Apostolic Constitution “Tudensis” (9 March 1959) is a brief Latin legal act in which John XXIII orders two things regarding the diocese of Tuy (Tudensis) in Spain: first, that the title “Vicensis” (Vigo) be permanently joined to the diocesan name and bishop’s title; second, that the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Vigo be elevated to the rank of a concatedral (co-cathedral) with appropriate canonical privileges, so that the diocesan ordinary may reside and perform pontifical functions there, and the canons may exercise their office. Presented as prudent pastoral “cultivation” of the Lord’s field, it is in reality a cold symptom of the nascent conciliar usurpation: a juridical rearrangement devoid of supernatural depth, issued by one who, beginning the line of usurpers, prepared the soil for the demolition of the very episcopate he here pretends to strengthen.
Jurisdiction Without Faith: A Symbolic Fragment of the Coming Ruin
Factual Empty Formalism against the Doctrine of the Church
On the factual level, the text appears almost innocuous: an “apostolic” constitution adjusting diocesan titles, applying the 1953 concordat with Spain, authorizing the Nuncio Hildebrando Antoniutti to execute the provisions, requiring the acts to be transmitted to the Consistorial Congregation, and surrounding all of this with the traditional language of solemn ecclesiastical law.
Key elements:
– The diocese of Tuy is henceforth to be called Tudensis-Vicensis.
– The Marian church in Vigo becomes a concatedral with canons and proper offices.
– The diocesan “bishop” (in the terminology of the document) may legitimately reside and celebrate there.
– Strong clauses assert perpetual validity, derogation of contrary norms, threat of penalties for disobedience.
Taken in isolation, such a document would fit within the normal exercise of papal jurisdiction. The Catholic tradition recognizes that the Roman Pontiff, possessing *plenitudo potestatis* (the fullness of power) in discipline and governance, can:
– modify diocesan boundaries and titles,
– elevate churches to cathedrals or co-cathedrals,
– regulate the residence and rights of bishops and chapters.
This is grounded in the divine constitution of the Church, defended firmly against state encroachment in the 19th century:
– Pius IX explicitly condemns the thesis that the civil power defines the rights and limits of the Church (Syllabus, propositions 19, 39, 55).
– The same Pius IX and his successors insist on the Church’s freedom to erect and govern dioceses independent of secular manipulation.
Yet precisely here the fissure appears. What seems like a routine act of papal jurisdiction is in fact signed by John XXIII, the first in the succession of those whose teaching and actions inaugurate and embody the program systematically condemned by Pius IX and St. Pius X:
– the exaltation of “modern civilization” and liberal principles (condemned in Syllabus, prop. 80),
– the reconciliation with religious liberty and indifferentism,
– the embrace of collegial democratization and ecumenism later formalized at Vatican II.
Thus, this apparently minor territorial measure must be read as an early juridical gesture within a pseudo-pontificate already ordered toward the subversion of the very doctrine on authority which it mimics and appropriates.
The contradiction is not in lines of Latin about Vigo; it lies between the person promulgating and the office claimed. *Auctoritas sine veritate corruit* (authority without truth collapses). A manifest promoter-to-be of principles previously anathematized cannot validly pose as supreme legislator of the Church of Christ.
The Pastoral Rhetoric as Screen for a Coming Subversion
The linguistic texture of the document is revealing.
John XXIII adopts a venerable metaphor:
“Quemadmodum impiger providusque agricola… ita et Nos… agrum dominicum, quae est Ecclesia… custodiendum suscepimus…”
English: “Just as the energetic and provident farmer, for whom his field is of the highest concern, omits nothing untried in order to render the infertile fruitful and the fruitful more fruitful; so we, who by the will of the divine Majesty, in the likeness of the Heavenly Father, have undertaken to guard the Lord’s field, which is the Church, stretching almost infinitely, strive with the greatest industry that, also by suitable disposition of affairs, the condition of each Church may be such as to yield ever more joyful fruits of holiness and good works.”
This kind of wording, in itself traditional, is employed here in a purely horizontal, administrative sense:
– “fruits” are linked immediately to “suitable disposition of affairs” in territorial and juridical terms;
– there is no mention of enforcing the integral faith, repressing heresy, preserving the purity of the sacraments, or defending the flock from modernist contagion.
St. Pius X, in sharp contrast, when speaking about the “field of the Lord” and pastoral vigilance, denounces with fierce clarity those who corrupt doctrine (Lamentabili, Pascendi). Here, however, the rhetoric of paternal care is severed from any doctrinal combat. It becomes an empty pastoralism—*pastoralitas sine dogmate*—which later serves as the master-key slogan for the entire conciliar revolution.
Notably:
– The text is saturated with bureaucratic formulas about the execution of the act, authentic copies, notarial signatures, penalties for not observing the decree.
– The only “threat” emphasized is against those who might defy this micro-administrative rebranding, not against those who would deny the divinity of Christ, the sacrificial character of the Mass, or the unique salvation in the Catholic Church.
This inversion is symptomatic: legal maximalism for structures, indulgent silence for doctrine.
Theological Vacuum: Jurisdiction Invoked Without Confession of the Integral Faith
Measured by the immutable Catholic theology prior to 1958, the fundamental problem is not the choice of Vigo as concatedral, but the presupposed legitimacy of the legislator.
Integral doctrine, reaffirmed by the very authors cited in the provided sources, teaches:
– *Non potest esse caput Ecclesiae qui non est membrum Ecclesiae.* (He cannot be head of the Church who is not a member of the Church.)
– A manifest heretic, by that very fact, ceases to be pope and loses all jurisdiction (paraphrasing St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice; as expounded by Wernz–Vidal, Billot, and reflected juridically in 1917 Code, can. 188.4).
– Pius IX’s Syllabus and St. Pius X’s Lamentabili and Pascendi define and anathematize liberalism, Modernism, and doctrinal evolution, not as secondary opinions, but as destructive of the very foundations of faith.
John XXIII’s program, soon concretized in the calling and direction of Vatican II, stands historically and doctrinally in direct continuity with what these documents condemn:
– the opening to religious liberty and ecumenism,
– the softening and practical abandonment of the dogma “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus”,
– the conciliar hermeneutic of “updating” (aggiornamento), inseparably tied to the Modernist thesis that doctrine must adapt to modern consciousness.
Thus, a text like “Tudensis,” though still couched in pre-conciliar Latin style and seemingly neutral subject matter, is:
– an act of a will already oriented toward rupture with the infallibly taught principles on Church–state relations, on truth and error, on the nature of the Church;
– a juridical operation lacking the ontological foundation of true papal jurisdiction, since jurisdiction is inseparable from the Catholic profession of faith and cannot coexist formally with the public promotion of condemned systems.
The constitution makes absolutely no reference to:
– the defense of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass;
– the safeguarding of the faithful from modern errors enumerated by Pius IX and St. Pius X;
– the supernatural end of diocesan structures, namely, to bring souls into the reign of Christ the King, as Pius XI demands in Quas Primas, against liberal secularism.
Instead, it breathes a purely immanentist confidence that a territorial adjustment “so that the bishop can also reside in Vigo” automatically yields “fruits of holiness and good works.”
But:
– *Gratia non datur per geographicam reconfigurationem* (grace is not conferred by geographic rebranding).
– The holiness of a diocese does not proceed from appended titles but from the integrity of faith, the validity of sacraments, and the rejection of error.
Once the later acts of John XXIII are laid alongside this text (calling of Vatican II, choice of periti, opening to condemned ideas), “Tudensis” appears as one legal leaf on a poisoned tree.
Silence on the Public Reign of Christ: Concordat Technique Without Confession
The document explicitly references:
“rite servatis sollemnibus Conventionibus … inter S. Sedem et Hispanicam Nationem anno 1953 initis”
English: “with due observance of the solemn Conventions entered into between the Holy See and the Spanish Nation in 1953.”
Here we see:
– the use of a concordat framework once employed legitimately by true popes to protect the liberty of the Church;
– but now used as a neutral, diplomatic premise, devoid of the open doctrinal stance of Pius IX and Leo XIII, who insisted that states recognize the Catholic religion as the one true religion and submit to Christ the King.
Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches incisively (paraphrased):
– Peace and order will not be restored until individuals and states recognize and publicly honor the kingship of Christ; laws and institutions must be conformable to His law.
In “Tudensis,” however:
– there is not one word reminding Spain, or the new concatedral city, of the obligation to uphold the social kingship of Christ;
– no warning against religious indifferentism or the emerging cult of human rights divorced from divine rights;
– no assertion that civil authority must respect the exclusive truth claims of the Church.
This deliberate omission, in 1959, is pregnant with consequence. The rhetoric is that of neutral concordatarian management, soon to mutate into the full acceptance of religious liberty and pluralism formalized by the conciliar sect. The silence is the gravest accusation: *tacere de regno Christi coram nationibus quae labuntur in apostasiam est participare scelus eorum* (to be silent about the kingdom of Christ before nations sliding into apostasy is to share their crime).
The Symptom of the Conciliar Revolution: Episcopacy Reduced to Mobile Administration
By joining Vigo to Tuy in the episcopal title and allowing residence and full canonical life in the concatedral, the text reflects a certain pastoral realism (growing city, shifting center of life). But within the emerging conciliar context this also foreshadows the deformation of the episcopal office:
– The bishop is treated as an administrator whose identity can be flexibly attached to shifting urban poles, instead of being chiefly the doctrinal guardian and sacrificial high priest of his flock.
– Later, under the conciliar sect’s “collegiality” and permanent conferences, bishops are dissolved into bureaucratic functionaries, more responsive to national episcopal bodies and civil powers than to the immutable Roman Magisterium of previous centuries.
The constitution speaks about:
– where the “sacred prelate” may reside,
– how canons may function,
– how documents must be drawn and authenticated.
It does not speak about:
– the bishop’s duty to anathematize error,
– to preserve the faithful from liberalism, socialism, secret societies so forcefully unmasked by Pius IX in the Syllabus and subsequent allocutions,
– to protect the flock from Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi as “the synthesis of all heresies.”
The episcopal office is silently horizontalized. This is entirely consonant with the conciliar program that would:
– transform shepherds into regional managers of a “people of God” democracy,
– subject them to ecumenical diplomacy and interreligious collaboration,
– silence the language of anathema and doctrinal precision.
Hence this small act anticipates a systematic catastrophe: an episcopate which still uses pre-conciliar labels and robes, but which no longer serves as *custos fidei* (guardian of the faith) and instead will become the political clergy of the Church of the New Advent.
The Legal Threats: Zeal for Rubrics, Indifference to Faith
“Tudensis” ends with the solemn legal formula:
“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.”
English: “Wherefore, if anyone, of whatever authority, knowingly or unknowingly acts contrary to what We have decreed, We order that it be held absolutely null and void… whoever may despise or in any way reject Our decrees in general, let him know that he will incur the penalties established in law for those who do not obey the commands of Supreme Pontiffs.”
The paradox is stark:
– Uncompromising threats about disobeying an act of diocesan re-titling.
– No comparable zeal, in this document or in the broader early program, against the doctrinal betrayals and emerging sacrileges that would devastate the Church in the following decade.
Traditional ecclesiology holds:
– Obedience is owed because the Pope is the vicar of Christ teaching and defending the deposit of faith.
– When a supposed authority uses the machinery of canonical threats to bolster mere institutional gestures, while simultaneously steering the Church toward condemned novelties, this “obedience” becomes a mechanism of subjugating souls to a paramasonic structure.
In light of pre-1958 teaching:
– The Syllabus of Pius IX, Lamentabili and Pascendi of St. Pius X, and Quas Primas of Pius XI provide clear dogmatic orientation.
– Any “pope” who systematically contradicts these orientations in doctrine and praxis cannot demand Catholic obedience; the appearance of such demand in a text like “Tudensis” only underscores the usurpation: *imperium in rebus levissimis, silentium in rebus divinis* (command in trifles, silence in divine matters).
Conciliar Sect in Embryo: A Micro-Document of the Neo-Church
When one reads “Tudensis” in its historical and doctrinal context—not as an isolated juridical act, but as an early artifact of John XXIII’s regime—the pattern is unmistakable:
1. Continuity of external form:
– Latin drafting, formulas of *Servus Servorum Dei*, signatures of cardinals and chancery officials, threats of canonical penalties.
2. Substantial internal shift:
– No reaffirmation of doctrinal anti-liberalism.
– No echo of the intransigent condemnation of Modernism.
– Reduction of “pastoral care” to technical rearrangements.
3. Preparation for revolution:
– Legitimizing the usurper’s exercise of jurisdiction in minor matters prepares minds to follow him in major ones.
– The faithful are trained to see in John XXIII a normal Roman Pontiff, so that when he convokes a council and opens the gates to modern errors, resistance has already been paralyzed.
This is how the conciliar sect—“Church of the New Advent,” “neo-church,” “paramasonic structure” occupying the Vatican—establishes itself:
– by first occupying the outward juridical skin of the true Church,
– then injecting within it the venom of Modernism and religious liberalism previously anathematized.
Once the poison spreads:
– diocesan boundaries, co-cathedrals, canonical chapters, and all their legal solemnity become mere stage props in a pseudo-Catholic drama,
– “Masses” mutated into anthropocentric assemblies,
– “sacraments” simulated in rites deformed to align with Protestant and humanist expectations,
– and a counterfeit magisterium praising religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man.
In such a context, a text like “Tudensis” is spiritually bankrupt: a meticulous regulation of the deck chairs on a ship whose bridge has already been seized by those steering it toward the reefs condemned by the very popes it still cites.
Conclusion: Return from Structural Fetish to the Kingship of Christ
Evaluated by unchanging Catholic doctrine before 1958:
– The right to erect concatedrals and adjust diocesan titles belongs exclusively to a true Roman Pontiff.
– That right cannot be abstracted from the profession of the Catholic faith in its integrity, from the rejection of Modernism, liberalism, and indifferentism.
“Tudensis,” read with open eyes, exposes:
– not a monstrous doctrinal statement, but something more insidious: the calm, orderly functioning of an authority whose later acts and manifest orientation contradict the solemn condemnations of Pius IX, St. Pius X, and Pius XI.
– a mentality in which the primacy of Christ the King and the supernatural end of ecclesiastical structures are eclipsed by administrative self-sufficiency.
Integral Catholic faith demands:
– rejection of the conciliar revolution in all its degrees, including the acceptance of its usurping “pontiffs” as legitimate lawmakers;
– recognition that without the full confession of the faith and the defense of the deposit against modern errors, the most solemn constitutional acts are canonically ornate husks.
Only by returning to the doctrinal intransigence of the pre-1958 Magisterium—Quas Primas, Syllabus, Lamentabili, Pascendi, and the perennial teaching on the papacy and Church—can the faithful distinguish between the true vineyard of Christ and the meticulously surveyed plantations of the neo-church, whose fruits are confusion, desacralization, and apostasy.
Source:
Tudensis (Vicensis) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025