Ad perpetuam confusionem erroris.
The text bearing the title “Fortiter suaviterque” is a Latin apostolic letter attributed to John XXIII, by which he confers the title and privileges of Minor Basilica upon the Marian shrine of Beata Maria Virgo Nemorensis (“Madonna del Bosco”) in Imbersago, in the Archdiocese of Milan. The document is brief, sentimental, and juridical in form: it recalls his youthful Marian devotion to this sanctuary, enumerates its aesthetic and devotional qualities, and then, “motu proprio” and by supposed apostolic authority, elevates the church to the status of Basilica Minor with all attached rights and privileges, declaring all contrary dispositions null.
The same text which parades as filial Marian piety is in reality theologically empty, juridically void, and spiritually poisonous, because it presupposes as legitimate the usurpation of the Chair of Peter by John XXIII and inaugurates, under a Marian veneer, the regime of the conciliar revolution.
Sentimental Ornament over a Void: The Pseudo-Juridical Act of a Usurper
The entire structure of the letter rests on a premise that must be rejected from the standpoint of *integral Catholic doctrine*: that Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII) possessed the authority of the Roman Pontiff.
He writes of being raised by “Divine Mercy” *fortiter suaviterque* (firmly and gently) to the “sublime height of the See of Peter” and then exercises what he calls the *plenitudo potestatis apostolicae* to grant Basilica Minor status to the shrine:
“motu proprio, certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostra… Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine… Ecclesiam… titulo ac dignitate Basilicae Minoris… afficimus ac decoramus”.
But:
– *Prima sedes a nemine iudicatur* (the First See is judged by no one) applies only to a true Pope. It presupposes Catholic faith. As the pre-conciliar theologians and canonists reiterate, a manifest heretic or one deeply compromised with condemned errors cannot be head of the Church he does not belong to. This principle, expressed by St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, and reaffirmed in the canonical tradition, is not optional speculation but a safeguard of the very constitution of the Church.
– Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code declares offices vacated *ipso facto* by public defection from the faith. Roncalli’s documented modernist associations, ecumenical tendencies, and doctrinal ambiguity (already notorious before 1958) fall not within the perimeter of integral Roman orthodoxy but within the pattern condemned by Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi. The very election of such a man stands under the shadow of the principles of Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which declares null any promotion of one who has “fallen into some heresy.”
– Therefore his self-asserted *plenitudo potestatis* is juridically non-existent. The act is the simulation of pontifical legislation by one who, according to the perennial teaching summarized in the provided Defense of Sedevacantism, cannot hold the office he claims.
The first and fundamental bankruptcy of this letter is thus ontological: there is no Pontiff behind the pompous formula. It is an empty seal affixed by a private person occupying the Vatican.
The Naturalistic Piety and Aestheticism Masquerading as Marian Devotion
At the factual and rhetorical level, the text dwells on architecture, landscape, and emotions:
– It praises the sanctuary’s picturesque woods, stairways, octagonal structures, “artistic paintings and sculptures,” “rich and beautiful” sacred furnishings, and notes the solemn consecration in 1928.
– It recalls the youthful pilgrimages of Roncalli as a boy from Bergamo, emphasizing personal nostalgia.
– It proudly mentions the solemn coronation of the statue in 1954 carried out by Roncalli as “Patriarch” of Venice on behalf of Cardinal Schuster.
All this culminates in the supposed “special sign” of benevolence: the honorary status of a Minor Basilica.
On the surface one might see here Catholic continuity: Marian shrine, venerable image, canonical crowning, basilica title. But precisely in such texts the conciliar subversion appears: pious externals evacuated of doctrinal density, used to normalize the illegitimate authority of the new regime.
Measured by the robust Marian theology of the pre-1958 Magisterium, the letter is revealing not for what it says, but for what it never dares to say.
Silencing the Supernatural: The Gravest Omission
Pre-conciliar Popes, when exalting Marian shrines, did so by:
– Linking Marian cult explicitly with *Christ’s Kingship*, obedience to His law, the triumph over errors and heresies.
– Recalling the necessity of the *state of grace*, the Most Holy Sacrifice, repentance, mortification, and the Four Last Things.
– Condemning the errors and movements—rationalism, liberalism, indifferentism—that threatened souls (cf. Pius IX’s *Syllabus Errorum*; Leo XIII; St. Pius X).
Here, by contrast, the usurper’s letter:
– Says nothing of sin, nothing of conversion, nothing of judgment, nothing of hell, nothing of the public rights of Christ the King as taught by Pius XI in *Quas primas*.
– Reduces Marian devotion to a soft recollection that “Divine Mercy impelled us from tender years” towards religious life and priesthood.
– Treats the title of Minor Basilica almost as a sentimental souvenir (“mnemosynon”) of his own youth, an autobiographical ornament baptized as pontifical law.
This studied silence is not accidental. It is symptomatic.
A legitimate Roman Pontiff, formed in the line of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, would harness the opportunity:
– To condemn the masonic, liberal, and modernist subversion which Pius IX identified as the “synagogue of Satan” and which aims precisely at neutralizing Marian cult and the Most Holy Sacrifice.
– To summon the faithful at that very shrine to militant fidelity: to flee indifferentism, to oppose secularism, to restore the social reign of Christ.
Instead, Roncalli offers a decorative gesture, devoid of doctrinal combat, perfectly compatible with the liberal “religious sense” condemned in Lamentabili. This is the “soft” pastoral tone preparing the “fortiter” against Tradition that will follow in the Council he convoked.
Silence here is complicity. When the world and Italy were ravaged by laicism, communism, and moral dissolution, a supposed successor of Pius XI could not speak of a Marian shrine without calling nations and rulers back to the law of Christ the King, unless he had already capitulated to the spirit condemned in the *Syllabus*.
Manipulation of Marian Cult to Legitimize the Conciliar Sect
The letter uses three interconnected strategies:
1. Autobiographical sanctification:
– He recounts youthful pilgrimages to this shrine as though his personal sentiment grants ecclesial significance. This is pure subjectivism, a piety of feeling rather than of dogma.
– The implication: “The sanctuary is dear to me; I now ‘as Pope’ honor it. Accept my authority because you recognize this devotion.”
2. Accumulation of external dignity:
– Coronation of the statue;
– Basilica Minor title;
– Legalistic formulas (“Contrariis quibuslibet non obstantibus” etc.).
These ornaments are meant to reassure the faithful that nothing has changed, that Marian piety continues unabated. In reality, they function as anesthetic: keeping the people emotionally attached while the doctrinal foundations are being dismantled.
3. Absence of any doctrinal stand:
– No mention that Marian cult must be intrinsically Christocentric, rooted in the dogmas defined at Ephesus, Trent, Vatican I, oriented to the defense of Catholic dogma against error.
– No call to resist socialism, communism, Freemasonry, laicist state power—precisely those sects and systems Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X denounced as enemies of the Church and promoters of apostasy.
Thus we see the inversion: Marian language is retained while Marian mission is betrayed. The Mother is invoked; the Son’s Kingship over societies is ignored. The shrine is honored; the battle against the enemies of her Son is left unmentioned.
This is modernist tactic: *signa retinent, res mutant* (they keep the signs, they change the realities).
Legal Formulas in the Service of a Revolution
The text uses the traditional solemn juridical style:
“Haec edicimus, statuimus, decernentes praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere; suosque plenos atque integros effectus sortiri…”
This is classic form for a genuine pontifical act. But when the signer lacks authority, such formulas are blasphemous mimicry. They illustrate a deeper crisis:
– The usurper appropriates the visible legal body of the Church while hollowing from within the faith that gives that legal body life.
– The conciliar sect will later exploit exactly this juridical continuity—unchanged seals, titles, chanceries—to enforce novelties: ecumenism, religious liberty, false collegiality, the profanation of the liturgy.
From a doctrinal standpoint grounded in pre-1958 theology:
– A juridical act presupposes a legitimate subject of power.
– Where the subject is null, the act is null, irrespective of precise canonical formulae.
Therefore, the insistence on validity and nullification of contrary acts is bitterly ironic. The one who declares all contrary dispositions “irritum et inane” (null and void) has, by the very principles of *Cum ex Apostolatus Officio* and the theological tradition recalled in the Defense of Sedevacantism, no jurisdiction, and his own act is precisely what is *irritum et inane*.
The Aesthetic Cloak over Impending Liturgical and Doctrinal Devastation
It is instructive that early in his reign the usurper chooses to issue such a text:
– A Marian, picturesque, non-controversial favor to a local shrine;
– No explicit doctrinal error in the bare text itself, only strategic omissions and self-legitimization;
– A model of the “pastoral” tone that will characterize the Council he will convoke.
This is how revolutions proceed: not first by frontal denials, but by displacement.
Compare:
– Pius XI in *Quas primas* denounces secularism, insists that civil rulers must publicly honor Christ, and calls for societal submission to His laws. The encyclical is doctrinally dense, militant, supernatural.
– Roncalli in this letter speaks of a Marian shrine; omits Christ’s social kingship; offers a purely honorific gesture; refuses to confront the anti-Christian forces ravaging nations and the Church.
The shift from Pius XI’s virile insistence on the *Regnum Christi* over nations to Roncalli’s sentimental Marianism devoid of militancy reveals an ideological mutation. The conciliar sect will go on to:
– Replace the fight against error with “dialogue”;
– Replace condemnation of false religions with “respect” and “common values”;
– Replace the defense of the social reign of Christ with the cult of human rights and the “dignity of man.”
In this light, the elevation of “Madonna del Bosco” is not innocent: it is one small brick in the facade designed to convince the faithful that those occupying the Vatican are pious and Marian, while they quietly prepare the doctrinal demolition to be enacted during and after the Council.
Absence of Any Warning against the Neo-Church’s Sacrilegious Cult
Even at the level of practical consequences, the text is ominous:
– By granting Basilica Minor status from the outset of his usurped reign, Roncalli binds the shrine, in the eyes of unsuspecting faithful, more closely to the Roman See—precisely at the moment when the structures occupying Rome are entering into open apostasy.
– There is no warning that participation in the nascent post-conciliar cult, which will soon manifest itself in the deformation of the Most Holy Sacrifice and the spread of pseudo-sacraments, endangers souls.
– On the contrary, everything is crafted to suggest that devotion to Our Lady and submission to the new “Pope” are one and the same obedience.
The gravest spiritual danger lies here: the shrine becomes a channel through which the faithful are led, under Marian colors, into communion with the conciliar sect and its coming abominations.
A sanctuary truly Marian, judged by pre-1958 standards, must:
– Guard the integrity of the faith;
– Foster the unadulterated Roman rite of the Unbloody Sacrifice;
– Reject syncretism, false ecumenism, and modernist novelties.
This letter does not articulate any such conditions. It integrates the shrine into a paramasonic, ecumenical trajectory that will, in time, defile countless sanctuaries by the presence of idolatrous rituals and sacrilegious liturgies.
Symptomatic Expression of the Conciliar Revolution’s Method
On the symptomatic level, “Fortiter suaviterque” exemplifies the key features of the conciliar revolution:
1. Sentimentalism replacing doctrinal clarity:
– Personal reminiscence and aesthetic description substitute for dogmatic teaching and moral exhortation.
2. Use of traditional forms to convey a new spirit:
– The Latin language, canonical formulas, Marian vocabulary, and visible continuity of honorary titles create the illusion of identity between the pre-1958 Papacy and the new regime, while the underlying ecclesiology and orientation diverge radically.
3. Strategic omissions as vehicles of error:
– No mention of the errors condemned in the *Syllabus* and *Lamentabili*;
– No insistence on the exclusive truth and rights of the Catholic Church, no condemnation of indifferentism;
– No word about the necessity to order civil life to Christ the King, as required by *Quas primas*.
4. Preparation of the faithful for acceptance of future novelties:
– Once the usurper is accepted as a Marian, gentle, “fatherly” figure, his convocation of a “pastoral” council and later doctrinal subversions are more readily embraced.
– Marian devotion is manipulated as a tool to lull vigilant Catholics who still love the Mother of God into trusting those who betray her Son’s Kingship.
In sum, the letter is not important for the titular favor it bestows, but as a soft-focus photograph of the new religion’s self-presentation: orthodox in décor, apostate in trajectory.
The Only Catholic Response: Reject the Illusion, Hold to the Integral Faith
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic teaching:
– A Marian shrine is honorable insofar as it is a fortress of orthodoxy and a throne for the true Christ, not a sentimental stage for a neo-church to validate its usurped authority.
– Titles such as “Minor Basilica” conferred by an antipope are canonically and morally irrelevant; they do not confer grace, jurisdiction, or true privilege.
– True devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in our time demands a refusal to follow the paramasonic structures that abuse her name to promote Modernism, ecumenism, and the cult of man.
Pius XI taught in *Quas primas* that peace and order will not return until men and nations recognize and submit to the reign of Christ. Pius IX in the *Syllabus* condemned the separation of Church and State, religious indifferentism, and attempts to subject the Church to secular powers and liberal principles. St. Pius X condemned Modernism as the synthesis of all heresies and demanded that novelty and doctrinal evolution be branded and rejected.
Against this solemn and binding chorus, the soft rhetoric of “Fortiter suaviterque” exposes itself as a polished front of the apostasy that would soon overturn doctrine, liturgy, and discipline in practice.
Therefore:
– One must denounce the act as a juridical nullity issuing from a false claimant to the Apostolic See.
– One must unmask the sentimental Marian imagery as instrumental in pacifying consciences while the structures occupying the Vatican prepare to enthrone man and world above the rights of Christ the King.
– One must cling not to honorary titles and decorative decrees, but to the integral Catholic faith, sacraments, and hierarchy as they existed and were taught before the conciliar revolution.
Fortiter suaviterque, in the mouth and pen of John XXIII, becomes a tragic parody: not the gentle strength of Divine Mercy drawing souls to the narrow way, but the gently spoken strength of a counterfeit authority ushering them, with Marian hymns on their lips, towards the abyss of Modernism.
Source:
Fortiter suaviterque, Litterae Apostolicae Basilicae Minoris Honoribus Ac Privilegiis Afficitur Ecclesia Beatae Mariae Virginis Nemorensis, Seiu V. « Madonna Del Bosco », In Oppido « Imbersago », Medi… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025