The document under review is an apostolic letter of the usurper John XXIII, dated 18 August 1960, in which he “confirms” and “again constitutes” the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of the Seven Sorrows (*Virgen de Dolores*) as the principal heavenly patroness of the Diocese of Sololá in Guatemala. The text praises the people’s attachment to the Sorrowful Mother, notes existing confraternities and devotions, and, invoking supposed apostolic authority, extends to this patronage the liturgical honors accorded to principal diocesan patrons, declaring all contrary dispositions null and void. Already in this apparently pious gesture one sees the smooth canonical varnish covering the deeper reality: the appropriation of true Marian devotion by the conciliar revolution in order to clothe its looming apostasy with the externals of Tradition.
Perdolent Mother or Perverted Magisterium: Marian Piety Co-opted by the Conciliar Sect
Pious Language as a Veil for Usurpation of Authority
At the factual level, the letter is short and seemingly straightforward:
– It recalls that in Christian hearts there is a deep-rooted devotion uniting Christ’s Passion with the “ineffable sorrows” of His Mother.
– It affirms that such devotion to the Sorrowful Virgin is widely diffused and fruitful.
– It notes that in Sololá there exist images, confraternities (*Hermandades de la Virgen de Dolores*), particular commemorations of Our Lady’s Sorrows united to the Passion, and a special veneration in the cathedral.
– On the bishop’s request, John XXIII uses solemn juridical language to “confirm” and “again declare” the Sorrowful Mother as principal patroness of the diocese, with all liturgical honors.
Considered externally, no heretical proposition is spelled out. That is precisely the problem and the method. The text exemplifies the tactic by which the new paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican envelops itself in flawless classical Latin, Marian titles, and legal formulas, attempting thereby to smuggle in the fundamental lie: that this usurped authority is the same *Apostolica potestas* as that of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI and Pius XII.
The decisive theological question is not whether patronage of the Seven Sorrows is legitimate (it is, in itself perfectly traditional), but whether a manifestly modernist revolution can validly legislate for the Church. A sacrilegious seizure of Peter’s Chair does not become legitimate by decreeing more feasts of Christ the King, nor more patronages of the Mother of Sorrows. *Simulata sanctitas, duplex iniquitas* (feigned holiness is iniquity doubled).
This letter therefore functions as part of a broader operation: **to annex authentic pre-1958 Marian devotion as a façade for the conciliar overthrow of the Kingship of Christ and the doctrine condemned in the Syllabus and in Lamentabili.**
The Smooth Bureaucratic Tone of a Pseudo-Magisterium
On the linguistic level, the text is a model of pre-conciliar style in form, but emptied in context:
– Phrases such as “ad perpetuam rei memoriam”, “certa scientia ac matura deliberatione”, “deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine” mimic the solemn, binding diction of true papal acts.
– The structure of nullifying contrary dispositions and declaring attempts *irrita et inania* (“null and void”) imitates genuine canonical firmness.
Yet here this juridical rhetoric is weaponized to reinforce the central post-1958 fiction: that John XXIII is a true Roman Pontiff exercising the same indefectible authority as Pius IX, precisely while he prepares the council that will enthrone the very errors condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X.
The letter is conspicuously silent about:
– The obligation of rulers and nations to recognize Christ’s social Kingship and subject their legislation to His law, so forcefully defined by Pius XI in *Quas Primas*.
– The doctrinal crisis, liberalism, socialism, and secret societies ravaging Latin America—condemned explicitly in the Syllabus of Errors, which denounces the masonic and liberal principles that were already infiltrating those very regions.
– The necessity of remaining in the one true Church as the only ark of salvation, against indifferentism and false ecumenism (Syllabus, propositions 15–18, 55, 77–80).
– The reality of modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies” (St. Pius X, *Pascendi*, confirmed by the decree *Lamentabili sane exitu*), which by 1960 was not a forgotten threat but an entrenched network.
The language of the letter is thus a classic instance of anesthetic rhetoric: “holy,” precise, canonical, while carefully excluding all reference to the burning doctrinal battles that true shepherds are bound to address. This is not the vigilant, militant tone of Pius X or Pius XI; it is the tone of a management office distributing devotional labels while the foundations are being dynamited.
True Marian Devotion versus Modernist Instrumentalization
From the theological and historical standpoint, authentic devotion to the Sorrowful Mother is inseparable from:
– The confession of the full, unchanging doctrine of Christ’s divinity, propitiatory Sacrifice, the gravity of sin, hell, judgment, and the necessity of the Church and her sacraments.
– The recognition of Mary as *Mater Ecclesiae* in the true sense: Mother of the one Catholic Church, not mascot of a “dialoguing” neo-church that equates her Son’s Bride with sects and false religions.
– The acceptance of the perennial Magisterium: Council of Trent, Vatican I, the anti-liberal, anti-modernist teaching of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
Yet the letter:
– Offers no confession of Mary as Destroyer of all heresies, no explicit link with the fight against liberalism and Masonry that Pius IX designates as the “synagogue of Satan.”
– Ignores the solemn condemnations of indifferentism, neutrality of the State, and “liberal civilization” (Syllabus 55, 77–80), all of which were already shaping Guatemalan and Latin American public life.
– Presents Marian patronage as a harmless, sentimental enrichment of local piety, detached from the duty of diocesan authorities to resist anti-Christian legislation and errors in public life.
– Omits any call to penance, to return to the integral Catholic faith, to reject modernist theology, or to defend the Most Holy Sacrifice against profanation.
This silence is not accidental. It reveals what can be called the modernist tactic of “neutral sacrality”: retain images, confraternities, and processions, but drain them of doctrinal militancy. The Sorrowful Virgin is invoked, but her tears are no longer interpreted as a protest against heresies and apostasies; they are an ornament to a “pastoral” program that will shortly invite the world to embrace religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegial democratization of the Church—errors solemnly rejected by the authentic Magisterium.
To use the Mother of Sorrows to crown such a program is a spiritual perversion.
The Contradiction with Pre-1958 Magisterium: Patroness without the Kingdom of Christ
Integral Catholic doctrine, reaffirmed up to 1958, is unambiguous:
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that peace and order are impossible unless individuals and states publicly recognize and submit to the reign of Christ the King; secularism and laicism are branded as an organized apostasy which must be openly condemned.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors condemns:
– The separation of Church and State (55).
– The notion that the Catholic religion should no longer be the sole religion of the State (77).
– The false reconciliation of the Papacy with “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” (80).
– St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili sane exitu* exposes modernism as a system that:
– Reduces Revelation to religious experience.
– Denies the immutability of dogma.
– Subjects Scripture and dogma to historicist revision.
– Substitutes evolving consciousness for objective truth.
Measured by this standard, John XXIII’s letter is gravely deficient, not because it explicitly denies these truths, but because it operates as if they no longer define the Church’s public stance. The omission is doctrinally symptomatic:
– There is no reminder that the patronage of the Sorrowful Virgin obliges rulers, clergy, and faithful of Sololá to reject the liberal-masonic principles destroying Christian society.
– There is no echo of the solemn protests of Pius IX against sects and governments that persecute or neutralize the Church; instead, the entire act remains comfortably intra-liturgical, as if Marian devotion were merely a spiritual accent added to a neutral civil order.
– There is no assertion that the Catholic Church is the only ark of salvation, and that true Marian cult presupposes adherence to her dogmas and rejection of all false religions.
This is exactly the mentality condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium: treating religion as a private, sentimental reality, while allowing the public and doctrinal order to be surrendered to the world. It is the inversion of the logic of *Quas Primas*, where Pius XI instituted the feast precisely to fight laicism. Here we find a decree that uses similar forms, but detached from the battle.
The Symptom of a Deeper Disease: Conciliar Appropriation of Tradition
The symptomatic level reveals why such a text must be read not in isolation, but as an element of the conciliar revolution:
1. Continuity in Form, Revolution in Substance
The letter deliberately imitates the legal style of true papal bulls and briefs. This imitation is necessary to maintain the illusion of continuity while preparing the most radical discontinuity in doctrine and worship since the Arian crisis. The usurper’s “Apostolic Letters” comfort the faithful with familiar tones even as the foundations are about to be shifted from:
– *Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* to universalist inclusivism.
– The duty of Catholic confessional states to pluralistic religious liberty.
– The objectivity of dogma to historicist, “pastoral” reinterpretation.
The solemn invocation of the Sorrowful Virgin thus becomes cover for the doctrinal betrayal that will culminate in the “Church of the New Advent.”
2. Exploitation of Authentic Devotion for Illegitimate Ends
Because the Seven Sorrows devotion is thoroughly rooted in Tradition—confirmed by saints, liturgy, and centuries of Catholic life—it is an ideal instrument for the conciliar sect. By “confirming” such patronages, the usurpers send a message: “We are the same Church.” Yet they refuse to bind themselves to the anti-modernist definitions that formed the soul of that Church. This duplicity corresponds exactly to what Pius X warned against: modernists hiding beneath Catholic forms, retaining the shell while replacing the content.
3. Replacement of Militant Ecclesial Identity with Pastoral Sentimentality
Notice the horizon of the text: it speaks only of promoting devotion, spiritual fruits, liturgical honors. There is no sense of a Church Militant confronting “the synagogue of Satan,” liberal governments, subversive sects, heresies in seminaries—precisely those enemies identified by the pre-1958 Magisterium. Marian patronage is reduced to a devotional “plus,” not a standard of judgment upon the age and its apostasy.
This fits the modernist agenda: to replace doctrinal combat with “pastoral” gestures, to transform the Church from the authoritative guardian of Revelation into a religious-cultural organism blessing whatever history produces.
4. Self-Referential Legitimization of the Usurped Office
The repeated insistence on the “plenitude” of “Apostolic” power—“deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine… praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces”—is, in context, a self-serving claim. It aims at normalizing an authority that, by its subsequent acts (convocation of a council opening the door to errors condemned in the Syllabus and *Pascendi*; promotion of ecumenism, religious liberty, collegiality), proves itself morally discontinuous with and thus foreign to the integral Catholic Magisterium.
In classical theology, a manifest promoter of condemned errors cannot be the rule of faith. The modernist sect invokes its supposed “plenitude” precisely as it buries the anti-modernist oath and marginalizes those who uphold it.
The Gravity of What Is Not Said: Silence as Complicity
In authentic Catholic evaluation, *silentium de necessariis* (silence on necessary matters) may constitute a grave fault. The letter’s omissions are the loudest part of its message.
– No word about the danger of modernist theology among clergy.
– No call to safeguard the integrity of the Most Holy Sacrifice against innovations.
– No warning against secret societies and liberal legislation, which Pius IX directly linked to the persecution of the Church both in Europe and America.
– No reminder of the necessity of grace, of living in the state of grace under Mary’s mantle, of judgment and hell for those who trample the Cross her Sorrows adore.
– No insistence that the Sorrowful Mother is patroness only inasmuch as the people remain faithful to the unchanging faith, morals, and discipline of the Church.
Such calculated silence in an official act is not neutral. It manifests the new orientation: Marian piety is to be integrated into a naturalistic, humanitarian, “pastoral” paradigm, where supernatural absolutes are politely bracketed out. That is why the same environment that issues this letter will soon produce documents on religious liberty and ecumenism that contradict the constant teaching reaffirmed by Pius IX and Pius X. The Sorrowful Virgin is thus misused as an emblem for a project she, as Mother of the Word Incarnate and Queen of the Church Militant, utterly abhors.
Contrast with the Pre-1958 Combativeness of the True Magisterium
To expose fully the spiritual bankruptcy of the attitudes manifested here, one must recall how the true popes spoke when invoking Marian patronage or instituting feasts:
– When Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King (*Quas Primas*), he did not content himself with pious phrases. He directly attacked laicism, religious indifferentism, and the exclusion of Christ from public life, stating unequivocally that peace and order depend on recognizing His social Kingship.
– When Pius IX and St. Pius X confronted liberalism and modernism, they did not hide behind vague devotions. They named the errors, condemned them, demanded submission of intellect and will, and unmasked the sects (especially Masonic) attempting to destroy the Church.
– When the Holy See traditionally approved local patronages, those acts harmonized with an overall policy of defending Catholic dogma, the rights of the Church, and the integral social reign of Christ.
In this 1960 letter, we see the shell but not the soul of that tradition. The style is there; the battle is not. The effect is sedative: the faithful of Sololá are confirmed in a beautiful devotion, while the hierarchy that will betray doctrine reassures them with Marian language. *Dolorum imago* is enthroned—but the real cause of Mary’s sorrows, the apostasy slouching through the Church’s portals, is never named.
This is why, judged by the criterion of unchanging Catholic theology, the document participates in a broader deceit: it is part of the liturgical and devotional camouflage of the conciliar subversion.
Conclusion: The Sorrowful Virgin against the Conciliar Masquerade
There is no need to criticize the devotion to the Seven Sorrows; on the contrary, integral Catholics must cherish it as a school of fidelity to the Cross, hatred of sin, and love of the Church. But precisely for that reason, they must unmask the use of such devotion by those who, while invoking Mary, prepare and spread doctrines and practices anathematized by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine:
– The Seven Sorrows of Mary today include above all the profanation of her Son’s Sacrifice, the relativization of His one true Church, and the enthronement of humanist, modernist dogmas in place of the Syllabus and *Pascendi*.
– A structure that usurps the name of Apostolic See in order to promote religious liberty, ecumenism, and the evolution of dogma cannot legitimize itself by decreeing Marian patronages.
– The faithful of Sololá, and of the whole world, truly honour the Sorrowful Mother only when they cling to the integral pre-1958 faith and reject the conciliar innovations, no matter how piously packaged.
The apparent harmlessness of this apostolic letter is precisely its danger. Its silence on the real battle reveals its alignment: not with the militant, anti-modernist Tradition of the Church, but with the conciliatory, opportunistic, and naturalistic agenda that would soon publicly manifest itself. The Mother of Sorrows stands not with that agenda, but against it.
Source:
Christiani populi (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025