public defection from the faith causes loss of office *ipso facto*.
This allocution, however, conditions the Jesuits to the opposite logic:
– Your holiness consists in dedicating mind and will to whatever the “Apostolic See” (understood concretely as John XXIII and his apparatus) indicates.
– Your glory is fidelity not first to the defined dogma, but to the conciliar “Successor.”
In the context of the coming Council, this is a theological booby-trap. Once obedience is relocated from *fides tradita* (the faith handed down) to “current pontifical orientation,” Jesuits are theologically primed to:
– accept religious liberty against *Quanta Cura*,
– accept ecumenism against the Syllabus and against the dogma of the one Church,
– accept the new “Mass” against dogmatic teaching on the Sacrifice,
– engage in “dialogue” with socialism, communism, Islam, and heresy in flat contradiction to prior condemnations.
The allocution nowhere binds this obedience to the objective criterion of Tradition. No reference to the dogmatic immutability of doctrine, no insistence that any future “council” must merely confirm what has always and everywhere been taught. Silence here is deadly.
According to integral Catholic theology, this is an ecclesiological inversion:
– *Lex credendi* (law of belief) no longer governs *lex oboedientiæ*;
– instead, obedience to a living authority is used to invert belief.
Thus the Jesuits are summoned, under the Ignatian banner, not to defend the Church against modernism, but to serve as shock troops of the very system that St. Pius X identified as “the synthesis of all heresies.”
Symptomatic Level: Jesuit Collaboration with the Conciliar Sect
This allocution is not an isolated courtesy; it is emblematic of the post-1958 strategy:
1. Capture or neutralize those forces historically most capable of defending orthodoxy (Dominicans, Jesuits, Roman theologians).
2. Subtly reformulate their charisms as unconditional support for contemporary papal initiatives.
3. Deploy them in formation, academia, media, and missions to spread the new doctrines.
The address to the Jesuits fulfills all three:
– It confirms them in seeing their specific vocation in personal support of John XXIII.
– It gives lavish, unqualified praise—no warnings, no condemnations, no doctrinal fences.
– It sends them back to their provinces with papal benediction as carriers of the “great work” of refashioning religious life and apostolate according to the soon-to-be-conciliar lines.
The catastrophic fruits are undeniable and historically verifiable:
– A global Jesuit role in:
– promoting religious freedom and denial of the confessional state, directly repudiated by the Syllabus;
– advancing historical-critical exegesis that undermines the inerrancy and supernatural inspiration of Scripture, condemned in *Lamentabili*;
– dissolving missionary zeal by teaching that non-Catholic religions are “ways of salvation” or “dialogue partners”;
– participating in political, socialist, and revolutionary movements contrary to Leo XIII and Pius XI’s encyclicals.
The allocution, in its euphemistic and affectionate tone, is an early macro-code: the Society of Jesus is expected to cooperate with the conciliar sect’s project of naturalizing and liberalizing the faith. No mention of the Masonic assault detailed by Pius IX; no call to resist the world’s spirit; only a gentle conformity to the soon-to-be triumphant paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican.
Silence About Christ the King and the Social Order: An Omission That Condemns
Strikingly, when John XXIII speaks of piety, morals, and “truth” among all “classes of citizens,” he does not:
– proclaim the binding doctrine of Christ’s social Kingship as forcefully enunciated in *Quas Primas*;
– denounce laicism, religious indifferentism, or the separation of Church and State reproved by Pius IX;
– remind Jesuits of their duty to oppose legislation contrary to divine and natural law;
– reaffirm that civil rulers must publicly adore and obey Christ and His Church.
Instead, the vocabulary remains horizontal:
– “all classes of citizens,”
– “moral health,”
– “secure truth” (undefined).
This is fully aligned with the conciliar drift toward:
– religious liberty as a civil right for error,
– ecumenical relativization of the one true Church,
– democracy of “the People of God” against hierarchical, juridical order.
Silence about the public rights of Christ the King is no minor oversight; it is a betrayal of the integral Catholic faith. Pius XI explicitly instituted the feast of Christ the King to combat precisely the secularism and laicism that would later be acclaimed under the banner of Vatican II. To address the world’s leading teaching order in 1961 without arming them with *Quas Primas* is to tacitly prepare their complicity in its negation.
Misuse of Scripture: Gloss without the Sword of Dogma
John XXIII inserts several scriptural citations:
– Proverbs 4:18: “the path of the just as a shining light…”
– Matthew 5:16: “that they may see your good works…”
– Baruch 5:4: “the name given to you by God forever…”
– 2 Corinthians 13:11: “rejoice… and the God of peace will be with you.”
All of them are consoling, luminous, irenic. None invokes:
– warnings about false prophets or wolves in sheep’s clothing,
– the necessity of guarding the deposit (*depositum custodi*),
– the condemnation of heresy and the command to separate from error (*nihil commune luci ad tenebras*),
– judgment, hell, or divine wrath against apostasy.
This selective use of Scripture mirrors modernist method: retain soft, universal moral texts; discard or mute those that uphold dogmatic intolerance of error. Pius X condemned such manipulation, where revelation is bent to fit contemporary sensibilities.
True Catholic preaching to a powerful order on the eve of a council would have:
– recalled them to their vow to defend the Faith and the Papacy against all innovation,
– warned against philosophical and theological trends condemned in *Lamentabili* and the Syllabus,
– armed them to resist human respect, liberal states, and masonic infiltration.
John XXIII offers benign moral encouragement detached from doctrinal militancy. This is not a neutral homiletic choice; it is the linguistic signature of the emergent neo-church.
From Ignatius’ Militia Christi to the Auxiliary of the Neo-Church
The true Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius, was conceived as:
– a disciplined, doctrinally exact, sacrificial militia at the direct disposal of a truly Catholic Pope,
– a spearhead against Protestantism, heresy, and paganism,
– a school of spiritual combat based on *discernment of spirits* and strict orthodoxy.
This allocution recodes that identity in three subtle but devastating steps:
1. The heart of their identity is recast as affective loyalty to John XXIII personally.
2. The mission is described in terms so general—“piety,” “morals,” “truth”—that the impending modernist reinterpretation easily fits within.
3. The absence of any reference to the concrete anti-liberal, anti-modernist doctrine of earlier Popes implies that fidelity to the “Roman See” now means acceptance of a rupture disguised as continuity.
Thus:
– **What is omitted is the loudest accusation.**
– There is no call to guard the deposit;
– no mention of heresy, modernism, Freemasonry, indifferentism, socialism, or secularism as mortal enemies;
– no appeal to the Syllabus or *Lamentabili*;
– no reminder of the Church’s rights over states and societies;
– no insistence on the absolute necessity of the true Faith and true sacraments for salvation.
In the light of integral Catholic doctrine, such omissions in a strategic, programmatic address are not innocent. They are constitutive of the theological bankruptcy of the conciliar project.
Conclusion: The Allocution as Symptom and Tool of Systemic Apostasy
Taken in isolation, the allocution is short and superficially edifying. Read in continuity with the pre-1958 Magisterium and in the light of what followed, it is a clear specimen of the conciliar sect’s method:
– Elevate personal obedience to an office-holder without binding that obedience to the immutable content of faith.
– Employ sentimental, paternal rhetoric stripped of doctrinal precision and anathema.
– Redirect a historically militant order from dogmatic combat to accommodating service of an unfolding revolution.
– Maintain absolute silence on the real enemies repeatedly denounced by true Popes: modernism, liberalism, religious indifferentism, laicism, masonic conspiracies, and false freedom of cult.
Against the norm codified by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, such a text cannot be reconciled with the integral Catholic faith. It is a soft-spoken instrument of demolition: an attempt to transmute Ignatian obedience into complicity with a paramasonic, anthropocentric neo-church that enthrones man, disarms dogma, and dethrones Christ the King in public and private life.
Any genuine heir of St. Ignatius, bound by the faith of all ages, must see in such rhetoric not a call to holiness, but a call to servility before an antichristic program; and must therefore reject the conciliar sect’s abusive appeal to the fourth vow, returning instead to unwavering obedience to the perennial, pre-1958 Magisterium of the true Church of Christ.
Source:
Ad quosdam Societatis Iesus sodales coram admissos (die 1 m. Octobris, A. D. MCMLXI) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025