The Latin text published under the name of John XXIII as the apostolic constitution “Liberopolitana” (11 December 1958) decrees a new ecclesiastical province in French Africa by elevating the see of Libreville (“Liberopolitana”) to metropolitan rank, detaching it from Brazzaville, assigning Mouila as suffragan, and conferring metropolitan status and insignia on Jean-Jérôme Adam, with execution entrusted to Marcel Lefebvre as Apostolic Delegate. The entire document is a cold, bureaucratic re‑zoning act—presented as pastoral solicitude—issued at the very threshold of the conciliar catastrophe by the first usurper of the Roman See, and it already manifests the juridical self‑confidence of a structure that had begun to separate hierarchical engineering from the integral confession of the Catholic faith.
Territorial Engineering at the Dawn of Apostasy
This constitution appears, at first glance, as a routine act of ecclesiastical administration: the erection of a metropolitan province, the re‑drawing of boundaries, confirmation of titles, pallium, and pontifical privileges. It bears all the formal trappings of pre‑conciliar canonical style, but it is signed by Angelo Roncalli, already notorious, from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, as the initiator of the conciliar revolution and the line of antipopes.
From the outset, therefore, we are not dealing with a neutral technicality. We are witnessing how the emerging *conciliar sect* clothes itself in traditional forms to prepare the future network of bishops that will ratify, implement, and enforce the coming doctrinal betrayal.
Administrative Formalism Detached from the Ends of the Church
On the factual level, the text:
– Justifies the creation of the new province by a generic invocation of the “supreme office” entrusted by God and of the need to order dioceses “according to circumstances of things and times,” so that Christian law may be spread more effectively and men enjoy supernal goods.
– Records the petition of Marcel Lefebvre for the elevation of Libreville and the constitution of a new province.
– Decrees:
– The erection of the ecclesiastical province of Libreville (*Liberopolitana*), with the archdiocese of Libreville as its metropolitan see.
– The suffraganeity of Mouila.
– The metropolitan dignity and privileges of Jean-Jérôme Adam.
– The faculty for the metropolitan to bear the cross and to receive the pallium.
– The delegation of execution to the Apostolic Delegate in French Africa.
– Employs the customary clauses of derogation, nullity of contrary acts, authenticity of copies, and threats of canonical penalties.
All this is canonically intelligible only on the assumption of a true Roman Pontiff and a hierarchy guarding the *depositum fidei*.
But by December 1958, that assumption is precisely what is in question. The author of this act is the same Roncalli who:
– Within weeks convoked the council that would enthrone religious liberty, ecumenism, and anthropocentric doctrines condemned by Pius IX in the *Syllabus Errorum* (1864) and by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi* (1907).
– Embodied the mentality that sought “aggiornamento” and reconciliation with “modern civilization,” precisely the proposition 80 condemned by Pius IX: “The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.” This proposition is anathematized; yet Roncalli’s entire program moves along that trajectory.
Thus, the apparent continuity of style masks a discontinuity of principle. *Forma manet, res mutatur* (the form remains, the reality changes).
Language of Piety as Veil for a Technocratic Mentality
On the linguistic level, the constitution is revealing.
1. It couches the re‑zoning in elevated phrases about:
– “the supreme office committed to us by God’s wisdom,”
– the need “ut efficacius christiana lex… proferatur” (that Christian law be spread more effectively),
– the faithful enjoying “supernorum copia bonorum” (the abundance of heavenly goods).
2. Yet it never once:
– Names explicitly the *Most Holy Sacrifice* as the heart of ecclesiastical life in the new province.
– Mentions the necessity of the *state of grace*, the danger of mortal sin, or the reality of eternal damnation.
– Calls the new hierarchy to defend the flock from heresy, Masonry, Islam, paganism, or syncretism — in a region where these dangers were (and are) concrete.
– Reaffirms the exclusive right of the Catholic Church as the one ark of salvation, contrary to condemned indifferentism.
This silence is not accidental. The text is a paradigm of administrative Catholicism already drained of militant supernatural consciousness. It manifests what Pius XI later exposes in *Quas Primas*: that when Christ’s Kingship over societies is not explicitly affirmed, it is tacitly denied. Pius XI teaches that peace and order will not be restored “as long as individuals and states refuse to recognize Christ’s rule,” insisting on public veneration and obedience to Christ the King in law, education, and all social life. Here, by contrast, an entire province is restructured without one word about the duty of colonial and post‑colonial authorities to subject their laws to Christ’s reign.
This bureaucratic tone, adorned with generic piety but devoid of precise doctrinal and ascetical exhortation, is symptomatic of a mentality that treats the Church as an institution to be “optimized” rather than as the militant and suffering Mystical Body, called to combat *modernismus*, secret societies, and the cult of man.
Theological Reduction: Juridical Acts Without Confession of Kingship
Measured by the immutable doctrine before 1958, several theological deficiencies and dangers emerge.
1. Separation of Jurisdiction from the Integral Confession of Faith
– True ecclesiastical jurisdiction is not an autonomous technical power. It is intrinsically ordered to confessing and defending the faith defined by Trent, Vatican I, and the prior Magisterium.
– Pius IX in the *Syllabus* rejects the idea that the Church is at the disposal of the state or of historical expediency, insisting that the Church is a “true and perfect society” endowed with rights from her Divine Founder (prop. 19 condemned error).
– St. Pius X in *Pascendi* identifies as modernist the project of reshaping Church structures to fit “the needs of the times,” when these “needs” are in fact the demands of unbelief.
The constitution justifies the changes primarily in terms of *temporum adiuncta* (circumstances of the times) and administrative congruence, without reaffirming that every such act is subordinated *formaliter* to the reign of Christ the King over peoples, laws, and rulers, as insisted upon in *Quas Primas*.
This reveals a practical naturalism: as long as external canonical form is preserved, the underlying doctrinal and spiritual orientation is not scrutinized.
2. The Omission of Militant Anti-Modernist Safeguards
– After the solemn condemnations in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*, any serious papal act touching the expansion of ecclesiastical structures—especially in mission territories—should explicitly warn against:
– doctrinal relativism,
– liberal democracy’s religious neutralism,
– masonic and syncretistic networks,
– the subordination of missionary work to geopolitical agendas.
– Instead, the text is mute. It entrusts execution to Marcel Lefebvre as delegate, but without charging him to defend the anti-modernist oath, to exclude innovators from offices, or to safeguard seminarians from condemned doctrines.
*Silentium de maximo est maxima accusatio* (Silence about what is greatest is the greatest indictment). At the very gate of the modernist onslaught, the supposed “supreme pastor” reorganizes the flock without one word about the wolves.
3. Instrumentalization of Episcopal Authority
– The constitution confers metropolitan dignity and privileges—carrying the cross, wearing the pallium—but frames these as formal honors, not as grave obligations to profess *integral* doctrine and to resist errors, including any emanating from Rome.
– Pre‑1958 theology, as summarized by St. Robert Bellarmine and later canonists, holds that a manifest heretic cannot hold office in the Church. The document, however, perpetuates a vision in which hierarchical promotion is detached from the visible and public integral confession of faith, paving the way for a network of compliant administrators ready to ratify the innovations of the coming council.
The tragedy is doubled when we note that such metropolitans and bishops, once formed in this mentality, later become instruments of the *neo‑church*, implementing the new rites and doctrines and persecuting those faithful who strive to adhere to the pre‑conciliar faith.
Propagating a Network for the Future Conciliar Sect
On the symptomatic level, this constitution must be read as a brick in the edifice of post‑conciliar usurpation.
1. Continuity of Form as Strategy of Rupture
– The document meticulously imitates the solemn style of authentic papal constitutions: derogatory clauses, threats against violators, validation of copies with ecclesiastical seals.
– This theatrical fidelity to external form masks the inner mutation already initiated by Roncalli’s orientation and by those who promoted him.
– Thus, *abusus formae* (abuse of form): the sacred legal form is hijacked and used to shore up the authority of men who will soon oppose in practice the prior condemnations of liberalism, religious indifferentism, and masonic influence.
2. Marcel Lefebvre: A Symptom of Controlled Opposition
– The role of Marcel Lefebvre here is emblematic. He is presented as the one who “earnestly requested” the elevation and is empowered to execute the restructuring.
– His later role as founder of a structure of those pretending to be traditional Catholics that:
– continued to recognize the conciliar antipopes,
– oscillated between submission and selective resistance,
– presented the issue as primarily liturgical and disciplinary (“give us the old Mass”) instead of doctrinal and juridical (invalidity of a manifestly modernist “papacy”),
shows how, already in 1958, a transitional figure is entrusted with weaving the future fabric of ambiguity.
– The constitutive violence here is subtle: a province is erected under a name (Roncalli) which, from the standpoint of unchanging doctrine on papal heresy, cannot guarantee true jurisdiction; at the same time, it involves a man who will later serve as a magnet for souls dissatisfied with the revolution, only to leave them in an unsolved contradiction.
The constitution therefore participates in the broader strategy: erect canonical facades that can be later colonized by the new religion, while neutralizing genuine resistance through compromised intermediaries.
3. Acquiescence to Post-Colonial Naturalism
– The African context intensifies the indictment. At a time of political transition and aggressive penetration of socialism, Freemasonry, and pan‑religious “dialogue,” a truly Catholic act would have:
– reaffirmed the exclusive salvific mission of the Church,
– condemned syncretistic cults and secret societies,
– insisted that newly shaped Catholic structures not become chaplains to secular nationalist ideologies.
– Instead, the constitution’s concern is purely structural. It is as if the Church’s mission were exhausted by institutional efficiency.
This absence harmonizes with the program of the coming council, which would enthrone religious freedom, dialogue, and the cult of human dignity in defiance of the *Syllabus* and *Quas Primas*, dissolving the public rights of Christ the King into a vague spiritual inspiration.
Direct Contradiction with Pre-Conciliar Magisterium on Church and State
To expose the spiritual bankruptcy more fully, it is crucial to contrast the ethos of this act with the doctrinal line running from Gregory XVI through Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI–XII.
1. Quas Primas (Pius XI, 1925) teaches that:
– Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ.
– Civil rulers and nations are bound to publicly acknowledge and serve Christ the King.
– The Church must remind states of their duty to conform legislation and education to divine law.
In the “Liberopolitana” constitution:
– No admonition is addressed to political authorities in whose territory this province stands.
– No mention is made of the obligation to purge public life from anti‑Christian laws and secret societies.
– The new province is not explicitly charged to promote the social reign of Christ, but only vaguely to spread “Christian law” more effectively.
This dissonance is not accidental but expressive of an incipient acceptance of the condemned thesis 55 of the *Syllabus*: separation of Church and State as an ideal.
2. Pius IX and St. Pius X repeatedly unmask Freemasonry and related sects as the architects of liberal, laicist regimes that enslave the Church. They insist:
– That laws contrary to the divine constitution of the Church are null and void.
– That no civil power may dictate diocesan structures or limit the rights of the Church.
While the present constitution does not explicitly submit to civil powers, its entire horizon is juridical self‑referentiality. It does not seize the opportunity of a major reorganization to proclaim the nullity of secularist encroachments or to condemn the subversive forces ravaging both Europe and mission lands. The omission is deafening.
3. St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili* condemns:
– the evolution of dogma,
– the democratization of the Church,
– the reduction of ecclesiastical office to pastoral function unmoored from dogmatic guardianship.
The constitution “Liberopolitana,” in its complacent trust in “circumstances of the times” as a determining factor for diocesan boundaries, breathes the same atmosphere that will soon:
– transform bishops into national and regional managers,
– subordinate doctrine to pastoral strategies,
– and pave the way for an episcopate that ratifies religious liberty and ecumenism.
The text is anodyne only to those who ignore the context and trajectory.
Formal Threats Backing an Illegitimate Authority
The closing clauses are particularly instructive:
– The document declares:
– That it is to be “now and in the future” effective.
– That no contrary prescriptions may impede it.
– That any act contradicting its provisions is “wholly null and void.”
– That those who disregard these decrees will incur penalties for disobeying the orders of Supreme Pontiffs.
In authentic pontifical documents, such clauses express the real authority of the Vicar of Christ, charged to bind consciences in service of immutable faith.
Here, however, the same juridical formula is wielded by the initiator of the conciliar revolution, to compel obedience to acts that serve, in the larger divine economy, the consolidation of a structure that will betray doctrine. The severe threat—*poenas esse subiturum*—turns against those who, in fidelity to St. Pius X and the entire prior Magisterium, refuse to follow a line of manifestly modernist usurpers.
Thus, the text becomes a mirror of the inversion to come:
– Those faithful who cling to the pre‑1958 faith are persecuted in the name of obedience.
– Those who applaud liberalism, religious freedom, and ecumenical relativism are rewarded with dioceses, pallia, and provinces.
Lex iniusta non est lex (An unjust law is not a law). When the formula of papal authority is used in service of a program incompatible with prior dogmatic condemnations, it is not the faithful who are rebels, but the usurping authors who stand under the judgment of the very Magisterium whose style they mimic.
The Silent Preparation for Doctrinal Subversion
Beyond its immediate content, “Liberopolitana” is symptomatic of a subtler, more dangerous process:
1. Normalization of Structural Change Without Dogmatic Anchoring
Every restructuring of dioceses ought to be an occasion to:
– restate the integral Catholic faith,
– fortify anti-modernist discipline,
– bind new pastors to theological clarity and firmness.
This document does none of that. It reduces the act to a neutral redistribution of jurisdiction. Such normalization of value‑neutral “reform” is precisely the path by which the post‑conciliar “reforms” of liturgy, catechesis, and canon law were smuggled in.
2. Creation of an Episcopal Corps Readied for the Council
Those promoted or confirmed in these years became:
– voters and implementers of Vatican II,
– agents of the introduction of the new rites,
– persecutors of priests and faithful who remained attached to the old.
Therefore, each such act of promotion and provincial erection under Roncalli is not an isolated datum but part of the preparatory consolidation of a hierarchy that would, as a body, embrace modernist principles already condemned as heretical.
When a constitution binds consciences to submission under such men without reminding them that *manifest heresy voids jurisdiction*, it participates in the eclipse of that vital doctrinal safeguard, clearing the way for the *abomination of desolation* to stand in the holy place.
3. Inversion of Missionary Purpose
True missionary expansion, as witnessed in the acts of earlier Popes, aimed at:
– converting nations to the one true Church,
– eradicating idolatry and superstition,
– shaping public and private life according to Christ’s law.
In the ambiance of Roncalli’s program, African ecclesiastical growth risks being subtly reoriented:
– towards “inculturation” that tolerates or baptizes pagan elements,
– towards “dialogue” with false religions and secret societies,
– towards producing local hierarchs integrated into global liberal networks.
The constitution’s failure to articulate a clear, exclusive, supernatural end leaves the door open to precisely that deviation.
Conclusion: A Smooth Decree Masking the Onset of Ruin
“Liberopolitana” is not a spectacular manifesto. It is more dangerous: a calm, pious‑sounding legal instrument that:
– Presupposes as unquestioned the authority of a man whose program stands in deep tension with Pius IX’s *Syllabus*, St. Pius X’s anti-modernist doctrine, and Pius XI’s proclamation of Christ’s social Kingship.
– Entrusts significant structural decisions to individuals who will later personify ambiguous or compromised responses to the revolution.
– Omits any militant affirmation of the exclusive rights of Christ the King, any denunciation of modernist and masonic threats, and any clear reminder that jurisdiction is ordered to guarding, not diluting, the deposit of faith.
– Uses the full weight of papal juridical style to demand obedience to acts that, seen in historical context, help configure the ecclesiastical scaffolding on which the conciliar sect will rise.
In this sense, the constitution is a textbook example of how the *Church of the New Advent* advances: not first by tearing down, but by occupying forms, neutralizing doctrinal vigilance, and transforming the sacred juridical language of the papacy into a tool for the slow displacement of the true Roman Pontificate by a paramasonic structure.
Against this process, the only Catholic response remains the unyielding adherence to the pre‑1958 Magisterium, to the social reign of Christ the King as taught in *Quas Primas*, and to the principle that no manifest modernist can wield legitimate authority in the Church of Christ. Everything else—no matter how cloaked in Latin, seals, and formulae—is, at best, a simulacrum, at worst, the legal choreography of apostasy.
Source:
Liberopolitanae e Dioecesi Liberopolitana, a Metropolitico Iure Brazzapolitanae Sedis liberata, atque e Muilaënsi Dioecesi nova efficitur Provincia Ecclesiastica, « Liberopolitana » appellanda, die XI… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025