Apostolic Constitutions – Page 3

A solemn Catholic missionary scene in Bechuanaland with a Passionist priest and native converts under a crucifix.

KIMBERLEYENSIS ET ALIARUM (1959.04.02)

amdg / 2025-11-11

This Latin text, issued in 1959 by John XXIII under the title “CONSTITUTIO APOSTOLICA KIMBERLEYENSIS ET ALIARUM (BECHUANALANDENSIS),” rearranges ecclesiastical boundaries in Southern Africa: by detaching territories from the dioceses of Kimberley and Bulawayo and from the Apostolic Vicariate of Windhoek (entrusted respectively to Oblates of Mary Immaculate and Mariannhill missionaries), it erects a new Apostolic Prefecture of Bechuanaland, assigned to the Passionist Congregation, and vests its Ordinary with the usual canonical rights and duties; all is clothed in solemn legal formulas guaranteeing its binding force.

A reverent depiction of a cathedral chapter in Culiacán, Mexico, following the 1959 apostolic constitution 'Culiacanensis,' reflecting traditional Catholic liturgy and hierarchy.

Apostolic Constitutions

Culiacanensis (1959.04.06)

amdg / 2025-11-11

The presented Latin text is an April 6, 1959 apostolic constitution “Culiacanensis,” attributed to John XXIII, by which a collegiate chapter of canons is erected at the cathedral of Culiacán, Mexico. It details the number and offices of canons, their juridical framework under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, norms for stipends and endowments, liturgical obligations on certain feasts, and precise prescriptions for choir and extra-choir dress, delegating execution to the apostolic delegate and asserting full canonical force of the act under Roman authority. In reality, this juridically meticulous document is a pious-looking smokescreen: a consolatory ornament of “continuity” promulgated by a man who had already set in motion the conciliar revolution that would devastate precisely the hierarchical, liturgical, and canonical order he pretends here to defend.

A traditional Catholic image depicting the 1959 establishment of the Ruthenian Byzantine Exarchate in Munich by Angelo Roncalli

Apostolic Constitutions

Exarchia in Germania (1959.04.17)

amdg / 2025-11-11

This constitution of John XXIII establishes an apostolic exarchate in Germany for Ruthenian faithful of the Byzantine rite displaced by the Second World War, directly subject to the Apostolic See, with its seat in Munich and governed according to Eastern canonical traditions, with seminarians to be formed in Rome and the exarchal structures financed by the faithful and exarchate goods.

A Catholic bishop in traditional vestments holds a document titled 'Rhodesiae Septemtrionalis et Nyassaland' in a grand cathedral with stained-glass windows depicting Christ the King.

Apostolic Constitutions

RHODESIAE SEPTEMTRIONALIS ET NYASSALAND (1959.04.25)

amdg / 2025-11-11

The document issued under the name of Ioannes XXIII, “Rhodesiae Septemtrionalis et Nyassaland,” dated 25 April 1959, decrees the erection of two ecclesiastical provinces in British-controlled Central Africa (Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland), transforming several apostolic vicariates and prefectures into dioceses and metropolitan sees. It lists the new diocesan structures, assigns cathedrals and titles, transfers titular bishops to residential sees, subjects all to the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and lays down ordinary canonical norms for governance, seminaries, and diocesan consultors, claiming binding force under “supreme apostolic authority.”

Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral in N'Zérékoré, Guinea, elevated to a diocese in 1959, with Missionaries of Africa in procession.

Apostolic Constitutions

Nzerekoreensis (1959.04.25)

amdg / 2025-11-11

The text promulgated under the name of John XXIII, “Servant of the servants of God,” decrees the elevation of the Apostolic Prefecture of Nzérékoré in Guinea to the rank of diocese, maintains its territorial boundaries, subjects it as suffragan to Konakri while reserving its dependence on the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, designates N’Zérékoré as episcopal see with the church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary raised to cathedral status, entrusts governance to the Missionaries of Africa, outlines provisions for a diocesan seminary and chapter, and grants canonical faculties for execution. Behind a pious façade and missionary rhetoric, this act is one more juridical brick in the construction of a new, humanistic, territorial “church” preparing the conciliar revolution rather than defending the Kingdom of Christ the King.

A sedevacantist priest in traditional Catholic vestments holds the Luluaburgensis document in a solemn church setting with a map of the Belgian Congo's Apostolic Vicariates in the background.

Apostolic Constitutions

Luluaburgensis (1959.04.25)

amdg / 2025-11-11

The presented Latin text is the act by which John XXIII, at the very beginning of his usurped reign, decrees the territorial division of the Apostolic Vicariate of Luluaburg in the Belgian Congo and erects a new Apostolic Vicariate of Luebo, entrusted explicitly to an emerging indigenous clergy, with carefully delimited borders and full ordinary jurisdiction as a missionary circumscription; in a word, it is a geopolitical and bureaucratic redrawing of ecclesiastical lines under the appearance of missionary zeal. The entire document, although draped in pious phrases about the indefectible Kingdom of Christ, functions as an early programmatic signal of the coming conciliar revolution: the substitution of supernatural mission with administrative engineering, the instrumentalization of native clergy formation, and the quiet mutation of the Church’s visible structure under a man who had no authority to legislate in the Church of Christ.

A reverent depiction of Archbishop Paul Aijro Yamaguchi in Nagasaki's archdiocese in 1959, surrounded by clergy and laity amidst historic Catholic churches and martyrdom sites.

Apostolic Constitutions

Qui cotidie moerore (1959.05.04)

amdg / 2025-11-11

The document “Qui cotidie moerore,” issued by antipope John XXIII on 4 May 1959, outwardly establishes a new ecclesiastical province in Japan: Nagasaki is raised to a metropolitan archdiocese, and the dioceses of Fukuoka and Kagoshima are separated from Tokyo and made its suffragans. The text is framed as pastoral solicitude for the growth of the Church in Japan, praising its expansion and assigning juridical prerogatives to the new metropolitan see and its first incumbent, Paul Aijro Yamaguchi. However, behind this apparently technical administrative act stands the same poisoned principle that will soon explode at Vatican II: the transformation of ecclesiastical structures into instruments of a humanistic, horizontal, politically adaptable religion detached from the exclusive, public reign of Christ the King and from the militant, anti-modernist spirit defined by the pre-1958 Magisterium.

A traditional Catholic bishop in Ambatondrazaka, Madagascar, holding a papal decree from Pope St. Pius XII in front of the Sacred Heart Church.

Apostolic Constitutions

Ambatondrazakaensis (1959.05.21)

amdg / 2025-11-11

The presented constitution, attributed to A A A IOANNES PP. XXIII and dated 21 May 1959, announces the erection of the so‑called Diocese of Ambatondrazaka in Madagascar. It detaches specified territories from the sees of Diégo-Suarez and Tananarive, assigns the new circumscription as suffragan to Tananarive, entrusts it to the Trinitarian Order, regulates the location of the episcopal see, the designation of the cathedral (Sacred Heart of Jesus in Ambatondrazaka), seminary and chapter provisions, financial endowment, canonical administration, and delegates Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, then Apostolic Delegate in French Africa, to implement the decree. It is framed in pious imagery of the Church as a great tree spreading its branches over all nations, and claims supreme, binding authority for this administrative act.

A traditional Catholic image depicting the 1959 territorial restructuring of Mexican dioceses under John XXIII, highlighting the newly erected Diocese of San Andrés Tuxtla and the solemn Latin Mass in its cathedral.

Apostolic Constitutions

VERAE CRUCIS — TEHUANTEPECENSIS (1959.05.23)

amdg / 2025-11-11

The Latin text promulgated by John XXIII under the title “Verae Crucis — Tehuantepecensis (S. Andreae de Tuxtla)” announces the territorial dismemberment of the Archdiocese of Veracruz and the Diocese of Tehuantepec in Mexico and the erection of a new ecclesiastical circumscription: the Diocese of San Andrés Tuxtla, with defined municipal boundaries, its own cathedral, chapter to be erected, seminary, financial provisions, and subjection as suffragan to the metropolitan see of Veracruz; execution is entrusted to Apostolic Delegate Luigi Raimondi, with all usual juridical clauses of validity, derogation, and penalties. In a single sentence: this constitution is the bureaucratic self-assertion of a usurping structure already in departure from integral Catholic ecclesiology, dressing its growing apostasy in the forms of canonical normality.

A solemn Catholic bishop in traditional regalia stands before St. Joseph's Church in Tlaxcala, Mexico, surrounded by seminarians in cassocks, reflecting the establishment of the new Diocese of Tlaxcala in 1959.

Apostolic Constitutions

Christian Colonization of Mexico as Conciliar Power Play (1959.05.23)

amdg / 2025-11-11

Christianorum gregem… — already in the opening line of this apostolic constitution, John XXIII presents himself as the shepherd who, by an act of jurisdiction, carves a new diocesan structure — the so‑called Diocese of Tlaxcala — from the territories of Puebla (Angelorum) and Mexico City. The document delineates civil and ecclesiastical boundaries, designates Tlaxcala as episcopal seat with St Joseph’s church as cathedral, mandates at least an elementary seminary, channels chosen seminarians to the Roman Pius Latin American College, orders the erection of a chapter or, failing that, diocesan consultors, regulates benefices and property according to the 1917 Code, entrusts execution to the apostolic delegate, and cloaks everything in the solemn “perpetual” binding force of papal authority.