Ioannes Roncalli, styling himself John XXIII, issues a brief Latin rescript in which he declares that Saint Raphael the Archangel is henceforth the principal heavenly patron and Saint John Mary Vianney the secondary patron of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, invoking the history of the local mission and the personal link of Dubuque’s first bishop with the Curé of Ars, and cloaking the act in the ordinary formulas of alleged apostolic authority, perpetuity, and canonical efficacy. This seemingly pious document, however, is one more brick in the façade of legitimacy erected by the conciliar usurper, parasitically exploiting authentic saints and pre-conciliar devotion to mask the dawning apostasy of the Church of the New Advent.
Co-opting Authentic Holiness to Legitimize an Illegitimate Regime
At first reading, the text appears conventional: a local ordinary petitions, Roman authority responds, patrons are assigned, and the faithful are directed toward heavenly intercessors. Precisely here lies the cunning: the usurping head of the conciliar sect clothes himself in the language, forms, and saints of the true Church to insinuate that nothing essential has changed, while in reality preparing the way for the revolution solemnized a few years later.
Key elements:
– The document ascribes to Roncalli full *plenitudo potestatis* to bind the archdiocese to specific patrons.
– It appeals to the genuine missionary history of the territory and to Saint Raphael’s ancient cult and to Saint John Mary Vianney, a luminous pre-1958 confessor of priestly holiness.
– It surrounds the act with the classic solemn clauses of papal legal style to project continuity: *certa scientia*, *matura deliberatio*, declarations of perpetual validity, and the nullity of contrary attempts.
Each of these must be deconstructed in the light of unchanging Catholic doctrine prior to 1958 and the binding principles denouncing Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” (*Pascendi*, confirmed and armed with excommunication in the decree referenced in Lamentabili sane exitu).
Factual Level: A Valid Form Misused as a Mask
On the surface, the facts are straightforward:
– Archbishop Leo Binz of Dubuque requests the designation of patrons.
– The text recalls:
– The early evangelization of the region by a Dominican missionary.
– Dedication of a church in honour of Saint Raphael.
– The first Bishop of Dubuque’s friendship with Saint John Mary Vianney.
– Roncalli grants:
– “Sanctum Raphaëlem Archangelum universae Dubuquensis archidioecesis praecipuum apud Deum Patronum”.
– “Sanctum vero Ioannem Mariam Vianney, Confessorem, secundarium eiusdem Patronum”.
– He attributes to these patrons all corresponding liturgical honours and privileges.
None of these elements, considered in isolation, contradict Catholic doctrine; indeed, Raphael and the Curé of Ars are unimpeachable heavenly protectors and entirely consonant with authentic Catholic spirituality.
The decisive factual problem lies not in the choice of patrons but in the person arrogating to himself the authority to impose them, and in the historical and doctrinal context in which this act is issued:
1. By 1960, Roncalli has already:
– Promoted the trajectory that will culminate in the calling of Vatican II, which will enthrone principles repeatedly and solemnly condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium (religious freedom, collegial democratization of authority, ecumenism as relativism, reconciliation with “progress and modern civilization” anathematized in the Syllabus of Errors, prophecies of a “new Pentecost” built on Modernist evolutionism).
– Surrounded himself with, and advanced, theologians and currents previously censured under Pius X and his successors as Modernist or crypto-Modernist.
2. Against this background, the otherwise orthodox gesture becomes a calculated operation of continuity-theatre:
– The conciliar usurper borrows the face of Saint Raphael and the Curé of Ars precisely to neutralize resistance, presenting the coming revolution as “the same Church,” now only more “open.”
– This matches the pattern already diagnosed by St. Pius X: Modernism hides under the forms of tradition while emptying them from within. The Holy Office’s condemnation in Lamentabili and Pascendi explicitly exposes this strategy: retain Catholic vocabulary; infuse it with novel, naturalistic, or immanentist meaning.
Thus, factually, the document is not an innocent act but an early instance of the conciliar sect’s parasitic appropriation of the saints to varnish its legitimacy.
Linguistic Level: Traditional Forms as Rhetorical Camouflage
The choice of language is revealing. Roncalli’s text imitates with precision the pre-conciliar papal style:
– The solemn opening: “Ad perpetuam rei memoriam”.
– The generic principle: “Expedit sane Sanctos Caelites dioecesium constitui Patronos…” — it is indeed fitting to appoint heavenly patrons to dioceses; this is classical Catholic theology.
– The edifying motives:
– “ut ipsorum deprecatione vita catholica ibidem provehatur” (that through their intercession Catholic life may be fostered).
– “ipsorum exemplo ad altiora consequenda Christifideles incitentur” (that by their example the faithful may be stirred to higher things).
– “praesidio malis universis iidem prohibeantur” (that by their protection all evils may be warded off).
This vocabulary is impeccable; precisely therefore it becomes damning. In classical rhetoric, when language and context diverge, language exposes the intention.
Several linguistic symptoms of the emerging modernist mindset appear beneath the pious surface:
1. Subtle instrumentalization:
– The saints are presented chiefly in functional terms—patrons as a strategic “means” for promoting “Catholic life”—rather than as witnesses to the unchanging objective reign of Christ the King over societies.
– The Church is not explicitly affirmed in her juridical, exclusive identity as the one ark of salvation. The text speaks generically of “vita catholica” without articulating the integral doctrinal content threatened by the very regime issuing the letter.
2. Self-referential claim of zeal:
– “Nos vero, quibus nihil antiquius est quam ut Regno Dei nova usque afferamus incrementa” — “We, to whom nothing is more ancient/older than to continually bring new increases to the Kingdom of God.”
– The phrase “nova incrementa” (new increases) is ambiguous. In itself, growth of the Kingdom is Catholic. Yet placed on the lips of the man who shortly launches a council that enthrones condemned liberal errors, the expression functions as a manifesto of aggiornamento.
– This is precisely the Modernist deformation condemned in Lamentabili: *veritas mutatur cum homine* (truth changes with man) is rejected, yet Roncalli’s programmatic “updating” seeks effectively a new form of religion under traditional names.
3. Juridic solemnity misapplied:
– The strong clause:
“praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere…”
– and the universal nullification of contrary acts is orthodox as a formula, but in context is a performative self-assertion of a jurisdiction that, according to the perennial doctrine on manifest heresy and defection from the faith, he cannot possess.
The rhetorical strategy is thus: adopt flawless traditional phrasing to anesthetize discernment, while the same pen prepares, in other acts, the dissolution of those very principles.
Theological Level: Jurisdiction, Heresy, and the Impossibility of Modernist “Popes”
Here the integral Catholic criterion—unchanging doctrine before 1958—must be applied with rigor.
1. The papacy and manifest heresy:
– St. Robert Bellarmine (as accurately preserved in the pre-conciliar theological tradition) teaches that a manifest heretic cannot be pope because he ceases to be a member of the Church; this is not a mere opinion but presented as the “most certain” principle: the head cannot be severed from the body of which he is said to be head.
– Classical authors (e.g., Wernz-Vidal, Billot) and Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code confirm that public defection from the Catholic faith entails loss of office *ipso facto*, without need of a further declaratory sentence to cause that loss.
– Pope Paul IV in *Cum ex Apostolatus Officio* declares any elevation of a heretic to the papacy null and void from the beginning.
Given:
– Roncalli’s demonstrable favour toward condemned currents: ecumenism that relativizes the unique Church, sympathy for religious liberty in the liberal sense condemned in the Syllabus (e.g., propositions 15–18, 77–80), and his role in initiating the council that enthroned such positions.
– His rehabilitation and promotion of individuals and ideas previously sanctioned under Pius X and Pius XII.
– His manifest program of “updating” incompatible with the insistence of Pius IX and Pius X that Catholic doctrine cannot be adapted to liberal modernity without betrayal.
The theological consequence, according to pre-1958 norms, is clear: such a man cannot be accepted as a true Roman Pontiff without overthrowing the dogmatic foundations of the papal office. Therefore:
– The jurisdiction invoked in this letter is not morally or theologically credible as papal jurisdiction.
– The solemn clauses carry no binding force in the order of the true Church, even if the content (choosing patrons) is in itself orthodox.
2. Patronage and the social Kingship of Christ:
Authentic Catholic teaching, eloquently synthesized by Pius XI in *Quas Primas*, states that:
– Peace and order are only possible where individuals and nations submit to the reign of Christ the King in public and private life.
– States and dioceses must publicly recognize and honour Christ and conform their laws to His law; secular neutrality is condemned.
Measured against this:
– The document mentions nothing of the duty of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Dubuque to uphold the Kingship of Christ against the liberal American constitutional order that enshrines religious indifferentism condemned in the Syllabus (propositions 15–18, 55, 77–80).
– Saint Raphael and Saint John Mary Vianney are invoked, but there is no clarion call to restore the Most Holy Sacrifice as the heart of social life, no denunciation of laicism, no explicit assertion that Christ alone is King of Iowa or of the United States.
– This silence is not accidental. It prefigures the conciliar sect’s embrace of religious liberty (Dignitatis humanae), in explicit rupture with Pius IX and Pius XI, and its abdication of the duty to demand that states publicly recognise the true religion.
3. Exploiting Saint John Mary Vianney:
– The Curé of Ars exemplifies:
– Zeal for the confessional as tribunal of penance.
– Horror of liturgical irreverence and doctrinal compromise.
– A spirituality rooted entirely in sacrifice, penance, and the unbloody renewal of Calvary.
– His example annihilates the spirit of the conciliar pseudo-clergy: horizontal “pastoral” activism, liturgical desacralization, doctrinal ambiguity, friendship with the world.
By placing Vianney’s name under his usurped seal, Roncalli attempts to conscript a saint of uncompromising orthodoxy to ornament an institution that would soon overthrow the theology of the Mass, reduce the priest to a community functionary, and dissolve catechetical clarity.
Theologically, this is a grave *abusio sancti*—an abuse of the saints. They cannot be made the banners of a revolution that contradicts everything they lived and taught.
Symptomatic Level: A Microcosm of the Conciliar Revolution’s Method
This brief text is a distilled specimen of how the neo-church operates:
1. Continuity in externalities:
– Latin language.
– Use of the Fisherman’s Ring.
– Standard formulas of papal legislation.
– Praise of recognized saints.
These elements are deployed to create psychological continuity: the faithful see familiar forms and assume the underlying reality remains intact.
2. Radical alteration of underlying orientation:
What the text ominously omits:
– No insistence on the absolute necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation, condemned errors being rampant in the American milieu.
– No reminder that the Church is a perfect society, independent of the State (against Syllabus errors 19–21, 55).
– No denunciation of secularism or Masonic forces subverting the Church and society, which Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X had explicitly unmasked.
– No mention that the mission of the diocesan clergy must be to defend dogma against liberalism, Modernism, and indifferentism.
This silence is, according to integral Catholic principles, the gravest indictment. *Qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent is seen to consent). When a document touches the life of an entire archdiocese and proposes heavenly patrons but never once raises the central contemporary threats to faith, it functions as a pacifying sedative, suggesting all is well.
3. The pattern of staged occupation:
– Stage 1: Preserve external forms (Latin, canonical style, saints) to reassure.
– Stage 2: Introduce “pastoral” shifts, “new growth,” “aggiornamento,” and systematically promote enemies of the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
– Stage 3: Codify rupture in a council and fabricate a “hermeneutics of continuity” to justify the contradiction.
This letter belongs to Stage 1: the occupation of structures through impeccably styled but spiritually anesthetizing documents that presuppose acceptance of a usurped authority.
Contrasting with Pre-1958 Magisterium: The Absolute Incompatibility
To unmask the bankruptcy of the mentality embodied by Roncalli’s letter, one must place it alongside the binding doctrinal landmarks:
– The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX) categorically condemns:
– Religious indifferentism and the idea that any religion may lead to salvation (16).
– The equality of all forms of worship in public life (77–79).
– Reconciliation of the Church with liberal modern civilization (80).
– *Quas Primas* (Pius XI) declares:
– States and rulers must publicly recognize Christ and subject legislation to His law.
– Defection from Christ’s Kingship produces social dissolution.
– *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* (Pius X) anathematize:
– The evolution of dogma.
– Adaptation of doctrine to modern culture as if truth changed.
– Reducing revelation to religious experience or historical flux.
Roncalli’s broader program—of which this letter is a polished fragment—directly prepares:
– The denial in practice of the exclusive social rights of Christ the King, replaced by a cult of human dignity detached from the Kingship of Christ.
– The embrace of ecumenism that treats heretical and schismatic sects as “sister churches,” contradicting the Magisterium which affirms that the Catholic Church alone is the true Church of Christ.
– The “development” of doctrine in precisely the Modernist sense condemned by Pius X: changing content under the pretext of deeper understanding.
Hence, the core theological contradiction:
– Either the strong condemnations of the 19th–early 20th century were true and remain binding (and then the conciliar revolution is apostasy, its supposed leaders without authority).
– Or the conciliar reforms are legitimate “developments” (then Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII were in grave error, which is blasphemous against the assisted Magisterium).
The letter Expedit sane functions by pretending this dilemma does not exist. It acts as if the man who will inaugurate the revolution is simply another link in an unbroken chain, fit to legislate patronage and bestow blessings. This studied silence and theatrical normality reveal the spiritual fraud.
The Spiritual Bankruptcy Revealed
When judged by integral Catholic faith, the document is bankrupt on multiple levels:
1. Bankruptcy of authority:
– A man aligned with condemned errors cannot be the guarantor of Catholic order in Dubuque or anywhere else.
– His use of juridical formulas is an empty shell, a simulation of papal authority, not its exercise.
2. Bankruptcy of pastoral responsibility:
– At a time of encroaching liberalism, secularism, and interior Modernism, a true pope would harness the patronage of Raphael and the Curé of Ars to call for:
– Restoration of the Most Holy Sacrifice in its full doctrinal clarity.
– Militantly Catholic catechesis.
– Public rejection of indifferentist civil principles.
Instead, we find only an anodyne, edifying note, studiously avoiding confrontation with the reigning errors—an omission that serves the advance of those errors.
3. Bankruptcy of honesty:
– Authentic saints are pressed into the service of a structure that will soon trample their spirit.
– The Curé of Ars, patron of priests, is placed as secondary patron of a local church whose priesthood, under the conciliar sect, will be progressively emptied of sacrificial and sacramental identity, replaced by a pseudo-ministry in a “new rite” and new doctrine.
4. Bankruptcy of supernatural vision:
– There is no reference to the Four Last Things, to the necessity of remaining in the state of grace, to the danger of hell for those who follow liberal errors.
– Patronage is presented in functional, devotional terms without anchoring in the absolute claims of Christ the King over laws, education, and public morals.
– The silence on these matters signals a mind already imbued with naturalism and horizontal “pastoral” concerns, not the supernatural lucidity of the pre-conciliar papacy.
Conclusion: A Pious Shell Hiding the Advance of the Conciliar Sect
“Expedit sane” serves as a paradigm of the early conciliar sect’s tactics:
– It is externally orthodox, liturgically conservative in form, rich in venerable names.
– It studiously omits the dogmatic militancy demanded by prior Magisterium against modern errors.
– It presupposes as legitimate the authority of one whose broader words and deeds align with condemned principles, thereby exposing a chasm between appearance and reality.
From the perspective of the integral Catholic faith rooted in the immutable Magisterium before 1958, this letter is not to be admired as a mark of papal solicitude. It is to be recognized as a calculated gesture by which the usurping regime clothes itself in the garments of saints like Raphael and John Mary Vianney, in order to secure docile obedience from souls who still remember the true Church.
To remain faithful to Christ the King, to the teaching enshrined by Pius IX in the Syllabus, reaffirmed by Pius X against Modernism, and proclaimed by Pius XI in Quas Primas, one must:
– Honour Saint Raphael and Saint John Mary Vianney as powerful patrons indeed,
– While utterly rejecting their instrumentalization by the conciliar pseudo-authority,
– And clinging instead to the perennial doctrine that recognizes no authentic papal acts in open contradiction—directly or systemically—with the Faith once delivered to the saints.
Source:
Expedit sane (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025