Agri culturam is a brief Latin letter by antipope John XXIII, dated 16 December 1960, in which he extols agriculture with citations from Augustine and Cicero and, at the request of Enrique Pla y Deniel, designates St Isidore the Farmer as heavenly patron of all agricultural workers of Spain, confirming the usual liturgical privileges for such patronage.
Beneath its pious veneer, this text exemplifies the conciliatory, horizontal, and ultimately subversive spirit that paved the way for the conciliar revolution and the occupation of Catholic forms by a neo-church stripped of the social Kingship of Christ.
Agri culturam: Pious Language as a Vehicle of Pre-Conciliar Subversion
Founding a Cult of Rural Virtue Detached from the Kingship of Christ
On the surface, the document appears harmless: praise of agriculture, invocation of respected authorities, recommendation that rural workers unite labor and prayer, and the proclamation of St Isidore as patron of Spanish agriculturists. The rhetorical structure is simple:
– Agriculture is hailed as noble and morally wholesome, supported by Augustine and Cicero.
– Contemporary dangers are vaguely evoked: dissemination of “perverse doctrines” and materialism.
– A pragmatic “solution” is proposed: give rural workers a celestial patron so that, while possessing their fruits “naturally and justly,” they may also shape their lives according to “religion and piety.”
– John XXIII, mentioning his own rural origins, decrees St Isidore patron of Spanish agricultural workers, granting the usual liturgical rights.
The deception lies not in the naming of a patron—St Isidore is a true Catholic saint—but in what this text systematically omits and how its rhetoric subtly displaces Catholic doctrine.
From the integral Catholic perspective formed by the pre-1958 Magisterium, the entire letter is fatally characterized by:
– A purely naturalistic treatment of social and economic life.
– The dilution of supernatural ends into generic “religion and piety.”
– A sentimental personalization of papal authority, preparing the cult of personality and democratic sensibility of the later conciliar sect.
– Silence regarding the social Kingship of Christ and the objective doctrinal content demanded of public life, condemned so clearly by Pius IX and magnificently reaffirmed by Pius XI in Quas primas.
Where the true Magisterium speaks of the necessity that individuals, families, and nations submit to Christ’s law, this text speaks about agriculture as a morally edifying occupation and about “perverse doctrines” only in blurred outline, without doctrinal precision, without warning against liberalism, socialism, laicism, or Freemasonry as such, and without binding consciences to the concrete dogmatic and moral teaching of the Church. It is the methodical softening that precedes revolution.
Factual Level: Truncated Goods, Undefined Evils
1. Use of partial truths
The letter correctly recalls that agriculture has been praised by both Christian and pagan authors. It cites Augustine calling agriculture “the most innocent of all arts” and Cicero extolling rural life as a teacher of frugality, diligence, and justice. These affirmations, in themselves, are not erroneous.
Yet Catholic doctrine always subordinates such natural praises to the supernatural end:
– The earth is cultivated so that man, created *ad imaginem Dei* (in the image of God), may sustain life ordered toward salvation.
– The possession of fruits is just only when conformed to divine law, fulfilling duties of justice and charity, avoiding greed, usury, class hatred, and socialism.
– Every state of life and profession is to be penetrated by the grace of Christ, mediated through the true Church, the sacraments, right doctrine, and submission to the Roman Pontiff (as long as the pontiff is Catholic).
Agri culturam fragments this framework. It touches natural virtues, adds a faint call to “religion and piety,” and leaves the essential—Christ’s dominion, the sacraments, the necessity of grace in the state of sanctifying grace, the authority of the pre-existing anti-liberal magisterium—in shadow.
2. Vague reference to “perverse doctrines”
The text notes that in “these times” erroneous doctrines are spread and that many refer everything to matter, and from this side agriculture is at risk. But:
– It does not name liberalism, socialism, communism, laicism, Modernism, or Freemasonry.
– It does not invoke the Syllabus of Errors, Leo XIII’s encyclicals against socialism and Freemasonry, nor St Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi.
– It offers no doctrinal criteria by which rural workers may recognize and reject these “perverse doctrines.”
Thus, it mimics Catholic concern while carefully avoiding the concrete dogmatic and disciplinary arsenal forged by the true Popes against the very errors that, at that historical moment, John XXIII and his collaborators were about to invite into the heart of the “council” he would soon convoke.
3. Patronage as a substitute for militancy
The assignment of St Isidore as patron is legitimate in itself; yet here it functions as a substitute for:
– preaching about mortal sin, sanctifying grace, confession, and the obligation of sanctifying feasts and Sundays;
– warnings against joining anti-Catholic unions, sects, and parties;
– teaching about the rights of the Church and duties of the State (Pius IX, Syllabus, propositions 55, 77–80 condemned).
By reducing the answer to a devotional gesture, the letter domesticates supernatural religion into a kind of cultural ornament atop a social body no longer explicitly ordered to Christ the King.
Linguistic Level: Sentimentalism and Legalism Without Dogmatic Edge
The tone and vocabulary are revealing symptoms of a shifting mentality.
1. Humanistic sweetening
The letter multiplies agreeable phrases:
– praise of rural labor;
– mention of John XXIII’s own rural origins;
– stress on the “natural and just” possession of fruits;
– highlighting Isidore’s simplicity, humility, obedience, and charity.
But there is no corresponding hardness of supernatural imperatives: no mention of hell, of the Four Last Things, of the necessity of the One True Church for salvation, of the grave sin of indifferentism or of living as if economic life were autonomous from Christ’s law.
In contrast, Pius XI in Quas primas speaks with fierce clarity: peace and social order are impossible where Christ does not reign publicly; secularism is a “plague”; rulers must acknowledge Christ’s Kingship under pain of severe judgment. The discrepancy is not accidental; it is methodological.
2. The cautious, bureaucratic formulae
The text is juridically precise when defining the patronage:
– *“certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostra deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine…”*
– *“praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere…”*
We encounter the classic juridical language of the Holy See; yet in the context of John XXIII it becomes an empty shell occupied by a man who inaugurated the process of neutralizing precisely those dogmatic and disciplinary weapons that his formulae evoke.
This is a structural perversion: the form of authority is invoked, but its doctrinal content is anesthetized. It prefigures how the conciliar sect would later wield Catholic forms (council, liturgy, canonization, encyclical) to introduce anti-Catholic principles.
3. Reduction of “perverse doctrines” to a backdrop
The mention of “pravaruum doctrinarum placita” (false doctrines) functions as rhetorical decoration: a general danger, no concrete names, no demands.
Such language trains the faithful to:
– fear an undefined evil instead of Freemasonry, Modernism, socialism, liberalism condemned by previous Popes;
– seek safety in mild devotions instead of militant adherence to dogma;
– accept a “pastoral” magisterium that almost never binds, never anathematizes, never risks clarity.
This is the preparatory rhetoric of the Church of the New Advent: retain pious phrases; evacuate doctrinal force.
Theological Level: Silence on Christ the King Is Complicity
The gravest indictment is not what is said, but what is systematically unsaid.
1. No assertion of the Social Kingship of Christ
A Catholic document about agriculture and rural life, issued in 1960, with Spain explicitly mentioned, cannot be theologically neutral. At that time:
– The Magisterium had decisively taught against religious liberalism, separation of Church and State, and the myth of religious neutrality (Pius IX, Syllabus, Quanta cura).
– Pius XI in Quas primas had defined peace and social order as possible only in the Kingdom of Christ, explicitly demanding that States and societies publicly acknowledge His Kingship.
– Multiple papal condemnations had targeted socialism, communism, secret societies, and laicism as mortal threats to the souls of workers and peasants.
Yet Agri culturam:
– never mentions Christ as King of societies;
– never recalls that civil laws, property regimes, and rural policies must submit to divine and ecclesiastical law;
– never reminds agricultural workers that joining anti-Catholic unions, parties, or sects is incompatible with the Faith.
Instead, it speaks of the “natural and just” possession of fruits, as if justice could be defined apart from explicit submission to Christ’s law and His Church. This is an implicit concession to the naturalistic idea that social and economic justice can be achieved on purely human terms, with “religion and piety” as optional moral enrichment.
2. Generic “religion and piety” vs. integral Catholic faith
The text calls ruricolae to shape their lives “according to religion and piety,” without specifying:
– the unique truth of the Catholic religion;
– the absolute falsity and damnable nature of sects, heresies, and false religions (against which Pius IX condemned indifferentism: Syllabus 15–18);
– the necessity of confession, of avoiding mortal sin, of Catholic marriage, of sanctifying Sundays and feasts, of catechetical formation for rural families.
In a pre-1958 normal Catholic context, such a lack of precision in a universal Apostolic Letter is already suspicious; under John XXIII it is symptomatic. It reflects the Modernist method condemned by St Pius X: keeping formulas, emptying their content, preparing “pastoral” ambiguity for later revolutionary interpretation.
3. No appeal to the Church’s right to rule social life
Agri culturam addresses a profession (agriculturists) and a nation (Spain) but never:
– recalls that the Church is a *societas perfecta* with the right to legislate and judge in matters touching morals, education, and social order;
– insists that legislators and rulers must conform agricultural policy, land rights, labor law, and education to the commandments of God and the rights of the Church.
Instead, the whole horizon is reduced to:
– personal virtue,
– devotional patronage,
– sentimental papal closeness.
This corresponds exactly to the modern liberal thesis condemned in the Syllabus (proposition 55: separation of Church and State; propositions 77–80: false reconciliation with liberal “progress” and modern civilization). By not opposing these errors explicitly where they are most relevant, the document effectively normalizes them.
Symptomatic Level: Proto-Conciliar Strategy Cloaked in Rural Piety
Agri culturam must be read as a symptom of a deeper process:
1. Occupation of Catholic forms by modernist intent
– The text uses traditional juridical formulae, Latin, references to Augustine and Cicero, mention of a true saint.
– Yet its doctrinal content is minimal, its warnings toothless, its horizon naturalistic.
This is the classic Modernist strategy exposed in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi:
– retain the vocabulary,
– reinterpret or marginalize the dogmatic substance,
– displace supernatural categories with immanent, humanistic ones.
Here, devotion to St Isidore is instrumentalized to propose an innocuous, “pastoral” Catholicism that easily coexists with liberal-democratic and socialist influences, provided people maintain a veneer of “piety.”
2. Preparation for the “pastoral council”
Dated 1960, this letter appears on the eve of the assembly convoked by John XXIII that would unleash the conciliar sect. Its features anticipate that revolution:
– Soft, non-anathematizing style.
– Primacy of experience and sentiment (the “good peasant pope” addressing rural workers).
– Refusal to confront the modern errors already condemned by previous Popes.
– Reduction of the Church’s presence in temporal affairs to blessings, patronages, and moral encouragement.
Thus, in miniature, it rehearses the program:
– from dogmatic clarity to pastoral vagueness,
– from militancy against errors to consensual cohabitation,
– from Christ the King to a decorous “religious” ornament for secular society.
3. The abuse of saintly patronage
The proclamation of a patron is, in itself, wholly legitimate. What is abused is:
– the trust of the faithful, who assume that a text extolling a canonized saint is necessarily imbued with the full Catholic spirit;
– the symbolic capital of hagiography to mask a progressive emptying of doctrine.
Instead of using St Isidore to call Spanish workers and landowners to:
– assist at the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– confess their sins,
– reject socialism and liberalism,
– defend the rights of the Church,
– restore Christ’s reign in rural communities,
the letter uses him as a generic exemplar of work and prayer, easily integrated into a humanitarian religiosity acceptable to the world.
The Subtle Naturalism Behind “Natural and Just Possession”
A crucial phrase describes the possession of agricultural fruits as “maxime naturalis et iusta” (especially natural and just). Taken in context of traditional doctrine, this could be understood in harmony with:
– the natural right to private property,
– the duties of almsgiving and justice,
– the rejection of socialist abolition of property.
But Agri culturam does not:
– recall the duty of superiors and owners to respect the moral law, pay just wages, and avoid exploitation (as clearly taught by Leo XIII and Pius XI);
– warn rural workers against envy, class struggle, materialism;
– connect rural economics with the objective order of Christian law and the rights of Christ the King.
Thus, “natural and just” is left suspended in mid-air, apparently definable by common sentiment or secular law. This is a proto-liberal move: affirm a principle, sever it from the Church’s authority to define its content, and let the modern State and culture fill it with new meaning.
By contrast, the pre-1958 Magisterium insists:
– Moral and social norms are not autonomous; they are subject to divine and ecclesiastical authority (*lex humana in quantum a lege divina derivatur* – human law binds only insofar as it derives from divine law).
– Any treatment of work, land, and property that brackets Christ’s Kingship is intrinsically disordered.
Agri culturam’s silence here is not innocent; it coheres with the later conciliar sect’s endorsement of religious liberty, ecumenism, and the dethronement of Christ in public law.
Why This “Small” Document Matters: The Anatomy of Disarming Rhetoric
Some might argue that this Apostolic Letter is too minor to be scrutinized rigorously. On the contrary, precisely its smallness and apparently harmless content reveal the method:
– No direct frontal error.
– No explicit contradiction of previous dogma.
– But systematic:
– attenuation of supernatural vocabulary,
– avoidance of doctrinal and political precision,
– sentimental personalization of authority,
– relegation of Catholic militancy to pious decoration.
This is how an entire people is prepared to accept, a few years later:
– a “council” without anathemas;
– “dialogue” with the very errors solemnly anathematized by previous Popes;
– a “church” where human dignity and religious liberty replace the non-negotiable reign of Christ;
– the transformation of devotions, saints, and liturgy into flexible symbols within a paramasonic, humanitarian structure.
Agri culturam contributes to this by modeling a magisterial style in which:
– rural workers are not commanded with divine authority to reject specific condemned errors;
– saints are not presented as warriors against heresy and worldliness, but as harmless icons of generic virtue;
– the Church’s claims over the social order are replaced by friendly “accompaniment.”
In short: this letter is a small brick in the ideological edifice by which forms were retained and the substance was stolen.
Reasserting the Integral Catholic Position on Rural Life
Against the diluted, proto-conciliar tone of Agri culturam, the integral Catholic teaching—unchanged before 1958—must be restated with clarity:
– Rural life and agriculture are good insofar as they assist man to fulfill his supernatural end; without grace and right doctrine, they do not sanctify.
– Every profession, especially one so foundational as agriculture, must be ordered to the glory of God and the salvation of souls through:
– fidelity to the One True Church,
– frequent participation in the authentic Most Holy Sacrifice,
– reception of valid sacraments,
– adherence to the moral law,
– rejection of all condemned errors (liberalism, socialism, Modernism, ecumenism, religious indifferentism, Freemasonry).
– Christ is not merely the inspirer of private piety, but *Rex regum* and *Dominus dominantium* (King of kings and Lord of lords), whose social Kingship must be recognized in the laws, customs, and institutions regulating land, labor, family, and community.
Any text, however “pious,” that speaks about the dignity of rural work and the need for religion, while refusing to articulate these truths and their consequences, participates—actively or passively—in the disarming of the faithful and in the enthronement of the new, man-centered religion that today occupies the visible structures in Rome.
Agri culturam is such a text: elegant Latin, Catholic references, a true saint invoked—but deployed in service of a program that replaces the binding voice of the perennial Magisterium with a mild, adaptable, and ultimately powerless religiosity, perfectly suited to the conciliar sect that was about to emerge.
Source:
Agri culturam, Litterae Apostolicae Sanctus Isidorus Agricola caelestis Patronus omnium Hispaniae Nationis agricolarum seu ruricolarum constituitur, d. 16 m. Decembris a. 1960, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025