Apostolic Letters – Antipope John XXIII

A group of bishops and clergy in a Vatican hall overseeing early media equipment, reflecting the Church's authority and moral guidance over cinema, radio, and television.

Boni Pastoris (1959.02.22)

amdg / 2025-11-12

The text under consideration is the motu proprio “Boni Pastoris” of John XXIII (22 February 1959), which reorganizes and strengthens the so-called Pontifical Commission for Cinematography, Radio, and Television, presenting modern audio-visual media as privileged instruments for forming consciences, promoting “culture,” coordinating national Catholic offices, and centralizing all these activities under a Roman structure aligned with Pius XII’s “Miranda prorsus.” It solemnly grants this body curial status, broad competencies, and a program of systematic engagement with cinema, radio, and television as normal and even exemplary means of apostolate.

Saints Cyril and Methodius kneeling in prayer before the Holy See, symbolizing their fidelity to Rome amid the conciliar revolution's distortions.

Apostolic Letters

MAGNIFICI EVENTUS (1963.05.11)

amdg / 2025-11-12

LA IOANNES PP. XXIII, the usurper known as John XXIII, addresses the bishops of Slavic nations on the 11th centenary of the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Great Moravia, praising their missionary work, their attachment to Rome, their use of the Slavic language in liturgy, and proposing them as patrons and models for contemporary efforts toward “unity,” especially in the context of the ongoing Vatican II and aspirations for reconciliation with the Eastern churches. The letter weaves together historical recollection, exhortations to devotion, and an ecumenical program, subtly employing the figures of Cyril and Methodius to legitimize the conciliar revolution and a new vision of “unity” detached from the integral, exclusive claims of the Catholic Church.

A solemn depiction of a Catholic church interior during May devotions, with a statue of Our Lady of the Rosary surrounded by kneeling faithful and clergy.

Apostolic Letters

Oecumenicum Concilium (1962.04.28)

amdg / 2025-11-12

Ioannes Roncalli, styling himself “John XXIII,” issues an apostolic letter urging the bishops and clergy of the neo-church to promote the Marian month of May and, above all, the recitation of the Rosary “for the happy outcome” of the so‑called Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. He wraps this appeal in sentimental Marian devotion, scriptural allusions to the Ascension and Pentecost, and pious exhortations about grace, holiness, charity, and the “Kingdom of God,” presenting the upcoming council as a “new Pentecost” meant to adapt (“aptabitur”) the Church’s structure to “the conditions of our times.”

Vietnamese bishops in traditional vestments praying in a historic Catholic church, symbolizing resistance to the conciliar revolution.

Apostolic Letters

Iam in Pontificatus (1961.01.14)

amdg / 2025-11-12

At the beginning of his usurped reign, John XXIII addresses the hierarchy in Vietnam to celebrate the establishment of a local episcopal hierarchy, praise the growth of Catholic numbers, glorify missionary efforts, and exhort Vietnamese clergy and laity to fidelity, cooperation with missionaries, social contribution, and civil loyalty, presenting this new structure as a sign of ecclesial maturity and divine favor. All of this apparently pious rhetoric serves one precise function: to consolidate the conciliar revolution in Asia by subjugating an emerging Church to the nascent neo-church of aggiornamento, sentimental Marianism, and political accommodation, thereby corrupting authentic apostolic mission at its root.

Apostolic Letters

Sacrarum Expeditionum (1961.03.20)

amdg / 2025-11-12

This Latin letter by John XXIII, issued on 20 March 1961 and titled “Sacrarum expeditionum,” congratulates the Indonesian hierarchy on the erection of a full episcopal structure (six ecclesiastical provinces) in place of former vicariates and prefectures, praises past missionaries and religious, highlights demographic and institutional growth (approximately 1.2 million “Catholics,” catechumens, native clergy, schools, hospitals, charitable initiatives), and presents this reorganization as a sign of divine favour, missionary maturity, and harmonious collaboration between foreign missionaries and local clergy, expected to benefit both the “Church” and the Indonesian nation. At the root of this apparently pious enthusiasm lies a programmatic substitution of the supernatural, conquering Kingship of Christ with a diplomatic, naturalistic cult of institutional expansion, national prestige, and conciliar humanism.

Catholic novena gathering in St. Peter's Basilica for the Second Vatican Council, with bishops in traditional liturgical vestments praying solemnly.

Apostolic Letters

CELEBRANDI CONCILII (1961.04.11)

amdg / 2025-11-12

Venerable Brothers are summoned to a novena and prayers to the Holy Ghost and to Mary and Joseph for the success of the projected Vatican II, so that, through abundant graces, the coming council may manifest the Church’s unity, truth and charity before the world and draw separated brethren into her bosom; the ceremony is to be crowned by episcopal consecrations in St Peter’s, the future council hall, as a visible pledge of missionary zeal and conciliar hope. In reality, this text is the pious-smelling prologue to a programmed demolition: under devotional varnish it inaugurates, in germ, the new cult of the conciliar revolution, the displacement of the true Magisterium by a paramasonic “spirit of the council,” and the preparation of souls for that abomination of desolation which will publicly enthrone man in the place of Christ the King.

John XXIII addressing Chinese bishops in St. Peter's Basilica, reflecting the tension between orthodox formulas and conciliar deviation in traditional Catholic imagery.

Apostolic Letters

Quotiescumque nobis (1961.06.29)

amdg / 2025-11-12

This Latin letter of John XXIII, addressed to Thomas Tien and the hierarchy of Taiwan on the erection of three new dioceses and the consecration of three Chinese bishops, presents itself as paternal encouragement and a celebration of hierarchical expansion and missionary zeal. It exalts the visibility of ecclesiastical structures, stresses communion with the Roman See as the condition of belonging to the Church, and reads the promotion of local bishops as a sign of the universal “Catholic” vitality and a pledge of future renewal in mainland China. In reality, this text is a programmatic monument of the new conciliar mentality: an ideological self‑canonization of the emerging neo‑church, masking the abandonment of integral doctrine under a triumphalist rhetoric of “mission,” “unity,” and “pastoral care.”

Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin Mary in Przemyśl, Poland, honored as a minor basilica by John XXIII in 1960

Apostolic Letters

Romanorum Pontificum (1960.01.09)

amdg / 2025-11-12

The document “Romanorum Pontificum” of 9 January 1960 is a Latin Apostolic Letter of John XXIII, by which he confers on the Latin cathedral of Przemyśl (dedicated to St John the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland) the title and privileges of a minor basilica, praising its Marian cult, historical dignity, architecture, and liturgical splendour, and decreeing that this act be firm and irrevocable. In reality, this seemingly pious legal gesture is a calculated brick in the architecture of the emerging conciliar sect, using Marian devotion and traditional forms to cloak an already operative usurpation of authority and the subversion of the true hierarchy of Christ the King.

A historic baroque cathedral in Ayacucho, Peru, elevated to a Minor Basilica, with a priest in traditional vestments and devout Catholics participating in a solemn Mass.

Apostolic Letters

Meritis laudibus (1960.01.15)

amdg / 2025-11-12

The text proclaims that John XXIII, invoking his alleged apostolic authority, elevates the 17th‑century cathedral church of Ayacucho in Peru, dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows, to the title and privileges of a Minor Basilica. He praises its baroque architecture, artistic ornaments, and liturgical dignity, presenting the concession as a stimulus to piety and a channel of divine graces, and ends with the usual solemn formula that his act is firm, valid, perpetual, and immune from contradiction.

Portuguese airmen kneeling in prayer before a radiant statue of Our Lady of the Air, symbolizing traditional Catholic devotion amid a spiritual crisis.

Apostolic Letters

Aligera Cymba (1960.01.15)

amdg / 2025-11-12

The document under consideration is a Latin apostolic letter issued by the usurper John XXIII on 15 January 1960, in which he proclaims the Blessed Virgin Mary under the popular invocation “Nossa Senhora do Ar” (“Our Lady of the Air”) as the celestial patroness of all Portuguese aeronautical personnel. It briefly recalls the spontaneous devotion of Portuguese airmen, notes the historic protection of Portugal by Our Lady, cites the petition of aeronautical authorities supported by Manuel Cardinal Gonçalves Cerejeira, and, invoking alleged apostolic authority, formally designates this Marian title as patron, extending to it the liturgical honors accorded to patrons of groups or orders.