The document attributed to John XXIII, titled Meritis laudibus (15 January 1960), grants the cathedral church of Ayacucho in Peru, dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows, the title and privileges of a minor basilica. In solemn canonical language it praises the baroque splendor, sacred ornaments, and artistic heritage of the temple, and decrees, with the usual juridical formulae, its elevation to the dignity of Basilica Minor with all corresponding rights and privileges, nullifying anything to the contrary.
Aesthetic Incense for a Neo-Church: John XXIII’s Basilica Decree as Symptom of the Coming Rupture
From Catholic Basilica to Neo-Church Showcase: The Silent Premises
At first glance, one might deem this act a harmless, even pious recognition of a venerable seventeenth-century temple: a church erected when Peru professed, at least externally, the Catholic faith; a sanctuary under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary; a monument of baroque Catholic culture. The text lauds:
“Meritis laudibus fertur princeps templum Ayacuquense, saeculo XVII conditum Almaeque Deiparae ad Nives dicatum, ubi religionis ritus congruenti celebrarentur splendore undeque velut e capite superna bona in christianam plebem manarent.”
English: “With well-deserved praises is celebrated the principal temple of Ayacucho, founded in the 17th century and dedicated to the Kind Mother of God of the Snows, where the rites of religion would be celebrated with fitting splendour and from which, as from a head, heavenly goods would flow into the Christian people.”
On the surface, such language echoes older papal acts that honoured churches as centers of the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary* and of sound doctrine. Yet precisely here the poison appears—not in what is said, but in what is rigorously, programmatically unsaid.
In an act supposedly exalting a mother-church, there is:
– no explicit profession of the integral Catholic faith;
– no mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice as propitiatory, renewing Calvary;
– no reference to the primacy of the supernatural order, the state of grace, sin, judgment, hell, or the Kingship of Christ over Peru;
– no doctrinal exhortation against the raging errors of the time (liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry, religious indifferentism), constantly unmasked by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII.
Instead, the text replaces theological substance with:
– architectonic admiration;
– aestheticism and cultural prestige;
– canonical privilege as empty honorific.
This is not a neutral accident. It is the rhetoric of a hierarchy already internally shifted from *Ecclesia docens* to cultural curatorship. It functions as a proto-conciliar gesture: an act of public authority empty of dogmatic edge, preparing the way for the *conciliar sect* to inherit Catholic buildings without Catholic faith.
Factual and Canonical Level: A Legitimate Act or a Juridical Shell?
Let us dissect the factual-juridical content.
The document:
– asserts the cathedral’s antiquity and Marian dedication;
– notes its baroque style and rich sacred furnishings;
– reports the petition of Othoniel Alcedo, then bishop of Ayacucho;
– by “Apostolic” authority of John XXIII, elevates the cathedral to the rank of Basilica Minor;
– attaches “all rights and privileges” customary for such basilicas;
– declares all contrary provisions null.
Now, from the perspective of unchanging doctrine and the teaching of pre-1958 theologians:
1. A true Pope can grant honorary titles to churches; such decrees are, per se, disciplinary. However:
– discipline is not independent of doctrine (*lex orandi, lex credendi*).
– honors conferred by one who publicly launches or prepares a revolution against received doctrine are not free-floating; they are instruments in that revolution.
2. The line from John XXIII through the current antipope in Rome is characterized by:
– convocation, ratification, and implementation of a “pastoral” council that canonized propositions previously condemned in the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX (religious liberty, false ecumenism, state-neutrality toward the true religion);
– demolition of the Roman Rite and replacement with a fabricated assembly-ritual structured around a protestantised theology of “people of God” and “presider”;
– progressive erosion of the public social Kingship of Christ denounced already by Pius XI in *Quas Primas* as the essence of apostasy.
Given these manifest ruptures, the ascription of genuine papal authority to John XXIII must be rejected. The document is thus an act of a usurping authority, clothing itself in Catholic forms while installing its signature: aesthetic humanism without dogmatic militancy.
The decree’s structure, mimicking older papal style, serves as camouflage. Yet its content is doctrinally anemic, fully compatible with the later “Church of the New Advent,” which occupies Catholic sanctuaries while propagating condemned principles.
Linguistic Sterility: Aestheticism Without the Cross
The rhetoric of the text is revealing.
Key emphases:
– “Meritis laudibus… structurae genus… amplitudo movet admirationem… signis affabre factis, picturis colorum venustate insignibus, pretiosis metallis sacraque supellectile artificiosa…”
– English: praise for “baroque” style, “amplitude” that “moves admiration,” refined craftsmanship, “beauty of colours,” precious metals, artistic sacred furnishings.
What is missing is more decisive than what is present:
– No confession that this temple is above all the place of the true *Unbloody Sacrifice*, where the same Christ of Calvary offers Himself for the remission of sins.
– No insistence that from this temple must flow first and foremost not “beauty” but orthodox preaching against error, the administration of valid sacraments according to the Roman Rite, and formation in the faith without compromise.
– No assertion, as Pius XI in *Quas Primas*, that peace and blessing flow only where Christ is publicly recognized as King, and that rulers must submit their nations to His law.
Instead, the temple is extolled almost as a museum-piece: a “noble hall of God” whose dignity is increased by a Roman diploma. This language conforms to the conciliar habitus: religion as heritage, beauty, identity, community space—emptied of confessional exclusivity.
Such linguistic choices are not neutral. They embody the modernist method condemned by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*:
– reduce supernatural realities to historical-cultural forms;
– speak abundantly of “religion,” “piety,” “splendour,” but avoid hard dogma;
– honor sacred art while undermining the faith it once expressed.
This is why Pius X condemned the modernist thesis that dogmas and structures are merely “modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” (*Lamentabili* 54). John XXIII’s text, by silence and style, aligns with that evolutionism: venerating the shell, preparing to change the content.
Theological Vacuum: Basilicas Without the Social Kingship of Christ
A church raised to the dignity of a Basilica Minor, in the Catholic sense, is:
– more closely linked to the Roman See;
– a model of liturgical orthodoxy;
– a center of preaching and devotion that proclaims clearly the one true religion;
– a local bastion of the universal reign of Christ the King.
Measured by the pre-1958 magisterium:
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that society’s calamities come because “very many have removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs, from private, family, and public life” and that peace will not shine “as long as individuals and states refuse to recognize the reign of our Savior.”
– Pius IX in the Syllabus condemns the separation of Church and State (prop. 55), religious indifferentism (15–18), and the notion that the State is the source of all rights (39).
A decree truly Catholic and truly papal in 1960, addressing a cathedral in a historically Catholic nation, should—especially in the face of growing Masonic liberalism in Latin America—have:
– reaffirmed that Peru, as a nation, is obligated to the true faith;
– warned against laicism, syncretism, communism, and the infiltration of secret societies which Pius IX and Leo XIII denounced as the “synagogue of Satan” warring against the Church;
– exhorted clergy and faithful to defend the integrity of doctrine and worship, guarding the sanctuary from profanation and modernist corruption.
Instead:
– Not a word is said of the social duties of the Peruvian State.
– Not a word is said against the enemies of the Church.
– Not a word is said affirming the exclusive salvific mission of the Catholic Church.
– Not a word is said about the obligation to preserve the traditional Roman Rite inviolate.
This silence, in the context of 1960, is an accusation. It shows an authority that has chosen to speak about marble and baroque curves while the edifice of Catholic society is already being dynamited by liberalism, socialism, ecumenism, and internal modernism.
Silentium de summis, loquacitas de parvis (silence about the highest things, verbosity about small ones) is the trade-mark of the conciliar revolution.
Symptomatic Dimension: Consolidating Possession of Catholic Stones
To understand the deeper significance:
1. The conciliar sect seeks legitimacy by occupying Catholic buildings:
– cathedrals, basilicas, sanctuaries, monasteries built in the time of orthodoxy;
– each new honorary act functions as a chain tying these stones to the usurping hierarchy.
– after 1960, that same line will alter the liturgy, doctrine, catechesis inside these very walls, using the prestige of their age and baroque splendor to mask the new religion.
2. By confirming a seventeenth-century cathedral as a Basilica Minor, John XXIII:
– wraps himself in the continuity of Catholic history while preparing doctrinal discontinuity;
– sends a political message: “Rome” (in fact, the structures occupying the Vatican) positively endorses this sanctuary; later, whatever is done there—ecumenical rites, new “Mass,” interreligious spectacles—will appear under that seal.
3. The lack of doctrinal content is therefore strategic:
– any strong reaffirmation of pre-1958 principles would have constrained the forthcoming council and reforms;
– a purely aesthetic and juridical brief avoids binding the neo-church to the teachings of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII.
Thus this short letter is not inconsequential. It is an example of how the post-1958 apparatus:
– retains canonical forms and Latin solemnities,
– drains them of doctrinal clarity,
– and uses them to secure jurisdictional and symbolic control over places that once resounded with uncompromising Catholicism.
Art Without Truth: The Subtle Betrayal of Sacred Beauty
The repeated admiration for baroque architecture and sacred art would be legitimate—indeed pious—if subordinated clearly to the service of the true faith.
But without such subordination, this praise slips into:
– aestheticism: cult of form, detached from the content of dogma;
– museum-Catholicism: the church as cultural monument, tourist attraction, or identity symbol;
– humanistic religiosity: where “splendour” replaces sacrifice, “beauty” replaces conversion, and liturgical space becomes a stage for anthropocentric rites.
This mentality directly contradicts the pre-1958 magisterium:
– St. Pius X condemns the modernist reduction of supernatural revelation to religious experience and symbolism (*Lamentabili* 20–24, 54–65).
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* insists that every aspect of life, including public culture, must be ordered under the objective Kingship of Christ, not to a vague religiosity.
By extolling the Ayacucho cathedral in purely laudatory and artistic terms while deliberately omitting affirmation of its doctrinal mission, John XXIII’s act:
– instrumentalizes sacred beauty in the service of a future doctrinal inversion;
– transforms the basilica title into a badge of loyalty to the conciliar line, not to the perennial faith.
One day, in such “basilicas,” the Most Holy Sacrifice would be replaced by a protestantised assembly, the pulpit would promote religious liberty and ecumenism condemned in the Syllabus, and statues of Our Lady would be left to coexist with pagan symbols and ideological banners. The 1960 decree helps secure the legal and symbolic platform for this desecration.
Authority and Nullity: The Problem of a Usurper’s Seal
The document ends with the classic formula:
“Haec edicimus, statuimus, decernentes praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere… irritumque ex nunc et inane fieri, si quidquam secus…”
English: “We decree, establish, ordaining that these Letters shall always stand and remain firm, valid and effective… and that it be null and void from now on if anything to the contrary should be attempted…”
In Catholic theology, no formula, however solemn, can supply what is lacking in the subject of jurisdiction. *Nemo dat quod non habet* (no one gives what he does not have). If one publicly inaugurates a revolution opposing prior solemn magisterium, he thereby manifests rupture with the faith which is the condition of holding the Petrine office.
The decree’s own juridical absolutism acquires an ironic hue:
– a man aligned with the doctrinal direction later realized in the conciliar sect claims to bind perpetually;
– yet the content he promulgates is emptied of real Catholic obligation and serves a system condemned by prior Popes.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine, the faithful must distinguish:
– the physical continuity of documents, seals, ceremonies;
– from the formal continuity of the Church’s magisterial mind.
John XXIII’s mind, as evidenced in subsequent acts, speeches, and in the very convocation of the council that enthroned principles rejected by the Syllabus and *Quas Primas*, is not the mind of the perennial Church. Therefore:
– his cultural-bureaucratic decrees cannot be naively accepted as neutral;
– they are elements of the paramasonic structure’s consolidation: claiming Catholic stones, titles, and symbols to channel a new religion.
What a Truly Catholic Act Would Have Said
Contrasting this decree with what pre-1958 doctrine requires reveals its deficiency.
A truly Catholic apostolic letter, raising such a cathedral to basilica dignity in 1960, would have:
– Explicitly professed:
– that the Catholic Church is the one true Church of Christ (against Syllabus errors 15–18, 21);
– that salvation is not found in false religions.
– Commanded:
– that in this basilica the traditional Roman Rite be safeguarded intact as the expression of the faith of the ages;
– that preaching there combat socialism, communism, Freemasonry, liberalism, and indifferentism, in continuity with Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X.
– Exhorted:
– Peruvian authorities to recognize publicly the Kingship of Christ and the rights of His Church, rejecting the separationist thesis condemned in Syllabus 55.
– Warned:
– clergy against doctrinal novelties, “new theologies,” and historical relativism condemned in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*;
– the faithful against human respect and the cult of mere cultural Catholicism.
Its silence on all these points—precisely on the eve of the council that will enthrone their opposites—exposes the spiritual bankruptcy of the attitude embodied in this text.
Conclusion: Meritis Laudibus as a Micro-Sign of Macro-Apostasy
“Meritis laudibus” is brief, courteous, and apparently benign. Yet when read in the light of binding pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, it stands as:
– an act of a usurping authority consolidating symbolic and juridical control over a historic Catholic sanctuary;
– a specimen of conciliar rhetoric: emphasis on art, dignity, heritage, and “piety,” with a strategic absence of doctrinal clarity;
– a preparation for the profanation of Catholic temples by a new worship and a new theology, performed under the guise of Roman approval.
Where Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII speak with burning clarity against liberalism, modernism, and the secularization of society, John XXIII here offers a diploma of honor without a word of warning. Where true papal acts once armed churches as fortresses of dogma, this text decorates a future stage for the conciliar sect.
Thus, the Ayacucho decree is not an isolated curiosity. It is a discreet brick in the architecture of apostasy: a polished Latin façade erected to enthrone, in practice, a religion of man in the very cathedrals that once proclaimed the unique reign of Christ the King.
Source:
Meritis laudibus (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025