Addressing the Redemptorist superiors gathered in Rome in early 1963, John XXIII praises the institute’s growth and apostolic work, exhorts them to fidelity to their Rule and Constitutions, encourages prudent revision of these norms in light of “the needs of the times,” presents observance of the Rule as the path to sanctity and communal harmony, and urges prayers and sacrifices for the success of Vatican II.
The text is an address by antipope John XXIII on 8 December 1962, marking the close of the first session of the so‑called Second Vatican Council. He lyrically links Marian feasts to the Council, praises the spectacle of gathered bishops and civil representatives, justifies the slow procedural beginning, outlines the intersession work by commissions, and exalts hoped-for “new Pentecost,” aggiornamento, and a future flourishing of the “Council’s” reforms throughout the Church and even secular society.
John XXIII’s allocution of 7 December 1962, given at the close of the first session of Vatican II in St Peter’s Basilica, is a brief self-congratulatory address to the assembled council fathers. He praises their participation, speaks of “charity in truth” governing the sessions, extols the “spectacle” of the worldwide episcopate gathered in unity, recalls with emotion the torchlight event in St Peter’s Square, entrusts the work to the Immaculate Virgin, and defines the aim of the Council as that the Gospel be better known and ever more deeply permeate “every area of civil culture.” In one sentence: this soft, sentimental, theatrical monologue is the manifesto of a new, horizontal religion in which the Church adores its own visibility and prepares the replacement of the reign of Christ the King with the cult of conciliar man.
On 11 October 1962, John XXIII, presenting himself as “pope,” solemnly opened the so‑called Second Vatican Council at St Peter’s, praising past councils, proclaiming confidence in modern humanity, announcing a “pastoral” aggiornamento in doctrine’s mode of expression, rejecting “prophets of doom,” and declaring that the Church should prefer the “medicine of mercy” to the “weapons of severity,” while proposing to re-present Catholic teaching in ways adapted to the contemporary world and oriented toward a new conception of unity of the “human family.” In one stroke, he programmatically disarmed the Church’s guardianship of the deposit of faith and blessed the nascent neo-religion of post-conciliarism: this address is the programmatic manifesto of the conciliar revolution.
On June 20, 1962, John XXIII, at the close of the seventh session of the Central Preparatory Commission for Vatican II, delivers a triumphant allocution: he rejoices that three years of preparatory work have been completed; he recalls the “spark” of the council’s idea at St Paul Outside the Walls in 1959; he praises the commissions, laity, and experts; he presents the council as a “mystical tower” promising peace, abundance, unity, and renewal for the Church and the world; he exhorts the bishops to return home and inflame enthusiasm, prayer, and confidence in the approaching council, proposing meditations especially on the Gospel of John as spiritual preparation. The entire discourse is a serene self-congratulation of a new project that, under pious language, already displaces the divine constitution of the Church with a humanistic, democratized, media-driven enterprise — the embryo of the conciliar sect that would soon eclipse, in men’s eyes, the visible rights of Christ the King and the immutable Faith.
John XXIII’s allocution of 26 May 1962 to participants of the first international meeting on priestly vocations presents a serene, optimistic exhortation: delegates from all nations are thanked, difficulties are acknowledged but downplayed, and the solution is sought in prayer for “holy, wise, active priests” and in exemplary clergy whose virtues will attract youth to the seminary. The speech insists on confidence, rejects “lamentations,” and sketches a pious but deliberately simplified image of priestly life focused on moral example, moderated activity, and encouragement of vocations through family and parish witness.
In this short address of 12 May 1962, antipope John XXIII congratulates the Central Commission preparing Vatican II, praises their labors, expresses tranquil confidence and hope that the coming council—described with the now-familiar image of a “new Pentecost”—will bring abundant fruits for the Church and all humanity, warns discreetly against trusting too much in earthly institutions, and invokes St Paul as a model for their work in view of the “Kingdom of God,” concluding with his “apostolic blessing.” This apparently devout and benign speech is in reality a distilled manifesto of conciliar naturalism, sentimental optimism, and institutionalized ambiguity, preparing the way for the systematic dismantling of the visible reign of Christ the King and the subversion of the Catholic Church into the conciliar sect.
The allocution of John XXIII on 3 April 1962, delivered at the close of the fifth session of the Central Commission preparing Vatican II, is a short, ornate meditation in which he flatters the assembled members for their work, associates the preparation of the council with liturgical joy (*Laetare*, *Gaudete*), praises pluralistic debate among bishops, and outlines three focal areas: liturgy, missions, and means of social communication. He presents the council as a serene, pastoral aggiornamento that will renew ecclesiastical discipline, embrace modern technical progress, and respond to contemporary conditions without “hindering” sciences or arts. He crowns this with a symbolic reference to the “golden rose” as a prelude and good omen for the forthcoming council.
In this secret consistory address of 19 March 1962, John XXIII announces: remembrance of deceased cardinals; lamentations over global tensions and alleged violations of “fundamental freedoms”; the creation of ten new cardinals (including Suenens); and his decision that all cardinals, including deacons, are to receive episcopal consecration, presented as a historical and pastoral “fittingness” in view of the coming Vatican II.
Ioannes XXIII, in this allocution of 8 March 1962 to the members and consultors of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, praises their preparations for Vatican II, extols a universal “spiritual wind” moving East and West, invokes “love and benevolence” toward those “adorned with the Christian name” yet separated from Rome, and justifies erecting a special Secretariat to accompany them toward unity, presenting this work as harmonious with Trent and as a service to “all upright men who fear God” everywhere. The entire text, in its assumptions, vocabulary, and omissions, manifests not Catholic unity in the Kingship of Christ, but the programmatic dissolution of that Kingship into horizontal ecumenism and naturalistic universalism.
