Quandoquidem this brief Latin constitution of John XXIII announces two administrative acts for the diocese of Calahorra and Calceatensia in Spain: the addition of the title “Logroñensis” to the diocesan name, and the elevation of the Marian church “de la Redonda” in Logroño to the dignity of a concathedral, with corresponding canonical rights and obligations; the entire text is couched in solemn canonical formulae, invoking episcopal care for souls as the pretext for territorial and titular adjustment, while never once touching the true crisis of faith, morals, or worship engulfing the 20th century Church.

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Administrative Cosmetics at the Dawn of Revolution

At first glance, this constitution appears to be a harmless, even banal, technical act of ecclesiastical administration: a diocese, growing in importance through population and industry, receives a modified title; a prominent church becomes a concathedral; the local ordinary is granted the possibility of residence in Logroño; canons may exercise their office in the new concathedral.

Yet it is precisely in such seemingly minor texts that the spirit of the emerging neo-church reveals itself: meticulous care for structures, prestige, bilateral agreements with secular powers, and concordats—while a deadly silence reigns over the advance of apostasy, Modernism, and masonic penetration already denounced by pre-1958 popes in the clearest terms.

This act must therefore be read not in isolation, but as a symptom: at the very threshold of the conciliar upheaval, the one presented as Supreme Pontiff limits himself to rearranging labels, while the foundations of the Catholic order—and of Spain as a bastion of the Faith—are being methodically prepared for demolition.

Factual Level: What This Constitution Does – and What It Ostensibly Ignores

The text accomplishes, in essence, four juridical moves:

1. It joins the title “Logroñensis” to the diocese of Calagurris and Calceatensia:

“Calaguritanae et Calceatensis Ecclesiae nomini appellationem adiungimus Logrognensem, ita ut sive dioecesis sive eius Episcopus in posterum utraque cumulate denominatione appellentur.”

(We add the appellation Logroñensis to the name of the Church of Calahorra and Calceatensia, so that henceforth both the diocese and its bishop shall be named cumulatively.)

2. It elevates the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary “de la Redonda” in Logroño to concathedral rank:

“templum B. Mariae Virginis ‘de Redonda’ in urbe Logrofio ad dignitatem concathedralis evehimus, cum iuribus et honoribus, oneribus et obligationibus huiusmodi sacrarum aedium propriis.”

3. It permits the diocesan bishop to reside in Logroño and allows canons and beneficiaries working there to perform canonical duties in the concathedral.

4. It mandates execution through the nuncio Antoniutti, explicitly subordinating the act to the bilateral concordat arrangements between the Holy See and Spain (1953), and reinforces its binding force with the typical clauses of nullity for any attempt to contravene it.

On the factual surface: nothing explicitly heterodox, no direct doctrinal deviation. That is precisely why a deeper analysis is essential. For the poison of the conciliar revolution is not in this or that single administrative move, but in the ensemble: in what is emphasized, in what is assumed, and above all in what is criminally omitted.

Selective Solicitude: Structures without Supernatural Combat

The opening lines invoke a pious premise:

“Quandoquidem quaelibet Ecclesia in id constituitur ut fidelium greges per Episcoporum curas, labores atque sollicitudines, divinae redemptionis fructibus perceptis, facilius ad aeterna limina iter suum dirigere possint…”

(Whereas every Church is established so that, through the care, labours and solicitude of bishops, the flocks of the faithful, having received the fruits of divine Redemption, may more easily direct their path to the eternal threshold…)

The words are outwardly orthodox. But they function as a veil. For:

– There is no mention of the concrete supernatural conditions of salvation: *state of grace, integrity of faith, avoidance of heresy, worthy reception of the sacraments, necessity of submission to the perennial magisterium*.
– There is no reference to the battle against the very errors solemnly denounced by Pius IX in the *Syllabus Errorum* and by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi Dominici Gregis*: *liberalism, rationalism, Modernism, religious indifferentism, masonic sects*.
– There is total silence regarding the grave duty, emphasized by Pius XI in *Quas Primas*, that Christ must reign socially and politically over nations; yet the constitution itself is explicitly harmonized with a political concordat and treats the Church almost as a contracting partner within a modern nation-state apparatus.

This silence is not neutral. It is symptomatic. While pre-1958 pontiffs continually armed the faithful against the world’s errors, here the supposed successor of Pius XII restricts himself to safe, technical, non-combative language. The result is a pseudo-pious technocracy: *cura animarum* reduced to cartographic and honorific adjustments.

In the integral Catholic understanding, *lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi* (the law of prayer, belief, and life) is unified. When “pontifical” acts cease to express militant confession against prevalent errors, and content themselves with institutional management, they no longer exercise the office as defined by Christ and His Church, but prepare the transformation of that office into a purely bureaucratic function.

Linguistic Level: Bureaucratic Sacralism as Mask of Deviation

The rhetoric of this constitution is precise, formulaic, juridical, and apparently traditional:

– Repeated invocation of *Nostra apostolica auctoritas* (Our apostolic authority).
– Use of severe clauses: those who oppose shall incur penalties; documents contrary to these dispositions are null and void.
– Emphasis on canonical form: delegation through the nuncio, transcription, communication to the Consistorial Congregation, validation of authentic copies.

However, beneath this formal continuity lies a decisive mutation in emphasis:

1. The Church is presented primarily as an administrative organism whose “ordination and disposition” must become “in dies aequior” (ever more balanced), a technocratic ideal harmonized with the modern state, rather than as the *Militia Christi* engaged in doctrinal, moral, and liturgical combat against a world in objective hatred of God.

2. The reference to the 1953 Concordat with Spain is not accompanied by any reaffirmation that the state must recognize the exclusive truth of the Catholic religion and reject errors, as Pius IX and Leo XIII repeatedly taught. Instead, state agreements appear as neutral frameworks for organizational adjustments—an early symptom of the conciliar conception of Church–state “dialogue” and religious coexistence.

3. The vocabulary of this text, seen within the continuum of John XXIII’s acts, prefigures the conciliar style: gentle, administrative, avoiding denunciations of concrete contemporary heresies, preparing the faithful psychologically to accept a council that would later enthrone principles condemned by the *Syllabus* (notably religious liberty and ecumenism).

The sacral legal verbiage functions as *sacralised bureaucracy*: it borrows the solemn clothing of tradition to authorize decisions taken in an already altered mental framework, oriented not toward the defense of the Deposit of Faith, but toward adaptation to “modern man” and his political forms.

Theological Level: Rupture Hidden under Continuity of Form

From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, several theological problems emerge, not in the explicit decrees, but in their context, presuppositions, and omissions.

1. Absence of the Primacy of the Social Kingship of Christ

Pius XI in *Quas Primas* taught that true peace and order are possible only when individuals and states submit publicly to the reign of Christ; he condemned secularism and the exclusion of Christ from public law as a “plague” devastating nations.

In this constitution:

– The flourishing of Logroño is described in purely natural terms: inhabitants, industry, geographical opportunity.
– No supernatural evaluation: Is the growth Catholic? Are errors spreading? Is the city honoring Christ the King in its laws, education, morals?
– The decision is justified as a response to demographic and economic prominence, as if ecclesiastical dignity were the reflection of temporal development.

This mentality inverts the hierarchy taught by the Church: instead of the Church judging the world by the law of Christ, ecclesiastical structures adapt their honors to the criteria of worldly importance. It is a subtle but real betrayal of *Quas Primas*.

2. Silence on Modernist Errors Denounced by St. Pius X

St. Pius X, in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*, condemned the thesis that the Church must accommodate itself to modern thought, that dogma evolves, that ecclesiastical structures are purely historical products, that discipline and magisterium should reflect democratic or sociological pressures.

The period of 1959 is the very hour when such tendencies, long condemned, were advancing openly among clergy and theologians. An authentic Vicar of Christ, shaped by the anti-Modernist magisterium, would:

– Link every act of governance to the defense of the Deposit of Faith.
– Warn bishops and faithful about Modernist infiltration.
– Bind administrative changes to explicit reaffirmations of doctrinal and liturgical intransigence.

Instead, this constitution behaves as though there were no doctrinal war, no anti-Christian sects (which Pius IX unequivocally identified as engines of revolution and persecution), no need to recall the faithful to vigilance. This is not a neutral omission; it signifies the abandonment of the sovereign duty of the Roman Pontiff.

3. Technicization of Episcopal Authority

The document grants the bishop the right to reside in Logroño and delineates the functions of canons in the new concathedral. Yet it never once reminds that the bishop’s first duty is to preserve intact the *fides quae tradita est* (the faith which has been handed down), to oppose error, to guard the Most Holy Sacrifice, to ensure orthodoxy in preaching and catechesis.

The episcopate is treated as if its essence were geographical and ceremonial adjustment, not sacrificial and doctrinal guardianship. This reduction prepares the episcopate that will, a few years later, largely collaborate with the conciliar demolition of Catholic worship and doctrine.

Symptomatic Level: Anodyne Decrees as Preludes to Apostasy

It would be naïve to isolate this constitution from the person and program of John XXIII.

This text is dated March 9, 1959, shortly after his announcement (January 25, 1959) of the council that would become Vatican II. At the precise moment when:

– the ramparts erected by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII against liberalism, Modernism, and masonry should have been strengthened,
– the errors condemned in the *Syllabus* and *Lamentabili* were bursting into theology faculties and episcopal conferences,

the supposed successor of Peter devotes his solemn authority to:

– adjusting a diocesan title,
– elevating a concathedral,
– aligning all with a national concordat,
– threatening canonical penalties not against heresy, not against profanation, not against worldly governments that trample Christ’s rights, but against anyone who might contest his minor administrative rearrangement.

This is the inversion: ferocity of form where harmless, indulgence where deadly.

Where Pius IX and St. Pius X anathematized the principles of liberalism and Modernism, John XXIII’s early acts manifest a mentality of accommodation and bureaucracy. The continuity of chancery Latin and canonical formulas conceals a discontinuity of intention: *from defending the Deposit of Faith to managing an institution destined to make its peace with condemned errors.*

The Role of Concordats and State Criteria: Ecclesiology Tilted toward Naturalism

The text explicitly situates the decision “servatis sollemnibus Conventionibus” (observing the solemn Conventions) between the Apostolic See and Spain (1953). From the vantage point of pre-1958 magisterium:

– The Church may conclude concordats when they secure her liberty and the recognition of the true religion.
– However, the Church cannot subordinate her internal structuring of dioceses and sacred dignities to the logic of modern state administration or demographic technocracy.

Here, the flourishing of Logroño “incolis, industriis, loci opportunitate” becomes a key justification. There is no reminder that the dignity of a cathedra primarily reflects its role as center of orthodox teaching and sanctifying worship, not as a mirror of economic or political prominence.

This naturalistic criterion is the same logic that will later legitimize:

– the dissolution of Catholic states in the name of pluralism;
– the reduction of the Church to “people of God” dispersed democratically;
– the elevation of pastoral convenience over doctrinal rigor;
– the transformation of the sanctuary into a community hall.

*Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem* (what pleases the ruler has the force of law) is here, in effect, replaced in Church life by what pleases the modern state and its demographic statistics. Yet, Pius IX in the *Syllabus* condemned the notion that the state is the source of all rights and that the Church’s rights derive from civil law. The silent adaptation present in this constitution contradicts that condemnation in its presuppositions.

Harsh Threats for Trifles, Tolerance for Real Enemies

The conclusion of the constitution is loaded with strong juridical threats:

“Quapropter si quis, quavis praeditus auctoritate, sive sciens sive insciens contra egerit ac Nos ediximus, id prorsus irritum atque inane haberi iubemus… Quae Nostra decreta in universum si quis vel spreverit vel quoquo modo detrectaverit, sciat se poenas esse subiturum iis iure statutas, qui Summorum Pontificum iussa non fecerint.”

(Therefore, if anyone, invested with whatever authority, knowingly or unknowingly acts against what We have decreed, We order that it be considered utterly null and void… Whoever despises or in any way rejects these Our decrees, let him know that he will incur the penalties established in law for those who do not obey the commands of the Supreme Pontiffs.)

Such legal severity would be fitting—indeed necessary—if directed against:

– deniers of the Real Presence,
– propagators of Modernism,
– those profaning the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– governments persecuting the Church,
– sects condemned by prior magisterium.

But here this language is expended to protect:

– the addition of “Logroñensis” to a diocesan title,
– the honorary elevation of a Marian shrine to concathedral rank.

This disproportion is revealing. It manifests a governing style that preserves juridical rigor where it is harmless, while the same regime will soon prove indulgent—if not complicit—toward doctrinal subversion and liturgical sacrilege. The apparatus of canonical authority is maintained externally, but emptied of its true object: the guarding of the immutable Faith.

Omissions as Indictment: The Missing Supernatural Dimension

What is not said in this constitution accuses it more than what is said.

– No call to deeper confession of the Catholic faith amid growing errors.
– No exhortation to defend the integrity of the sacraments.
– No insistence on the uncompromising preaching of the necessity of the Church for salvation.
– No warning against the ideological currents corrosive of Spain: laicism, socialism, masonry—all clearly unmasked by pre-1958 magisterium.
– No reminder of the duty of public authorities to recognize and defend the reign of Christ and the rights of His Church.

The Church of the martyrs, of Trent, of the anti-Modernist oath, when acting in diocesan matters, habitually inserted reminders of salvation, judgment, orthodoxy, and moral discipline. Here instead we have:

– a merely organizational narrative;
– a purely structural optimism;
– a bland, bureaucratic supernaturalism that never descends to specific obligations of faith and morals.

Such silence paves the way for the neo-church, in which “structures” survive as a shell while content—dogma, liturgy, asceticism—is progressively evacuated.

From Concathedrals to the Cult of Man: A Coherent Trajectory

Seen within the entire arc of post-1958 events, this constitution is an early brick in the edifice of the conciliar and post-conciliar anti-church:

– A “pope” who, instead of intensifying the war on Modernism, announces a council which will enshrine principles explicitly condemned by the *Syllabus*.
– A chancery that continues to issue documents in the old style, but applies that authority to adaptations favorable to the modern world and its categories.
– Bishops increasingly formed not as defenders of immutable doctrine, but as administrators, diplomats, facilitators of interconfessional coexistence.

The elevation of “de la Redonda” to concathedral dignity—while ignoring the mounting crisis in belief, worship, and morals—is emblematic:

– It honours a Marian temple in words, while preparing the ecclesial climate in which Marian devotion will be exploited sentimentally, manipulated politically, or instrumentalized for ecumenical and naturalistic visions, rather than as a bulwark of doctrinal intransigence.
– It associates canonical honors with urban prominence, as if ecclesial dignity should mirror socio-economic relevance, not fidelity to the full Deposit of Faith.

Thus, this constitution does not preserve Catholic Tradition; it anesthetizes it. It is part of the process by which the external forms of authority were retained long enough to legitimize the coming revolution, to make the conciliar sect appear as organic growth rather than the usurpation and occupation denounced in substance by prior papal teaching on liberalism, naturalism, and secret societies.

Conclusion: The Bankruptcy Behind the Chancery Latin

Measured solely by pre-1958 Catholic doctrine:

– The acts decreed here—change of diocesan name, concathedral elevation—could in themselves be legitimate, provided they were embedded in a coherent program of supernatural governance for the salvation of souls and the defense of the faith.
– In the concrete historical and theological context, under John XXIII, they exemplify a governance that:
– Masks its abandonment of militant orthodoxy with traditional legal formulas.
– Aligns ecclesiastical structures more closely with modern state and demographic logic, without reaffirming Christ’s absolute social Kingship.
– Expends juridical energy on secondary matters, while remaining ominously silent about the modern errors ravaging the flock.

This is the essence of the spiritual and theological bankruptcy exposed here: not spectacular blasphemy, but quiet, systematic dereliction of the duties defined by the true Magisterium. By ignoring the war for souls and meticulously rearranging ecclesiastical labels, this constitution participates in the same movement that would soon overthrow the liturgy, obscure dogma, exalt humanism, and enthrone the conciliar anti-church in place of the visible structures of Catholicism.

Qui tacet consentire videtur (he who is silent is seen to consent): in the face of Modernism, masonic infiltration, and the coming cult of man, this silence—wrapped in solemn Latin and applied to administrative trifles—condemns the regime that issued it far more eloquently than its phrases were meant to suggest.

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Source:
Calaguritanae et Calceatensis – Constitutio Apostolica Dioecesi Calaguritanae et Calceatensi appellatio « Logrognensis» Iungitur. Templum Beatae Mariae Virginis « De Redonda » in eadem urbe exstans ad…   (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025