The document under consideration is an Apostolic Letter of John XXIII dated 3 September 1960, by which he authorizes and orders the perpetual transfer of the head (primary relic) of Saint Venerius from the Church of St Peter in Reggio Emilia to the church dedicated to St Venerius in La Spezia, in response to the request of Giuseppe Stella, holder of the conciliar titles “Bishop of La Spezia, Sarzana and Brugnato”. The text recounts the ancient cult of St Venerius in the Gulf of La Spezia, the translation of his relics in the 9th century for protection from pirates, and now sanctions a new translation of his head so that the saint’s patronage may be more intensely honored at La Spezia; it concludes with the usual juridical clauses of validity and derogation from a decree of Clement VIII regarding relics. This seemingly pious brief, however, is an early and clear manifestation of the usurper John XXIII’s ecclesiological program: the instrumentalization of sacred things and saints’ relics to cloak the nascent conciliar sect with a semblance of continuity, while in reality detaching cult, law, and authority from the true, perpetual Magisterium of the Church of Christ.
Liturgical Ornament as Mask for a New Religion
At first glance, this letter appears as a minor devotional and disciplinary act: approval of an established local devotion, authorization of the transfer of a relic, courteous mention of diocesan prelates, and the solemn style of Roman juridical form. Yet precisely here the mask of continuity is most dangerous. The entire gesture presupposes that John XXIII is Pope and that the conciliar apparatus in 1960 is the same visible Church that legislated at Trent, condemned Modernism under St Pius X, and enthroned Christ the King in Quas Primas.
In reality, we are confronted with an antipope already preparing the aggiornamento that would dissolve the very doctrinal foundations which alone give meaning to the veneration of relics and saints.
Key points of the letter, in essence:
– It praises the “proved devotion” of the people of the Gulf of La Spezia toward St Venerius.
– It recalls that St Venerius sanctified the region by his virtues and sacred ministry, dying on an island then deserted.
– It narrates the ancient translation of his relics to Reggio Emilia for protection from pirates.
– It reports the petition of Stella for the transfer of the head of St Venerius to La Spezia, and the agreement of the “Regio” bishop.
– It grants, by “Our Apostolic authority,” the right to transfer and permanently retain the head in La Spezia, explicitly derogating from earlier norms of Clement VIII concerning relics, and wraps the whole in the usual solemn clauses against any attempt to the contrary.
The words are traditional; the context, authority-claim, and underlying ecclesial project are not.
Manipulation of Authentic Catholic Piety to Legitimize Usurpation
On the factual level, the text wants to present:
– an unbroken cult,
– a lawful exercise of papal jurisdiction regarding relics,
– continuity with historical practice (translation of relics, derogation from Clement VIII’s dispositions),
– pastoral zeal for the intensification of devotion to a confessor of Christ.
But the decisive fact is omitted: by 1960, the man styling himself “John XXIII” had already initiated and structured a revolutionary council intended to relativize precisely the doctrinal axioms that made such acts meaningful. This letter is one brick in an edifice of deception: it uses sacramentals and relics, profoundly rooted in Catholic dogma, to sedate the faithful while the foundations are being attacked.
Authentic Catholic doctrine, constantly taught prior to 1958, holds:
– that saints and their relics are honored because they confessed the unchanging faith and belong to the one Mystical Body founded by Christ;
– that legislation on relics is a serious act of the Apostolic See serving to protect doctrine, worship, and ecclesial unity;
– that any genuine papal act must be inseparably ordered to the defense of the faith against error and to the reign of Christ the King over society.
Here, the antipope adopts the traditional juridical form while preparing an ecclesial inversion that, within a few years, would enthrone religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man—errors explicitly condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (errors 15–18, 55, 77–80) and rooted out by St Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi.
Thus:
– The letter’s external orthodoxy becomes a calculated camouflage.
– The invocation of papal authority over relics is used to reinforce recognition of a pseudo-pontiff.
– The saint’s head is paraded as a trophy to buttress the prestige of a diocesan structure that would soon be integrated into the conciliar revolution.
This is not mere “administration”; it is the early deployment of sacred continuity as psychological cover for doctrinal rupture.
Language of Authority without Defense of the Faith
The rhetoric is classical: solemn Latin, juridical formulas, anathema-like clauses:
“Haec statuimus, largimur, decernentes praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces semper exstare ac permanere…”
(“We establish, grant, decreeing that these present Letters shall always stand and remain firm, valid and effective…”)
On the surface, this mirrors genuine papal style from previous centuries. But when we examine the content in the light of *lex orandi, lex credendi* (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”), we see a chilling dissonance:
– No mention of the need to defend the flock from contemporary heresies.
– No warning against Modernist reinterpretations of the cult of saints, relics, or miracles.
– No reaffirmation of the absolute uniqueness of the Catholic Church against sects, Rationalism, Naturalism, and Freemasonry so powerfully condemned by Pius IX and St Pius X.
– Silence about the supernatural end of man, about final judgment, about the necessity of the *status gratiae* (state of grace) to benefit from such devotions.
The tone is bureaucratically pious, devoid of militant supernatural clarity. This stylized legalism without dogmatic combat is precisely the Modernist tactic unmasked by St Pius X: preserve the language and external frameworks, empty them of their confessio fidei, and then slowly fill them with new content.
The solemn conclusion threatens invalidity for any attempt contrary to this act, yet there is no similar zeal for condemning public doctrinal deviations that were already rampant in theological faculties and episcopates. This imbalance is itself a sign of apostasy: juridical ferocity for form; indifferentism toward faith.
Theological Incoherence: Sanctity without the Integral Faith
The veneration of St Venerius is legitimate only in the framework of the integral Catholic faith. A saint is not a folkloric mascot of a coastal region, but a confessor of defined dogma, a witness to the social kingship of Christ, and a member of the Church which is, as Pius IX reaffirmed, the only ark of salvation.
At the theological level, the letter commits a grave omission that, read in context, becomes accusation:
– It celebrates the “celestial Patron” of the Gulf of La Spezia.
– It highlights his virtues and sacred ministry.
– It promotes his cult through the transfer of his relic.
But it does not:
– exhort the faithful to persevere in the integral Catholic faith in the face of modern errors;
– repeat the dogmatic teaching that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation;
– recall the obligation of public authorities in La Spezia and Italy to recognize the reign of Christ (as so forcefully taught by Pius XI in *Quas primas*);
– denounce the anti-Christian forces (Freemasonry, laicism, socialism) which the Syllabus and later popes unmasked as enemies of Church and society.
By reducing the act to a regional devotional intensification, the text subtly detaches sanctity from dogmatic combat. This is the exact inversion of authentic Catholic hagiography, where saints are exalted as models of fidelity to defined truth against heresy.
The underlying message is dangerous: one can keep relics, processions, patronages—while preparing to alter doctrine, liturgy, and ecclesiology. This is the “Catholicism without dogma” which St Pius X condemned in Lamentabili (propositions 57–65) and Pascendi: a religion of evolving sentiment, in which saints become cultural symbols harnessed to a new, humanistic ecclesial project.
Derogating Clement VIII: A Symbolic Severing of Juridical Continuity
A significant clause states that John XXIII, by his alleged apostolic authority, grants this translation of the head of St Venerius, “derogating, insofar as necessary,” from the dispositions of Pope Clement VIII contained in the Apostolic Letters of 11 February 1595.
This is, in itself, within the material competence of a true Pontiff. Popes have regulated and sometimes mitigated earlier norms concerning relics. The question is not the fact of derogation, but the symbolic function of this precise gesture in 1960:
– Clement VIII legislated in an age of clear Catholic identity, vigilant against Protestant denial of relics, and conscious of the need for strict control to avoid superstition, profanation, and false relics.
– To touch those norms signals: “We, the new regime, exercise the same authority, we adjust older rigor to modern sensibilities; trust us, we are continuous.”
Yet this same John XXIII would convene a council explicitly refusing to condemn contemporary errors, opening doors to doctrinal relativism solemnly proscribed by his predecessors. Derogation here is not exercised to strengthen the cult of relics against Modernism; it is used to assert jurisdictional continuity while preparing doctrinal discontinuity.
This is juridical mimicry: appropriating the prerogatives of the Papacy while betraying its primary function, which is to guard the deposit of faith (cf. Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, as understood within the pre-1958 Magisterium, not its conciliar distortion).
Silence on Modernism: The Gravest Symptom
The most damning element is not what the letter says, but what it refuses to say.
In 1960:
– The poisons condemned in Lamentabili and Pascendi had spread within seminaries, universities, and episcopal conferences.
– Historicism, evolutionism of dogma, denial of biblical inerrancy, and ecumenical relativism were openly taught.
– The sects stigmatized by Pius IX as the “synagogue of Satan” (Freemasonry and its satellites) had penetrated civil structures and, as subsequent decades would reveal, ecclesiastical structures as well.
A truly Catholic Roman Pontiff, signing any act—even on relics—would do so under the consciousness of his duty *confirmare fratres in fide* (to confirm the brethren in the faith) by unmasking and condemning contemporary heresies. Pius IX, Leo XIII, St Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII—whenever they promoted devotions, cults of saints, or juridical adjustments, they intertwined them with doctrinal affirmations against the errors of the age.
Here: absolute silence.
– No affirmation of the inerrancy of Scripture against Modernist exegesis.
– No insistence on the immutability of dogma against evolutionist theories.
– No condemnation of those who would turn relics into mere archaeological curiosities.
– No call to public reparation for the crimes of secularized states.
This silence is theological speech. It signals a new orientation: from vigilant guardianship to diplomatic benevolence; from dogmatic clarity to pastoral sentimentality. It is the method of Modernism chronicled by St Pius X: retain external devotions as long as they do not contradict the new theology; use them as transitional symbols; gradually reinterpret them as expressions of “people’s religious feeling” instead of testimonies to objective, immutable truth.
Continuity of Cult, Rupture of Faith: A Conciliar Strategy
From the symptomatic point of view, this Apostolic Letter anticipates the modus operandi of the entire conciliar sect:
1. Preserve traditional forms (Latin; relics; saints; canonical formulas).
2. Insert them into a new theological narrative (dialogue, religious liberty, ecumenism, anthropocentrism).
3. Avoid explicit contradiction of prior condemnations, but neutralize them through systematic silence.
4. Employ small, seemingly innocuous acts of “pastoral care” to reinforce the recognition of the usurping authority.
5. Later, invoke this supposed continuity to defend revolutionary acts (new “mass,” doctrinal ambiguities, false canonizations).
The translation of the head of St Venerius, performed with all the trappings of papal solemnity, is instrumentalized as part of this psychological and spiritual operation. The faithful see relics, processions, episcopal robes, Latin decrees with the “Ring of the Fisherman”—and are led to assume: “This is the same Church, the same Papacy.” Meanwhile, doctrine is being shifted toward the very errors that the true Magisterium anathematized.
Authentic Catholic doctrine, as reiterated:
– in the Syllabus of Pius IX, denounces the notion that the Church must reconcile herself with liberalism, progress, and modern civilization understood as emancipation from the reign of Christ (error 80).
– in Lamentabili and Pascendi, condemns the idea that dogma evolves with consciousness, that the Gospel is recast by later communities, that sacraments and structures are products of historical development.
– in Quas Primas, insists that lasting peace and order are only possible when individuals and states publicly acknowledge Christ as King and obey His law.
This Apostolic Letter appeals to none of these principles. It speaks as if the central drama of the 20th century—the revolt against Christ and His Church—did not exist. This unnatural abstraction from the supernatural conflict is itself proof that the document belongs not to the Church Militant, but to a new, conciliatory structure constructing a religion compatible with the world.
The Saint’s Head under a Counterfeit Head
There is a painful irony: the document focuses on the transfer of the head of St Venerius while issuing from one who could not be the head of the Church.
Catholic theology, as synthesized by St Robert Bellarmine and classical canonists, teaches:
– A manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church because he is not even a member.
– Public defection from the faith results in loss of office *ipso facto* (1917 Code, can. 188.4).
– The Church has always understood that one who openly professes condemned doctrines or promotes their triumph cannot continue to possess jurisdiction in the Church of Christ.
By his project of a “pastoral council” without anathemas, by his protection and promotion of Modernist figures and ideas previously condemned, John XXIII positioned himself against the solemn teaching of his predecessors. This is material indicative of public deviation, which, when manifest and pertinacious, is incompatible with holding the Petrine office.
Thus we have the grotesque spectacle:
– a usurper head of a neo-church authorizing the placement of the saint’s literal head in a specific temple;
– the conciliar sect claiming jurisdiction over holy relics while preparing to mutilate the Holy Sacrifice, dilute doctrine, and espouse principles anathematized by the true Magisterium.
The transfer of the head of St Venerius, under such false headship, becomes a symbol of inversion: the members of Christ are subjected, externally, to a counterfeit authority.
God’s Rights above Sentimental “Piety”
The letter exemplifies a naturalistic reduction of piety:
– It speaks of “proved devotion” and of the desire of the faithful to have their patron’s relics.
– It grants this desire as a benevolent response of hierarchical authority.
Yet nowhere does it explicitly subordinate this act to the higher law: the absolute rights of God, the exclusive truth of the Catholic faith, the duty of both shepherds and faithful to reject modern errors and to work for the public reign of Christ. By isolating a devotional favor from this doctrinal context, the text implicitly teaches that religion is a matter of local feeling and cultic attachment, not of submission to immutable truth.
Integral Catholic faith, however, demands:
– that every act of ecclesiastical authority, including the regulation of relics, must be an instrument for defending and manifesting the *regnum Christi* (kingdom of Christ) against the anti-Christian principles condemned by the Syllabus and reiterated in Quas Primas;
– that saints be presented as warriors for dogma, not as neutral regional mascots;
– that piety be inseparable from orthodox doctrine and sacramental life centered on the true Most Holy Sacrifice, not the profanations staged by post-conciliar rites.
A piety that is sentimental, regionally patriotic, or merely historical—without explicit integration into the doctrinal and social Kingship of Christ—is not Catholic piety; it is a counterfeit designed to render souls docile to the conciliar sect.
Exposure of the Spiritual Bankruptcy
What does this minor Apostolic Letter reveal, when read under the light of the pre-1958 Magisterium?
– It shows an authority which speaks like a Pope in small things while preparing to betray in great things.
– It manifests the method of the conciliar revolution: retain externalities of tradition to sedate resistance, while evacuating their inner dogmatic content.
– It participates in the desacralization of doctrine by treating relics and saints as elements of “community spirituality” rather than expressions of militant, exclusive Catholic truth.
– It confirms the refusal to continue the anti-Modernist, anti-liberal, anti-ecumenist combat demanded by Pius IX and St Pius X.
The spiritual and theological bankruptcy lies precisely here:
– Authentic papal power over relics presupposes fidelity to the deposit of faith. Without this, juridical and ceremonial acts become abuse—a profanation of sacred signs to endorse a paramasonic structure.
– Authentic cult of saints presupposes clear confession of Catholic dogma against error. Without this, processions and translations are reduced to religious folklore in the service of a new ideology.
– Authentic obedience of the faithful presupposes that those commanding are within the Church. When manifest Modernist usurpers legislate, their commands lack true ecclesial authority, even if adorned with traditional formulae.
Therefore, this document, far from proving Catholic continuity, serves as evidence of its opposite: the conciliar sect’s attempt to appropriate the language and ornaments of the true Church to shield its rebellion from scrutiny. The head of St Venerius is moved; the Head of the Church is denied in practice. The contrast could not be more severe.
Any Catholic bound to the unchanging doctrine taught before 1958 must see through this pious façade, reject the counterfeit authority that issued it, and return to the immutable principles affirmed by the perennial Magisterium: the absolute sovereignty of Christ the King over persons and societies, the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, the immutability of dogma, the intrinsic connection between cult and truth, and the total rejection of Modernism in all its conciliatory, sentimental, and ritualistically camouflaged forms.
Source:
Probatum studium (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025